We have a lot of sites which allow you to upload and host images and files for free. But I needed to host a flash movie (swf) file for free. I discovered MEGASWF.com

Pros

• You don't have to signup to upload.
• You can files upload upto 10MB.
• A webpage with your swf embedded in it is generated and link is provided.
• Can use on any webpage, myspace, facebook and orkut.
• If you signup, you can have all your uploads organized in a gallery. (Don't like to signup using your email id ? To find out how to use disposable mail boxes and avoid 99% of SPAM mails click here)

Cons (Actually none, but there are risks)

• Looks like its a new startup and don't know how reliable it is.
• They have not specified any time frame till when your file will be hosted.

If you are one among the millions who think that online shopping is costly compared to traditional shopping, you definitely have to read this article, and understand the truth about online shopping.

3 Reasons why online shopping is better

1. The costs like rent for space, maintenance, wages to shopkeepers, electricity bills, water bills, tax etc. are avoided for the seller thus reducing his running cost enabling him to sell at lower profits.
   
2. You need not spend your valuable time, energy and money to travel to the shop, pick up and come back. Time saved means, you can spend time for other things.
   
3. Shopping websites give feedback option and ratings and good secure money payment systems to avoid getting cheated, and now its almost a 100% perfect system.

Finally you get a product spending lesser price, time and effort. Now tell me do you still want to shop the traditional way ?

Here is my experience

I wanted a 2GB Micro SD card for my E6. I inquired shops and found that it costs somewhere between Rs. 450 - Rs. 800. More over in the place where I live you have to spend majority of time in evening traffic jams. I headed over to ebay.in spent some 15 mins and got the best deal and got it at Rs. 398 along with shipping to my doorstep !!

See the screenshot below for more details











List of online shopping sites for Indians

http://www.ebay.in - my personal favorite, and a great time killer (warning !)
http://www.indiaplaza.com
http://shopping.rediff.com
http://www.homeshop18.com
http://shopping.indiatimes.com

For worldwide, especially US

www.ebay.com
www.amazon.com

If you have a Java enabled mobile phone, installing this software is a must for anyone. Who doesn't need a dictionary ? Viren's Dictionary is a free dictionary that can be installed on any handset that supports J2ME applications.

It also has touch screen support, and its 100% free software. It might take some time to install depending on the phone, but after installing, its fast and easy to use. Below is the download link and free activation key.


Enter this information to use it
Name: free
Key: 587856

Click here for the download page

Long ago I had an amazing computer hardware lecture session, at the end of which the tutor failed to answer one simple question I had asked - "What is the difference between format and quick format option ?"

Now Google has helped me find the answer to that same question. Do you want to know too? Then read on.

The difference lies in checking the disk for bad sectors which is not performed in a quick format. But in a normal format, the majority of the time is consumed by the process of scanning bad sectors.

So perform a quick format when you are sure that your hard disk is devoid of bad sectors. Otherwise if data is written on bad sectors, you will soon suffer data loss.

Source

"Sometimes there's just no substitute for expressing a thought in your own language." - Google Talkabout blog.

Now add spice to your chat conversations by directly chatting in native Indian languages. Google Talk team has introduced 5 more transliteration bots just for Indian Users.

If you want to transliterate to Tamil, add en2ta.translit@bot.talk.google.com in Gmail chat or Google Talk.

List of transliteration bots

To get your messages transliterated, you can add these bots

Languages	Bots*
English to Hindi	en2hi.translit
English to Kannada	en2kn.translit
English to Malayalam	en2ml.translit
English to Tamil	en2ta.translit
English to Telugu	en2te.translit

* don't forget to add @bot.talk.google.com

Steps to Group Chat in Native Language

To make the chat better, you can create a group chat session. Follow the steps in your GMail chat.

1. Add en2ta.translit@bot.talk.google.com as a friend.
2. Next start a chat conversation by clicking on the added bot.
3. Invite more friends and make it a group chat.

What can be improved in this ?

The only irritating thing I found was that every text is displayed twice, both in english and in native language. Instead if the Gmail chat team does something to supress the english text, it will be really cool... and not cuil :P

Hey, the native fonts don't appear properly !

If you use anything other than IE6+ or Firefox 3, the fonts won't appear properly. Check this link to solve this problem.

New to Tech Tola? You have landed at the right post. Here is a summary of the best posts of Tech Tola. They have been arranged into 11 categories to make sure readers find it easy to pick their choice.

And Don't forget to leave your comments with your choice of best posts !




Tech Tola Special
Have you ever searched a site to download virus samples ?
Trace the location of anonymous users on the internet
A new revolutionary 100% working way to prevent Email spam
Ways to prevent 70% Virus in your PC
New Definition of PORN !
Let your callers hear NOT REACHABLE instead of switched off the mobile
My Heritage - Check out which world celebrities resemble you !
Want all your friend's deep secrets in your inbox ?
After 30 minutes I realized I was chatting with a BOT !

Google
Do more with your google search - Tips and Tricks
Get the real top 10 songs statistics with google
I Googled for Google logos "anigot alofem" !

Firefox
Better GMail, Firefox addon to make your GMail rock !
Browser inside Browser inside Browser - Fun with Firefox

Image generators
ImageChef - One of the best cool funky generators, very good site.
Fake Magazine Cover - Your face on world famous magazines !
Animated mobile screen savers - Generate favorite animated pics with your text on it.

Timeless News
Bill Gates II from India ?
India tops the 'F' word search - I discovered

Reviews
Google Docs Vs Zoho Suite

XP tricks and tips
Things that won't want in XP and how to do them.
Forgot your XP, Vista or any windows version password ?
Hide folders in XP, a cool way to do it.

MS Office
Fun with MS Word
Create tables in Outlook without Mouse and menus

For Indians Only
Get location using first 5 digits of Indian Mobile Phone numbers
Useful SMS everyday on various topics - FREE !
(includes news, stock, cricket, jokes, health, travel, love and more..)

Jokes
Helicopter Malfunction near Microsoft

Pixellent Posts
Offices of Digg, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter
Internet was CRAP in 1996
Ambigrams - you have to know what they are !
Celebrity Twins - Check out the fake celebrity twins. Twins of Beckham, Britney, Harry potter.

Looks like bad news for millions of Facebook users - Scrabulous, the famous Facebook app by 2 Indians Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, from Kolkata has been banned due a law suit by Hasbro. They say, the game closely resembles their original board game - Scrabble.

If you did not know what scrabulous was, get ready to experience it here at www.scrabulous.com. You can even play it with friends all around the world. The site design closely resembles Facebook site's design.

You can also play it over e-mail. So no need to worry if internet is blocked at your work place.

Thanks Tim

I have been busy lately due to my work load and not been able to post frequently. I will soon be done with all my work and will be back with great posts for my readers. I will be putting effort in making this blog better and building more readers soon.

In the mean while I would like to thank a few good hearts who have been helping me directly or indirectly in building this blog.


First I would like to thank Bulls (Prakash), my close friend and classmate for being supportive in many ways. He runs a blog about tamil movies, songs and Indian current affairs.

I would like to thank Rahul (Devil's Workshop) and Balal (Million Clues) for encouraging me in various ways.

I would like to thank the list of my entrecard droppers. Some of them have been frequent in dropping by.

• FLIP' antasticWEB - technology blog
  
• Under Heavens - technology blog
  
• Isles Tech - linux, web development and other technical stuff
  
• Discovering the Net - technology blog
  
• Picture to People - a great place to learn graphics
  
• Micheal Aulia - one of my personal favorites, a very cool tech blog.
  

A very special thanks to PC, the indian blogging legend for mentioning TECHTOLA again in his recent post about the guest bloggers. He runs the QuickOnlineTips, a world famous tech blog which has been published in the BBC site.

Just in case you didn't know - there is a version of our favorite Blogger.com @ draft.blogger.com where the Blogger development team keeps releasing beta features and tests them. You can log in over there and try out the features.

Finally the most wanted feature of Blogger has been released for testing. Now you can comment very very easily on TECH TOLA posts too.

No more waiting for annoying pop ups to load for commenting on my blog posts. Blogger in Draft has released the Wordpress style embedded comments for Blogger blogs. Its very easy to enable this for default templates by going to settings in "Blogger in Draft", and for custom templates like mine, just a small little hack is required.

Below is the link for the complete guide to set up this, including the changes you need to make for custom blogger layout templates.

Check out Amanda's tutorial on the Blogger Buster.
http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2008/06/how-to-add-comment-form-beneath-your.html

I would like to express my gratitude to the blogger team and Amanda.
Also Blogger in Draft has a blog here.

And I am adding a new section for blogger hacks. As I am a web developer myself, I will try to put up some cool hacks which I discover. You can also request hacks in the comments, which I will find out for you and post in here in my free time.

P.S. Thank you Balal, the link has been fixed and the post has been re-written.

You might want to save pictures that you find on web pages, but are not able to do it directly by using Right click -> Save As

Reasons for this might be

• Images are Background images with transparent images overlaid to prevent copying.
• Usage of JavaScript to block the right click. (Find out how)
  
• Complex CSS usage to clutter a lot of images over each other.
• It behaves like a link, and doesn't show the "Save Image As" option.
  
• You just don't know how to right click !

and so on....

Now Firefox gives you an easy solution to save any image you find on a web page.
Just go to Tools -> Page Info -> Media and you will find all the images listed on the top.

When you select an image you can see the preview of it in the bottom panel. Now just select the necessary image and click Save As. One advantage of this method is that you get to select and save even hidden images like the loading animation GIF etc. Moreover the properties (resolution, name, size etc.) of each image are display in the middle as you select them.

Click the image on the top right for screenshot.

Rahul has written about another easy method to save background images in a page @ Devil's Workshop.

http://think.learn.io/ - thats the URL.

Today while going through this post on QOT, I happened to click on one of the commentators blog URL as it was unique. Now I know why, names matter a lot :)

I found 2 posts which I felt I should share with my readers. It seems like the blog template is broken and even the feeds don't work. So I am forced to copy and paste the text from the site.

Create CON folder in Windows operating system.

The reason for this is that the following words are reserved words in DOS. Try and create a folder with any of the following names:

CON,PRN, AUX, CLOCK$, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9

start -> Run -> CMD
c:/>mkdir \\.\c:\con

Remove folder
c:/>rmdir \\.\c:\con

Note by Quakeboy - This trick is cool. You will not be able to create folders with the names given above directly using right click. You can do it only through the above method. After creating you won't be able to delete it using DEL, SHIFT DEL or even Right Click -> Delete. Now you can ensure that no one deletes your folder easily on a shared computer.

Check your antivirus !!!

X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*

Open notepad..........Copy the above code in the file....then save it with the name Test.exe If this file got deleted immediately ....that means ur antivirus is working n updated!!!

Write a C program without using ; at the end of each line.

#define ; z
main()
{
int a, b, cz
printf("Enter the first value:")z
scanf("%d", &a)z
printf("Enter the second value:")z
scanf("%d", &b)z
c = a + bz
printf("%d + %d = %d\n", a, b, c)z
}

Click below for an extra cool funny page for people who know C programming !
http://think.learn.io/fun.html

Its has not been very long since someone came up with an idea to mix advertisement with sms to provide absolutely FREE SMS through the internet. The result of which was a bunch of sites which sprang in various countries offering free sms among which, one of my favorite 160by2.com has been doing well in India.

Now Parrot Media, an Israeli based company founded in 2007 has taken this industry to the next step to provide absolutely free calls worldwide by mixing clever advertising tactics with it.

Now you can make FREE unlimited calls of 2-5 mins each to any landline or mobile number on planet earth. You have to register in the site to use their service.

Check out their FAQ page to know more. I have already spoken to all my friends who live abroad using this fabulous service & it works FINE !

I wonder why such a site has not been covered by blogging sites like TechCrunch yet.

Link to site - www.parrot-media.com

Flash content all over the web are soon going to be made search engine friendly. Here is what CNET News blog says -

Adobe Systems is helping Google and Yahoo to uncover Web content that was previously "invisible" to Web searches.

Still ExtraSuperMario has raised a very good point in the comments. He says that recently we have been seeing most of the Flash movie loaded through Javascript and XML files instead of the direct embed and object html tags in the page. Will search engines be able to parse them also and index the contents of the target flash files? We will have to wait and see.

Read more on CNET News Blog

I have come across many methods to hide folders in XP, but I personally like this very much because its very easy, fast & useful. Also, showing off this trick before your friends will definitely fetch your ears a big WOW !

You can use this to hide your folder in an office computer, in a public browsing center or even your own friends computer.

Ok now lets get ready. Here is the scenario. I have got a folder which I need to keep as a secret in my PC. I will show two alternatives to do it by using the same trick.

Method 1:-

1. Copy the folder to your C:\ (Any other location is also fine)
2. Right click it, click Properties. Now select the Customize tab.
3. Choose 'Change Icon' under folder icons.
4. Choose a file icon (INI, TXT or Icon for files without extension)
5. Then apply it, and rename it to something obvious like Instlog.ini, boot.ini, Tmplog etc.
6. This method has proved to be very effective as no one will even care to open a temp file, ini file or a file without extension. Check this picture for final result.
   
   I did this in my office computer. I had almost 10-15 games and movies, but my Manager was never able to find any even after using the PC for 3 days :)

Method 2 (Another variation) :-

1. Repeat the first 3 steps as given above.
2. This time don't place the folder in C:\ D:\ Directly. Instead you should create a folder called Recycler, Recycled etc. and place the secret folder in it.
3. While choosing icon choose the blank icon. Click here for Figure.
4. Now apply and you will see the icon is invisible !
5. But there is still a name floating, so make the name also blank.
   
   WAIT A MINUTE. I CAN'T USE THE SPACEBAR OR BLANK AS NAME !
   
6. Here is the solution. Select the folder and press F2. Now hold down ALT key and press 255 on the num keypad then release the ALT key and press ENTER.
7. Now I think I can hear a WOW :)

Update:- Well, I'm not trying to say that this is the best way to hide folders on XP. But you might like it as it is easy and fast to do. Moreover it does look cool when the icon is completely blank even if its not for hiding.

Today is Firefox World Download Day. Let us join hands with the firefox community to help then achieve the record for the most downloaded software in 24 hours.

I have personally tested the RC versions of Firefox 3.0 and its performance and speed is amazing compared to all the other browsers in the world and now the Final Version of Firefox 3.0 has been released.

Download from these links to support the world record
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/firefox/

Read more about it from the blogs of popular Indian Bloggers @

Rahul's Devil's Workshop
Digital Inspiration
LifeRocks 2.0
TechZilo

Greetings fellow Firefoxers, Firefoxians & Firefoxants... er..I mean firefox lovers.

Get ready to

• Show off a new GEEKY way to download firefox and impress your friends.
• Prove that we don't need any other browser to download Firefox.
• Download Firefox without help of IE in a PC with fresh installation of XP/Vista !

Read the last point again. Download firefox even without IE or any other browser after performing a fresh installation of Windows XP/Vista ?

Gonna install with an installer you already have in your Hard disk or USB Drive ?Very funny. A Big NO. I would end cleaning public toilets in one of the Arab countries for such a sick joke :)

What? Is there really a way to do this?

Yes. Just follow the simple steps and you will know.

1. Open the command prompt (Start > Run > Type CMD > Press Enter)
2. Type in ftp [Enter] - Yes this is it - File Transfer Protocol
3. Type o [Enter]
4. Type releases.mozilla.org [Enter] Then it will prompt you for the Username, type anonymous [Enter]
5. Next it will ask for the password, type techtolarocks [Enter]
6. Now it must say '230 Login successful.' Congrats !
7. Next type lcd c:\ and it will respond - 'Local directory now C:\.'
8. Type binary [Enter]
9. Next type cd pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases [Enter]
10. Then type ls [Enter] (LS in small letters) and it will list all the subfolders
11. Choose which version you wanna download and type cd <foldername>
    For example, I need to download RC3 so I will type cd 3.0rc3 [Enter]
12. Next cd win32 if you are using windows. Linux/Mac users use ls and cd again.
13. Next type cd en-US [Enter] (choose English - US, For other language use ls)
14. now type mget * - and it starts to download all the files in that folder.
15. When it prompts ? for each file just type in y
16. After downloading your favorite firefox installer, find it in c:\

Related Images

If you really liked this article, your simple 'thanks' or 'stupid' as a comment will make my day. You can also subscribe to my feed here or receive email updates using the form on the top right corner of the blog.

One of the main reasons why people get frustrated with social network sites is SPAM. Now, to add to it even Bloggers have started to promote such Spamming products.

Atul Dogra is an Indian Technology Blogger from Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh who seems to keep Amit Agarwal, the Indian Blogging legend as his model. I am a regular reader of Atul's Digital IT Blog and this blog has been listed as one of the best technology blogs on India Blogs Blog Directory which is maintained by Amit Agarwal.

Today morning I found this post about MySpace friend adder software on Digital IT Blog which has features like sending messages, comments, adding friends etc. within short period of time. I was very disappointed with this careless move by Atul by posting about such a software, which is meant to be used by Marketing Spammers for personal pleasure.

Link to the page
http://digitalmail.blogspot.com/2008/06/myspace-friend-adder.html

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS POST FOR ?

InMotion Hosting, an award winning, CNET top rated hosting company provides high quality hosting offer for dirt cheap price for mysteriously long time !? Let me explain.

HOW I FOUND IT

I was searching for a good web hosting for my company website on the net. After being disappointed with Godaddy due to lack of CPanel and other important features in their basic plan, I was going through web hosting rating sites, and other similar sites when I eventually landed on CNET page about InMotion hosting and their 50% discount offer.

FUNNY THING ABOUT THIS

It was given that offer is valid for a limited period of time and the page showed a javascript stop clock beginning with around 45 mins. But the even after 3 months the page's javascript clock this still running around 45 mins !! I strongly feel its just a way of marketing by an intentional flaw.

BUT IT WORKS LIKE A CHARM

Yes. We found that they give 1 Free Domain Name, 1 Free Domain Transfer, 6 Addon Domains, 100 Sub Domains, 26 Parked Domains, Good CPanel, 1000 FTP Accounts, Business class hardware, readymade easy to install scripts with even 2 minute cron jobs with virtually unlimited bandwidth and disk space, of course with some terms and conditions for shared hosting and a Money Back Guarantee too !! Phew.....

GREAT FEATURES, BUT WHAT IS THE COST ?

All of these come at 9.95$ per month normally, but when you go through the link on the CNET page you get the same for just 4.95$ per month !! We have been using the site for almost like 3 months and the service has been great !

NUFF SAID GIMME THE LINK BUGGER

Okay, here you go first click on THIS LINK to see their features
Then click on THIS LINK to avail the offer at half the price.

If you found this post useful and liked my other posts, use can subscribe by email using the form on the top right corner, or subscribe to my feed by clicking here

Zoho Office applications are getting more and more famous and are being talked about equal to Google applications. It has even been used to test the performance of Firefox 3 RC version and has been mentioned in the release notes on mozilla site.

Go Zoho Go !!

Click here to read

Update:- It seems this has already been mentioned in Zoho blogs too.

Hello readers, Sorry for not being active for a long time. I took a break of a week for holidays.

(Skip reading next paragraph if you already know about e-snips)

E-Snips.com is a popular file sharing site which provides 5GB of storage with social networking features like friends, favorites etc. What makes it special is that, you can share anything on the site, view videos (like YouTube) and hear audio on the site directly, set permissions, and people need not wait to download anything from the site. They also give a handy standalone uploader and toolbar to make life very simple.

There also loads of MP3, audio books and great e-books which makes it my first choice when ever I need an e-book to download. Some time ago they had removed the download button for the MP3 files. Then again 2 or 3 times hacks were discovered and were fixed. Now again a hack has been found to download MP3 files from E-snips.

Enough talking How do we download MP3 from E-Snips ?

Here is how you do it. For example if you want to download the MP3 on this URL 'http://www.esnips.com/doc/96ee9a-95a1-4567-863b-dfg44-2566f279d/SampleSong'

Open your mp3 page. The one with the flash mp3 player on it.

1. In the address bar, change the term "doc" to "nsdoc" within the URL.
2. Then remove the song name, the last part of the URL (here its "SampleSong")
3. Replace the song name with ts_id/1205795172796/ns_flash/file1.mp3

So finally the above URL should look like this

'http://www.esnips.com/nsdoc/96ee9a-95a1-4567-863b-dfg44-2566f279d/ts_id/1205795172796/ns_flash/file1.mp3'

Just give it a go in the browser and the file download dialog will appear. Enjoy !!

Found it via: - http://www.calcuttaglobalchat.net/2007/12/07/how-to-download-mp3-from-esnips-after-download-button-removal-in-december-2-nd-2007

Well, before going to the post if you were wondering what the last two words on the title meant, here is your answer. Anigot Alofem = 'And I got all of them'.

"Okay, Okay I get it, Stop biting your teeth. I'll promise to keep such things down in the future" :P

After reading this post by Amitji about today's Google Homepage logo and this post by Rahul on DW where I found the link to this page showing RSS feeds for Google homepage, I was curious if I could find an archive of all Google Homepage Logos somewhere on the net.

I landed on this page hosted on google itself, and found a huge archive of all the google holiday logos (That is how they call it) that appeared on their homepage since 1999. BTW, did someone tell you that Google project was initially named "BackRub" ??

Here are few of the logos I liked

The logo above represents "Leap Year".... cool isn't it ?

Here is the link - http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html

Now you can login to Zoho using Yahoo and Google accounts. This is a superb move by people at Zoho in response to this Lifehacker Post with a poll.

I had previously made a post about detailed comparison of Zoho and Google online application suites. Click here to check my previous post about it.

If you don't know what Zoho is about, then read my post which gives an introduction to online applications.

Read more about it here at Official Zoho blogs

I read somewhere on the web some time ago that, in order to make your blog more interesting you need to do the following.

• What ever topic your blog may be on, mix SEX, HUMOR and ANIMALS with it. People will just love it. That's true !

Now this post is going to have everything of the above to the maximum. Yes, it actually about a page I found yesterday. Please don't ask me how I found it :P

Its is about the PORN collection of a french techie programmer named Sam. Check out what is soooo interesting about a techie's porn collection.

Nuff said, just check the link below and give me your comments !
http://sam.zoy.org/porn/

I found this page on IMDB site with all the dialogues from the movie 'THE MATRIX'

Here is one of the peculiar conversations between the Spoon boy and Neo

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

It is up to you to decide whether they are cool or whether we are the fools ! :)

Check out the page

Orkut has added a new feature by which users can comment on your photos. I love this feature and was expecting it for a long time. Check the links to read more.

And I'm back on Orkut :)

Thanks:- Devil's Workshop via Orkut Blog