AVINASH 2.0

Happy BlogDay!

Did you know that today is BlogDay? :)

I was lost in my blog upgrade and other ‘news river addition’ related stuffs that’s why couldn’t find the time to wish you guys earlier. Some of you may have seen this blog completely erased if you visited a few hours ago. I tried to add extra scripts in the blog root directory but it didn’t work so I had to completely start from scratch. Sorry if you faced any trouble reading articles while the blog appeared to be lost in oblivion.

I’ve added some cool stuffs in the WP core and will be working on my news river project for the next 6 or 7 days. I’ve also read too many awesome articles this week so expect some cool article links in my tomorrow’s link collection. You can also expect a pretty big and detailed review of Streamy, with lots of screenshots. ;)

One thing that I should let you know: This blog may have gazillions of errors at this time ’cause of heavy tests running in the background. Please be patient for the next few days if you face any trouble.

How to Find Cool Blogs?

Type “site:networks.feedburner.com” in Google without quotes. ;)

Random Pearls [3] on Graphic Design, CSS, iPhone, etc

Before you read further, let me tell you that I’ve been using Streamy for past few days and reading much more articles than I used to. So, expect less big posts and more helpful hyperlinking stuffs on this blog. Also keep an eye on my Asides category to find useful quickies.

Recently, life has become pretty busy because of study, work, etc. I’m also working on a major web 2.0 project so instead of wasting my time writing about the same thing that has already been written by many other bloggers, I’ll try to provide as much high quality article links as possible.

I’m thinking to add a News River section in my blog that may start tracking over 20,000 self-picked RSS feeds in the first week of September, 2007. These are the best blogs that I’ve discovered in the past 15 or 16 months and I hope that you’ll like the quality of the articles that are included in the River.

Anyway, enjoy these links for now:

• Don’t Get Hacked: Google Bot Trick
• 20+ Free And Fresh Icon Sets – Smashing Magazine
• Filmmaker’s Tool Kit: Creating a Movie with Web 2.0 – Read/Write Web
• AideRSS: Socially Filtered Feeds – Library Clips
• Bad site design got you frustrated? Bookmarklets to the rescue – ArsGeek
• How To: Quickly Remove Backgrounds with GIMP – Lifehacker
• �Perfect� iTunes equalizer setting – 43 Folders
• A Look at Channelled Communications with Pibb – Web Worker Daily
• FotoFlexer Raises The Bar On Online Photo Editing – TechCrunch
• FREE iPhone Wallpaper – ART BACKWASH
• 7 Things You Didn’t Know About Adobe Photoshop – Attitude Design
• 15 Design Decisions That Annoy Readers – Devlounge
• 6 Keys to Understanding Modern CSS-based Layouts – Snook.ca
• 7 Powerful Relaxation Techniques – Pick the Brain

[How To] Send SMS From Your Mobile to a Skype User

A few hours ago, I stumbled upon this site called Connectotel. The company offers a free SMS to Skype service that allows GSM users to send SMS to a Skype user. Though the company doesn’t charge anything for this service, regular SMS rates still apply.

I think it’s cool because I can send a reply to my Skype friends who use Skype to text me. If you know about any other similar service, please let me know. :)

Guy Blocks Firefox Users Because They Use Adblock Plus

I read this weird post over at Download Squad that a guy blocked Firefox users because they use Adblock Plus to filter site advertisements.

If you visit his weblog, it’ll redirect you to a Why Firefox is blocked page. The guy equates your decision to skip over the ads as “stealing” content by viewing the original material without the ads.

Am I the only person who thinks that this guy has made a big mistake by blocking Firefox? Don’t website visitors have the right to see a website content according to their own requirements? I know many people who browse in text-mode. This guy should have blocked ‘em as well! It’s like you block a visitor who is using the NoScript extension to block Scripts and flash content on your site.

By the way, when did site advertisements become “content”? Let me know what you think about this guy.

iPhone Unlocked, Becomes Fully Functional for Users Outside the U.S.

Engadget reported that a six-man team has cracked Apple’s iPhone SIM lock system.

You can see an unlocked iPhone using the T-Mobile network in this pic:

Ryan Block over at Engadget writes:

It’s high noon, Apple and AT&T — we really hate to break it to you, but the jig is up. Last night the impossible was made possible: right in front of our very eyes we witnessed a full SIM unlock of our iPhone with a small piece of software. It’s all over, guys.

He also confirms that:

we can confirm with 100% certainty that iPhoneSIMfree.com’s software solution completely SIM unlocks the iPhone, is restore-resistant, and should make the iPhone fully functional for users outside of the US.

Head over to Engadget to read details, see more pics and watch a video on how to unlock your own iPhone.

Comcast Mad at BitTorrent Users, Makes Seeding Impossible

Bad news for the Comcast users who seed torrents. TorrentFreak reports that Comcast has started throttling BitTorrent traffic using an application from Sandvine. Sandvine breaks every (seed) connection with new peers after a few seconds if it�s not a Comcast user. This makes it virtually impossible to seed a file, especially in small swarms without any Comcast users. Some users report that they can still connect to a few peers, but most of the Comcast customers see a significant drop in their upload speed.

To find out the solution of this problem, head over to TorrentFreak and read the full article.

Blog Recommendation: NSpeaks

I first saw this Mr. Die Hard Emma Watson fan appearing in my MyBlogLog sidebar widget.

For now, I’ll call him using his nick name ‘N’ because I couldn’t find much about him. So, Mr. N has a pretty interesting and useful blog on blogging and technology. I read a few posts visible on the home page and realized that the guy has pretty good understanding of what he’s writing about. After reading his ‘About’ page, I came to know that Mr. N is a passionate technologist and someone who’s trying to make money online.

BTW, don’t let that ‘money making thing’ fool you ’cause I found only 4 posts about ‘money making’ stuffs. The NSpeaks blog is full of useful tips on blogging, WordPress and Emma Watson!

I liked the blog and hope that some of you AVINASH 2.0 readers find it useful.

Monster Gets Attacked, Hundreds of Thousands of User Data Stolen

BBC reported that the US job site Monster.com got attacked and attackers were able to steal hundreds of thousands of user data. Symantec, a popular security firm said that a Trojan was used to access the employers’ section of the website using stolen log-in credentials.

The log-ins were used to harvest user names, e-mail addresses, home addresses and phone numbers, which were uploaded to a remote web server. According to Symantec, this remote server held over 1.6 million entries with personal information belonging to several hundred thousands of candidates, mainly based in the US, who had posted their resumes to the Monster.com website.

Symantec said users should always limit contact information posted to job websites and to use a disposable e-mail address. The security firm also suggested that “never disclose sensitive details such as your social security number, passport or driver’s license numbers, bank account information to prospective employers until you have established they are legitimate”.

This is why I made it my habit to use dummy information on most of the sites that I’m a member of but I know that the Internet newbies will keep making the same mistake of entering correct information while filling out a site membership form.

Google Unveiled Google Earth Sky Today

The NY Times reported that today, Google is unveiling a new service within Google Earth that’ll allow users to view the skies as seen from Earth. Like Google Earth, the new service called Sky will let users fly around and zoom in, exposing increasingly detailed imagery of some 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies.

Mr. Carol Christian, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute, a nonprofit academic consortium that supports the Hubble Space Telescope said that �You will be able to browse into the sky like never before,�

Mr. Christian also said that while other programs allow users to explore the skies, they typically combine a mix of representations of stars and galaxies that are overlaid with photographs but �These are really the images of the sky. Everything is real.�

Google said that it developed the project strictly because some of its engineers were interested in it, and that it had no plans to make money from it for now.

�It�s merely about getting new kinds of information out there for the public,� said Chikai Ohazama, a Google Earth project manager.

As with Google Earth, individual users and organizations will be able to overlay photographs, annotations and other kinds of data on top of Sky�s basic images and make them available to others as layers � called mash-ups. According to the NY Times report, Sky already has layers showing various constellations, a user�s guide to galaxies, the position of planets two months into the future and animations of lunar positions.

To get Sky, users will have to download the latest version of Google Earth.

This is why I love Google. Nobody knows when Google is going to launch a service that’ll completely change the way we use something. Head over to NY Times to read the news in detail.

Update: I just noticed that the Mashable team has also got the news up on their blog with some screenshots.

5000 Web 2.0 Logos in 333 Seconds [Video]

In this past June, I wrote about Simple Spark, the Web 2.0 catalog site. SimpleSpark had more than 3000 web apps in June itself. Today, Read/Write Web reported that the company now indexes 5000 Web apps. To celebrate their milestone, the folks at SimpleSpark created a video showing the logos of all 5,000 companies in 333 seconds:

Sites like Go2Web2.0 and SimpleSpark show us how rapidly the Web 2.0 industry is growing.