Have you heard about OpenID?

A few weeks ago I stumbled up a website called www.myopenid.com. It provided something called openIDs. Immidiately I got intrigued by the concept. Imagine I could a single ID to log in to all the websites. As it is I have to signup for most of websites and remember the usernames and passwords. But openID is a solution to this.

OpenID is a relatively new concept and has been around for a couple of years only. Its picked up some momentum just recently with many of the Internet giants annoucing their support for the upcoming technology.

Check out more about openID on my blog page

Recording music – Capturing that eluding melody.

It happens a lot with me. I hear a song playing somewhere and take a liking to it. Later on at some point in time I remember and hummm this tune and download it from the internet so that I can listen to it at leisure.

But what happens if your favorite tune is on a tape record or available on one of the online radio websites. For sure I do not have a tape recorder with me and I may not be connected to the internet always (like when I am traveling). And add to this, this particular song is not available on any of the P2P softwares that I use. What to do?????

This happened very recently. I like this song from a hindi movie called Vijeta starring Sanjay Dutt and Raveena Tandon. It was released way back in 1996. I think it was flop but this particular song, “Shaire Main Hogaya Deewana”, I took a liking to it. Since a long time i have been hunting for this song on the websites and P2P softwares but it was just not avaiable. It was possible to hear it only thru online music websites.

But I wanted it on my laptop, so that I can listen to it whenever I want to. So how do I do this. I came across a cool software, called “Audacity”

Check it out here

GMail Labs: Mail Goggles

The title seems a bit wiered isn’t it – Mail Goggles. I just checked this out of sheer curiosity. Quoting the developer Jon,

Mail you send late night on the weekends may be useful but you may regret it the next morning

As you must have understood, just like the police prevents you from drunken driving, Gmail is trying to prevent you from drunken emailing.

What it does is, ask u to solve a series of mathematical equation just before the mail is sent and after you’ve hit the send button. And this has to be done in under 60 seconds.

Interesting message it shows in case u get the equations wrong,

Water or bed for you

Not sure how much of a help would this feature be. I am a teetotaler. So for sure its of no use to me. And the people who drink and whom I know, are absolutely in no condition to mail when they are high (friends reading this would know what I mean, I have seen a lot of “drama” ).

Good thought though.

Gmail Labs

Gmail has recently updated a pretty cool feature – Gmail Labs. Gmail Labs like Google Labs has a list of applications presently under development by the Google people.

To enable Gmail Labs you’ll have to go to Gmail Settings and there should be Labs tab sitting pretty there.

I found a few very useful apps in the Labs. Here I list the ones I have been using.

• Right Side Chat: The chat window in Gmail by default on the left hand side below the mail folders and lables. This means that every time you want to see who is online, u’ll have scroll down and check the chat window. Well no more. With Right side chat in the labs enabled, chat is now placed neatly on the Right hand side of the window. Even when u open a conversation, the ads on the right hand side a placed below the chat.
• Mark as Read Button: This option I find very useful. See the thing is I have a lot of mail conversations that I just do not bother to open (newsletters, forum updates, news updates etc). Just looking at the subject I decide should I look at it or ignore. What I do is mark all such conversations as read. But by default marking as read a involves selecting the conversations and then selecting Mark as read from the drop down More Actions menu. But some extra clicks are saved with the “Mark as read Button” as the button is placed right next to the Delete button. Good One this.
• Custom Lable Colors: This is another useful feature. My mail conversations have a lot of lables. And I do like to give each lable a different color. But I hate the colors provided by default. This feature comes in handy to add custom colors to lables.
• Pictures in Chat: Dont know much about this. I dont used the chat from Gmail when I am on my MacBook. I find iChat much much better that any other chatting software. Effects that are available in Photo Booth are available in iChat too (Have a look at the fun I have with Photo Booth here)

These were a few of the Labs apps that I use. Do leave a comment about with app u like the most or just leave a comment about anything.