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Spice up your live messenger
July 27, 2008 by Guru, under Randomness, Software.
We can’t go around without having a nice chit chat. Online, Instant Messaging has bridged this gap. Google it and these will be endless lists of services providing Instant Messaging services; some for free, others for a low price that we often call premium. Without doubt we must all have heard of MSN or Windows Live Messenger; the most used free service from Microsoft. Today I will try to pave a path from a simple to a more customised Live Messenger.
What you will need?:
If you don’t have a “passport.net” account head over there and signup for one. Remember you can use any email address for this purpose. Preferably, one from Google, Gmail will do.
After having downloaded Windows Live Messenger, which is a freeware, install it into your computer(s). This is quite easy, just follow the steps in the wizard. 
Now, you can sign in and start chatting right away!!! But will you be doing it? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. If you are reading this it must be out of curiosity or for satisfying your needs. 
I will be proceeding with patching Windows Live Messenger first. Launch the downloaded patch (A-Patch) and you will be asked to tick what you will want to “power up” your “chat world”. Please note that we would be using windows live messenger 8.1 for our purpose. Personally I removed the ads as they were intruding. (I am not imposing). You can use your common sense and your requirements to tick they various possibilities available for customisation. You may like to play around with he nudge, remove the limit 
I can now say we have a “cleaner” live messenger as you wanted it to be. If you have not yet downloaded Live Messenger Plus do so now. It allows us to extends Live Messenger 2 ways; plugins and skins. Plugins allowing us to add on more options and automating some processes. In addition you can code plugins to suits your specific needs. Quite handy? Skins gives you the opportunity to dress up Windows Live Messenger to your taste.
Here are some of my favourite plugins that you may like to try:
- Display Picture Changer - Allows you to have a “dynamic” like display picture. It scrolls through a set of picture and changes your display picture for a set time period.
- Linked Chats - Allows you to share what your are chatting with friends. It is a convenient way over the traditional copy and paste.
- LinkSaver - You often receive links from your contacts. Configure it to save them into a file directly. Thus, no need to ask again if you missed it or do not have history to revert to.
- ReduceMem -You can often witness the memory consumption of WLM, with ReduceMem you can reduce if many folds. I have not tested it well but it seems that it works miracles.
This is a small list but keep tuning I will write more. It is a post after months of no writing. Thanks for your readership. I am back.
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Why we are all liable to receive a DMCA notice?
June 22, 2008 by Guru, under Torrents.
Bittorrent is one of the most famous way to share data among users. The files ranges from legal to illegal. This method of transmission is very much vulnerable to many exploits. Given its popularity, one ca imagine the number of illegal files like music, movies, tv shows and the likes are alive in the community. The immediate benefiters of these media are going berserk of what is happening. They are getting lesser than ideally they should be. Here come into scene, the monitoring agencies to track down those infringing copyrights. (more…)
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How to Manage Projects?
June 12, 2008 by Guru, under How To, Tips and Tricks.
With already a couples of failures in the past, we can just think to move forward with a dose of success. “Success”, this word seems glamourous. While some can easily achieve their objectives, others are able to do so in a much longer time period. But what is the difference between the two??? If you do not perceive things the same way as I do, then do so now. Everything that we do is a project. Agreed??? The only variation is its scale and priority. An assignment has a higher order priority and at times takes a larger scale as compared to nailing a piece of wood. Having the right tools and mindset to get things done is important.
To start with, dreaming is bad. Be completely down to earth. This will allow you to perform better, evaluate your progress and be able to take corrective measures. Now that I mentioned these key points, roll up your sleeves and get to some serious work.
The number of people working on a project can range from one to many; forming a team. Now that we have got our team, to start, we need a minimum level of commitment. Being committed to whatever we are doing will have a direct impact on the end-result. The more time, the more effort is put will give better results. Good results gives much better self satisfaction and improved skills.
Each team members must have a particular role. To name a few, president, vice-president, treasurer, public relationship officer and so on. Having said these particular posts you can guess that each team member’s action will pay-off with a better result. Right? We should not forget that each and every human are capable to do everything (taking asides handicapped - in fact they do better than us). Everyone ought to be a leader. Being able to take decision, announce new ways of proceeding and be able to think aloud.
Now that the basic structure and mindset of the team has been set, lets see what concerns the project. The whole backbone of a project lies in its objective. What is an objective? In simple terms, it is just what must be achieved. The objective should be crystal clear so that unnecessary jobs will not be done thus straying from the core tasks and losing precious resources. Alongside with our objectives we have something called “aims“. What is that? Let me explain using an example. I want to but a laptop. My objective is to but a laptop. To be able to do so, I need to work. That is an aim. Another aim could have been, I just need to steal 5 under wears of a certain celebrity to sell them. I hope you can now make a difference and how important they are.
Communications is an important aspect. With easy access to internet, many projects are going towards the “online” trends. Like I am currently doing for “AgriMauritius”. To ease communications and interactivity, there are a certain tools that will help you. Here are a list that would help:
- Scriblink is an online whiteboard. It can accommodate as much as 6 users online. It acts just like the traditional blackboard. Each participant can scribble, write and chat at the same time. InF and I have used it to helps us study.
I believe this tools will also help you clarify some points in your projects. Other alternatives would be Netmeeting and Marratech. - Freemind is an open source software, It allows you to make a mind map. What is this? Simply, all your ideas will be presented in a “graphical” manner. This will make sharing ideas easier and neater.
- Microsoft Live messenger or Skype can be used for the purpose of interacting with team members. An added benefit of skype would be it allows VOIP and addons as whiteboards can be added. Interesting?
- Now is the most important part. Use Webcollab as usual another open source software. It is just a project management tool. Assign tasks and permissions to users. That is a bonus to project management. View?
Project management is a vast topic and this article has covered just the essential topics. I am not a pro, you see errors drop a word. Want to add something, comment it. I will be adding it.
As always comments appreciated. Find it helpful, stumble it.
Thank You.
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DRobo - The storage robot
May 30, 2008 by Guru, under Gadget.
We are all worried about our data. Being able to keep them secure is a big question mark. We don’t know when our hard disks will crash. We may have heard of the famous “RAID” (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks). Taking the RAID approach, our data is either spread in many disks or mirrored across them. Thus, ideally nothing will ever be lost. This is just the basic of the idea behind RAID. There are further extension to it. with a combination of the levels of raid for better suiting the situation. The more we think of security, usability, flexibility and for the long run, the more money we spend. In fact, you must be knowledgeable to configure your “RAID”. What if I say there is an easier solution? Yes, there exists one; DRobo.
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Ergonomic - Our Health has a Price
May 27, 2008 by Guru, under General, Randomness.
We all want to be healthy. The well known quote will say “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” and some would say “practice sports”. Each and every being has their one definition of being healthy. But, when it concerns your little computer, we all speak the same language. That of ergonomics. (more…)
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Process Lasso Unclog your CPU
May 23, 2008 by Guru, under Software.
Tired of the waiting for your CPU to be freed from the massive process eaters? This is a common issue for those having slow processors. Upgrading is one solution but what about a free software that will save you the pennies? (more…)
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Mozilla Firefox Tools to Simplify Blogging
May 23, 2008 by Guru, under Featured, Tips and Tricks.
From a mere crush on blogging, many has fallen in love. In fact, it is addictive. Finding the right tools you will achieve bliss. The few words you write helps you as a being, and these very few words matters to the online community. Lets see some Firefox Addons that will help. (more…)
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Brief VS Sage - The Feed Reader Duel
May 3, 2008 by Guru, under Firefox, Reviews.
In today’s article I will be talking on how to read feeds (your favourite ones). Brief and Sage are Firefox’s two most popular feed reader. Hanging out with one is a wise decision, that’s another chance to take your browser one level up. Before going any further, we must not forget, there are also web based feed readers like Google Reader, Bloglines, alongside we also have specialised applications meant just for reading feeds.
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Plagiarism - Protect Yourself
April 30, 2008 by Guru, under Featured, Tips and Tricks.
If ever you have gone though the media guru’s blog, you must have read that his articles are being copied by basictweak.com. To circumvent such practices, I will try to come up with some major tips to protect yourselves. I have yet to implement them. As a matter of fact this article is the product of inspiration to fight plagiarism. (more…)
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Vbulletin 3.7.0 Gold Released
April 29, 2008 by Guru, under Tech News.
Vbulletin has gone Gold again. This time, it is iteration 3.7.0!!! You must all have noticed the above icon often. If I guess right, it is most likely the most active and successful forums that are using Vbulletin. It is being actively developed.
In fact, what does gold mean? According to wikipedia, it is the final version of a particular product. You read it the right way, the most stable and most likely to have the least possible bugs. (that is what is most desirable).
I Have used Vbulletin in some occasions, and my advice, it is the best. As it claims to be. About three years back, I can still remember, it was the best and so is it today also. Fully packed with the right set of features and community contributed add-ons, it is no other that an unbeatable package.
This time it has come back with more powerful and useful features.
- Inline spam management & prevention
- Thread tagging
- Search cloud / tag cloud
- Thread prefixes
- Reciprocal friendships between users
- Public visitor messaging on profile pages with ‘conversation’ feature
- User picture galleries with user comment facility
- User-created social groups with invite only and moderated membership options
- Extended member profile pages
- Customizable member profile pages with admin-controlled styling abilities
- Inline editing of custom user profile fields
- Lightbox viewer for attached images
- Viewable and comparable history maintained for post edits
- Extended re-authentication for inline moderation actions
- Notices system for navigation bar
- Multiple human-verification systems including reCAPTCHA, image verification and Q/A
- User change history
- Social bookmarking integration
Comparing the set of presented features with previous versions, I can say “Yes major improvements have been made”. In fact, these are the new additions (features) and the most basic ones. Customisation takes you beyond the average ones.
You might also want to take a look at vBSeo, its specialised SEO package. And this one really works.
Tempted to download? So am I, but it is a commercial package. Costing $150. But, overall comparing it with all the open source forums software and IPB (Invision Power Board), it is worth investing.
