22 Websites that can change your life

The internet has changed all of our lives, hopefully in a more positive direction. You can use these sites just for entertainment or you can use them to change your life. Many of them you visit all the time but it’s time to look at them another way and harness their power.

*These are in no particular order.

1 - Facebook - Facebook allows you to reconnect with old and new friends. In the case of Lori Haas, facebook helped Lori reunite with her son that she gave up for adoption when she was just 17. (Full Story)

2 - Myspace - This is the most popular social network on the web, even though it has the most spam. Some absolutely hate myspace, but others have used it to launch their careers. Many singers and musicians have achieved “overnight” success using the network. Like facebook you can connect with friends but myspace makes it easier for networking with people you don’t know and create new business contacts.

3 - Digg - many will agree with this choice, while others will strongly disagree. But Digg can open you up to a whole new realm of news. You can visit the homepage once a day and instantly become up to date on what’s going on in the world. You can use Digg to your advantage, find the latest trends in business or find articles on improving your life.

4 - Kiva - Kiva is a lending site that helps entrepreneurs in developing countries finance their ventures. It doesn’t take much to help someone out. By changing others you can change yourself.

5 - Lifehack.org - Lifehack can help you get things done. This blog has in depth articles on all things that do with productivity.

6 - YouTube - If you want to work in the entertainment industry, YouTube is a great way to get your feet wet and at a very low cost. You have an audience of millions of people at your disposal.

7 - Google - This is an obvious one. I really don’t know how we lived without Google in the early days of the internet.

8 - Twitter - Twitter may someday save lives by people quickly alerting others of dangerous situations to avoid. During the California fires, people used Twitter to let friends know that they were safe. You can also use Twitter as a way to help with your business networking by knowing where your business contacts are at.

9 - eBay - eBay can save you a lot of money but can also bring you immense opportunities. You can easily create an online business that reaches millions of buyers. Many people have very successful million dollar enterprises using ebay.

10 - Ancestry.com - This website can help you piece together your family history. By understanding the past your can change the future. * Many readers have expressed concerns about the business practices of Ancestry.com. Please read comments below and be sure to check any complaints about Ancestry.com or any other business before working with them.*

11 - Zen Habits - This blog is similar to Lifehack.org by offering simple productivity to get the most of your life.

12 - Craigslist - You can find almost anything on Craigslist. It’s a simple site but can simply change your life.

13 - Post Secret - The Post Secret project shows you that we’re all very much the same. It can also show you that others may have worse problems than the ones your facing.

14 - LinkedIn - You can use LinkedIn to network with professionals from all areas of business including Fortune 500 companies.

15 - TED.com - This website is full of various videos from TED conferences and has biographies on some of the greatest thinkers of present time. Presentations from successful people such as Tony Robbins, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Bono, Seth Godin, and Jane Goodall. Most videos are a few minutes long but can empower you for years to come.

16 - Wikipedia - Not everything on Wikipedia is accurate but there is so much information on almost every topic possible. Don’t know about something, just look it up on Wikipedia and within a few minutes you can be informed.

17 - The Fastlane to Millions - This is a relatively new and small forum for those who are or aspire to be entrepreneurs and millionaires. The members are very positive and want to help each other get the most out of life.

18 - Second Life - This virtual world may seem like a virtual waste of time but some people such as Anshe Chung have found opportunities limitless on Second Life. Anshe has become a millionaire by buying and selling virtual real estate.

19 - Quoteland - You can visit Quoteland and read hundreds of quotes that will give you a fresh perspective and change your life in minutes. If you have an open mind.

20 - 43 Things - 43 Things can be a great way to achieve your goals. You can post your dreams and aspirations for all to see. Having that type of pressure can be very positive for you, helping you continue till you reach your goals.

* 21 - Stumble Upon - This has been requested by readers to be added to the list. Stumble Upon can change your life and help you discover so many new websites you would never be able to otherwise.

* 22 - del.icio.us - This site has also been demanded to be added to the list. So since many have found Lyved via del.icio.us, it must be an addition. Maybe someone from del.icio.us can change their life after visiting Lyved.

What sites have been most beneficial to you or changed your life? Leave a comment below.

Japan to be a wireless island with Internet thro satellite

Granted, most of us here in America would turn our noses up at receiving in-home broadband via satellite -- after all, cable and DSL seem to be treating most of us quite alright -- but Japan is hoping to provide access to more regions in Asia-Pacific with its recently launched Kizuna. The experimental satellite is not yet intended for commercial use, but if all goes well, it will enable data transmissions "of up to 1.2 gigabytes per second" at a low cost across Japan and 19 other locales in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, we've no idea when it will escape the bondage of testing and actually be put to good use, but at least Japan's well on its way to actually establishing that wireless island, eh?

New version of Gmail soon available in 37 languages

Tonight, we're starting to roll out the new version of Gmail in 37 languages.* As we first announced when we launched in English, this version, available for IE7 and Firefox 2, has an entirely new code base, which allows us to add new features more rapidly and share components with other Google applications (we now use the same rich text editor as Groups and Page Creator, and the contact manager can be seen in several Google apps). So if you were using English, you can now change your default language from the Settings menu to take advantage of a bunch of features that have recently launched in your preferred language, including:

• Colored labels
• Group chat
• Rich emoticons
• A new contact manager with a three-pane layout
• A number of smaller features, such as new shortcut keys and the ability to bookmark individual emails with your browser

One side effect of this change is that it may disrupt some third-party Gmail extensions -- unsupported scripts that directly modify Gmail's code. If you don't use them, you don't need to worry about this. But if you do, we've contacted a number of the developers behind some popular extensions and many of them have updated their scripts, so make sure you're using the latest version or check back with them if you encounter any issues

sQuba World's First Underwater Car

Hi friends, Swiss company has invented the world's first underwater car, oops!!! is this a dream? I think you might have watched the film "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977), in that film James Bond's white Lotus Esprit will plunge into the sea, but thirty one years later the underwater car has been made a reality, with the unveiling of a fully-working version of the amphibious 007 icon. With a one touch button the car will transform into an amphibious car. The zero emission sQuba is built as an open-topped concept car for safety reasons, that can go over land, above the waves and even under water to a depth of 30 metres. The two seater sQuba has three electric motors, out of this one is used to power the rear wheels and the other two is for the specially designed propellers. sQuba's speed on land is 75mph, a sedate 4mph while cruising in "boat" mode and a positively tranquil 2mph under water. sQuba consist of an integrated tank of compressed air, which is used to supply oxygen to the occupants while the car is underwater and it has salt water resistant interior. The vehicle can stay under water for a maximum of 2 hours. The cost of the car is about £745,000 (Rs. 5.75 crore).

Apple’s Mac Book Air Laptop

At the Macworld Expo 2008, Steve Jobs unveiled the ultra-portable Mac Book Air laptop. This thin notebook has a ridiculously small thickness of just 0.76-inches and weighs at a feather-weight 1.36 kg. But unlike recent ultra-portables like the Asus Eee PC, the MacBook Air doesn't compromise on the screen size; bearing a 13.3 inch eco-friendly LED display with a resolution of 1280x800 pixels. It also gives users a comfortable typing experience on its well-spaced, full-size illuminated keyboard. The mouse pointer is navigated by a large trackpad which supports multi-touch gestures; much like their iPhone.



It's powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo processor rated at 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz, 2 GB of RAM and 80 GB Hard drive or a 64 GB Solid State Disk (SSD). Wi-Fi 802.11n as well as Bluetooth 2.1 is supported. Graphics are handled by the integrated Intel X3100 GPU. Peripheral connections include a USB 2.0 port, micro-DVI port and one Audio out/Headphone port. Mac Book Air includes an oversize track pad with multi-touch technology. You can pinch, swipe, or rotate to zoom in on text, advance through a photo album, or adjust an image. This gesture-based input so successful on iPhone and iPod touch, now comes to Mac Book.



Apple is taking pre-orders for the MacBook Air which is retailing at 1800 US Dollars (Rs. 70,200 approximately) for the base model and at 3100 US Dollars (Rs. 1,20,900 approximately) for the fully-blown version.



Technical Specifications


Height: 0.16-0.76 inch (0.4-1.94 cm)
Width: 12.8 inches (32.5 cm)
Depth: 8.94 inches (22.7 cm)
Weight: 3.0 pounds (1.36 kg)1
13.3-inch (diagonal) glossy widescreen TFT LED backlit display with support for millions of colors


Supported resolutions: 1280 by 800 (native), 1152 by 720, 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, 800 by 500, 720 by 480, and 640 by 480 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio. Built-in Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)

If you are a regular user of youtube then may be you are quite familiar with this message “This video is no longer available”. If you are getting this message for a particular video that means the video has been removed by the youtube authority. But if you are still keen to see the video then you can take the service of Delutube. Through Delutube it is possible for you watch the deleted youtube video as long as youtube maintains a copy of the video on their cache servers. To watch the deleted video, you have to provide the youtube video id and Delutube will retrieve the deleted video and will play it. But remember if youtube remove the video totally from their server then it will not be possible to watch the video.

How to get youtube video id—

For example "VooHala_fAw"is the video id of this youtube video
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VooHala_fAw

So for any particular video it will be

http://youtube.com/watch?v= Video ID

Video Glasses for iPod

Hi friends, worried about having a video iPod with small display? Now throw away your worries, here comes the virtual theatre. Recently a portable and light weight i-Theatre glasses was introduced. These glasses can be interfaced with the Video iPods, when you wear this glass, you will see a 50 inch virtual video image (a video screen). This image is displayed from the i-Theatre’s internal LCD screens. The system's binocular display module (BDM) includes two video displays, backlights, drive electronics, and a pair of 24-degree field-of-view optics with large eye relief (20 mm) and pupil size (10 mm). This glass can also be connected to TV input.

Specifications:
Display Resolution: 230,000 Pixels per LCD (320 X 240)
Field of View: 25 Degrees Diagonal
Weight: 3.5 oz. (without cable)
Video Signal: NTSC / PAL / SECAM
Virtual Image Size: 50 inches as seen from 8.5 feet
Power Consumption: Less than 450mW
Battery Life: 6-8 hours

How to Remove scratches from CDs and DVDs

This simple guide will probably be a lifesaver for a lot of you out there, especially to those of you who have kids roaming their home. We all know it: if something is dear to your heart, no matter how careful you are, your kids will eventually break it.

What brought me to write this article is that my wonderful son, while being at home last week, climbed on a chair and got his hand on my precious Star Wars DVD collection.

Naturally, he did it silently so my wife—though only 20 feet from him, didn’t hear anything. After picking up the box set, he proceeded to bring out a few disks from the box and played with them, dragging them across our hardwood floor. I’m sure you can imagine the effect this operation had on the surface of the DVD’s… they were scratched thouroghly, and when played, the movie froze at critical moments.

Fortunately, I had already experienced something similar with a scratched CD and was able to repair it using a simple technique.

First, before trying anything, be sure to thoroughly clean the surface of your damaged CD. Sometimes, even if a disc is lightly scratched, it will play anyway if properly cleaned.

To do this, just take a piece of Microfiber cloth and clean your disk using eyeglass cleaner or an easy-to-make Home-made Solution.Be sure to wipe the CD / DVD starting from inside out and do not touch the reflective surface with your fingers while doing it. Do not attempt to clean the disc using circular motions! Doing so may worsen the condition of your media if you accidentally scratch it. (It’s always better to have a simple scratch going across one location on several tracks than one affecting the entire length of a single track.)

If after trying this, your disc still doesn’t work, you’ll need to employ a more drastic approach to the situation.

The only things you’ll need to do that is a soft cotton swab and a little bit of mild abrasive, such as Brasso. Be careful, Brasso emits fumes and can be very irritating. Perform the following steps in a well-ventilated area:

1. Imbue your cotton swab with a little dab of Brasso.
2. Gently polish the damaged area of your CD or DVD using a small circular motion until the scratch disappears or at least subdues.
3. Rinse the media.

That’s it! Now stick your disc back inside your player, and attempt to play it again. Does it work? If yes, then great! If no, then repeat the above procedure. I also heard that white toothpaste and car-rubbing compound could be effective, but I have not tried them.

Putting up too much pressure on your scratched disc will probably worsen its condition instead of improving it, so don’t forget to be gentle!

This trick will also often work wonders on damaged PS2, PS3 and Xbox game CD’s.

Night Vision Web Cam

Hi friends, A4-Tech introduced a Night Vision Web Cam, which helps us in video chat and video conferencing even in dark. The webcam can be used as normal cam through out the day, and using Smart Clip-on design, it can be quickly and easily attached to the top of your LCD/TFT monitor or notebook. The Night Vision Web Cam consist of 6 infrared LEDs on the front of the cam, this is used to turn the colour of the image into daylight, no matter how dark your room or working conditions may be. It has some additional features like, automatic white balance, digital zoom, snapshot button, 1.3 mega pixel (interpolated) instant still image capture, and motion tracking. It also has a built in microphone that ensures clear sound and echo-free audio. This Web Cam is most suitable for late night chat sessions without disturbing others.

find and delete files at once... the shortcut

I was trying to delete a list of files with a character '-' in their filenames from a directory, containing lots of other files. Thanks to linux, you get everything you need here.

#find ./directorypath -regex '.*-.*'
lists all the files/directories containing '-' anywhere in the filename or directory name.
-regex allows to give any pattern to do powerful custom search.

To list only the files, add -type f
#find ./directorypath -type f -regex '.*-.*'

To delete all the files/directories with any pattern, just add command to the above line as shown below
#find ./directorypath -regex '.*-.*' -exec rm -rf {} \;

-exec rm -rf {} \;
executes rm -rf (remove forcefully and recursively in case of directory). The files/directories found by find command is passed to the rm -rf command via {}, which deletes them. \; marks the end of the command.

I suggest you first move all the files to some directory, before deleting them, just incase you don't accidentally delete some important files.

Movie in MS Paint

Another MS Paint Trick goes here, I was not knowing that Painting area in MS paint utility works as Video screen!! lovely trick.
* First start a movie in any player.

* Then open Paint.

* Now, in the player when the movie is being played, press "Print screen" button on your key board.

* Now, Press ctrl+v in Paint

* Leave the movie player open and don't minimize it.

* Open Paint now and se the movie in the Paint!

Unintended Consequences of Biofuels

Biofuels, particluarly those derived from ethanol, have been heralded as an ideal way to wean us off of polluting and increasingly expensive fossil fuels. While we may have no choice but to rely on biofuels in the future, some futurists are sounding the alarm about the unintended consequences of biofuel reliance. In July, the futurist think tank Global Business Network noted that crop growth for biofuels could come at the expense of the world food supply. Others are citing the phenomenon of "agflation," or the increased price of all things agricultural, from produce to dairy products to real estate in rural areas. Indeed, manufacturers of all types are beginning to notice higher prices for animal by-products used in products such as soaps.

While market forces may eventually correct agflation-driven price increases, the time is now to understand that energy solutions such as biofuel are not "magic bullets" without impact in other areas, and to mitigate those impacts.

How many websites are there on net???

A Netcraft report suggests that the total count of websites (including blogs ?) is around 156 million.

Since the Netcraft chart says "hostnames", I guess the numbers include blogs as well that are hosted on subdomains of Blogspot, Twitter, TypePad, Windows Live Spaces or WordPress.com.

Now Technorati claims that the total number of blogs alone is currently in excess of 100 million while Netcraft puts Blogs+Websites = 156 million so there’s probably a mismatch somewhere. Anyone got clues ?