Download Your Favorite Blogs and Websites for Offline Reading

Offline Explorer, wget, WinHTTrack Copier, Teleport.. there are tons of software utilities (both free and commercial) that let you download web pages to your local hard drive - they'll mirror complete websites, image galleries and everything else when your computer is connected to the web.

But there are some issues with most of these offline browsers. How do you browse or search web pages once they are saved locally? How do you update the local information when the source data has changed? Can you transfer the web content from computer to your mobile phone or the USB pen drive?

Enter Webaroo - a free offline browser cum search engine that is not-so-geek and should solve all the above problems.

Once you install Webaroo, you suggest a list of blogs, websites, videos, podcasts or any online content that you would like to browse offline. If you are too busy to make suggestions, you can install readymade Webaroo packs - popular websites arranged in categories. [like the News pack will have CNN, ABC, WSJ, etc]

Webaroo then creates an offline copy of the site that you can browse or search as if you are connected. Based on your settings, Webaroo periodically checks the original web pages for modification and if there are any, the software automatically updates the local cache.

The software also provides visual hints for outgoing hyperlinks that are already available in the local cache.

You'll also be impressed by the brilliant interface of Webaroo. It's a highly recommended tool especially for mobile workers who travel frequently or remain offline most of the time. Webaroo will make sure that you do miss any of your favorite news sites or blogs.

And if you own a Windows Mobile phone like the O2 or HP IPAQ, you can even browser the saved web content in your phone.

How to Find Email Addresses of People Who Plagiarize Content

Content plagiarism is a serious concern on the Internet. You spent an entire day writing that comprehensive review of the Nikon D80 DSLR camera only to realize that hour later, some lesser-known websites and blogs have reprinted your article word-by-word without giving you any credit.

To get your content removed from the another website, the first step (that works in 99% of the cases) is to send a friendly email to the owner of that site.

But sometimes finding the email address of the person, who ripped off your content, may be the toughest part. Here are some indirect tricks to help you locate email addresses of offenders.

Step 1. If the offending site is self hosted, you are very likely to find the email address of the website owner through the public whois database. I prefer DomJax (review) for quick retrieval of website registry information.

Step 1(a). If the website is self hosted but the whois information is private, try the following query on Google (replace xyz with the actual site address)

xyz.com -inurl:xyz.com - This might show up some real email addresses for that domain.

Step 2. If the site is hosted on Blogger, WordPress or other blogging platforms, leave a comment in any of the blog posts. Most bloggers generally read and respond to user comments.

Step 3. Now the trickiest part - there's no "Contact Us" form on the website and there's place for you to write comments. Well, don't give up yet because you still have good options:

3(a). Use Technorati or Google Blog search to find other sites / blogs linking to that offending site. It's quite possible that the offender may be maintaining multiple websites that are cross-linked for maximum Google Juice. There are chances that contact information is available on one of his/her legit sites.

3(b). If the person is blogging under an alias (say "PeterCool008") - search for that term on Google. It's very likely that he has used the same alias when registering on other web forums and social networking websites.

When you get hold of his public profile on some site like Digg, MyBlogLog or say DigitalPoint forums, look for the IM aliases. If his YIM! is xyz, you know that an email addressed to xyz@yahoo.com will, very likely, land in his inbox.

Alternatively, most web forums allow Private Messaging. Sign up for that forum yourself and send a private message / email. That may be the last resort.

Never quit - I know it takes some effort to track down the plagiarists but that should not deter you from actively pursuing your case. Remember that search engines, including Google, still have issues figuring out the original source of web documents.

Turn XP into Vista - Show Thumbnail Images in Windows Taskbar

Visual Task Tips is just a 90 kb utility that makes your Windows XP taskbar look like the one that ships with Vista.

You can hover the mouse cursor over any application in the taskbar and instantly see the latest thumbnail screenshot of that Window without actually switching to that application.

Pretty useful when you have tons of similar application open on your screen and the application titles aren't descriptive enough.

Get Visual Task Tips at visualtasktips.com [freeware]

Don't Lose Work If IE 7 Browser Crashes or Hangs All of a Sudden

Say you have over half a dozen websites open inside IE 7. But suddenly your Internet Explorer window closes without warning or simply freezes and stops responding. You have no other option but to kill the IE 7 process (iexplore.exe) via the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del).

In either of the cases, there's no record of web pages that were open in your IE window prior to the crash. What do you do in such a situation?

Firefox 2 users are lucky because the Mozilla browser has an excellent Session Restore feature that auto saves the browser tabs and will restart exactly to the previous state in the event of a crash or freeze.

While Internet Explorer version 7.0 has no such feature to recover work from a crashed session, you can download a free add-in called IEPlus to bring the very useful "Session Restore" feature of Firefox in your IE browser. [see screenshot]

The next time your IE crashes, you won't have to search the browser cache to recall the names of the websites that were open - IEPlus will just ask for your confirmation and will auto-restore the browser automatically to the previous state. Nothing is lost.

And if you click the "No" button in the confirmation dialog, IEPlus shows you a list of websites that were open in IE prior to the crash - you can open sites selectively, a lovely feature that's missing even in Firefox.

IEPlus on Download.com

Which Version of Adobe Flash Player Is Running On My Machine

If you are not sure whether Adobe Flash Player is installed in your web browser and if installed, what version of the Flash Player are your running - here's a simple trick.

Visit this page on Adobe.com. If you have the Adobe Flash Player plugin, the page will display the exact version of the Flash Player. If Flash is missing on your machine, you won't see the line the says "Adobe Flash Player is Installed."

Make sure you perform this check separately for IE and Firefox / Opera.

What's new in Flash Player 9 that's on Adobe Labs

While the latest version of Adobe Flash Player is 9.0.47.0, Adobe have recently released an updated version of Macromedia Flash Player 9 (9.0.60.184) that supports H.264 in addition to the original On2 VP6 codec (but not Sorenson Video).

Why upgrade to Flash Player 9 with H.264 support

What that means in simple jargon is that you can now use the same Flash Player 9 to play Quicktime .mov and the iPod .mp4, m4v videos in your web browser without installing the Apple Quicktime plugin. Video encoded in Quicktime or MPEG-4 formats (not divx or xvid) will play in the Flash Player just like other Flash Video files (e.g. YouTube) and SWF movies.

Before you download Flash Player 9 H.264 version, make sure you clean up you existing installation of Flash Player 9 / 8 else the upgrade will fail.

Adobe Labs, Tinic Uro and Dan Rayburn have more indepth information about the new Flash Player 9 and how it compares with Quicktime and the existing On2 VP6 codec.

Switch Your Laptop Between Home and Office Network Easily

People have been Shared a network connections profile manager called NetSetMan, who frequently travel with their laptops. Each time they get to a new location, they have to manually change settings of their network card and browser proxy server before connecting to the internet.

Though NetSetMan has a free full version, some comments have pointed out that the license prohibits use of the software at work or any commercial purpose.

If you need to shuttle your notebook computer between home and various office locations, the other good alternative is Net Profiles that again helps you effortlessly change your network connection settings .

With Net Profiles, you create various profiles for each of your network settings and you can easily switch from one to another. Can also be used for managing network printers, mapped drives and multiple Wi-Fi wireless networks.

Avoid Office Embarrassments; Stop Web pages from Autoplaying Music or Videos

Lot of websites (especially myspace) embed background music (and sometimes video clips) in web pages that automatically begins to play as soon as you open the site in your web browser - there's no confirmation.

Music and Videos that autoplay in the browser is not that big an issue if you keep your speakers muted or use the headphones, but it can be very embarrassing in all other cases - you don't want your cubicle neighbours to know that you just visited an amateur website.

Here's how to block autoplay of music and videos that's embedded in webpages:

Internet Explorer - Got Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced. Scroll down in Settings, and then under the Multimedia heading, uncheck Play sounds in web pages and Play videos in web pages.

Mozilla Firefox - Install the Stop Play extension available at Mozilla.org. Stop Play plugin disables autoplay of embedded media but you can play it later when you want. Alternatively, you can completely block the audio-videos files from auto-downloading that also speeds up web browsing.

Related: How to Stop GIF Animations in Browsers

Coffee Chart: What's Inside Your Favorite Coffee Drink

The next time you order some coffee at your favorite coffee shop, this coffee chart should come in very handy - it illustrates the small differences between the common espresso flavors.

This excellent coffee selection diagram is a work of Lokesh (thanks IndiaUncut) - the chart helps you with the complex pronunciation of coffee names as well as the ingredients inside.

Microsoft Hackers Now Have an Official Blog

"Hackers @ Microsoft" - that's the name of a new Microsoft blog officially launched on blogs.msdn.com which also hosts thousands of other blogs written by Microsoft Employees.

The pitch says - Microsoft employs some of the best hackers in the world and actively recruits them and develops them. At his or her core, a true hacker is someone who is curious and wants to learn how systems work. This can and of course at Microsoft is done in an ethical, legal manner.

Microsoft does have hackers, and its time to introduce you to some of them and show you what it is, exactly that they do. The new Microsoft Hackers blog is located at blogs.msdn.com/hackers.

Create Family Tree Charts inside Microsoft Office

A family tree diagram (aka pedigree charts) depicting the ancestors and descendants of your family with their pictures, birthdays, and other interesting stories can serve a wondeful personalized gift for your grandparent's upcoming wedding anniversary.

Or can you can hang them as a painting on the wall of your living room. Or just post it on your blog website so that the whole world knows about the various generations of your great family and the intresting events in their lives [like how did your great-grandpa first met your great-grandma]

Creating a family tree or even a family history book from scratch is really very simple - all you need is the names, photographs of your family members, some important dates and those special stories[probably your grandma can be a big help here].

Once this basic databases on paper is ready, download any of the following Microsoft Office templates depending on what kind of chart you want to create. It's that easy:

Family History Book for Microsoft Word

Family Tree Template for Microsoft Excel

Family History Template for Word - Theme 2

These family tree templates have everything from your mom-dad's courtship days to medical history to family traditions to past vacations.

And if you are interested in just designing the family tree, just head straight to the tree section skipping the other details. No standalone family tree maker software is required - And if you don't have Microsoft Office, you can still use templates from Zoho Writer, Writely, Zoho Sheet or even Google Spreadsheet.

Create an Organization Chart Without Visio or Powerpoint

Forbes has a new website where anyone can create org charts for their company or browse through the organizational charts of other publicly listed U.S. companies like Google, Microsoft, Dell, Yahoo!, etc.

The org chart software is completely web based and free but can help you create professional looking organization charts via a simple Flash based drag-n-drop interface just like Microsoft Visio or SmartDraw.

To make a connection, drag a person over his/her boss, wait for the boss to turn orange and then release. To make an unconnected employee the boss of someone already on the chart, drag the boss over the employee and wait for the flash. Once it flashes, move the boss above the employee and release.

Wait, there's something even more useful. You can search the Forbes org charts database for company names or even individual employees in a manner similar to Google Finance (search as you type). Clicking the employee name will show his current status / position in the organization.

You can navigate the org charts using a Google Maps like navigation controls. The charts can later be printed as picture diagrams or text outlines.

Forbes Org Charts - Corporate Org Chart Wiki

Make Flowcharts, Home Office Layouts and Other Diagrams Online

Best4c is another web based Visio to help you create flowcharts, network diagrams, floor plans and other designs online.

The application is complete web based but has the look-n-feel of a desktop application with collapsible palettes on one side and property pane for the selected shape on the right.

You drag-n-drop objects / shapes on the drawing canvas and can easily rotate or resize them - since they are vector images, they do not suffer from pixelation when you expand the size. And the inbuilt library of graphic images is impressive.

With all the baggage, Best4c flowchart editor is pretty responsive and loads quickly in your web browser. Works across all browsers.

Make GMail the Default EMail Client in Firefox

Download the free Google Talk chat application and open the options dialog. You'll see a general setting that says "Open GMail When I click on Email Links" - select that and exit.

This will set Gmail as your default mailto: handler. This means that when you click on any hyperlinked email address, a Gmail compose window will open in your default web browser. The To: address field will be prepopulated with email address.

This trick works if you are in IE - the GMail compose window would open inside Firefox.

To make this work inside Firfox, implement this small change:

1. Type about:config in the address bar.

2. Type mailto: and hit enter.

3. You'll see a setting called network.protocol-handler.external.mailto that is set to false. Double click it to toggle the value to true.

Your system will work just the way you want.

Windows Installer Issue: When Programs Refuse to Uninstall

Sometimes when you try to uninstall some software using the Add/Remove programs module in the control panel, the Windows Installer will ask you to specify the folder that contains the original installation files.

This problem will also surface when you are trying to install a new version of the software when a previous version already exists on the machine for which the installer files are no longer available. [the issue is specific to InstallShield Express]

In that case, you are likely to see the following error - "Another Version of this Product Is Already Installed. Installation of This Version Cannot Continue."

I faced this Windows Installer related problem very recently while trying to install Adobe Captivate 3 over an older version. I could not install Captivate 3 as I had deleted the previous installation files from my desktop.

Tried deleting the entries from registry editor and also the program files folder but nothing worked.

Then tried pointing the old installer to the new setup but that threw another error - "the installed product does not match the installation source(s). Until a matching source is provided or until the installed product and source are synchronized, this action can not be performed."

Finally, the following trick worked - extracted the files to a new folder and ran command at the DOS command prompt for force installation:

MsiExec.exe /I installer.msi REINSTALLMODE=voums REINSTALL=ALL you may have to replace the installer.msi filename] Works like a charm. To be on the safe side, run the setup.exe again to repair/reinstall the installation.

Remove Unwanted Clutter from Firefox Right-Click Menu

When you do a fresh installation of Firefox, the contextual menu (which appears when you right click) is tiny and pretty containing only the most essential menu items such Save Image, Copy Email Address, View Page Source, Copy Link Location, Search Google for, etc.

But things change as you add new Firefox extensions.

For instance, I have six Firefox extensions (FireBug, DownloadThemAll, JSView, ScrapBook, Yoono, FlashGot) and they have all added several new items to the right-click menu.

The contextual Firefox menu wore a cluttered and extremely confusing look until I installed Menu Editor - a must have Firefox extension.

As the name suggests, Menu Editor lets you rearrange (move) existing menu-items, group similar commands or remove items that you rarely use (e.g., View Page Source is useless for non-techies and they can safely hide it).

You can also use the Menu Editor extension to re-arrange and trim your Firefox Menu bar on the top (that has the File, Edit, Help commands)

The extension definitely makes you feel more productive because, with the junk removed, you'll find the frequently used menu items much much faster. [See the Firefox contextual menu after the Menu Editor treatment - much better]

Menu Editor | Screenshots [Access it from the Firefox Add-ons Dialog]

Real Video Player 11 Can Rip YouTube Videos. Wanna try it ?

The new RealPlayer 11 is like a powerful download manager for Internet Videos - it allows you to watch, download and burn streaming videos clips from YouTube and most other video sharing websites including Google Video and MySpace.

Real Player 11 will put a "Download this video" button on web pages that have embedded video content - you can click the button to start the video download process. Firefox and IE are supported.

Multiple videos can also be downloaded simultaneously and you can even burn the video content onto a CD or a DVD disc using RealPlayer itself.

If you are happy with good-old Firefox extensions for downloading Youtube clips, RealPlayer 11 can even be used as a universal video player to watch videos in Flash, Windows Media, Real and Quicktime formats. [very similar to VLC Media Player]

I have some Real Player 11 invites courtesy Mike and will be happy to pass them to you. Available only for Windows though a Mac version is expected later this year.

Looking for a Job ? Get a Video Camera

Job seekers in India now have an opportunity to impress employers with their presentation and communication skills without meeting the prospective boss physically - just create a 2 minute video and upload it to Monster.

Monster India, one of of popular job portals here like Naukri.com and TimesJobs, have launched a new feature called "Video Resume" where job applicants can upload video files for free along with their regular text-only resumes.

Once your video is approved by the system, employers will be able to search and scan the video files like other text resumes.

Video resumes could be a good way to gain the attention of the recruiter when he has to shortlist only some candidates from a list of few hundred resumes. It's the same as adding a picture to your profile on some social networking website - the profile views will be much higher.

The video resume files on Monster India are accepted in most common video formats and can be upto 50 MB in size (less than 2 minutes).

Use Notepad, Vim or Any Text Editor with Firefox for Writing Text

Ever tried editing your Blogger Templates or Wordpress Themes in Firefox ? Or a Wikpedia story that spans several paragraphs ? Editing large blocks of text in Firefox is both confusing and dangerous because it's so easy to make mistakes.

Here's an extremely useful Firefox extension for you called "It's all text" - though the name offers no hint about the purpose of the extension, it enables you to edit or write text in Firefox using any external text editing software like Notepad, GVim, etc.

It's-all-text extension adds a small "edit" button near the textboxes in Firefox and if you click that button, the existing text opens up inside your favorite text editor.

You can edit the text and then close the editor - your text will automatically appear in the Firefox textbox. [think round-trip editing]. There will be a short Ajax style glow to hint that the text has changed.

The extension will be very handy for editing long blogger templates, Wikipedia entries, composing new blog posts in Wordpress web editor, writing blog comments, editing files in Web based FTP programs or replying to forum threads in Internet message boards.

Geeks may configure Firefox with Vi or Emacs while others may configure it with Notepad, UltraEdit or other text editors. Highly recommended.

Shorthand Typing: Write Emails in Outlook More Efficiently

When we compose a new email message in Outlook or reply to an existing email, the body of our email will always have some text phrases that we type repeatedly. For instance:

When you get a blog tip, your reply may have - "Thank you for the tip."

When someone wants your phone number, you'll write - "You can reach me at 123-322-323 anytime during the day."

Hate typing the same text in different emails over and over again ? Here's an alternate solution:

You probably know of an old feature in Microsoft Outlook (and most other Office applications) called AutoCorrect that recognizes spelling errors and replaces them with the correct words as you are typing.

Other than fixing typos, AutoCorrect can be used for creating shortcut command for auto typing long lines of text.

For instance, you can set "familygreeting" as an AutoCorrect entry for Outlook some long line of text like "Hope you and everyone in your family is doing good." Whenever you type familygreeting in the message, Outlook will replace that with the greeting text. More text with less number of keystrokes.

The Autocorrect feature in Outlook can be accessed from Tools -> Options -> Spelling -> Spelling and Autocorrection

You can use this excellent feature to auto insert long email addresses or your website URL in the email message. Warning: Don't use common English words as autotext entries since Outlook will not warn you before making the replacement.

Convert Powerpoint Presentations to Flash with GMail PPT Viewer

GMail now has an inbuilt PPT viewer that lets you view Powerpoint attachment as a Flash picture slideshow in the web browser itself without requiring Microsoft PowerPoint application.

This slideshow feature of GMail will be useful since you no longer have to download the full PPT attachment in order to view that 16th slide of the presentation.

Here are two additional situations where it may help:

1. If you have to view a presentation on some computer that has no copy of PowerPoint, gmail yourself the PPT file and watch the slides inside the web browser.

2. GMail converts every slide of your Powerpoint presentation to a Flash (swf) file - if you manually advance the entire PPT slideshow using the arrows, all the slides will become available as Flash files in your browser's temp folder.

Just a quick way of transforming Powerpoint slides into SWF documents without using any desktop conversion software. The swf files may then be embedded in your blog for sharing with readers. Nothing great since Scribd can also convert your PPT to Flash paper.

Do you know if GMail Powerpoint viewer can read PPS (Powerpoint Show) formats.