Its been a long time since I made desktop customization except for the regular change of the wallpaper that I do…So, I decided it was time to spice up my desktop and decided to go for the MacOS look…I already had the best windows look, since I had Vista. So now how do I go about making my desktop looking like MacOS? First a little basics on the Mac world for all those MS Windows lovers out there…

Macs run the OS X which succeed the Mac OS operating system, and you might be interested to know that all of Mac OSX versions have been named after the big cats family like the OSX puma, panther, Jaguar, leopard and so on…The latest in the line of the cats is the snow leopard..and here we have a screenshot which should make things a bit more clear

Now that we know how the interface looks lets work on changing the interface..The first important part of the OSX interface is the “dock” which you will find at the bottom of the screen..
So, we download that one. I found two free alternatives to the “dock” for windows, one is Objectdock from Stardock and the other is Rocketdock from Punklabs. There are other alternatives too, but these are the two I decided to try out…Stardock has been a company synonymous with the best windows skinning programs like Windowblinds, DesktopX etc..and after trying out both of the products, I decided, much to my surprise that Rocketdock worked better for me, it was simple and easier to use..but I would say that making the choice is merely a matter of random selection.

Now we have Rocketdock installed, lets load it. Add icons, right click the dock to add new icons, separators and docklets (like clocks, weather icons etc..)
I write this post primarily for windows users and so I would know how much have come to love the convenience of minimizing to the taskbar. So, right click on the dock -> dock settings -> General tab and enable the “Minimize windows to the dock” checkbox.
The second app we need to download is, Objectbar. This is for the top bar and also to ensure that you continue to have access to your tray icons and to make the transformation complete.

lets get the last bit of the interface quick now, the wallpaper. You can get the original set here.
The dock icons are usually .png icons and you can download them as per your requirement from deviantART.

And this is how my desktop looks now…

The disclaimer part
I love windows and I love the mac as well. I do not have a Mac. All copyrights, trademarks, brandnames are all properties of their corresponding owners. This is not a post for Mac purists. It is for an ordinary windows user who wants to add some spice to his desktop. It wont change your windows to make it look and feel as good as Mac. you should get a Mac if you want the experience…

Rejaw. At last a microblogging site which feels good…Well, now lets not start comparing with twitter..Considering that twitter has been around for long…but its always great to have comparison in the arena.

Microblogging has several contenders but none have even managed to shake twitter even a bit, except for maybe, plurk. Microblogging is the post of small messages, limited by character count which can be seen by the public(or maybe restricted to a group). Few of the contenders in the market other than the leader being twitter are Plurk, Identi.ca, Kwippy, Beemood etc.

Anyone who has used Twitter will find themselves familiar with the interface at Rejaw. The site is friendly, very minimalistic. No nonsense and has a smooth interface which I love. It is not that I am switching from twitter..but its good to have an alternative…Identi.ca was slow, sluggish and boring…Kwippy was good, nothing spectacular and I am already a fan of Plurk…

Join me on Rejaw!

The digg labs

Each of the links on the website synthesizes news in a ultra cool visualization…

If you don’t like that one. I don’t know what looks good. The future is here. It is DUGG!! and if you haven’t seen it before. Thank me. I showed you the future….atleast the way to go…And the best part is the real time screensaver which makes your PC look equally futuristic. Keep up with the times…

Can’t help feeling that the A-star is a replica of the Hyundai i10, especially the front grille is unmistakably i10ish. Anyway..its about time, India’s most popular car, the Maruti Alto got a facelift. Read more about it here and here.

Meanwhile, I also came across pictures of a test version of the new car here. So, I guess the final product would look as good as the pic above.

The original link to the article lies here (thanks to Mridul for that)

Check out the first view pictures of the Tata Nano

I have been using twitter fox for a long time now..for the uninitiated, twitterfox is a firefox extension for twitter. But, firefox was acting all weirdly in the morning and I had to close it down for sometime. I downloaded twhirl, the desktop client for twitter meanwhile. Adobe AIR based Twhirl has one of the best interfaces out there and really makes me want to use it just for that…This got me thinking, why plurk which was more closer to chat did not have a desktop client and there I was searching for a client for plurk and I found 3.

Both the applications require Adobe AIR which can be found here.

Plurkair

An Adobe AIR based application which is a desktop application for plurk. I used it, liked it and recommend it. Though I would like a few more features, I need to consider that this application has been developed even in the absence of an API from plurk. Plurkair uses the plurk mobile version of the page and is quite decent for a desktop app. Download it here.

Plurkit

Same as Plurk air, except for a few minor negligible differences.

Plurk Firefox Sidebar

This is to plurk, what twitterfox is twitter. You need the firefox browser, which you can get here. But I am sure you already use it.

A Preview of what a computer could look like by the time your kid uses it …..
(and yeah, ignore the fact that it still runs windows xp….)

Was browsing around when I came across an ad on a blog about ScribeFire, the ad was pretty attractive and even though I am really really averse to internet ads, I decided to click on it. I found it pretty interesting…Just what I was looking for.

I guess the above sounded like an ad on television shopping. Well, this is just a test post from Scribefire which is an extension for Firefox which allows you to blog from the comfort of your browser…well, not even leaving the site you are browsing to go over to your blog. Brings flock closer to firefox. All this is great if you see this post. If not, well you wouldn’t know or care about it anyway…
The interface is great and it picked up my blog as a wordpress based one with no hassles. The navigation is simple and easy and all you need to blog is to click on the orange colored notepad on firefox’s status bar once the extension is installed. Allows you to embed flickr pics, youtube videos. Plus there are other features which enhance your overall browsing experience as well. Like sharing the current page through social networking and other sites, getting you the incoming links to the page you are browsing and lots more for you to explore, just give it a spin..

Download the extension here.

Technorati Tags: scribefire, firefox, addons, extension, blog, browser, blogging,

Goodness Gracious I just noticed I have not updated this since the 21st… You would not believe I spend all my time in front of a computer. Seriously!.

I am distracted with work, personal projects, just generally being a companion to my partner, my day is full to overflowing from lunchtime to midnight. I am not complaining though. life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.

I go, my lords and ladies; just I will make more of an effort to blog more often. Truly! I mean it!.

That was an automated post generated by the lazy bloggers post generator. This post is dedicated to all my friends who tell me they have no time to make a blog post and haven’t cleaned up the dust and cobwebs on their blogs. Go to the site and create your own automatic lazy blog in less than 5 minutes. No typing required. Guaranteed.

On a serious note, if you wrote a post on your own, it would take lesser time. But once in a while, it does a neat job…

Toluu is an interesting web2.0 tool which provides you with new and interesting feeds for your RSS reader/aggregator.

How does Toluu work? Upload an OPML file or add feeds manually. Based on your interests, shows other people with similar feeds. Like something? Click on the feed and say add. The feed is added to your aggregator (Not Toluu). You choose your aggregator, be it google reader, bloglines or whatever you may choose to use.

A list of the feeds you subscribe to remains on Toluu and it allows the engines at Toluu to pick better recommendations for you. The match engine shows promise and the idea is simply superb. It fills up the narrow space between you and your feed reader. Now that’s a market noone has tapped. Love that, simply ground breaking…Right now Toluu is in private beta and you can request for a beta invite code by signing up at their site. The best feature is the fact that you don’t have to fill up your profile if you have a twitter id. Auto import of your profile from twitter and if you want even makes a twit every time you add a feed to your profile (great!). Check out my feeds here.

The site design is simplistic and easy to use and navigate, the true mark of the birth of a new success story. Great use of technology, easily one of the most innovative technologies recently…Try it out today.

Or (as always) you could ask me for one

I came across Strands, thanks to Turoczy, as he was giving out invites to the beta version of Strands and my experience with it has been wonderful. Since, Strands is in private beta, I did not have many invites to offer my friends. I wanted to share my experience with others, so the best way was an interview with the Strands team. Part I is with Kalong Wong and Part II is with John Rogers from Strands.

This is part 1 of the Strands interview. Interviewed is Kalong Wong, from the user’s perspective.

Me: What is strands? (your point of view)

Kalong: Strands is a website where you can display your life in the form of notes, blogs, images, websites, videos, etc.- most everything you do online. Your content can show your followers what kind of things you like and what type of person you are.

Me: Content aggregation services are available by the dozen, what sets strands apart?

Kalong: Yes I have dropped by different aggregation sites like SocialThing! and Friendfeed but never signed up. One thing I noticed about Strands that is different from those sites is that we focus on content more than social connections. We are more about discovering new things, finding new websites, places to shop, interesting videos, etc. than staying updated with the latest girlfriend dramas.

Me: Tell me more about the other services which the company offers

Kalong: Strands.com also hosts moneyStrands (in beta, similar to Mint.com), StrandsSocialPlayer (music recommendations via certain cell phones), StrandsBusinessSolutions, MyStrands (music recommendation network) and partyStrands. I work very specific with Strands so I’m refraining to go into detail about the other branches I don’t know very much about.

Me: How does Strands stress on the “social” aspect of Web 2.0?

Kalong: Oh dear lord I’m not even sure what Web 2.0 is! I only took one Computer Science class my whole life, freshman year of college, and completely failed. The only F on my transcript.

Me: For a user, the most important aspect is convenience.

Kalong: Yes, right now since the site is in beta, many of the functions aren’t quite convenient yet and maybe it even takes quite some effort to share things on Strands.com. This should improve considerably by the time we release it to the public. Adding feeds should be much easier.

Me: What would you like to tell the new strands user?

Kalong: Don’t worry too much about finding your friends on here! Use Strands as a way gather your internet activities into a display for others discover and share. Use Strands to discover other people with the same interests and stay updated with the best content.

Kalong: I hope this helps! Sorry I couldn’t answer all of them. Let me know if you need any clarification. Good luck!

Part II of the Interview

Interviewed is John Rogers, Social Media Lead at Strands

Me: What is strands? (your point of view)

John: A life-streaming and discovery site designed to bring together the online services you use, share them with friends, and discover what’s hot among the people you care about.

Me: Content aggregation services are available by the dozen, what sets strands apart?

John: We see aggregation as a commodity, anyone can do it. The real question is what value can be added to the data you aggregate. We want to put some intelligence on top of this data by adding personalized recommendations. The key differentiator here is that our goal is to help people discover new things, and we provide them tools to do that (filters, hot posts, and soon recommendations).

Me: Tell me more about the other services which the company offers

John: Some of our services: The MyStrands Social Player is a music player for mobile devices that lets you discover new music, connect with people, and share your tastes with friends. It has recently received Nokia’s Mobile Rules Award http://blog.strands.com/2008/03/19/mobile-rules-winner/

MoneyStrands, which will be launched soon, aims to help people better manage their personal finances (http://blog.strands.com/2008/04/29/moneystrands-expensr/). Business solutions: we help online retailers use our recommendation technology, so they can in turn help their customers discover the content on their site

Me: How does Strands stress on the “social” aspect of Web 2.0?

John: Users can generate content both on Strands and on other services, and distribute it to the people they care about on Strands with the freedom to share and re-use.

Me: Content aggregation services are the incarnations of information overload. comment.

John: We play in a very noise arena What sets us apart from other players, our recommendation engine, will help deliver content a user likes, and at the same time eliminate some of the noise they don’t. The signal-to-noise ratio is key, and something that is always on our mind.

Me: What would you like to tell the new strands user?

John: Invite your friends (everyone in the private beta is given some invites), and tell us what you think! A service like Strands is much more valuable with friends, and we love hearing from our fans. Listening to our early users is a great source of inspiration for us, and it is fairly regular that we will send a cool Strands t-shirt to a fan just to say “thanks”

The following questions directed only at John

Me: What is strands according to you?

John: Strands is a discovery platform, consisting of aggregation, recommendation, and display engines

Me: When is strands likely to be ready for public release?

John: Soon

Me: Can we expect strands to work along with mystrands,  money strands or other services in the near future?

John: Ideally everything Strands will exist under one roof - one account, one username, one password. — There is a natural fit between our music discovery service MyStrands and our new life-streaming service, and soon they will be closely integrated. But when it comes to integrating social media with personal finance there are some reservations. Understandably some people aren’t comfortable mixing to two, and we wouldn’t want to do anything to add to this. Ultimately, we will listen to our fans and go from there.

Me: During times of high volume, most services go down. How do you plan to combat this?

John: Strands.com has been engineered from the ground up to scale, our #1 goal was to build a scalable design from the get go. Having this as a design  priority and knowing we expect huge #’s of users and items, we have designed for future, and this should help us alleviate some of the issues other services have experienced.

Me: The interface of strands looks great and feels great as well? How did you manage to come up with something like this?

John: Thanks Rohit, glad you like it! We’ve heard lots of great feedback about the interface, and don’t plan on straying far from what we have now. The way I see it, we came to this idea by listening to the experts and designing for the novice. We want to provide all the tools to give a technologist everything they want, but at the same time keep it simple and clean enough for a novice to enjoy the service as well.

Me: How is Strands technology superior to other services?

John: We could tell you but then we would have to kill you No seriously, we have been focusing on developing recommendation technologies for a while… our differentiator is our focus on personalization.