You Can’t Escape the Facebook News Ticker Anymore

The Facebook News Ticker displays updates from Facebook Pages that you have "liked" and activity of your Facebook friends in real time. Going forward, Facebook also plans to display ads and sponsored stories in the ticker alongside regular updates.

The news ticker is integrated with the Facebook Chat window and, until now, the ticker was only visible if your browser width was greater than 1200 pixels. If you were accessing Facebook on, say, a netbook with a small screen, the News Ticker may not be shown to you.

That seems to have changed now. If the width of your desktop screen (or the browser window) isn’t large enough to accommodate the News Ticker, it detaches itself from the Chat window and becomes part of Facebook’s right sidebar.

Why RIM should definitely license BlackBerry 10

Forget the rumors of a RIM sale. As with all public companies, the possibility exists. But it appears that RIM is intent on digging itself out of the hole it dog for itself in the last few years. From what we’ve seen in just the last few weeks, they might be onto something. First it was the image of the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone, and then it was the images of BlackBerry 10 running. Both look pretty sharp indeed, and should convey at least a sense of confidence in RIM’s future. Yet they might not be able to go it alone. RIM could need the help of other big mobile players if they’re going to truly thrive in the new mobile environment.

That looks like a pretty usable smartphone interface. Of course, it’s just a still, and it does look a bit like BlackBerry 7. But given what we know about BlackBerry 10 — after all, it is based on the tablet OS — we could be in for something big. Add to that a number of other features, including a 3D virtual keyboard, and RIM could really knock this one out of the park. There’s just one problem, though.

They need a serious marketing push.

It’s impossible to deny the negative public perception of RIM right now, particularly in the US. The US is a huge and profitable portion of the global cellular market, and if RIM is going to turn around the BlackBerry brand it has to do so in the States. But how are they going to convince people that the BlackBerry is back for real? Having a stunning product is Step 1, and apparently RIM plans to nail down that one. They’ll need some more oomph to make a big impression, though. And that’s where licensing come in.

While RIM certainly wants to sell BlackBerry-branded handsets, seeing as they make money that way, they do stand to benefit from harnessing the power of HTC, Samsung, and other big mobile players. Those manufacturers are basically running with Android and little else. They do have influence, and they do have clout. If they put their reputation behind a new BlackBerry OS, well, it might turn around some people that RIM wouldn’t otherwise reach.

There’s no doubt that RIM loses out some in this equation, since they might be eating into their own handset sales. But remember, RIM does have other divisions. They’ll still make money on these Samsung and HTC handset sales, not only from the license, but also fromBES and BIS connections. That is, their data center services provide income that other similar companies just don’t realize. It might be enough incentive for them to go ahead with the licensing program.

If anything has become clear in the last few weeks, it’s that BlackBerry 10 has some serious potential. We’d heard the hype before, and now we’re starting to see some of the details leak out. I expect to become more impressed as the leaks grow larger. Here’s the thing, though: RIM has to execute here where they did not in the past. As the old passive line goes, mistakes were made. Now it’s time to learn from those mistakes and forge ahead. It’s not an easy battle, not with the current state of mobile in the US. But RIM appears to be positioning itself well for Blackberry 10. Licensing it to other manufacturers could prove an excellent marketing vehicle.

FBI’s Background Investigation on Steve Jobs

The FBI has released its 191 page investigation on Steve Jobs! The file consists of a background investigation that was conducted in 1991 – when Jobs was considered for an appointment to the President’s Expert Council in the Bush I White House, an advisory committee on foreign trade. The file also has records of a bomb threat against Jobs in 1985.

The issue of Steve Jobs’ character has come up on numerous occasions including his biography by Walter Isaacson. For Apple fans Steve’s tendency to be abrasive and aggressive is not something new (probably).

With some other interesting facts, the report also says that there are a considerable number of people that Jobs apparently upset during the years leading up to this FBI investigation.

To create products like the iPhone and iPad, and empire like Apple is not typically done by killing everyone with kindness and constantly differing to the needs and opinions of others.  Jobs was not someone running for sainthood, he was an entrepreneur. If anyone became that popular and successful, one would get his share of the same treatment.

In the document is also mentioned Jobs previous Top Secret security clearance which is his time a Pixar and the work the company did for the NSA (1980s). The clearance was revoked then in 1990.

As is usually the case with FBI investigations, Jobs probably have been asked who should be interviewed; it is interesting who was on the list. It is not clear who these quoted folks are, but if they were among the people Jobs referred the agents to then he did not know his friends very well. Given the number of derogatory comments throughout the report, it seems that Jobs’ friends at the time were not quite so friendly.

The report is available on FBI’s web site, here.

KahelOS 020212 Desktop Edition out now!!!

KahelOS, the Linux distro based on Arch Linux, brings out its desktop edition. It comes with GNOME configured as the default desktop environment beforehand, a GNOME Office productivity suite,the Epiphany web browser and so many similar GNOME apps. KahelOS also maintains a rolling-release model of updating software packages using its parent's repositories like ArchLinux. This distro is in the form of a live DVD including a graphical installation program. So, what does KahelOS 020212 entail???

KahelOS 020212 adds new features to the earlier installer version, specially catering to advanced Linux users with a wish to have the freedom of manual partitioning the system with an added capability to resize to NTFS and Linux partitions.
It is GUI Friendly and an automatic dual-boot-with-windows option is also added for ease.

• The other new features include
• Updated to bluefish-2.2.1-1
• Updated to dia-0.97.2-1
• Updated to evolution-3.2.3-2
• Fixed “Full Name” Issue on the User Information
• Fixed Localization
• Added a community-driven digital distribution service for gamers
• Added broadcom-wl driver

For the full list of changes,see KahelOS 020212 Changelog.

Zorin OS 5.2 Ultimate released!!!

The Zorin OS Team has released Zorin OS 5.2 Ultimate, the flagship version of Zorin operating system specially made for Windows users. This release features the GNOME 2.X Classic environment in place of the Unity shell by Ubuntu. Find out what all the new release features...

Zorin OS 5.2 has a variety of updates to Zorin OS 5 Ultimate which includes -security updates

• upgraded programs
  
• a brand new window border theme
  
• an updated icon theme
  
• an overhauled sound theme that features a fresh, new start-up sound
  
• the zRam patch that improves performance under RAM-heavy workloads

Moreover,you get both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Zorin OS 5.2 Ultimate for a nominal cost of €10 for a download and €15 for a DVD .
Know more on Zorin OS 5.2 Ultimate

Sabayon Linux 8 is here...

Sabayon Linux, the Gentoo-based distro provides the user with an easy-to-use workspace with an attractive look, perfect hardware detection and numerous updated software packages brings out its latest version yet.It is available featuring several desktops like KDE, GNOME, LXDE, Xfce and Enlightenment.

Sabayon Linux 8 features

• Faster, cleaner and more evolved than any other rolling distro out
• Up-to-date system  while maintaining full Gentoo Portage compatibility within minutea
• Performance focussed with GCC 4.6 with Graphite Loop Transformation infrastructure and Link Time Optimizations enabled
• Upadted to Linux Kernel 3.2
• Offers additional Server-oriented Linux kernels like OpenVZ, Vserver, Generic Server
• Natively supports the btrfs filesystem besides ext4, aufs, and others

Read the complete Sabayon 8 Changelog..

The Subscriber Count of your YouTube Channel Could Go Down

Got a video channel on YouTube? You might see a drop in the subscriber count of your YouTube channel in the coming days.
Google is doing a clean-up and they’ll remove all closed and inactive YouTube accounts from the total subscriber counts . That is, if ‘zombie’ accounts have been following you on YouTube, they won’t be counted as subscribers anymore.
The YouTube team says that once the subscribe count numbers are adjusted, YouTube channel owners can expect an average drop of 4% or less. You might see a higher drop in subscriber numbers if your YouTube channel has been around for a longer period of time because you’ll have relatively more ‘closed’ accounts in your subscriber list.
To learn more about your YouTube subscribers, go to youtube.com/analytics and check the “Subscribers” link under Engagement Reports. It shows your subscriber count by geography, by date and how your various video uploads have affected, positively or negatively, your YouTube growth.

Microsoft Personal Data Dashboard lets you decide how Microsoft uses your data

 

Google has its Google Dashboard, which offers a view into the data associated with your Google Account and lets you change your Google Privacy Settings. Though not so well-known and exhaustive, Microsoft too offers a Personal Data Dashboard that lets you view and manage some of your online personal information and gives you options to opt out where possible.

Microsoft Personal Data Dashboard

The My Profile tab in the Microsoft Personal Data Dashboard, lists down personal information about yourself, which you, yourself may have filled in while creating a Live account. If you wish you an edit and update your details here.

The My Data tab, lists your Interests, Bing searches and Microsoft newsletters which you may have subscribed too. Based on your Interests, Microsoft Advertising delivers targeted advertising to you. You can also add, delete or confirm the mentioned topics. The Bing search section lists your search keywords and the search results you clicked while signed into Bing. From the Newsletters tab, you can unsubscribe from any newsletter or subscription in this view by hovering over the newsletter and clicking unsubscribe. A nice way to centrally manage all your Microsoft newsletters.

Under the My Choices tab, you can choose to opt-out of the personalized advertising experience. You can choose to not receive personalized ads on websites that use the Microsoft Advertising Platform, by not allowing it to use your information like Bing Searches, Interests and Profile. In the Microsoft Email Communications section, you can opt out of receiving email promotions or disallow sharing of your data with Microsoft Partners.

Microsoft is working on adding more services to this Personal Data Dashboard and given the heightened awareness of privacy issues now, among users, we hope that it will make the dashboard complete in all respects and very soon too!

Opt out of Microsoft Advertising

Many of Microsoft’s  Websites and online services are supported by Microsoft Advertising. To deliver targeted ads, Microsoft places a persistent cookie on your computer. Using this persistent cookie, Microsoft identifies you and delivers ads accordingly. Apart from delivering relevant ads, this information is also used to try to ensure that you do not see the same advertisements over and over again.

But if you want, you may opt-out of receiving targeted ads from Microsoft Advertising by visiting its opt-out page too. This page not only lets you opt out on a particular computer or browser but also from any computer even after you have signed in to Windows Live.

You will also see the details of the cookie stored on your computer. Pretty transparent, in my opinion!

Incidentally, if you want to opt out from receiving interest-based advertising you can do so here. On this page, you can also find out which participating companies have currently enabled customized ads for your browser.

Opt out and maintain your privacy when using Google Services

Google’s change in its Privacy terms has been a cause of concern for many. Google has also responded to the wide-spread out-cry about this with the suggestion that you not log in to you Google account, if you have privacy concerns:

You don’t need to log in to use many of our services, including Search, Maps and YouTube. If you are logged in, you can still edit or turn off your Search history, switch Gmail chat to “off the record,” control the way Google tailors ads to your interests, use Incognito mode on Chrome, or use any of the other privacy tools we offer, says Google. You can use as much or as little of Google as you want. For example, you can have a Google Account and choose to use Gmail, but not use Google+. Or you could keep your data separate with different accounts, for example, one for YouTube and another for Gmail.

Prevent Google from tracking your activities

While you can always use a browser like Browzar to surf the web privately, there are also a few steps you can take, if you want to continue using your existing browsers and yet stay private, as far as is possible. To do so, you will have to log in to your Google account and change a few settings.

Turn off search personalization

Google tries to personalize your search results based on your past searches on Google, using Cookies. This search history personalization includes searches you’ve done and the links you’ve clicked on. If you have clicked links of a particular site more often, it may show you links from that site more often.

To turn off search personalization, visit this page which lets you pause and remove your Web History from your Google account. Here you will also see a list of all your earlier searches.

If you click on Pause, your web tracking will be paused, but your web history will not be erased. So check the check-box and click on Remove all Web History.

Confirm with an OK. This will Pause and remove your web history.

Turn off personal results

You can also you turn off personal results. This will also disable other personalization features. You will then be however unable to search across content shared by your friends. If this does not matter much to you, you might want to turn it off. To do so, open your Search Settings.

In the “Search plus Your World” section, select “Do not use personal results.” Click Save.

Searches which are part of the Search plus Your World, like results from Google+ shared by your friends, Picasa albums, Google products, Search History, will no longer appear in your search results.

Opt out of ad personalization

Google actually crawls your email to serve targeted advertising to you, depending on what you write in your mail. You can opt-out of ad personalization using Google Ads preferences page. Visit this page to do so. Do note that you have to opt out of two types of ads.

Opt out of Ads on Search and Gmail:

Opt out of Ads on the web:

After opting out, you’ll still see relevant ads, but Google won’t use additional information to personalize those ads on Google search and Gmail. 

Opt out of Gmail Chat History

Google stores all your chat logs. But you can opt of Gmail chat history. Such chats that have been taken off the record aren’t stored in your Gmail chat history, or in the Gmail chat history of your contact.

To take a chat off the record in Gmail and iGoogle, and prevent Google from saving their logs, click the Options link in the bottom of the chat window and select Go off the record.

Opt out of Google Analytics

Many websites including this one uses Google Analytics to track web traffic and related statistics. But if you wish, you can opt out of websites logging your visits. For this you can use the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on released by Google.

This plug-in works on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari. The add-on communicates with the Google Analytics Java Script to indicate that information about the website visit should not be sent to Google Analytics.

Opt out of YouTube

You can also opt of Google tracking your YouTube video searches, targeted advertising and viewing patterns. To do so, log in to your YouTube account and click on the Videos tab. Next click on History and select the check-box and click on Clear all viewing history.

Next click on Search History. Here, select Pause History. You can also select the check-box and click on Clear all search history.

You can also click on your Settings and click on Privacy.

Next un-check the Please use my account to provide me with relevant advertising check box and click on Save Changes. This will prevent Google from tracking you and providing you with relevant advertising.

If you need to reverse any of the changes made in your Google account anytime, you can do so, by opting back into the feature/s.

You can use Internet Explorer in inPrivate mode, Chrome in Incognito, etc, to avoid your browser saving Cookies and browsing history. In any case, you could also maybe make a habit of clearing  your Cookies more often, especially before using Google.

I am sure there may be more settings where you could opt-out to try and maintain your privacy, while using Google services. If you do know of any more, please do share them here for the benefit of others.

Incidentally, you may also want to check out Microsoft Persornal Data Dashboard, which lets you decide how Microsoft uses your data.

Facebook IPO filing expected within weeks, could reach $100B valuation

Facebook is making plans to file papers for an initial public offering as early as next week with a valuation that is expected to range between $75 and $100 billion, a new report claims.

After putting off an IPO for years, the world's largest social networking website is nearly ready to submit its papers, people familiar with the matter revealed to The Wall Street Journal. The deal will likely raise as much as $10 billion dollars for the company, sources added.

Facebook is reportedly close to picking investment bank Morgan Stanley to arrange the deal as the "lead-left," the title reserved for the bank that takes the lead in a financial transaction, such as an IPO. That would come as a blow to Goldman Sachs, which had originally been favored for the role. Sources did say, however, that Goldman would likely play a significant role alongside its rival.

According to the report's sources, Facebook may file documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission as soon as next Wednesday, though they noted that company executives may also wait to file until a few weeks later.

The IPO is expected to take place between April and June. If Facebook does manage to raise $10 billion on the deal, that would give it the fourth-largest IPO for a U.S. company, behind Visa, General Motors and AT&T Wireless. The company would also supplant Google as the biggest U.S. internet offering. The search giant, which has come into increasing competition against Facebook, raised $1.9 billion when it went public in 2004.

With a $100 billion valuation, Facebook would be worth almost one-fourth of Apple's current market capitalization of $417 billion. By comparison, Google was worth $188 billion as of the close of market on Friday.

Facebook is believed to have managed $3.8 billion in revenue last year, according to research firm eMarketer. While the company's revenues might not yet reflect those of a $100 billion company, investors are likely to place a high value on the fact that the website has become a household name with its more than 800 million users, 500 million of which visit the site daily.

Tipsters said Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg, who was coached by late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, put off an IPO because of concern that it would adversely affect the company's culture. A former Facebook employee revealed last year that Zuckerberg had modeled his "aggressive" early management style after Jobs.

Facebook eventually ran up against a government regulation that would require the company to publicly disclose its financial information once it had more than 500 shareholders. As such, Zuckerberg reportedly decided that an IPO was a better option than releasing financial information while remaining private.

The IPO will take place within a difficult economic climate, but analysts expect it to attract plenty of interest.

"The excitement around Facebook is still enormous," Max Wolff, an analyst at GreenCrest Capital who specializes in researching companies going public, told the Journal.

Peter Falvey, co-head of the technology banking group at Morgan Keegan & Co., admitted that the recent IPO environment "hasn't been particularly strong," but he noted that, with "the recent stock market strength and maybe some green shoots in the economy, there could be a fortuitous window for Facebook."

Apple and Facebook have maintained a delicate friendship in recent years. Though a Facebook app was one of the first applications on the App Store when it launched in 2008, an official iPad version didn't arrive until a year and a half after Apple released its touchscreen tablet. Jobs said in 2010 that Facebook had demanded "onerous terms" for compatibility with Apple's Ping social music discovery service. According to one report, talks between the two companies went on for 18 months before eventually breaking down.

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What Are SOPA and PIPA And Why All The Fuss?

Knowing that Wikipedia would go dark for 24 hours in protest to SOPA and PIPA, I took the precaution of printing it out last night. Just kidding. Wikipedia is huge. I wanted to say just how big it is, but when I went to Googleto look up “size of Wikipedia,” most of the relevant results directed me to articles on Wikipedia which, of course, is dark for the day.

Google didn’t go dark but it did black out its logo and has a link to “Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web!” with a link to an online petition.

What are SOPA and PIPA and why are people upset?

This is all because of two pieces of legislation: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and its Senate companion bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA).  The purpose of these bills is to make it harder for sites — especially those located outside the United States — to sell or distribute pirated copyrighted material such as movies and music as well as physical goods such as counterfeit purses and watches. Even most of SOPA and PIPA’s strongest opponents applaud the intentions of the legislation while deploring what it might actually accomplish.

Although its sponsors have said that they would amend the bill, as currently written, SOPA would enable the U.S. Attorney General to seek a court order to require “a service provider (to) take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site.” Until this weekend, one of the ways to do that would have been to cut the DNS (domain name server) records that point to the site, but that provision is likely to be removed after the Obama administration weighed in on the issue over the weekend, saying “Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small.” The administration also echoed concerns raised by a number of security experts, including some anti-malware companies that the bill could disrupt the underlying architecture of the Internet.

The White House statement coincided with sponsors agreeing to remove the DNS blocking provisions. Still, the bill could require search engines like Google to delete any links to the sites.

These are not partisan bills. SOPA and PIPA have proponents and opponents on both sides of the aisle.

The bill would require sites to refrain from linking to any sites “dedicated to the theft of U.S. property.” It would also prevent companies from placing on the sites and block payment companies like Visa, Mastercard and Paypal from transmitting funds to the site. For more, see this blog post on Reddit.

The problem with this is that the entire site would be affected, not just that portion that is promoting the distribution of illegal material. It would be a bit like requiring the manager of a flea market to shut down the entire market because some of the merchants were selling counterfeit goods.

The bill would also cut off funding by prohibiting payment services from cooperating with infringing sites.

Opponents say it would create an “internet blacklist.”

As CBSNews.com said in its analysis, there are existing laws, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) that require operators to remove specific infringing content. SOPA and PIPA would go after entire domains. Also see Declan McCullagh’s How SOPA would affect you:FAQ on CNET News.

Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley

These bills have pitted the entertainment industry against the technology industry. “Hollywood” has a legitimate interest in protecting its intellectual property. Not only are profits at stake but so are jobs. Thousands of Americans make their living by dreaming up content and selling it to the world and piracy does in fact take money out of their pockets.  Silicon Valley has invested billions in creating companies that freely distribute information. While Google and every other Silicon Valley company must respect copyrights, they thrive on helping people find what they want. If, suddenly, every web site that had links to other sites had to worry that they could be in violation of the law by linking to a “banned” site, it could put undo pressure on these companies. There is also worry that SOPA and PIPA could be abused and lead to censorship for purposes other than intellectual property protection.

Are the protests having any effect?

Shutting down Wikipedia for a day or blacking out the Google logo won’t stop these bills in their tracks, but they have raised an enormous amount of awareness about the issue. As a result, it is likely that these bills will continue to be amended and, though they may pass in some fashion, they are likely to be quite different than they were when first proposed.

iPhone 4S Coming to 22 More Countries on January 13

Apple has announced that more of our international friends will be receiving access to the iPhone 4S on January 13th. The wave of the release will be involving 22 new countries, the largest market being China. Yes, our friends in China will finally have access to the iPhone 4S.

Apple’s press release notes that after this latest rollout, the iPhone 4S will be available in over 90 countries, which they claim is their fastest launch ever.

As many of you know, China Unicom has been the sole provider for the iPhone in China, and there are no indications that this will change with the introduction of the iPhone 4S in that market.

For inquiring minds, the complete list of countries affected by this rollout include: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, China, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Grenada, Guam, Guinea Conakry, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, St. Vincent and The Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos and Uganda. Just in case you were wondering.

The speed in which Apple is rolling out the iPhone 4S indicates several things to me. First, Apple is smoothing out the kinks in their machine, and has the iPhone product rollout almost down to a science. Secondly, Apple is feeling market pressures, and feels the need to get the iPhone out as soon as possible. Plus, that’s just money on the table if they were to wait.

Indians downloaded 10 million apps in 7 days

As per a recent report by Flurry, 1 billion apps were downloaded globally between Dec 25 – Dec 31, 2011 and Indians downloaded 10 million apps in 7 days.

Over the holiday “power week,” Flurry estimates that over 20 million iOS and Android devices were activated, and 1.2 billion applications were downloaded.  Compared to the worldwide total active installed base of 246 million, this was 41%.  China, the world’s second largest app market, which has roughly one-third of the U.S. installed base saw only one-fifth of the relative downloads.  It’s important to note that the celebration of Christmas as a holiday impacted download performance.  While the United States widely celebrates Christmas,  China is largely non-religious, with over 60% of the population considering themselves agnostic or atheist.

Western countries (US accounted for 42% share) dominated the list (but obvious), but China being #2 comes as a huge surprise.

What’s your take on the report (our first impression: extrapolated)? Convinced about the 10 million download numbers?

Aside, it’s important to note that 26% Downloaded Apps Are Used Only Once, that is – you still need to find a mojo for your app.]

* We have asked Flurry for more insights on India data and will update the post once we hear from them.

The Number of Active Google TV Users is..

There were two important developments last year that could have had a positive impact on the sales of Google TV.

First, Logitech dropped the price of their Google TV Revue box from $249 to $99 making the device much more affordable and second, the Honeycomb upgrade was rolled out that brought some popular Android Apps to your Google TV.

Logitech or Google aren’t saying how many Google TV units have they sold so far but the Android Market does offer some hints in that direction. The logic is simple.

Android Apps are now available on Google TV and some of these apps - like The Big Picture, Plex and Redux – have been developed exclusively for the Honeycomb version of Google TV. If you look at the install base of these apps (the numbers are available in the Android Market), you can get a rough idea of how popular Google TV really is?

A simple Google search - site:market.android.com intitle:google tv - reveals most of the Google TV specific apps that are currently available in the Android Market.

Some Google TV apps - like Twitter, Photos, Pandora and Napster - are factory-installed and thus there install numbers could be about the same as the total number of Google TV units that have been shipped (considering the response to Google TV, these install figures of 500k-1m are unbelievable though). Also, if you look at the 30-day install history of these apps, it is obvious that Google TV wasn’t a hit during the recent holiday season.

The other set of Google TV apps - like CNN Money, All Recipes or The Big Picture - are specific to Android 3.1 and have an installed base between 10k – 50k. This is purely unscientific but since people who have upgraded to Honeycomb are very likely to try at least one of these popular apps on their TV, my guess is the total number of active Google TV users would also be in the same 10k - 50k range.

For reference, the following chart has a big list of Android apps that are available for Google TV, their total install base and the 30-day install activity in the Android Market.

The101 Most Use full WEBSITES of 2011

Useful Websites Worth a Bookmark!

The sites mentioned here, well most of them, solve at least one problem really well and they all have simple web addresses (URLs) that you can easily learn by heart thus saving you a trip to Google.

You can also download this list as a PDF document for printing or offline reading.

01. screenr.com – record movies of your desktop and send them straight to YouTube.
02. bounceapp.com – for capturing full length screenshots of web pages.
03. goo.gl – shorten long URLs and convert URLs into QR codes.
04. untiny.me – find the original URLs that's hiding behind a short URLs.
05. qClock – find the local time of a city using a Google Map.
06. copypastecharacter.com – copy special characters that aren't on your keyboard.
07. postpost.com – a better search engine for twitter.
08. lovelycharts.com – create flowcharts, network diagrams, sitemaps, etc.
09. iconfinder.com – the best place to find icons of all sizes.
10. office.com – download templates, clipart and images for your Office documents.
11. followupthen.com – the easiest way to setup email reminders.
12. jotti.org – scan any suspicious file or email attachment for viruses.
13. wolframalpha.com – gets answers directly without searching.
14. printwhatyoulike.com – print web pages without the clutter.
15. joliprint.com – reformats news articles and blog content as a newspaper.
16. ctrql.org – a search engine for RSS feeds.
17. e.ggtimer.com – a simple online timer for your daily needs.
18. coralcdn.org – if a site is down due to heavy traffic, try accessing it through coral CDN.
19. random.org – pick random numbers, flip coins, and more.
20. pdfescape.com – lets you can quickly edit PDFs in the browser itself.
21. viewer.zoho.com – Preview PDFs and Presentations directly in the browser.
22. tubemogul.com – simultaneously upload videos to YouTube and other video sites.
23. dabbleboard.com – your virtual whiteboard.
24. scr.im – share you email address online without worrying about spam.
25. spypig.com – now get read receipts for your email.
26. sizeasy.com – visualize and compare the size of any product.
27. myfonts.com/WhatTheFont – quickly determine the font name from an image.
28. google.com/webfonts – a good collection of open source fonts.
29. regex.info – find data hidden in your photographs – see more EXIF tools.
30. livestream.com – broadcast events live over the web, including your desktop screen.
31. iwantmyname.com – helps you search domains across all TLDs.
32. homestyler.com – design from scratch or re-model your home in 3d.
33. join.me – share you screen with anyone over the web.
34. onlineocr.net – recognize text from scanned PDFs - see other OCR tools.
35. flightstats.com - Track flight status at airports worldwide.
36. wetransfer.com – for sharing really big files online.
37. pastebin.com – a temporary online clipboard for your text and code snippets.
38. polishmywriting.com – check your writing for spelling or grammatical errors.
39. marker.to – easily highlight the important parts of a web page for sharing.
40. typewith.me – work on the same document with multiple people.
41. whichdateworks.com – planning an event? find a date that works for all.
42. everytimezone.com – a less confusing view of the world time zones.
43. gtmetrix.com – the perfect tool for measuring your site performance online.
44. noteflight.com – print music sheets, write your own music online .
45. imo.im - chat with your buddies on Skype, Facebook, Google Talk, etc. from one place.
46. translate.google.com – translate web pages, PDFs and Office documents.
47. kleki.com – create paintings and sketches with a wide variety of brushes.
48. similarsites.com – discover new sites that are similar to what you like already.
49. wordle.net – quick summarize long pieces of text with tag clouds.
50. bubbl.us – create mind-maps, brainstorm ideas in the browser.
51. kuler.adobe.com – get color ideas, also extract colors from photographs.
52. liveshare.com – share your photos in an album instantly.
53. lmgtfy.com – when your friends are too lazy to use Google on their own.
54. midomi.com – when you need to find the name of a song.
55. bing.com/images – automatically find perfectly-sized wallpapers for mobiles.
56. faxzero.com – send an online fax for free – see more fax services.
57. feedmyinbox.com – get RSS feeds as an email newsletter.
58. ge.tt – quickly send a file to someone, they can even preview it before downloading.
59. pipebytes.com – transfer files of any size without uploading to a third-party server.
60. tinychat.com – setup a private chat room in micro-seconds.
61. privnote.com – create text notes that will self-destruct after being read.
62. boxoh.com – track the status of any shipment on Google Maps – alternative.
63. chipin.com – when you need to raise funds online for an event or a cause.
64. downforeveryoneorjustme.com – find if your favorite website is offline or not?
65. ewhois.com – find the other websites of a person with reverse Analytics lookup.
66. whoishostingthis.com – find the web host of any website.
67. google.com/history – found something on Google but can't remember it now?
68. aviary.com/myna – an online audio editor that lets record, and remix audio clips online.
69. disposablewebpage.com – create a temporary web page that self-destruct.
70. urbandictionary.com – find definitions of slangs and informal words.
71. seatguru.com – consult this site before choosing a seat for your next flight.
72. sxc.hu – download stock images absolutely free.
73. zoom.it – view very high-resolution images in your browser without scrolling.
74. scribblemaps.com – create custom Google Maps easily.
75. alertful.com – quickly setup email reminders for important events.
76. encrypted.google.com – prevent your ISP and boss from reading your search queries.
77. formspring.me – you can ask or answer personal questions here.
78. sumopaint.com – an excellent layer-based online image editor.
79. snopes.com – find if that email offer you received is real or just another scam.
80. typingweb.com – master touch-typing with these practice sessions.
81. mailvu.com – send video emails to anyone using your web cam.
82. timerime.com – create timelines with audio, video and images.
83. stupeflix.com – make a movie out of your images, audio and video clips.
84. safeweb.norton.com – check the trust level of any website.
85. teuxdeux.com – a beautiful to-do app that looks like your paper dairy.
86. deadurl.com – you'll need this when your bookmarked web pages are deleted.
87. minutes.io – quickly capture effective notes during meetings.
88. youtube.com/leanback – Watch YouTube channels in TV mode.
89. youtube.com/disco – quickly create a video playlist of your favorite artist.
90. talltweets.com – Send tweets longer than 140 characters.
91. pancake.io – create a free and simple website using your Dropbox account.
92. builtwith.com – find the technology stack of any website.
93. woorank.com – research a website from the SEO perspective.
94. mixlr.com – broadcast live audio over the web.
95. radbox.me – bookmark online videos and watch them later .
96. tagmydoc.com – add QR codes to your documents and presentations .
97. notes.io – the easiest way to write short text notes in the browser.
98. ctrlq.org/html-mail – send rich-text mails to anyone, anonymously.
99. fiverr.com – hire people to do little things for $5.
100. otixo.com – easily manage your online files on Dropbox, Google Docs, etc.
101. ifttt.com – create a connection between all your online accounts.