Bharath's Tech Blog

Creating themes for mobile phones

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:18:00 +0000

Many of us want to create our own themes (skins) for our mobile phones. Themes are better than using wallpaper and screensaver for mobile phones,because themes allow a great extent of customization. There are several software applications available for creating themes separately for Nokia, Sony ericsson, Samsung,LG etc.These creators are usually bulky and require to be installed in the system.
So far, the only free and best theme creator website is ownskin.com
I have been personally using this website for many years and their online theme creator works perfectly for almost every mobile phone on the market.
The only downside is that they require you to create a free account, and that too is required so that you can edit/download your theme later.

Supported models:

Acer N30 N50
Anex TEKSP230
Asus A636 MyPal A600 MyPal A620 MyPal A639 MyPal A716 P505 P525 P535
Audiovox 2032SP 5600 PDA1032C PPC 4100 PPC 5050 PPC 6600 PPC 6601 PPC 6700
Cingular 2125 3125 8125 8525
Dopod 515 557w 586w 818Pro 838Pro C800 D600 D810 M700 P800W
HP Voice Messenger
HTC MTeoR P3600 P3600i P6300 S310 S620 S710 S720 Touch TyTN TyTN II
i-mate Smartflip Smartphone Smartphone2 SP3 SP3i SP5 SP5m SPL
Lenovo P930
LG KS10
Mio 8380
Motorola i930 MPx200 MPx220 Q Q 9h
Nokia1680 classic 2323 classic 2330 classic 2600 classic 2610 2626 2630 2660 2680 slide 2760 2865 2865i 3109 Classic 3110 Classic 3120 classic 3155 3220 3230 3250 3500 Classic 3555 3600 slide 3610 fold 5000 5070 5130 XpressMusic 5140 5140i 5200 5220 XpressMusic 5300 5310 XpressMusic 5320 XpressMusic 5500 5610 XpressMusic 5700 XpressMusic 6020 6021 6030 6060 6070 6080 6085 6086 6101 6102 6110 Navigator 6111 6120 Classic 6121 Classic 6124 classic 6125 6126 6131 6131 NFC 6133 6136 6151 6165 6170 6210 Navigator 6212 classic 6220 classic 6230i 6233 6234 6260 6263 6267 6270 6275 6275i 6280 6282 6288 6290 6300 6300i 6500 Classic 6500 Slide 6555 6600 6600 fold 6600 slide 6620 6630 6670 6680 6681 6682 7070 Prism 7100 Supernova 7210 Supernova 7260 7270 7310 Supernova 7360 7370 7373 7390 7500 Prism 7510 Supernova 7610 7610 Supernova 7900 Prism 8600 Luna 8800 8800 Carbon Arte 8801 E50 E51 E60 E61 E61i E62 E65 E66 E70 E71 N70 N71 N72 N73 N75 N76 N77 N78 N79 N80 N81 N81 8GB N82 N85 N90 N91 N91 8GB N92 N93 N93i N95 N95 8GB N95-3NAM N96 N96-3
O2 Xda Cosmo Xda IQ Xda Phone Xphone Xphone II
Orange MPx200 SPV SPV C500 SPV C550 SPV C600 SPV E100 SPV E200
Palm Treo 750
Panasonic X700
PanTech PN-820
Qtek 7070 8010 8020 8060 8080 8100 8300 8310 8500
Sagem myS-7
Samsung Blackjack i600 SGH-D720 SGH-D730 SGH-i300 SGH-i320 SGH-i400 SGH-i450 SG H-i520 SGH-i550 SGH-i560 SGH-Z600
Sierra Wireless Voq
Sony Ericsson C702 C902 F500 G502 G700 G900 J200 J300 K300 K310 K500 K508 K510 K530 K550 K600 K610 K618 K660 K700 K750 K770 K790 K790 old K800 K800 old K810 K850 M600 P1 P990 R300 R306 S500 S700 S710 T303 T610 T616 T618 T628 T630 T637 T650 V640 W200 W300 W350 W380 W550 W580 W600 W610 W660 W700 W710 W760 W800 W810 W850 W880 W890 W900 W910 W950 W960 W980 Z1010 Z250 Z310 Z320 Z530 Z550 Z555 Z600 Z608 Z610 Z710 Z750 Z770 Z780
T-Mobile Dash SDA SDA (US) SDA Music
PocketPC 240x320
Smartphone 176x220 240x320 320x240

Convert and download Youtube Videos

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 21:58:00 +0000

There are sites that offer to provide downloadable video links for Youtube videos, but their problem is that Youtube videos are downloaded in FLV format and its not playable by usual media players and require FLV players. Not to mention that FLV format is not playable on DVD players, mobile phones etc.

So, the best option is to convert Youtube videos to our preferred formats before downloading them.
Here are two sites that are tested and found to be working perfectly.

http://www.convertyoutube.com/ (best choice, video quality is best)

http://all2convert.com/index.html
Also check out how to view Youtube videos in higher quality.

Update: www.vixy.net is first on Google.

Disabling UAC prompts in Vista

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:51:00 +0000

Most of the vista users complain about the confirmation prompts like "Windows need your permission to continue" or "Are you sure you want to do that"?. Such prompts are not just to annoy Vista users, they are in place to prevent any system process from performing any malicious activity, like preventing viruses.
Anyway, most users would like to turn off UAC, sacrificing security for ease of use.
This is the procedure to disable or turn off UAC in Vista.

Method 1 :Using control panel
1.Open Control Panel.
2.Under User Account and Family settings click on the "Add or remove user account".
3.Click on one of the user accounts.
4.Under the user account click on the "Go to the main User Account page" link.
5.Under "Make changes to your user account" click on the "Change security settings" link.
6.In the "Turn on User Account Control (UAC) to make your computer more secure" click to unselect the "Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer". Click on the Ok button.
7.You will be prompted to reboot your computer. Do so when ready.
(In order to re-enable UAC just select the above checkbox and reboot.)

Method 2: Using MSCONFIG
1.Launch MSCONFIG by from the Run menu.
2.Click on the Tools tab. Scroll down till you find "Disable UAP" (this should probably change to UAC in next Vista beta builds and in the RTM version). Click on that line.
3.Press the Launch button.
4.A CMD window will open. When the command is done, you can close the window.
5.Close MSCONFIG. You need to reboot the computer for changes to apply.
(You can re-enable UAC by selecting the "Enable UAP" line and then clicking on the Launch button.)

How to download torrents

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:04:00 +0000

Downloading using Torrents:
Step 1: Get the torrent file , this is the file with the .torrent extension and it contains information about where the files are on the torrent network. (for ex, torrentz.com is a worldwide tracker, tamiltorrents.net is a website for tamil stuff)
Step 2: Get a torrent client ( Bitspirit is one nice client)
Step 3: Open the .torrent file using BitSpirit software, it will ask where to save the file, specify the location and the downloading will start.
Note:
Always make sure that a torrent has enough seeders before starting a download (atleast 1).

Technical part:
BitTorrent is a protocol developed by Bran Cohem in April 2001.
In a torrent network, files are not stored on a central server, rather, files are stored with clients and a tracking server holds the information about where the files are on the network and the tracker coordinates the transfer of files between the peers.
Its architecture is as follows,

Data flow -> Actual file to be downloaded.
Index flow -> Flow of index details, ie, where the files are.

Setup your own PHP and MySQL web server in minutes

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:47:00 +0000

Many applications in languages like PHP and frameworks like AJAX require the use of a local webserver to test and debug applications.
IIS can be used in Windows, but, PHP and mySQL needs to be installed separately for IIS.
As an alternative, WampServer can be used.

WAMP = Web server + PHP + mySQL
Wamp can be downloaded from here
WAMP is a one click install web server, just install the software and it will start to run in system tray, click on it and select "Put online".
Your website / web application needs to be placed in "C:\wamp\www" folder, if "C" is your system drive.
Your webserver can be accessed at this location, http://localhost/ or http://127.0.0.1
Make sure to allow firewall exceptions in order for the server to work.

View Youtube videos in high clarity (HD)

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 08:41:00 +0000

While viewing Youtube videos on Youtube website, your url looks like this,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJkRilZdL14

Just append &fmt=18 to the url and press enter.
Now the url will become like this,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJkRilZdL14&fmt=18

The video will load in high clarity, will take more time to load, but clarity will be very good.

BTW, the above link goes to pulsar mania video.

Play warcraft 3 online with friends

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:11:00 +0000

Warcraft 3 can be played online as if playing on a LAN without getting into battlenet.
Here is the procedure to play warcraft 3 online, without using battlenet.

(Note that this procedure is for warcraft: Frozen throne.It was not tested with warcraft alone, but it should work.)

1.Install Warcraft 3

2.Install Warcraft : Frozen Throne

3.If you do not have version 1.21, download version update patch from here
(version details can be found at the right bottom of game menu )

4.Download and install GG-Game client from here

5. Sign up at GG-Game by clicking here
Make sure that any firewall is disabled (or allow exceptions for client as well as game)

6. Start GG client and use the username/password you used to signup and login.

7.Click on "Settings" button on top right and select "War3 TFT" and enter the path of the warcraft frozen throne game executable and "OK" it.

Screenshot:

8. Select War3 TFT on the "LAN Games" left pane and goto to your desired room (like yahoo chat room), you can play only with the people inside the room, so, if you plan to play with your friends, inform them to come to the room you wish to play (Double click a room to enter into it).
Screenshot:

9. After entering a game, click on "Start Game" and if any message appears, press "OK"(sometimes).Your game will start.

10. In the game menu, goto "Local Area Network", create a game, and everyone in that chat room can join your game, or you can join in their game.

11. Enjoy the game !

In case of any doubts, leave a comment with your email address, or use this form.
If you encounter any problems in this procedure, use the above link to get support.

Comments are welcome.( anyone willing to play w3 with the author can contact here)

More maps can be found at the GG-game forum and this is a must play map.

Digg vs Reddit : Traffic comparison

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:51:00 +0000

These numbers speak for themselves!

Maglev train in China

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:12:00 +0000

It is interesting to note that the chinese already have a commercial magnetic levitation train in operation, that too from Jan 1, 2004 !

Shanghai Maglev train line construction began in March, 2001, and public service commenced on January 1, 2004. The train was made in Germany with German technology.

The line is operated by Shanghai Maglev Transportation Development Co., Ltd.
The train can reach 350 km/h in 2 minutes, with a maximum speed in normal operation of 431 km/h .
The Shanghai Transrapid project took 1.33 billion US dollars and 2.5 years to complete the 30.5 km track.

The train takes 7 minutes and 20 seconds to complete the journey, and its top operational speed is 431 kilometers per hour.
The train, which consists of 9 compartments, is capable of carrying 959 passengers.

How Magnetic levitation works,

- Opposite poles on magnets keep train above track

- Train is propelled by electro-magnetic system in the sides of the "guideway" instead of onboard engine

Photos of Shangai Maglev Train,

Shanghai's Maglev Train displays the current speed of the train in every compartment.

And, has its own crew of attendants as in Airliners.

This train is a symbol of proudness for the chinese people, indeed!

Review of Lenovo Y500 series 47Q laptop

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:27:00 +0000

Just bought a Lenovo Y500 series 47Q laptop last week, it costs about57,000INR in Chennai, India.
Configuration is as follows,
Centrino core 2 duo,Intel Mother board,
15 inches widescreen,2GB DDR2 RAM,
128 MB nvidia graphics card, 160GB SATA HDD,
dvdwriter,card reader,dolby speakers,1.3MP webcam,
Tv tuner card with remote, Bluetooth, Wifi and more.

Its a superb model and i would recommend it to anyone looking to buya laptop.It has integrated face verification system that can even lock the system if you are away from your lap for a predefined period oftime,and as well as verification at login.It comes with vista home basic, vista home premium could have been better.

What is Smart Pricing on Adsense?

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 22:02:00 +0000

Google's smart pricing feature automatically adjusts the cost of a keyword-targeted content click. So if our data shows that a click from a content page is less likely to turn into actionable business results - such as online sales, registrations, phone calls, or newsletter signups - we reduce the price you pay for that click.

Some info about smart pricing,

Smart pricing affects an entire account. It is not on a per page or per site basis.
One poorly converting site can result in smart pricing impacting an entire account, even sites completely unrelated to the poorly converting one.
Smart pricing is evaluated each week. So removing ads from sites you suspect are converting poorly could result in seeing an adjustment to a higher smart pricing percent in as little as a week.
Smart pricing is tracked with a 30 day cookie, so you could be rewarded for new conversions that saw the initial click from your site up to 29 days earlier.
Image ads are also affected by smart pricing.
With smart pricing, an advertiser could end up paying less than their minimum bid, which would theoretically include the minimum bid price available, meaning publishers earn less for even the minimum valued clicks.
Conversions for smart pricing publisher accounts are tracked by those advertisers who have opted into "AdWords Conversion Tracking"

And, here is what Google says,

1. Many factors determine the price of an ad
2. Clickthrough rate doesn't affect advertiser return on investment (ROI)
3. Google doesn't make money from 'smart pricing'
4. Remember the old chestnut: "Content is King"
This is found on Adsense blog here

Thoughtful comments:

Some times you need special permission from a webmaster to access the chat software available on some website. You can also download software for chatting from various sites freely. Along with the latest wireless router you can use network management software to provide efficient wireless Internet facility to people. You can also get help from the verizon wireless.

Click Fraud Index 2007

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:45:00 +0000

Click fraud rate, that is, number of fraud clicks for every hundred clicks counted.
From this data, it is presumed that 25% of clicks are fradulent !

This data is compiled from http://clickfraudnetwork.com

Worldwide Click fraud heat map

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:37:00 +0000

Here is a map showing the source of click frauds throughout the world.

“Click fraud has become the new spam and it’s clearly a problem that is getting worse, not better,” said Tom Cuthbert, president and CEO of Click Forensics, Inc. “A significant percentage of today’s click fraud traffic can be attributed to two growing areas of concern for search advertisers – traffic that comes from botnets and from parked domains or made-for-ad sites. Advertisers running campaigns on content networks are especially vulnerable as they are increasingly targets of this growing pool of savvy fraudsters.”

More @ http://clickfraudnetwork.com/

Domain deletion cycle

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:20:00 +0000

Click on image to enlarge...

Online FLV converter

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:16:00 +0000

This site converts FLV videos from Youtube to WMV or 3GP format and provides link for downloading.
Cool...
http://vconvert.net/

Adsense earnings as Adwords credit

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 08:13:00 +0000

Digg this!

This is one cool feature thats about to be implemented by Google.
In an online survey conducted by Google Adsense, they asked the publishers about their interest in using Adsense earnings as Adwords credit.
That will be beneficial for both Adsense and publishers.

The actual question sounded something like this ,
.Will you be interested to use your Adsense earning as Adwords credit?
a) Yes
b) NO
c) What is Adwords?

The answer of most Adsense publishers would be "YES".
Hope Google Adsense implements that option soon enough.

(Now, YPN supports paypal too!)

Yahoo Publisher network now supports Paypal!

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 08:04:00 +0000

YPN (Yahoo publisher network) had announced in their blog (ypnblog.com) that they are now officailly supporting Paypal for payments made to YPN publishers.
The minimum payout threshold had been reduced to 50$ from 100$ for paypal users.
(Google Adsense still has an payout limit of 100$ and doesnt support paypal yet).

For more information, please read YPN FAQs.

Yahoo mail offers unlimited storage!

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 07:56:00 +0000

Yahoo! Mail has upgraded its 1 GB mailbox size to unlimited capacity, and the graphic below shows how the storage limit went away!

Thoughtful comments:

The digital world of Internet provides you very thing you need from low cost domain registration to the facility to download any 3d software freely. You can secure your pc while browsing Internet by installing zonealarm, special computer security software. Now very high-speed wifi technology using Internet connections are available for doing efficient browsing. Various cell phone and other magnificent deals are provided by verizon wireless on Internet.

Petrol price in different countries

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:49:00 +0000

1 US gallon = 3.7854118 litre
1 US $ = 40.425 INR as on 12:25 AM 6/7/2007

Human ancestry

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Wed, 09 May 2007 16:56:00 +0000

Modern man (Homo sapiens) is the only surviving species of the "Homo genus.
Here's the list of species that belongs to our genus(all except homo sapiens are already extinct).
Click link to get more info from Wikipedia.

Homo habilis (Handy Man)
†Homo rudolfensis (Rudolf Man)
†Homo ergaster (Working Man)
†Homo erectus (Upright Man)
†Homo floresiensis (Flores Man — discovered 2003)
†Homo antecessor (Predecessor Man)
†Homo heidelbergensis (Heidelberg Man)
†Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal Man)
†Homo rhodesiensis (Rhodesia Man)
†Homo cepranensis (Ceprano Man)
†Homo georgicus (Georgia Man)
Homo sapiens
†Homo sapiens idaltu (elderly wise man — discovered 1997)
Homo sapiens sapiens (Wise Man; modern humans)

N73 Music edition green theme

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 10:48:00 +0000

N73 Music Editions' green theme can be downloaded from this link,

http://www.bharathtech.com/blog/files/n73_m_theme_for_n73.sis

[this is one is for N73 users who wish to change their interface like n73 music edition]

Screenshot:

Thoughtful comments:

Today thousands of electronic products are present in market for sale. These products include camera, the hdtv and many others. You can find different sort of power supplies designed for specific purpose including high technology transformers. You can also purchase projector accessories like cases and lenses from online stores at low prices. Different brands of phones like lg phones are found on different online stores.

Checking Gmail on airtel mobile

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 17:43:00 +0000

A nice bookmark for checking Gmail on mobile devices (WAP/WML) can be found at this URL.

http://gmobile.sayni.net/index.php?logout=1&timezone=+5&z=

(This link is working for Airtel users with NetOnPhone -NOP- and without MobileOffice).

Value of Indian currency

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 18:24:00 +0000

These values provide an idea about where the value of Indian Rupee stands(as on 14 Jan 2007).
[better foreign currency]
------------------
1 British Pound = 86.81 Indian Rupees
1 Euro = 57.26 Indian Rupees
1 US Dollar = 44.3 Indian Rupees
1 Australian dollar = 34.72 Indian Rupees
1 chinese Yuan = 5.68 Indian Rupees
1 Malaysian Ringgit = 12.6 Indian Rupees
1 Russian Rouble = 1.66 Indian Rupees

------------------
[better Indian currency]
------------------
1 Indian rupee = 1.37 Pakistan Rupees
1 Indian rupee = 2.44 Srilankan Rupees
1 Indian rupee = 2.71 Japanese Yen
------------------

As on 11:43 PM 1/14/2007
Source: Yahoo Finance

Feasibility of Moon base?

noreply@blogger.com (bharath) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 08:00:00 +0000

NASA's evolving plans for building a permanent moon base by 2024 portray the facility as a scientific outpost where astronauts will build telescopes, forage for rare minerals and prepare for future Mars missions to be launched from the lunar surface.

It is expected to cost 200$ billions over the next 20 years.
The researchers with the most to gain from a permanent moon outpost are experts in lunar geology, who see a chance to finally glimpse the moon's full history, including details of how it is thought to have formed from a Mars-sized planet's collision with Earth more than 4 billion years ago.

What supporters and opponents of a moon base fear most is a repeat of the International Space Station, widely considered one of NASA's worst failures. That facility has not delivered on promised research benefits and brought few inspiring images of exploration from its perch in low Earth orbit.

Some boosters of the new moon missions argue that helium-3, an isotope rare on Earth but common on the moon's surface, could be used to fuel nuclear fusion reactors on Earth. But no one knows if reactors based on helium-3 would be technically or economically feasible.
Even if the moon were made of solid gold, it's doubtful that exporting lunar resources to Earth would be profitable. Manned missions using the space shuttle cost about $10,000 per pound of payload--about the price of a pound of gold.

"Sometime in [the] next 100 years we may have the construction base on the moon to do this, but in the near term it makes no sense," said Lawrence Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University who supports building a human presence on the moon over the long term.

Source:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0701070361jan07,1,2314395.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
All said, moon base will be a next major step for mankind in exploring the cosmos.

Thoughtful comments:

Various online education programs have been started to teach individuals with no special college facility in their area. Professional courses like HP0-W02 and also the SK0-002 certificate are available for students. You can also apply for the Smart Business Communication Systems for Account Managers exam 650-173 over Internet. Various training kits for preparing the 70-547 certification exams are obtainable. For learning French you can download the french english dictionary.