Beyond Teck - Version 3.14159

With a handful of ideas in my OneNote document (testing out OneNote 07 at the moment) and voice recognition (DNS 9 is absolutely amazing!) by my side, I think it’s about time I start writing again - just like I used to before. This time I'm going to make it a point to blog every other day or so about something interesting, and keep the whole world updated about my tech endeavors and write way more often. Why am I motivated and confident more than I was last time, you ask? Because I know a lot more than I did before and I seemed to have acquired the right tools for the job. Also, this summer has taught me that there are a lot of people in this world who really need a lot of help with computers and technology in general. Teaching people about Microsoft Word at my local community center was an eye opening experience and I learned that stuff I thought were really intuitive and easy to use were not so for many people new to computers. I guess there are a lot of people out there who really hate experimenting and breaking stuff =( .

By the way you might have noticed that this page now has Google AdSense advertisements (in case you didn't read this blog before then I just want to let you know that this blog was ad free before) all over it. No, it’s not what you’re thinking - this blog has not been hacked! I put them there myself for a couple of reasons:

1. I want to see what actually happens to my PageRank and if it increases traffic from Google. It is an experiment I wanted to try out, and had plans of doing so for a long while. Now finally because of the guys over at OverheardDaily.com (OD is still under construction apparently - but I can't wait till it launches) I was able to get my hands on some AdSense code.
2. I want to experiment with different revenue generation techniques (ad placement, colours etc.) with AdSense and see if it actually works. Right now the ads AdSense is showing is really random and weird ads, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
3. I hope reason number 2 will motivate me to make more posts in this blog.
4. It's been a while since I've tinkered with blogger templates, and this was a great opportunity for me to force myself to actually look at the new blogger templates.

Okay, enough talking about the new BT. Stay tuned - really super interesting posts coming soon!

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Play MP3s or Podcasts through Embedded Player on your website

Ever wanted to make your own podcast? Or may be post some mp3s into your blog post on blogger or may be wordpress... Well as long as you have the music or video files, then its really simple to use embedded flash players to embed content such as MP3s, videos as well as podcasts in other formats in your blog posts.


There are a couple of options that you can use in order to put music on your blog or website. Firstly, if you have the server space then you might want to get your own player too, instead of using someone else's services. You can try something like the FLV players found on http://www.jeroenwijering.com or this http://www.macloo.com/examples/audio_player/ which is mostly for mp3s only.

If you realize that the server space isn't sufficient (which is bound to happen if a lot of people listen to your stuff) you might want to switch over to a service like odeo http://odeo.com/ where they'll host the files for you and you can still put it in your blogger post.

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I like Windows Live Writer

It's highly unusual that I praise people at Microsoft, but using Windows Live Writer for a while has changed my thinking considerably. I realize that Microsoft is a company and not one person that is working, and at first I believed them to be complete idiots, but it seems as though I'm wrong. Someone over there actually has some brains, and its a good thing they worked on the Windows Live Writer division at Redmond.

To be honest I couldn't care much for the ribbon interface that the new Office 07 has, it is merely a selling point for the majority of the people who don't realize that its the same Office 2003, except it has a more shiny appearance, which deceives people into thinking it it's a entirely different product altogether. But Windows Live Writer is what really caught my attention. It is the first time Microsoft actually has a useful tool, that is very similar to its paid rival ecto and many other similar blogging applications.

Surprisingly, Microsoft has caught on to the idea that the Internet is giving an opportunity to everyone in this world who has a computer and an Internet connection can express their opinion, communicate and try their hand at "15 minutes of fame". And as soon as they sensed this, they started working on Live Writer. A weblog authoring tool that much to my surprise, is quite good.

First of all let me describe to you the hidden superpowers of this almost idiot proof application. Idiot proof in the sense that any average computer user that knows what the term bookmark means can use this software, without learning how to do things "the right way".

Microsoft has taken into consideration Dual Booting. I guess that Microsoft realized that many people out there who actually have a blog, and would download an application solely for the purpose of writing applications to a blog most likely have dual booting operating systems also. This led them into thinking about this idea - if the same software is installed on both the operating systems, wouldn't it be great if both the installations of the same software have the same settings.

To clarity what I mean is this - I installed windows live writer on my Windows Vista partition and started writing articles and publishing them to this blog. Then I installed Windows Live Writer on my Windows XP partition. At this point I was wondering if I had to re-input all the details so that I could post to this blog, but no it was already DONE! Live Writer automatically allowed me to post to this blog! Just a quick fact I'd like to point out though - even though all the account settings had been entered for me I still had to Update the Account Configuration, however I didn't have to re-enter any blog details. Amazing... that's what I call idiot proof (well Live Writer is not completely there yet, but almost). Software that does everything on it's own without the intervention of the user. In an ideal situation the man should sit back and the machine should take control - that's the main purpose of employing machines to do work in the first place.

The screenshot at the top is that of the Windows Live Writer on XP (service pack 2 of course), and the one on the bottom is of Windows Live Writer on Windows Vista (With Aero). Notice the difference in the post editing area.

Second Factor that shows Microsoft is headed the right way - Good designing and good features. Yes, that's right, the words Microsoft and Good Design in one sentence can be considered an oxymoron - two contradictory terms. But interestingly, Windows Live Writer, and even other applications for that matter, are slowly becoming more aesthetically pleasing, and that's not it, Microsoft is finally coming to realize that providing one button is far superior than to have 5 menus.

Scroll up and take a good look at the interface - It almost looks like Microsoft Word for blogs, doesn't it? It provides all the options necessary, but at the same time it is also simple to use. If you want you can put pictures in the post and along with that also add effects to the pictures. How interesting is that? Surely, online blog editors will not offer these interesting services at your finger tips. It even has spell check in it. Note: The quality of the spell check is far from the quality of spell check in word processing applications such as Microsoft Word. Things such as place names are often underlined with red squiggly lines and repetition of words do not seemed to be picked up by the spell checker. What more can a blogging addict ask for? Indeed Microsoft is taking a step in the right direction, and if they keep heading that way I'm sure that the outcome will only be good.

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I think I forgot how to blog!

Wow, I think it's been so long since I last blogged something I'm pretty sure I forgot how to blog... ok not quite but something to that effect. But fear not my friends, I'm back. And this time I've got a few tools to help me out.

So yes, I'm using Windows Live Writer to write this blog post, and to be honest I like it. Finally a product from the 'Windows Live' series of applications that I really seem to like. I'm really sure that this is going to help me write more articles and make me uber productive.

Anyway, exams are done and I'm free to do anything I want. Ok, I still have summer school and a couple of workshops to teach, but I'm still a free man.

Stay tuned.. this time I assure you that I'm going to start blogging again.. I hope.. no really I do..

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Common rules every website author must follow

Ok so I posted a screen shot of the fascinating Google layout on a post a couple of days ago. Funny thing, it actually got on Techcrunch. Well, whats interesting is, why? It even got on Digg too. All for a layout... what is this world coming to. But the part that confuses me the most is they pretty much copy my post, get all the attention and then just put a link back to me. What happened to the policy of asking the author first about "using their screen shots for monetary purposes". Just because you found it on my blog it doesn't mean you get to copy it. It's public domain yes, but still, I find it just wrong for tech crunch to do that. I didn't even get a e-mail from tech crunch that they had "stolen my screen shots and topic". It wasn't until Parm from Techfare told me about it, that I realized it was "featured" on TechCrunch. Please techcrunch guys, inform me before you take my content. Oh and next time, if you are wondering if I photoshopped something don't hesitate to ask, I think it's better, before you go on to call me a photoshopped screenshots maker

To be honest, I don't really mind if anybody steals my content/pictures/ideas/whatever. But it bugs me to think about what others might think when something like this happens to them. I'm certain they are going to be infuriated when they learn that a big blog is making all the money from their post, and they don't even get notified about it.

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Google got updated?

Update: Ok.. not really an update by as such, but apparently it is a new feature added by the web search history feature, although I believe that you might have gotten this screen yesterday if you were logged in when you performed your searches. Hmm.. I seem to like it this way, though.

Is it just me or does Google have a new and better search page now? Hmm.. not sure.. perhaps my eyes are deceiving me? Anyways I like this new style.. and the gradient seems like one step forward for Google, in terms of design. Interesting.
Oh and those who believe that I've probably photoshopped used Adobe Photoshop® software to digitally enhance the screen shot, you can take a look at the gradient image stored on the Google servers (or you can see a screen shot of the gradient image when viewed through Firefox incase Google decides to get rid of it). This should be enough proof that I did not create it.

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Trying my hand at podcasting

I always wanted to be a DJ. No, really I did... but then again I always wanted to become a garbage collector because I thought they used to work for only one day in a week. So I think I'm going to try my hand at podcasting and see how it goes. I'm not a professional nor do I have all the equipment, but hey one had to start somewhere. Perhaps if the beyond teck podcacst is really awesome I might invest more time into getting better gear so that I can talk about more tutorials.

As for the topic I'm thinking talking about tips and tutorials more than taking about news and my take on things. I think everyone has their own opinion and listening to someone else's opinion is just a waste of time. So I'm not going to waste your time I'm just going to try and make you more smarter. I wont vent about things like David Pogue does.. I promise.

Does this sound good or what?

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