How to uninstall problematic FireFox 3 extensions

firefox extension uninstall problem

If some Firefox extension or add on started giving you trouble, and the trouble is so serious that Firefox simply fail to start, then what to do? Here is the simple way you can uninstall any Firefox extension:

Go to User’s - $Documents and Settings\a\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ directory (the example is for user a under Windows. In Linux, the folder may be stored in your home directory under hidden directory .mozilla). You will find a cryptic directory such as this - p79bty4k.default. Under this directory, you will find a directory named extensions. Within that directory, all your Firefox extensions that you have installed so far were available. Now choose the offended one among the list – that may be an entry or a sub directory – and delete it. Restart Firefox. The offended firefox extension will vanish forever.

Hindi speech to text free program download

There is a nice demo program released for Hindi (can be extended for Indic languages as well) speech to text conversion. Now you simply need to speak in a microphone and record your word directly in Unicode Hindi text. Alternately, you can give oral commands in Hindi to do computing tasks like “Thunderbird Kholo” to open thunderbird.

This Hindi speech recognition program is currently available for Linux as it is based on Sphinx and Perl. Still, a port to windows is possible in near future. The project is currently maintained by Sachin Joshi as a part of Sarai FOSS project.

Download Hindi Automatic Speech Recognition System from here

FireFox 3 problems arising and too many

Just after creating Guinness word record for most download program in a day, it had been found that FireFox 3 has a critical code execution vulnerability that puts millions of Firefox3.0 users at risk of PC takeover attacks. That may be patched soon, but there were too many problems for users that had shifted from FireFox 2 to 3.

There were reports that FireFox 3 is unable to handle Hotmail correctly. Many Addons and FireFox plugins that are meant to version 2 are not working as well (see a workaround here). I too am getting trouble running things. For example,  TinyMCE is not working properly in FireFox3.

Finally, Wine is out after maturing for 15 years

wine 1 stable release

Wine – the program that lets you run Windows Applications in Linux was finally released as Version 1 today. Wine was under rigorous development since last 15 years and had never been released as stable version.

 

With Wine1.0 stable release, now you can run thousands of Windows Applications directly on Linux that includes – MS Office, PhotoshopCS2, Lotus Notes, Half-Life, Command & Conquer etc.

 

Chances are, Wine is already available in your installed Linux distribution. All you need is to upgrade it to latest, stable version. Download wine from here.

 

Still, you may face occasional glitches in running Windows Applications in Linux through Wine. But, then Windows Vista don’t let you run all Windows applications either!

 

Three cheers for Wine.

Now Phishers have started targeting innocent mobile phone users

After Internet, phishers have started targeting mobile phone users. They simply send a sms or mms message to contact them back either through a mobile number or through email. And when you get trapped in their hand, they extort money in the name of service charge, courier charges, taxes and what not. BEWARE of such messages and never reply them.

Here is an interesting story appeared in Fsecure blog:

There's an ongoing SMS / e-mail fraud underway.

People are receiving text messages to their phones that look something like this:

CONGRATULATIONS! Your mobile number has won 170.000.00 Euro in the ongoing GSM MOBILE PROMO. For claim contact +34-685-346-100 & e-mail gsmn92@yahoo.com

If you send an e-mail to the listed address, this is what you'll get back:



From: Gsm Notification (gsmn92@yahoo.com)
Date: 11.06.2008 11:49
FROM THE
DESK OF THE PROMOTION OFFICER,
GSM MOBILE SWEEPSTAKES PROMO.
CALLE CLAUDIO COELLO 41, 28001 MADRID,
SPAIN.

UNITED KINGDOM ( UK ) / SPANISH ALLIANCE GSM SUBSCRIBERS PROMOTION.

To,
Mr. Xxxx Xxxxxxx .
Verification No: CN435-663-6
Winning No: +35840XXXXXX
Country: Finland.

Date: 11th June , 2008.

Congratulations!!! On behalf of UNITED KINGDOM(UK)/SPANISH GSM Staffs we hereby

Congratulates you on your Mobile Phone Serial Number has won you the Sum of

€170,000.00 (One Hundred and Seventy Thousand Euro) on the ongoing UNITED
KINGDOM(UK)/SPANISH GSM MOBILE PROMOTION . A Cheque has been issued under your name ( Xxxxx Xxxxxxx.) and it will be Deliver to your House Address through the Deplomate Parcel Officers.

But you will never get any parcel or any check!

Read The full story here

Microsoft: If you can't beat Yahoo, pay live search users


Microsoft had started paying its live search user. There was this story about a month back:

Microsoft has a big announcement today, one that should show the world they’re capable of running a search business even without Yahoo: their Live Search CashBack program will enable you to use special savings “coupons” after you buy stuff you’ve found using Live Search. (Read full story here)


Now, the cash-back award had gone one step further. Microsoft Live search cashback award had tied up with e-bay, and now you can redeem your cashback award with any e-bay purchase. Read the full story here

Now, the question is - Just for a few buck - will you use search that throw away irrelevant search result? May be not!

(picture courtesy Mashable.com)

How to display certain page elements / gadgets only on Home, Item or Archive pages ib blogger blog



At times you need that certain page element or a piece of gadget should only appear on Home page of your blog, and not on archive or other pages. Similarly, some elements may not be so relevant in your blog's home page but are important for archive / individual post (item page) pages.

Now, the question is - how to do this?

There is an excellent article on Blogbuster that you can refer here to implement this in your Blogger blog.

How to make video screencasts on Linux

A picture is worth a thousand words, especially when you're teaching someone how to do something on a computer, and recordMyDesktop is a great little Linux application for creating screencasts. YouTube is full of recordMyDesktop screencasts showing all kinds of captures, including Beryl/Compiz in action. I lead a dull life; I'm not into ripping music videos or wobbly 3D bling, but I do like having a tool
like this for good Linux show-and-tells. In this series we're going to learn how to create glorious Linux screencasts with sound and video.

Read the full story Here (part1) & Here (part2)

Download recordMyDesktop from here

Want to be a part of Guinness Word Record? Download Firefox 3 on June 17th


This indeed will be the easiest way to become a part of Guinness Word Record holder party. Just download Firefox3 on 17th June 2008, and you will be counted as part of another history that is going to be created - Most download on a single day!

I hope Firefox had already strengthened their servers to meet the download demand. When Fedora9 was available to download, its download servers were crippled during initial hours.

Read the full story here and here

How to add multitouch gesture support to Synaptics TouchPad-equipped laptop

If you happen to own a Laptop with Synaptics TouchPad (I have one, that is - Compaq V3225AU), and had installed Linux, then you can convert that touchpad in to a MultiTouchPad. After converting, you can then use that touchpad with gestures and hence can use that in many innovative way.

How to convert Synaptic Touchpad in to a MultitouchPad?

Read the full, step-by-step detailed tutorial here.

How to increase your Laptop's battery life, its power and backup time

No matter how you have chosen the most expensive Laptop having world's most long duration battery power backup time, in practical world, it gets exhausted way too early. For example, company claimed that your laptop brand comes with 6 hours battery backup, but in actual use, it hardly runs up to 3 hours.

There are some great tips you can try to increase your Laptop's battery life as well as its backup time. Read the full article here

How to post to twitter from Linux


Desktop client for posting Twitter posts makes your life easy. There are many excellent twitter clients for posting to Twitter on Windows environment. Linux has limited choice such as Twitux and gTwitter but still, you can effectively use these tool that can boost your productivity.

Mark Hinkle had an excellent post on How to use Twitter Clients on Linux.

Read complete story here.

How to install Ubuntu Linux in a USB Key / USB Flash Drive


Installing Linux in a USB Flash drive can be tricky, and no straight procedure. However, here is a great article, giving you step-by-step account to install Ubuntu Linux in a USB Harddrive, with relevant screen shots that makes instructions even more clear.

Read the full article here

Got bored reading same and similar news in top blogs?



Top blogs have tendency to lift big news ASAP. But, in the end, readers end up reading same and similar stories multiple times. Here is my take on the Story of Google Fevicon Design Contest :

Googleblog blogged about it Here.

Zdnet wrote about it - Google want your help with their icon

Google operating system featured this as New Google Favicon

Mashable had the same story but with different Heading - Google VP calls for comment on Favicon design

My Digital life directly asked you to Design Favicon for Google

QuickOnlineTips also asked you to Design favicon for Google

Techmeme lifted the plain odd heading of original google blog : One fish, two fish, way too many fish...

And the list goes on...

If you are going bombarding with same and similar news in so many top blogs, the what is the point subscribing all or many of them? But, then, nobody wants to ignore big, interesting news like this. A catch 22 - 22 situation?


World's top #10 Blogger blogs

Which one is top, no. 1 Blogger Blog ?

Every one can have their own reason for their own choice, but BloggerBuster had released a list of World's top 50 Blogger Blog. For Ranking the blogs, combination of Google Pagerank, Technorati Rank,
Bloglines subscribers, Google Backlinks and Alexa rank had been used. Here is the complete rundown list. PLEASE don't offend if you do not find your own or your favorite one.

In next 10 Years, there will be no news papers : Steve Ballmer

There will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form. - Steve Ballmer [Read More]

Incidently, here in India, Media barons are engaged in never before war of launching new editions. DNA is launching its Jaipur edition today and Banglore edition is in pipeline, Patrika had launched its Bhopal editions... and so on.

It will be interesting to see their death warrant 10 years from now on.

How to play Gmail snakey within Gmail?

If you are lucky one and use English interface, you will see Google Lab menu in Google Gmail Settings.

 gmail lab setting for snakey game

Click on it and select Old Snakey Radio button and save settings. Do not forget to enable Keyboard Shortcut in Setting>General menu.

google gmail setting for snake game

Now, simply press & button of your keyboard and play Old, lovely Snakey.

snakkey google gmail game

I tied a few time, but, as you see, I need a little more practice!

How to add Gadgets in your Blogger Blog from within Blogger


Blogger in Draft lets you add unlimited number of Gadgets in your Blogger blog. Simply sign in to your blogger blog account through Blogger in Draft, click on layout and then click on Add Gadget. You will be then given option to install from more than 40000 gadgets (as of now) that you can choose from.

Easy huh? Then, why not gadgetize your Blogger Blog to optimum level - so that it will become most Gadgetized blog in the world!

Yet another English to Hindi Machine translation system : Matra 2

There was this Mantra - the English to Hindi Machine translation system, then comes Google English to Hindi (and vice versa) online machine translation system.

Finally, here comes yet another English to Hindi Machine translation system called Matra2 from CDAC.

Naveen Kumar of CDAC tested Matra2 against that of Google Translate and here comes an interesting comparison:

 

Here are some of the sentences that Naveen Kumar had tested randomly. (M) stands for Matra translations and (G) stands for Google translations

AIDS is a disease
ए.आइ.डी.एस एक बीमारी है। (M)
एड्स की बीमारी है (G)

Rama ruled Ayodhya for many years
राम ने बहुत साल के लिये अयोध्या रल किया। (M)
राम अयोध्या के लिए कई वर्षों तक शासन किया (G)

Rama killed Ravana
राम ने रावण को मारा। (M)
राम रावण मारे गए (G)

This is a dead language
यह एक मृत भाषा है। (M)
यह एक मृत भाषा (G)

English is national language of England
अंग्रेजी एन्ग्लन्ड काई राष्ट्रीय भाषा है। (M)
राष्ट्रीय भाषा अंग्रेजी है इंग्लैंड (G)

President bush is dumb
राष्ट्रपती झाड़ी गूज़्गा है। (M)
राष्ट्रपति बुश है मूक (G)

I like translating documents
मैं दस्तावेज़ों का अनुवाद करती हैं। (M)
मैं जैसे दस्तावेज़ों का अनुवाद (G)

I like document translation
मैं दस्तावेज़ अनुवाद पसन्द करती हूँ। (M)
मैं जैसे दस्तावेज़ अनुवाद (G)

India is a country of thinkers
भारत चिन्तक का एक देश हैं। (M)
भारत एक देश के विचारक (G)

This course provides you a comprehensive overview of what is open source, how to start using it, how to be part of the open source community and how to contribute to the community. At the end it introduces you various bussiness models and licences that exist today in the open source world.

यह पाठ्यक्रम प्रदान कर आप एक विस्तृत सिंहावलोकन का वट हो खोल स्रोत , कैसा शुरू हो जा इस्तेमाल कर वह , कैसा हो भाग का खोल स्रोत समाज और कैसा सहयोग दे समाज एन्ड पर, वह आप भिन्न कामकाज नमूने और लिसेन्सिज़ वह खुला स्रोत विश्व में आज मौजूद हैं पेश करते हैं। (M)

यह पाठ्यक्रम प्रदान करता है आप एक व्यापक परिदृश्य का खुला स्रोत क्या है , कि किस प्रकार इसका प्रयोग शुरू करने के लिए , कैसे हो समुदाय का हिस्सा खुला स्रोत और कैसे योगदान करने के लिए समुदाय के हैं . अंत में यह परिचय आप व्यापार के विभिन्न मॉडल और लाइसेंस मौजूद है कि आज दुनिया में खुला स्रोत है . (G)

Malaria killed most people in Africa
मैलारीअ ने अफ्रिक में मोस्ट लोगों को मारा। (M)
मलेरिया अफ्रीका में अधिकांश लोग मारे गए (G)

Insects are most dangerous animals on this planet
कीड़े यह प्लैनिट पर मोस्ट खतरनाक पशु हैं। (M)
सबसे खतरनाक जानवर हैं कीड़ों पर इस ग्रह (G)

 

Interesting? perhaps. All said, as database increases, translation quality is bound to refine. And in near future, Machine translation will be near perfect.

By Goosh ! it is equally great for localized search too!

Everybody is excited about new, browser based, command line search tool Goosh. The very concept and easy of web app had steal the hearts of one and sundry.

Another best part of the Goosh is – it is equally compatible and efficient while searching in Localized languages. It means, Goosh is fully Unicode enabled.

Here is my take on Goosh with Hindi language:

I gave the command –

guest@goosh.org:/web> blogs मुंहफट

And the result is :

goosh blog search

Pretty good and admirable, neat and clean and well, EXACT – what I had wanted in first place.

Then I tried to Translate I Love You in Hindi. For this, I gave following command in Goosh:

guest@goosh.org:/web> translate en hi I love you

And the result is –

goosh english- hindi translation

Again, perfect. Though the translations of long sentences got meaningless - but then it is no fault of Goosh but that is of Google translator tool itself.

Long live Goosh. I want many more command to be included it it soon. For example – this one:

>email a@a.com Hello how are you

Will send my message Hello how are you to a@a.com. And what about this –

>twitter a.twitter.com ***** Right now I am writing a review on Goosh

Will publish Twitter post Right now I am writing a review on Goosh to my twitter account.

Well, the options and wish list are endless….

How to delete Windows Vista Folder ?

Deleting Windows vista folder is next to impossible. You cannot delete it even in multiboot environment - while booting from other partition having other versions of Windows OS. Windows Vista folder contains whopping 8GB space and at times it becomes essential to claim this unused space. To reclaim this space, you need to reformate the partition and eventually face risks of data loss. In some cases, you need pricy third party tool. Here is free easy workaround for you.

Download and burn Knoppix 5.1.1 (or later) Linux live cd from here and boot your machine using this live CD.

Knoppix 5.1.1 Live CD will automatically detect and place icons for your computer’s all available harddisk partitions on Knoppix desktop. Right click and select read write mode to mount the partition which contains Windows Vista files that you want to delete. The partition will be mounted in read write mode.

Now double click over this partition’s icon to open it with Konqueror. Go to Windows Folder, right click on it and select delete. Some time it will ask for root privilege – in that case, open terminal and with sudo Konqueror command, run Konqueror in root user mode and then delete the Windows folder.

Acrobat.com : Decorated sans Unicode support

adobe buzzword unicode not supported

The all new online office suit - Acrobat.com is all set to alter user experience of any given web application. This online office suit has most beautifully decorated web interface, its Flash based design is real fast and cool animated menus were cool to your eyes too. You can export, import and share your document as any other web office application.

But it has many glitches too. For example, it has Flash based login form instead of plain HTML that may hinder simple copy paste login.

The biggest letdown factor is lack of Unicode support. When you try to enter Unicode character in Buzzword documents, all you will see were dots. However, while copy pasting the same to local notepad, Unicode characters magically reappears. It indicates that may be there were some problem in displaying and rendering Unicode characters.

Still, Acrobat.com offers many new, funky features that users will love and adore.

Google’s top 10 flop

new google favicon 

Google is #1 web company delivering many superb web apps – most of them free for most users. It doesn’t mean Google had not delivered Flops.

 

PC word had complied list of top 10 Google flop

1 Google X

2 Google Catalogue

3 Google Video Player

4 Google Web Accelerator

5 Google Answer

6 Google Coupons

7 Google Video Search

8 Google Voice Search

9 Google Viewer

10 Google Checkout

 

Read more here

 

I had tried Google Web Accelerator, and it simply didn’t worked for me. In my Google Flop list, I want to add Google Desktop Search. It simply had not worked for me the way I had wanted. It keeps throwing me duplicate history search results, and indexing and storing gigs of data in my HDD partitions. Carry Beagle is better, so as Windows Desktop search.

How to recover corrupted NTFS data through Knoppix Linux Live CD / DVD

knoppix Recently one of my PC having Windows XP failed to boot. I tried to reinstall the OS. But Windows XP installer gave the error message that C drive having NTFS partition contains undefined File system, and it needs to be formatted. The partition in question contained valuable data, and an alternate way was needed.

 

I tried to boot with Knoppix 5.1.1 Live CD. It was a breezy success. It showed all the partitions of hard disks on my desktop. When I tried to mount the corrupted partition (C drive in Windows), it asked me to Force mount it since the partition in question had some problem. I said yes, and voila! It worked.

 

I changed the attribute of other mounted harddisks NTFS partition to read-write mode (right click on partition in question and select read write attribute) and copied all my data to other, safe partition. Knoppix 5.1.1 had built in NTFS partition READ-WRITE capabilities. You can also use USB Key or Burn a CD / DVD to backup data.

 

After backing up my data, I reformatted the C drive and finally I was able to clean reinstall WindowsXP again.

 

You can download latest Knoppix Live CD / DVD image for free from HERE

How may ways you can use your notebook PC?

Especially if it is ultra thin MacBook Air.

 

There were reports, that increasingly, people were using it to cut cake, bread and what not. Here, founder of Voodoo PC and CTO of HP's global gaming business - Rahul Sood is cutting his birthday cake by MacBook Air. Expensive, Nice replacement for knife, huh?

sood-cutting-cake-with-macbook-air

I have a Compaq V3225 AU notebook. It gets so hot at its bottom that you can virtually fry PAPADs, and, in dire need, you can prepare a cup of hot steaming coffee. Am I joking? NO. You have to use it to believe it!

Now, this is the REPLY - The Pirate Bay way!

Recently I was wandering in web and found this very funny reply from TPB - The Pirate Bay. Often, given the opportunity, instead of your very polite reply, you too may have been considering giving these types of reply since long. Well, read on the reply of the letter from Warner Brothers:

From: anakata To: "Dorothy Sherman | GrayZone, Inc." Date: Thu, 09 Jun
2005 13:57:17 +0200

On Wed, 2005-06-08 at 15:35 -0400, Dorothy Sherman | GrayZone, Inc.
wrote: > First Notice of Infringement and Declaration

"First Notice of Infringement"? Is that kind of like when I don't pay my
bills on time? "First notice", "Second notice", "Third notice", "WE KILL
YOU!", then a package with the sawed-off head of a pig?

> TO: THEPIRATEBAY.ORG > Fredrik Neij > PRQ > Box 1206 > Stockholm 11479
> SE > Phone: 46.707323819 > Fax: 46.707323819 > tiamo@prq.se >
info@prq.se

We already know our own postal address - you don't have to inform us of
it.

> TO: TFR.ORG > Tenhults Forenade Rollspelare > Davidbagares gata 12 >
Stockholm 11138 > SE > Phone: 1.467047954 > tiamo@TFR.ORG > > >
REGARDING: http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=billy+corgan > >
IMMEDIATELY REMOVE ALL UNRELEASED AND UNAUTHORIZED MATERIAL IN >
CONNECTION WITH BILLY CORGAN.

IMMEDIATELY STOP SCREAMING. You may also consider not using red,
underlined HTML.

> IMMEDIATELY REMOVE ALL TORRENT FILES OF BILLY CORGAN's UNRELEASED >
MATERIAL PLANNED FOR RELEASE ON WARNER BROS. RECORDS, INC. THE >
FOLLOWING LINK AND ALL BILLY CORGAN DOWNLOADS MUST BE COMPLETELY >
REMOVED: > > http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=billy+corgan > (see
below)

Sorry, but I can't remove search.php - our users would get upset if TPB
suddenly lacked a search function. The problem here seems to be that the
material is unreleased? If that is the case, you can easily fix the
problem by releasing it. We'll be more than glad to help you distribute
it - free of charge! - to our users.

> WARNER BROS. RECORDS, INC. > > I, the undersigned, do solemnly and
sincerely declare and CERTIFY > UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY that: > > 1. I
am the owner or an agent authorized to act on behalf of the owner > of
certain intellectual property rights, said owner being named WARNER >
BROS. RECORDS, INC. ("IP Owner"). > > 2. I have a good faith belief that
the materials identified in the > addendum attached hereto are not
authorized by the above IP Owner, its > agent, or the law and therefore
infringe the IP Ownerÿs rights > according to the laws of the (check
all that apply): > > United States > Australia > Canada > EUR > France >
Germany > Italy > Japan > Mexico > Netherlands > Russia > Sweden >
United Kingdom > All of the above X > > Please act expeditiously to
remove or disable access to the material > or items claimed to be
infringing.

The material hosted on The Pirate Bay is (check all that apply): Your
copyrighted work German scheisse-porn Torrent files X

> 3. I may be contacted at: > > Printed Name: Dorothy Sherman > Title:
Consultant > Company: Warner Bros. Records, Inc. > Address: 3300 Warner
Blvd. > Burbank, CA 91505 > Attn: Susan Genco, Esq. > > Email
(correspondence): GrayZone@rcn.com > Telephone: 212 946-1718 > > > You
should understand that this letter constitutes notice to you that > the
sale and/or other distribution of this product is unauthorized. > This
letter > does not constitute a waiver of any right to recover damages
incurred > by virtue of any such unauthorized activities, and such
rights as well > as > claims for other relief are expressly retained.

You should understand that your email and all further communication with
us will be published at http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php , and that we
will charge you for the web publishing and hosting services. Should I
send the invoice to your address above?

> Finally, notwithstanding our use of the required notice form, we >
believe that http://thepiratebay.org 's activities and services fall >
outside the scope of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). >
Our use of this form, as required by law, is meant to facilitate >
http://thepiratebay.org 's removal of the infringing product listed >
above and is not meant to suggest or imply that >
http://thepiratebay.org 's activities and services are within the >
scope of the DMCA.

We are well aware of the fact that The Pirate Bay falls outside the
scope of the DMCA - after all, the DMCA is a US-specific legislation,
and TPB is hosted in the land of vikings, reindeers, Aurora Borealis and
cute blonde girls.

> I make this declaration conscientiously, believing it to be true and >
correct, and in accordance with the laws of each of the countries >
listed > above. I am aware and agree that the contents of this statement
may > be relied upon against me in any court or arbitration proceeding.

So it's OK with you if we bring legal action against you for a) claiming
that we host any infringing files, which we don't, b) claiming that DMCA
has any relation what so ever to the activites of the site, and c)
making my eyes bleed by writing in UPPERCASE, underlined, and red text?

> Fictionally, > > Dorothy Sherman > Digital Signature: Verisign

I fixed the typo for you.

===============


You can read many more such REAL reply HERE - and they are absolutely entertaining!