To enable Adobe Flash on demand in Google Chrome browser, you do not have to install any plugin like FlashBlock. Chrome has built-in support to ‘Click to Play’. Follow the steps to enable flash just on demand :-

1. Open a blank new tab
2. Type ‘about:flags’ into the address bar and hit enter
3. Scroll down to the botton and enable ‘Click to play’
4. Restart your browser
5. Now click the wrench menu > Options > Under the hood > Content setting > Plug-ins
6. Select ‘Click to play’ from the right hand side
7. Further, you can even use the Exception button to whitelist specific domains like Youtube etc.

Thanks to Mushaf for the Tip.

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Just press the ‘Escape’ / ESC key whenever you see an animated GIF on any web page – The animations will stop!

Simple.. isn’t it?!

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Another gem of an application/hack I found today. It turns your Android phone’s utility multi fold. This hack – Brut Google Maps – makes Google Maps Voice Navigation International. For some reason, Google has enabled this feature only for few selected countries in their official Maps/Navigation apps on Android.

But remember, this feature only works if you have an active Internet connection. Manufactures like Motorola has partnered with MapMyIndia to offer offline maps for India. You can even purchase the MapMyIndia navigation software for various platforms separately.

I’m very happy Brut’s hack saved me some bucks!. Let me know if this worked for you in the comments.

Download:

Google Maps with free Global Navigation
md5sum: 456b3fe71f74bb8b76a443be4075473c

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I’ve been using a Google ADP1(G1) and then a Samsung Spica(i5700) on various Android builds (1.1, Cupcake, Donut & Eclair). Following are my essential Android apps list.

• ADW Launcher
  I am not a fan of the default Android Home app or the ones the Manufacturers installs by default. After various trials of LauncherPro, Helix etc.., ADW Launcher is the one which stays on my Android Mobile. It is highly customizable and has very less memory footprint. It is blazingly fast except for some occasional widget selection issues. But the developer updates this app vigorously.
• AndroNoter
  All my notes needs to be available everywhere. I use SimpleNote as my notes platform. It has clients on the Mac, PC, iPhone and now Android. AndroNoter is a very good SimpleNote client which supports transparent sync with the SimpleNote cloud. The search options are really fast.

• Barcode Scanner – to quickly launch the Market application upon scanning App QR Codes 
• Fring
  Fring is the default VOIP client for the GTalk. It has various other options. But I use only for VOIP over 2G/WiFi with my patents & friends who are on Google Talk.
• Camera 360
  This is the only Android application I’ve purchased yet. It is worth it. Offers plenty of filters and effects for the Camera.
• Handecent SMS
  With SPAM SMSs pouring in every minute these days, blacklisting is very important to me. Handecent does the job albeit a bit slow to start. 
• Swype
  Swype is a very intuitive text input mechanism which is getting pre-packaged with modern Android mobiles. I joined their beta and got an early access. Swype’s heuristics algorithms are very accurate most of the time. It is miles above the pretty useless default Android Soft keyboard.
• Kindle
  I own a Kindle2 and have the purchased books available everywhere – iPhone, iPad and now Android is a boon. The WhisperSync works perfectly. The screen brightness dim options are really useful too.
• MinFreeManager
  Using a Task Manager helps a lot to save the battery life of any Android phone. MinFreeManager goes a step beyond and helps configure the system much better. Remmeber, you need to be rooted to run this application.
• Google SkyMap
  Nothing amazes my friends more than this application. When held up against the open sky, it tells how small in the heavens are you!.
• Engadget
  To get my daily dose of flame baits.
• Wireless Tether for Root Users
  There are occasions when the power is gone and the Wifi Router blacks out. This tethering application acts as a temporary WiFi router for my WiFi-only iPad. This is useful when you are travelling too.
• Official Twitter app for Android
  I tried plenty of others in the Market, but settled on the Official one, because it is not friends with fail whale most of the time.
• Places Directory from Google
  A useful location based application to find out the nearest Gas Stations and ATMs, among others.
• Awesome Drop
  AwesomeDrop is a neatly done combo of an HTML5 web app and an Android utility. You drop a file in to the web app, the file will get automatically downloaded to your Android Mobile. I would have loved more if the application did a clipboard copy from the computer to the Mobile too and vice versa. Unlike the Pastebot iPhone application, AwesomeDrop works over the 2G/3G and does not need a local WiFi.
  
• Revathi Recipes
  Yummmy recipes! – from Biriyani to Dosa!
• Opera Mini
  Lifesaver on a slow 2G network while browsing the web.

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Here is an amazing Video from year 1979 where two visionaries talk about how they see computing will take shape in the future. They talk about LED, Plasma, eBooks, eBook Readers, Tablets and What not!!.. It looks as if they had a peek in to the year 2010!. The video is on Tom Snyder interviewing Durk Pearson (Scientist)and Jerry Pournelle(Science Fiction writer). MUST Watch!

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Well, It’s not really a software hack!. I have a simple trick to completely ‘unlock’ the Kindle 2 Global Wireless options even while using in India / other restricted countries.

Unlocked Kindle 2 Features:-

• Complete browsing experience

• Ability to buy any books available on Kindle Store

Here is how you ‘unlock’ the Kindle:-

1. Keep Two Amazon accounts
2. Using one purchase a $20/$50 Amazon Gift Card.
3. Then top-up one of second Amazon account using the Gift Card
4. Register you kindle to use this Amazon Account.
5. Try to buy a Free Kindle E-book.
6. During this process, Change the “1 Click Buy Settings”, put a random USA address with correct PIN Code in the shipping details. This does not matter, as nothing physical will ever be shipped!
7. Thereon you will have a complete unlimited / unlocked Kindle experience!

What it does:-
The new Amazon account will be interpreted by Amazon as that of a Kindle Owner based out of USA, but on a long trip to India!. Hence the web browsing and unlimited Kindle store buying experience are available for this person (Free of Cost).

Will it be problematic?
If ever Amazon complaints that, you are trying to download/browse from a different country than USA, get any of your friends in USA to Fax them his identity information. OR alternatively you can change the address to your Indian address. Your purchased book should remain and that should solve the problem.  I sincerely hope Amazon does not block this alternative option – as it helps genuine Amazon Kindle users and book Buyers. I personally use this method not to browse, but to buy Kindle Books not available for India.

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An eBook reader has been on my wish list for a long long time – in fact, it even precedes the first generation Amazon kindle!. Back then I wrote a blog post comparing the eBook readers available in the market. The chance to buy a Kindle arrived when Amazon offered free shipping and lowered price for their “International Wireless Edition Kindle 2” during the Christmas. A friend in USA helped buy and bring it to me here in India.

The initial impression

Amazon Kindle 2 is a realistic replacement for Books. It is nice to hold, thin and controls for navigation are well placed. The letters on the screen are sharp and well contrasted. The graphics with 16 shades of grey appear nicer too. Reading on Amazon is a purely individual experience with no social touch to it (Perhaps that’s something Kindle rivals could aim at ;) )

The Good

• High contrast, Paper like display with no glare
• Good GPRS/EDGE connectivity all over India. I tested this in Kerala and Bangalore.
• Very thin and rugged (K2 is a great way to fall asleep ;) Sustained a drop yesterday without a single mark)
• The ‘Page turn’ speeds are acceptable.
• Easy dictionary lookup
• Free online Wikipedia access
• Good stereo speakers and MP3 support
• Calibre’s support for Instapaper makes Kindle a good offline reader for well formatted web content.

The Bad

• There is no Library management of any sort. There is no Book Cover Grid display. No support for Categories, Folders or Tags. This should be fixed in a Kindle Software update.
• The in-page jog stick navigation could be better
• The free general Internet Browsing does not work in India ‘due to local country restrictions’.
• The Magazine/Blog subscriptions strips the “Images” from the content for International wireless users of Kindle
• The native PDF rendering is just average with no support for Zooming, Search and Font resizing. The Calibre software comes to the rescue with excellent support for converting many file formats including PDFs to the Kindle supported format (.Mobi).
• Kindle books are costly (nearly $12) and many titles are not available to non-USA customers.

For now, I am enjoying the Kindle 2. The reading experience is really good and immersive with no distractions. If you are into technical manuals and PDF eBooks with complex formatting, you may opt for the Kindle DX, International wireless edition – with a bigger screen.

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I stumbled upon a gem of an iPhone app – MoneyStrands – today. It is an Online financial application,  with a notable exception that it works with majority of banks in India (ICICI Bank in my case) The previous one which I tried -  Mint (Web and iPhone apps) does not have support for Indian financial institutions. The other one which supports – Buxfer (with an iPhone Web App)  – unfortunately does not have a native iPhone app.

I could successfully aggregate my Savings, Credit and Loan accounts with MoneyStrands. You can even unify accounts from different financial institutions. They support over 8000 of them.

MoneyStrands ICICI Dashboard

The Interactive Charts are great to use too.

MoneyStrands Interactive Charts

MoneyStrands even supports allocating/tracking a Budget and Alerts for Balance.

MoneyStrands various Tabs

MoneyStrands iPhone application (iTunes Link) is free, just like their web offering.

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This is a post made through Textmate Blogging bundle. TextMate rocks!

Textmate blogging instructions are here.

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An iPhone Developer Program (IDP) membership (costs $99 for Individuals) is required to officially deploy your application on the iPhone – even during the development and testing. Though I have applied for the IDP membership long ago, mine is yet to be approved. Perhaps India is not a listed country for IDP.

Not having an IDP membership will not affect your iPhone development and further testing on a real iPhone. But you would still require a Jailbroken iPhone. You will have to tweak your XCode (Version 3.1.2) and individual project settings – along with the iPhone (Firmware 2.2) – to get the Applications deployed on the phone. Here are the steps. These information were collated by the results of endless queries posted on different forums and by reading various material available on the Web. All the credits are due to their respective owners :)

Common Instructions to Install :-

• Jailbreaking the iPhone requires you to follow the clear instructions given by iClarified. This includes a Video demonstration also. There is no need to Unlock your iPhone. Just Jailbreak should suffice.

• Install the iPhoneTunnel and CyberDuck applications on the Mac

• Install OpenSSH, BossPrefs and Link-Identity-Editor applications using the Cydia application on the iPhone. After installation Reboot the iPhone

• Add source in Cydia (if you have not yet done so), please remember there is a slash (/) at the end of the url Code: http://www.iphone.org.hk/apt/ . Install MobileInstallation Patch version 2.2 in Section “Tweaks”

• Connect the iPhone using the USB Cable to the Mac

• Close the iTunes.

Setting up XCode to Compile and Build the iPhone Application

• Create a Signing Identify on your Mac by following this simple guide from Apple. I suggest you name the Certificate as “iPhone Developer”

• TextEdit the /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Info.plist file to look the respective portions like:-

   1: <key>NATIVE_ARCH</key>

   2: <string>armv6</string>

   3: <key>PLIST_FILE_OUTPUT_FORMAT</key>

   4: <string>binary</string>

   5: <key>PROVISIONING_PROFILE_ALLOWED</key>

   6: <string>NO</string>

   7: <key>PROVISIONING_PROFILE_REQUIRED</key>

   8: <string>NO</string>

   9: <key>SDKROOT</key>

  10: <string>iphoneos2.2</string>

• Change your own Project Settings by taking [Menu] Project->Edit Project Settings. In the Properties List, find the Code-Signing-Identity and Select the Certificate Name(iPhone Developer) you created earlier.

• Add the following snippet on to your projects info.plist using TextEdit

   1: <key>SignerIdentity</key>

   2: <string>Apple iPhone OS Application Signing</string>

Transferring the Application Binary to the iPhone over USB

• You may duplicate the following steps using an Ad-Hoc WiFi connection too, of which I am not so fond off!. I prefer the USB.

• Start the iPhoneTunnel Application on the Mac. You should see a respective icon on the Superior Bar at the top of the screen. Click on that Icon and select [Turn Tunnel ON]

• Again click on the same icon on top and select [Tools->SFTP]. The Cyberduck should start automatically. Enter the username as ‘root’ and password as ‘alpine’ in the cyberduck login window.

• Copy the TestApp.app (Your Own App) to the /Application folder of the iPhone using Cyberduck

• Click on the iPhoneTunnel icon and select [Tools->SSH(root)]. Enter the root/alpine credentials at the command prompt.

• At this command prompt enter the following two commands:-

ldid -S /Applications/TestApp.app/TestApp

chmod +x /Applications/TestApp.app/TestApp

• Open the BossPrefs application on the iPhone and choose the “ReSpring” option. This will restart the SpringBoard application to show your application on the Home Screen.

• Enjoy Your App!

If you have a proper Code signing Signature from Apple , you can follow these great instructions to deploy on to AppStore.

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