Ladyada’s project involving Microcontroller, XBEE wireless module is used to monitor the power used up at homes using the wireless module. Ladyada provides you the Kit, the Project Design and the Software to monitor the power used. Apart form the basic software to receive the input from the wireless XBEE module, it also provides you with the codes for storing this date and viewing it in the forms of graphs. The project can be found at the link provided below.

http://ladyada.net/make/tweetawatt/

The project is further extended to Tweet the power used up at homes. The whole setup would cost you less than $55. Though this might not fit-in for a Final Year Project or a College Project, this sure would work out for a Mini-Project or School Projects.

The documentation at the link provide above give you the codes and the components that you need for developing this product.

Do you suspect any unauthorized activity on your email account? Do you want to make it 100% hack proof? In most cases, the email id of the victim gets hacked and the victim has no clue. We might be thinking that all our confidential and private information are safe but in reality they might not be.

Here are some signs you need to look out for unauthorized activity on your email account:

- Emails are forwarded to a unknown email address (check your email account settings->forwarding).

- The secondary email id has changed to unknown email id.

- New emails are marked READ even before you read it.

- New filters set up in your email account.

If you are facing any of the above-mentioned activities then, it clearly indicates that your email id has been hacked.

Securing your Gmail id:

Gmail has additional features like IP address logging to secure your email. So, if your account is hacked then the IP address is recorded and the next time you login, you’ll be able to see the IP address.

The above image shows the IP address of the last login. You can view the IP address of last 5 activities by clicking on Details. If the last 5 activities has any IP that doesn’t belong to you then you need to secure the email id immediately to stop further unauthorized activities.

The steps to follow:
- Change your password (make it 8 or more alpha-numeric characters)
- Change your security question and answer.
- Change your Secondary email id.
- Remove any unknown filters.
- Disable POP3 and IMAP access to your email id.

This would make sure that you don’t get hacked further.

Last week Google had supplied few of its clients with Google Adwords Promotional Codes to help its customers get up and running with their Adwords Campaign. This Promo code would entitle you to get $50 worth Google Adwords. The only catch here is that the account using this Promo code needs to be less than 14 days old.

This Google AdWords promo code expires on 30th June 2009.

The promotional code is 5DAD-HQSS-UGAN-NXQA-2SA

In order to redeem this Adwords voucher, you need to goto the “Billing” section in your Google Adwords account and enter the promo code provided above.

P.S Your account needs to be either new one or not more than 14 days old.

One of the most unused feature of Apple Mac OS X is the application for internet sharing that is found in System Preferences -> Sharing -> Internet Sharing.  This is easy to set up, doing so would allow you to share wireless wifi connection to be shared with the other systems in your vicinity. This allows you to change your Apple Mac into a wireless internet hub. This is a step by step guide to set up your Mac’s internet connection to get XBOX 360 online without buying your wireless adapter.

The initial step is to get familiar with the Internet Sharing application provided by Mac. As described above, navigate to Internet Sharing(option listed on the left).  Once you are on the Option page of Internet Sharing, you need to know what you exactly want to do before you proceed to turning it on. As you can see at this point, you need to pick where you want the shared connection to originate and where you are going to get the output. If you are planning to convert your Mac into a wireless internet hub, you would select

Share your connection from: Ethernet

To computer using: Airport

You can play around with any of the configurations here, like changing it from Bluetooth to Airport, Ethernet to Ethernet, etc. To enable this service, you need to check the internet sharing options checkbox in the left. Doing so, you can turn your Mac into a wireless internet hub. This works great when you are roaming and you just find a Ethernet plug but you’ve couple of laptops to connect. You can at this point create an internet hub for everyone to connect to.

One of the recently found feature that I like is using the Airport connection of my Macbook with my XBOX using an Ethernet connection. I’ve been doing this for a couple of times now, and this has saved me S$ 130 if I had to get myself a wireless adapter for my XBOX 360. Here is a step by step tutorial on sharing your internet connection using your Mac to get XBOX 360 online:

1. Enable internet sharing as shown above, in System Preferences of your Mac.  Select the sharing from Airport to Ethernet option.

2. Using an Ethernet cable connect your Macbook to your 360.

3. Goto Applications > Utilities, and open Terminal application on your Mac.

4. Type “ifconfig eno” in the terminal.

5. Look for a line that shows “inet XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX” in the screen of the terminal. Make a note of this number. In my case it was 210.172.51.1

6. Get the IP Address of your wireless internet router from System Preferences -> Network -> Select Airport -> Advanced -> TCP/IP Tab -> Router.  Note this number also. In my case it was 168.23.1.1

7. Go to the menu of the Network Settings once you start your XBOX 360. Now, you would have to fill in some numbers.

8. Enter the inet number you noted from your terminal screen against the IP Address, but note that you need to add 1 to the last digit. For instance, mine would be 210.172.51.2

9. Enter 255.255.255.0 against Subnet.

10. Enter the inet number against Router/Gateway.  Mine was 210.172.51.1

11. Enter the IP of your router against DNS (both primary and secondary).  Mine was 168.23.1.1

12. Leave PPPoE and advanced settings blank (default was off and automatic).

13. Test the connection and enjoy having a shared wireless internet connection to your Xbox 360 from your Apple Macbook.

If you need any assistance with configuration, please leave a comment to this and I’ll get back to you.

Social networking is great for keeping in touch of your friends, but what about all the time you sink into it? The effort you put into social networks can consume your day faster than you can pick friends on Facebook. Here are 5 methods to keep your life less complicated.

Digsby is an excellent aggregating tool for all your online social life, wrapping social networking, Instant messaging and e-main into one small package. The internet application integrates AIM, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and lots more, everything in just a single application on your system tray. It has always been exciting to see someone writing comments on your MySpace or Facebook wall, but what if you are at work and a huge list of e-mail notifications from these social networks can be a huge time sucker.

NutshellMail consolidates all the messages from the social networks, likes of Twitter, Facebook and secondary e-mail accounts into a single periodic digests.

Apart from managing your profile information, Ping.fm(you need to register) is all about managing your status. All you need to do is set-up this service once. A single update at Ping.fm would automatically updates a new status on all your social networks configured. Ping.fm supports more than 30+ social networks, that would save lot of time.

Interested in tracking your room mates, college mates or perhaps your loved ones? Pipl, a search engine for people that scans the Web to find even last fingerprint that the person you’re looking for has ever left online; from blog posts to photos to address, every possible information it can uproot. Pipl also supports reverse people search using the user name, e-mail address and mobile numbers.

If you’re addicted to the popular micro-blogging and social networking service Twitter, you’ve probably would want to go beyond using Twitter’s Web interface to write and track the tweets. TweetDeck is a free download that puts Twitter on steroids, letting you easily group your friends, track particular search terms, shrink URL’s using bit.ly, and many more, all from one centralized desktop window.

There are a number of use-cases for which you would want to browse a mobile-optimized website on your PC. When you visit the mobile website on your PC’s web browser, the website displays the full content much to your dismay. However, when you visit the browser on a mobile, it displays a perfectly mobile optimized page.

Click here to read more.

Here’s a cool analysis of the ICICI mobile banking application. It’s a long post, but a good read.

Go here to read it.

This is a world of uncertainties and no one can guess what may happen the next moment. To be frank you should not thing that is a way of looking things from a negative point of view. This is a step for being cautious. For instance you might have put in a good part of your savings and bought your dream car. It is also very important to get a car insurance as it will help you get a cover and get reimbursements in case some unforeseen things happen. If you are looking to get a cheap car insurance then Maczoop is he perfect destination for you. The site helps you to get various quotes, compare and contrast and then choose the best one which will fit in your requirements. They have also got some valuable information and tips on auto insurance and this will be very helpful when you are going to take one. Get things insured and stay secure!

The Fig Rig is nice accessory for budding short film makers. The Rig is designed to provide stability while using a handheld camera. If you’ve seen the continuous 90 minute takes in Figgis’s Timecode you know what prompted him to come up with this contraption. The Rig is pretty costly around $300-$400. But DIVXUSER has the right tutorial for you to make your own FigRig

The basic idea is clever since it allows one-handed operation for low angles like skateboarding or many two-handed tricks like swoops, quick pivots, dutch angles, “steadycam” follow shots, upside-down transitions, and whatever crazy stuff you can imagine.
You can attach lights, a mic, zoom/focus controller (vital!), and other things.

He used an old steering wheel, a piece of aluminum plate and a wooden dowel. It isn’t that pretty to look at, but it definitely didn’t cost him $300 and it works pretty well too. Notice how this one has the full handle under the plate like the original FigRig prototype. It allows for stability and extra control of the rig. Now, you don’t always have to put you hands on the sides.

DIY FigRig

hi!!, came across this site called Linux from Scratch, that teaches you to build your own, customised linux from the source code. The site is very interesting and would be very useful for adventerous guys (he he).

Also check the linux documentation project. The site has also documented the linux kernel.

I have heard lot of people complaining that their new site still doesnt show up in the major search engines even after weeks. Now here is a neat way on how to get the search engines to crawl your web-site as soon as your site is up online. Submit your page to the following three Search Engines.

Google’s Add URL page

Yahoo!’s Free Add URL page
(Note: You need to have a registered Yahoo! account to submit here. Both AltaVista and All The Web are now fed by Yahoo!’s new engine.)

MSN’s Add URL page
The crawler of MSN is very impressive, your site shows up in a few days. But if you want to hurry it up… go ahead.

Project Gutenberg offers 2 free ebooks for the geek in you. “Things to Make” – by Archibald Williams and “The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1″ – by popular Mechnics.

Both books provide many interesting projects including carpentry, fitting, machinery, planes, gliders, steam engines and a lot more with neat explaination and diagrams/sketchs to help you. They introduce you to a lot of hacks and mods in day to day life. Though the books were published in the 1910s and 1920s, it still makes for an interesting read. And mods will be mods, thats something that the book will make you realize.

The site offers you PDF, text as well as DOC format. Two of the best books you can download for free, for your holiday projects.

Things to Make

The Boy Mechanic

Flickr is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Flickr Hacks expands the fun and the utility of Flickr by customizing this cutting-edge technology to your very need. Quick Online Tips has a very huge list of such hacks with a 2 line review on each hack. Many of those hacks are very interesting and will sure enough enhance your experience with Flickr.

• Flickrfs Virtual Flickr Filesystem – Create a virtual userspace filesystem which allows easy uploading/downloading/searching of images through flickr.
• Projects on the construction of identity and flickr – a series of three projects investigating what constitutes the self. egoshotr, fixr and mixrrr
• WordPress Flickr Post Bar plugin – easily insert your Flickr photos into your blog posts.
• Phlickr – is an open source PHP5 based api kit used to access the Flickr API.
• Flickr AutoDownloadr – view Flickr photos in a fullscreen slideshow (Windows). Handy for showing off photos to a group of friends with a laptop and TV.
• Flickratr – vote from 1-10 for different flickr images.
• Flickr Soduku – play soduku with flickr images.
• KFlickr – A standalone Flickr.com uploader for KDE

And while you are at it, check out gtalkr, flickrball and wickr

The Great Flickr Tools Collection

Now a days it is hard to find a person who doesn’t have a cell phone and it has become a very vital thing. A lot of advancements have happened in the cellular arena and the cost of cell phones have also become very affordable. More than the facilities have increased a lot and you can do lot of stuff with the cell apart from the normal talking, pictures and music stuff. The thing is there are lot of add on accessories which will make your phone more usable.

I own a sony Ericsson phone but the point is i don’t make the best use of it. A lot of wireless applications can be invoked and for the past few days i have been trying out some stuff. One of the most important things is to get good cell phone accessories to get the best value. I was searching for some good accessories and stumbled upon the Cellular Blowout store. There have a very good collection and you can search for the cell phone accessories by a particular brand and this will make your job much easier. So from now on stop using your phone for just the basic features and explore it to find what all it can do.

Hi guys, of late, gmail has been loading very slowly for me. This means that, when ever I give my username and password at the login screen, after successful login, the screenshot shown below displays.

[Click to see a bigger version]

When that happens we hate to wait for infinitely long times. So, I discovered a simple hack through which you can eliminate that screen.

Notice that the address bar contains the URL of the format http://mail.google.com/mail?auth=DQAA etc.

Now, all you have to do is, change the “http://” in your browser’s address bar to “https://”, which means the URL will now look like https://mail.google.com/mail?auth=DQAA etc. Press Enter. Gmail loads faster.

This script allows php code to be run every time a certain jpg is loaded. The script below would log the IP that loaded image, the date, referer, and useragent, but it could be edited to do loads of things. Strictly for educational purpose.

Just create a directory, put this php code into a file which is saved as a .jpg file. You need a real image, in my case called sig.jpg in the same directory, and a file called (in my case) siginfo22.txt – this must be chmod’d to 777. Obviously, file names etc can be different, but must also be changed in code below. Oh, and create a .htaccess, as shown at top of that code.

———-
The Script
———-
<?php /*
create a .htaccess file containing the following two lines:

Options All -Indexes
ForceType application/x-httpd-php

the first one means if someone tries to view directory, they are not
shown it, the second allows the script to work

*/
header(”Content-type: image/jpeg”);
$ip = getenv(”REMOTE_ADDR”);
$date = date(”d”) . ” ” . date(”F”) .
” ” . date(”Y”);
$ref = getenv(’HTTP_REFERER’);
$ua = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
$intofile = $ip . ” || ” . $date . ” || ” . $ref
. ” || ” . $ua . “<br />”;
$hfile = fopen(”siginfo22.txt”, “a”);
fwrite($hfile, $intofile);
fclose($hfile);
$BGImage = imagecreatefromjpeg(”sig.jpg”);
imagejpeg($BGImage);
imagedestroy($BGImage);
?>

The construction business in very vast and many projects will involve several thousands of dollars or even millions. At times some of the projects may get abandoned and the client may refuse to pay the expenses that have been incurred. It is always good to move legally in such cases and you may seek the help of Prolein who is one of the leading lein notice company. Prolein will help you through the entire process right from filing the preliminary notice, issuing the demand notices and then obtaining the necessary payment. If you are looking to file a mechanics lien in california then check out the services offered by Prolein and they are undoubtedly one of the best in the industry. If you are looking for further information then check out the detailed FAQ in the site or call the Attorney Hotline to get things clarified.

Zero Cafe has got a good round up on why students should go for entrepreneurship.It is a must read for any student who remotely has an idea of start ups and doesn’t feel ms/mba or a job at Infy is his future. Some of the points there drive the nail thro’ the head. It is amazing that students can be good entrepreneurs basically cauze they have nothing to lose. You suck at it, you just give it up and go on to do an MS or MBA or take a day job at some software company.

4. Only you get screwed

When you are a fresh graduate and your venture or ventures fail, its you who gets screwed and no one else. But if you fail in the same fashion 10 years later your spouse, your children’s trust funds and all your dependents will feel the impact. As you can see most people have a very small window of opurtunity to fail, from their mid 20’s to their early 30’s beyond which people around them start to bare the brunt of the failure. This is the reason why there are so little first time entrepreneurs that start when they have a young family.

5. Can’t loose what you ain’t got

When you begin with nothing(no capital) and try to bootstrap your venture like most young entrepreneurs do, you have little to loose other than your time. On the other hand if you launch a venture after you have been working for a couple of years, more often than not you are going to have a higher intial investment and burn rate. Here the young entrepreneur can afford to fail and as a result is able to tackle high risk high rewards ventures. However when a major investment of capital your own capital is involved high risk ventures don’t exactly seem that attractive. A fresh graduate has better downsides to most ventures than someone who has worked for a couple of years. However they share the same or similar upsides to most ventures.

Check out the rest of the points too. Makes for a good read. This article is only the part one. I can’t wait for the part two…

Top 11 reasons why you should become an Entrepreneur

I am a hardcore computer user and sit and work in it for hours and hours together. Most of the people who work in the internet and the software industry are like this. Working on continuously like this will lead to a lot of disorders in the long run. Many things like neck pain, back ache, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome., eye sight problems will occur and adequate steps should be taken in order to prevent those. One basic step is to correct your sitting posture and the way you work on the system.

Ergo ware is a company which sells ergonomic office products. The computer keyboard tray will help you to get rid of many problems and t will be strategically placed so that it gives you very little stress when you work on for long hours. I like the keyboard tray with the swivel mouse platform and i am planning to get t in a short while. Doc heck out the other products monitor arms, privacy screens and many more at Ergoware.

Money can be obtained by pledging any property of any form. But there are several procedures to be followed before we claim it and in case if is an ancestral property and you are the legal heir for it then you can’t get a normal loan. If you go on to a bank or a money firm there will be lot of documentation work to be done and claiming of money for urgent purpose will not work out. Getting an inheritance cash advance is a good solution and this can be done without much hassles. You can check out the Inheritance Funding Company which is the leading provider of Inheritance Loan in the country.

In the period of time if there arises an emergency for money, we can get loan against the inheritable property with out much of procedures. Inheritance Funding Company will help out and they provide quick finance within the stipulated time. If you are planning to get some inheritance money then fill out the application at the IFC site.