Thursday, 15 May 2014

Google Tricks, Easter Eggs & Secrets

Post By; Hanan Mannan
Contact Number: Pak (+92)-321-59-95-634
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Google Tricks, Easter Eggs & Secrets

Google's engineers love to hide some pretty cool tricks at the most unexpected places. Add to that Google's policy of giving 20% of working time to its engineers to do what they want, and you have a search engine filled with lots of entertaining Easter eggs and tricks.

Sadly, most of these tricks are still a secret, but every now and then, Google employees leak these cool insider pranks and the whole world gets to know about them. Here, I have created a list of all such known Google tricks and Easter eggs that are still "working."
Google Tricks

Kerning
Kerning means adjusting the spacing between characters. So, how would you expect Google to describe it? Literally, off course. When you search Google for Kerning, the spacing of the word Kerning is changed as compared to that of other words. This only works with personalized results disabled.

Conway's Game Of Life
Conway's Game Of Life is a game that indicates how cellular life evolves based on the initial configuration. If you search Google for Conway's Game of Life, you will get a results page with the game running in the background.

Jason Isaacs
Just search for Jason Isaacs and Google will return a page saying Hello to him. This only works on Google UK. This is a reference to Kermode and Mayo's Film reviews which greets Jason with hello every week.

Bacon Number {Actor Name}
Kevin Bacon is a famous hollywood actor who was quoted as saying that he has worked with everybody in hollywood or somebody who has worked with them in 1994. This led to many websites being launched about his claim in 2007. Bacon seeing this immense response launched a charitable website called Six Degrees, which is based on a theory that everyone in hollywood has worked with Kevin Bacon through a chain of six acquaintances or less. An actor gets as many degrees as he is distant from Kevin Bacon's movies in terms of people in the chain of acquaintances.

Google too has now involved Six Degrees of Bacon in its search results. For example, searching Google for Bacon Number Johnny Depp gives Depp's Bacon number to be 2.

Google knows how to celebrate the holidays
Searching Google for a holiday will make Google return a page decorated with items representing that holiday. For example, searching Google for Christmas returns a page decorated with Christmas lights. This also works for Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Halloween and Festivus. These Easter Eggs based on a festival are only activated when that festival is near.

Zerg Rush
Search Google for Zerg Rush and you will see the O's of Google attacking the search results page. They will attacking every result one by one. There is a health bar which indicates how injured a search result is. You can also kill these O's by clicking on them. They also have health bars which indicates their health. You get points on the basis of how many O's you kill. The aim of this game is to beat as many O's as possible.

Zerg Rush Google Easter Egg

Askew or Tilt
Ever had the chance of searching Google for Askew or Tilt? If you have, then you already know what comes up. If you haven't, do it now and you will see the search results page literally tilt to give you a better idea of what these words mean. This will work only if you use latest browsers which support HTML5 and CSS3. So, Internet Explorer users, use Firefox, Google Chrome or Safari for a while to use this.

Do a barrel roll
Google Tricks & Easter Eggs
'Do a barrel roll' in its true sense means to do a 360 degree spin. Google takes practical demonstrations way too seriously for this one and literally spins the search results page to give you a clearer idea of the meaning of this phrase. Don't believe me? Go search Google for Do a barrel roll now and see your world turn around.

This Easter egg is apparently a tribute to Star Fox, a video game series developed by Nintendo, because searching Google for Z or R Twice also does the barrel roll, just like in Star Fox. Many bloggers interpreted a lot of different things from this, but Google clarified that this fun trick was created by a Google Engineer solely for the purpose of entertaining users along with showing the power of new HTML5 and CSS3 technologies. Like the previous Easter egg, this will only work in modern browsers.

Binary, Octal and Hexadecimal Number systems
Another one of those literal Google Easter eggs. If you search Google for "Binary""Octal" or"Hexadecimal" (without quotes) with Search Plus Your World disabled, Google will show the number of results in the same number system. For example, searching Google for hexadecimal will return the number of results like in the image below.

Octal, Binary & Hexadecimal

Recursion
The "Did you mean?" feature of Google often helps many users to get to the right results when they type something different from what they intended to search. If you search Google for recursion, the same feature takes you to an endless loop of clicks all linking to the same results page thereby completing recursion, which occurs when something calls itself. Seriously geeky.

Recursion Google Easter egg

Anagram
Another one of those "Did you mean?" Easter eggs. Search Google for Anagram and Google will instantly ask whether you meant "Nag A Ram" which is one of the anagrams of the word "anagram." Google really shows their word-playing skills with this one.

Asking Google to define Anagram makes Google ask if you meant nerd fame again.

ASCII Art
Are you a fan of ASCII art? Google surely is. Search Google for ASCII art and Google will greet you with a search results page having an ASCII version of the Google logo at the place where normal logo should have been. This Easter egg does not work anymore. When it did work, it looked like the image given below.
ASCII art Google Easter Egg

Google Calculator Easter Eggs: The loneliest number
Google Secrets
Do you know which is the loneliest number? Ask Google Calculator. Search Google for the loneliest number and the in-search Google Calculator will give one as the answer, which apparently is a tribute to the Harry Nilsson's song "One."

Once in a Blue Moon
Google Tricks Easter Eggs
Ever wondered how much is 'once in a blue moon'? You must have heard this phrase often but Google calculator will give you the exact value of this phrase and surprisingly, it denotes frequency rather than time. Go search Google for this to get "1.16699016 × 10-8 hertz" as the answer.

The number of horns on a unicorn
Want to know the number of horns on a unicorn? Google calculator can help. Searching Google for the number of horns on a unicorn will give 1 as the answer.

Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the universe and everything
Google Easter eggs
Google is omniscient. Even the "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything" is known to Google. Just search Google for the above phrase and Google calculator will give you an answer. What are you waiting for? Just go to Google and find the true meaning of life.

[Pause to give you the time to search]

Surprised by the answer (42)? This is a reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a popular novel based on a radio show (by the same name) of the late seventies. Google engineers surprised you with these tricks, didn't they?
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Cool Facebook Status, Chat Tricks and Tips

Post By; Hanan Mannan
Contact Number: Pak (+92)-321-59-95-634
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Cool Facebook Status, Chat Tricks and Tips

Most of us use Facebook to interact with some of our long separated friends but that does not mean we cannot have fun on Facebook. Here is a collection of tricks, tips and Easter eggs you can use to enjoy your experience on Facebook.

Facebook Easter Eggs: Pirate Language ,Turn Facebook Upside Down

Facebook is not as famous for its Easter eggs as Microsoft, but that does not mean that Facebook's Easter eggs are not entertaining. The one which I especially find interesting is the Pirate Language trick. To enable Pirate Language in Facebook, login to Facebook, click on the down arrow at the right of the top navigation bar, click on Account Settings, click on Edit at the right of the Language option, and in the Primary Language dropdown menu, select English(Pirate) located somewhere near the bottom and be the captain of your Pirate Ship.

Facebook tricks
Blabber t' yer mates

Similarly, you can also turn Facebook upside down by selecting English(Upside Down) from the Languages dropdown. This will flip the entire Facebook interface but your status updates would still be "normal".

Facebook Tips
See. Mark Zuckerberg does know how to headstand.


Chat on Facebook in your Firefox sidebar while browsing other Websites

To do this, you need to bookmark http://facebook.com/login.php. Then click on Show all Bookmarks (Manage Bookmarks in older versions) in the Bookmarks menu, then locate the newly created bookmark, single click on it, then click on more in the footer, then check Load this bookmark in Sidebar. Now, you can open that bookmark in Firefox's sidebar and keep on browsing other websites too.

Facebook chat

Show Facebook Status Updates only to Specific People or Hide them from someone

Facebook gives you the option to show your status updates to everyone or only your friends. You can further optimize Facebook so that your status updates are shown only to people you wish. Go to Privacy Settings by clicking the Settings icon at the right of the top navigation bar and clicking Privacy Settings. Then, in the Who can see my stuff? section, click on "Who can see your future posts?". Then, customize who you wish to show your posts by clicking on the down arrow that appears next to the Post button on the non-functional status update box. You can also hide your statuses from specific people by adding their name in the Hide from These section under Custom settings. You can also individually change the audience of your posts. Go to the post whose audience you wish to change and choose a different audience by clicking on the globe icon (which denotes that the post is public).

Hide Facebook Status

Hide your past posts so that only your friends can see them

Now you can also customize your past posts so that only your friends can see your past activity. To do this, open Facebook Privacy Settings and under the "Limit the Audience for Past Posts" option, select "Limit Old Posts."

Tag people in Status Updates, Wall Posts, Comments or Text

To tag someone in text in a manner that a link is created to the person's profile, use the @ symbol. eg. If you wish to tag John Jamison in your comment write @ John Jamison without any spelling mistake. If the person is in your friend list, a link in blue will be automatically created to the person's profile and he would be "tagged".
Tag Statuses Text Comments
Facebook text tagging in action


Write Upside Down, In Bubbles or Inverted Mirror-like text on Facebook

You might have seen many people update their Facebook status saying that "this was the last time they bought a keyboard on eBay" or "they have finally learnt how to update Facebook statuses while doing a headstand" written upside down. Here is how you too can flip text like that and add much more cool effects. Just go to Upside Down Text, uncheck Backwards effect, enter your text and copy the inverted one from the inverted text column and paste it in your status update or chats. You can also write inverted mirror like text by un-checking the upside down effect. To write in bubbles, click on the Bubble Ball text in the top Navigation bar.

e.g. Mirror Effect:- !rorrim a ni deppart ma I !oN hO

e.g. Upside Down Effect:- ɯɐp ʞǝʎqoɐɹp¡

e.g Both Mirror and Upside Down Effect:- ¡poפ ǝɯ dlǝH ˙ʎzɐɹɔ ƃuıʇʇǝƃ sı uıɐɹq ʎW

e.g. Text in Bubbles:- Ⓞⓗ Ⓝⓞ! Ⓜⓞⓡⓔ ⓑⓤⓑⓑⓛⓔⓢ
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Change Facebook Theme, Color & Appearance

Post By; Hanan Mannan
Contact Number: Pak (+92)-321-59-95-634
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Change Facebook Theme, Color & Appearance

Facebook is a social networking site which enables people to connect with friends and people around. That's how Facebook is usually introduced. However, Facebook is beyond the need of being introduced as almost everyone is on it. Despite its popularity, Facebook has one flaw; the default blue theme is really boring.

Some even consider it an annoyance while visiting Facebook. As Facebook does not allow users to change its theme like MySpace used to, users are left with no other option but to bear the theme Facebook wants them to use.

However, it is relatively easy to change the Facebook theme to a stylish one using an addon and custom themes which are available free of cost on the internet.

An example of the final outcome would be something like in the image.

Change Facebook Theme
This is the Ferrari theme. More themes are available for you to choose.


Requirement: The basic requirement for this to work is to have Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome as your browser.

Steps to achieve this: If you use Google Chrome, click here. Mozilla Firefox users should carry out the following steps to successfully change Facebook theme.

  1. Open Mozilla Firefox and install 'Stylish' addon.
  2. Follow the basic steps to install the addon.
  3. Restart Firefox after successfully installing the Stylish addon.
  4. Login to your Facebook Account and click on the small 'S' button in your Firefox status bar.
  5. Click on "Find Styles for this Site" to open a new tab with free themes to use for Facebook.
  6. Click on any theme and a preview will be shown.
  7. If everything is fine in the previewed theme, click on "Install with Stylish" button at the top right corner of the page.
  8. A dialog box will open.
  9. Click on Install in the dialog box.

Steps for Google Chrome
  1. Install Stylish for Chrome from the Chrome Web Store.
  2. Navigate to Facebook.com and click on the S button.
  3. Click on "Find Styles for this Site" to open a new tab with free themes to use for Facebook.
  4. Click on any theme and a preview will be shown.
  5. If everything is fine in the previewed theme, click on "Install with Stylish" button at the top right corner of the page.

Stylish Button


facebook theme change

Install with stylish

Installing Ferrari theme for Stylish Firefox

Now whenever you open Facebook, it will show the theme that you have installed with Stylish instead of the boring old blue theme.
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Why Facebook is Blue in Color?

Post By; Hanan Mannan
Contact Number: Pak (+92)-321-59-95-634
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Why Facebook is Blue in Color?
When you open Facebook, the first thing that you notice is the blue color it uses. Ever wondered why is Facebook so blue in color and not changing its color scheme?

Ever since they started as 'thefacebook', Facebook has stayed with the blue color. Although major changes have been made in the Facebook theme since then, the major unchanged thing has been the blue color.

facebook blue color
Facebook from its early days when it was known as  thefacebook

An exciting fact: In its earlier days, thefacebook.com required you to have an  .edu email id to join.

Everywhere from its login page to Facebook groups, you find only blue.

facebook is blue
Facebook Login Page. All Blue!

The reason for this is that  Mark Zuckerberg, the young founder of Facebook is red-green color-blind and blue is the richest colour for him which he confirmed in an online interview with Leo Laporte.

Another important commercial factor for using blue color is the fact that most colors tend to distract the viewers. Blue on the other hand acts as a transparent background to the main content as visible to the human brain due to which most popular websites tend to use the blue color. It can easily be called a webmaster's favorite color. Blue color is also sometimes referred to as 'Nirvana' for the brain.

All these factors make blue a prominent color on Facebook. 

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How to Put Short Notes in the Windows Taskbar

Post By; Hanan Mannan
Contact Number: Pak (+92)-321-59-95-634
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How to Put Short Notes in the Windows Taskbar

clip_image001
There are plenty of third-party programs and other widgets that may help you keep information close at hand. Here’s a neat trick to keep short notes or other small pieces of information accessible from the taskbar without any extra software.

Folder-Based Toolbars

You may be familiar with the Quick Launch toolbar that was available in earlier versions of Windows, but has been hidden or removed since. Did you know you can bring it back, or evenmake your own toolbar like it? This same functionality will allow us to create a toolbar that contains items with small bits of information we want to keep handy. Start by making a new folder wherever you want to keep the information, and make a new toolbar that points to it.
For demonstration purposes, we’ll use “C:\Notes\Phone Numbers”

Creating a Template File

After you have prepared the toolbar and placed it where you want, you’ll want to create a template file for your notes. This file can be placed anywhere you want, but to keep your toolbar looking clean you may want to put it somewhere other than the toolbar’s folder. Here the template will be saved to the toolbar’s parent folder, “C:\Notes”.
To create your template, simply open up a fresh instance of Notepad and save the blank document with an extension of “.lnk”. Make sure to specify the extension in the “File name:” field, and change “Save as type:” to “All Files”.
clip_image002
When you look at the file in Explorer, you’ll see that Windows thinks it’s a Shortcut. Since it’s really just an empty text file though, trying to open it will do nothing – it’s harmless. Making the file as a Shortcut allows you to choose a custom icon for it.
clip_image003

Populating Your Notes

Once the template is made to your satisfaction, creating the notes in your toolbar is a simple matter of copying the template into the toolbar’s folder and renaming the copy to whatever you want the note to say.
clip_image004
As you create new notes, they’ll be visible in your toolbar by clicking the arrow next to the toolbar’s name.
clip_image005

Automating Note Creation

It’s easy to take a lot of the manual work out of this process, once the toolbar and template file are created. For the above scenario, where the notes are in “C:\Notes\Phone Numbers” and the template is at “C:\Notes\Template.lnk”, the following Batch script will work to facilitate creation of a new note:
@ECHO OFF
SET /P X=Text for note:
COPY “C:\Notes\Template.lnk” “C:\Notes\Phone Numbers\%X%.lnk”
SET X=
PAUSE
Save that into a file with a “.bat” extension – you’ll probably want to put it into your toolbar’s folder for easy access – and run it any time you need to make a new note.
clip_image006

Limitations

Notes created this way have the same restrictions as any file name in Windows. Particularly, you will want to keep in mind that the following characters are invalid:
  • < (less than)
  • > (greater than)
  • : (colon)
  • “ (double quote)
  • / (forward slash)
  • \ (backslash)
  • | (vertical bar, pipe)
  • ? (question mark)
  • * (asterisk)
Also, there is a limit to the length your notes can have before it will be truncated in the toolbar display. Our testing saw this limit at around 410 pixels, or 38-71 characters (depending on which characters were used), but your mileage may vary. In order to see the full text of notes that exceed this length, you’ll have to open the toolbar in Explorer. The easiest way to do this is to right-click the toolbar and select “Open Folder”.
clip_image007
Ultimately, the length of each note is capped by the upper limits of the file system. For NTFS (the default for modern versions of Windows), the extreme maximum for a file name with a three-character extension is 251 characters. The actual maximum for most files is shorter though, since the length of the folder path can reduce the limit.

Sorting

If the list of notes becomes long enough that it exceeds the height of your screen, it will become scrollable.
clip_image008
At this point, you’ll probably want to get the whole list sorted so it’s easier for you to find items within it. Any time you want to sort the items in your toolbar, just right-click one and choose “Sort by Name”.
clip_image009
So now there’s a list of phone numbers (or whatever else you want to put in there) that’s just one click away no matter what other windows are open!
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JavaScript Tricks: Edit Websites in Browser (Live)

Post By; Hanan Mannan
Contact Number: Pak (+92)-321-59-95-634
-------------------------------------------------------JavaScript Tricks: Edit Websites in Browser (Live)

Imagine a world where you are a God and have ultimate control on what happens and more importantly, how it happens. Seems too good a dream. Now it has come true, at least for the online world.

JavaScript tricks
Using this trick, you will be able to edit any webpage live in your browser as if it was a Wiki and change the details according to your wish. Yes, you read that right. You can edit Google or even Facebook for that matter right in your browser and that too without requiring any technical know-how or getting deep into hacking and cracking.

Here is an example picture demonstrating the Google Homepage edited by me to say that I own Google.
Edit Websites Browser

This is just an example. You can use it for anything like showing wrong traffic stats or for fooling people by showing that someone said something about them on Facebook or Twitter. It depends only on your creativity. But I would advise you to stay ethical and use it for entertainment purposes only.

(Mozilla Firefox does not support this. If you use Firefox, you can use the bookmarklets given at the end of this post. If you use Google Chrome and the code does not seem to work, precede it with "javascript:" without quotes.)

To use this trick, all you need to do is just copy the code given below and paste it in your address bar after you have opened the website you wish to edit. And start editing.

javascript:document.body.contentEditable%20=%20'true';%20document.designMode='on';%20void%200
You can capture a screenshot by pressing the Print Screen key or by using the Snipping Tool if you use Windows 7 or Windows Vista. If you wish to again make the website non-editable to give a more authentic look, copy and paste the code given below in the address bar after you are done editing (does not work in Firefox).

javascript:document.body.contentEditable%20=%20'false';%20document.designMode='off';%20void%200

Or, alternatively you can use the following bookmarklets by dragging them to your Bookmarks bar.

1.  Edit this Website

2.  Done Editing

The editing that you do will however be temporary as it is not server-sided. You can also save the modified website through your browser by File>Save. This works on all common web browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer.
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Facebook Tricks, Tips & Hacks

Post By; Hanan Mannan
Contact Number: Pak (+92)-321-59-95-634
-------------------------------------------------------Facebook Tricks, Tips & Hacks:

Almost half of all the sharing that happens online is done on Facebook. This in itself is testament enough that Facebook does the job of connecting people fairly well. However, there are some tips and tricks that can allow you to get more out of Facebook and this article contains a list of some of the best such Facebook tips.

Facebook Tricks
Stop Hackers on Facebook
Are you worried about hackers hacking your Facebook account and posting stuff you don't want them to? Just read the linked post to protect yourself from most basic hacks.

Change Facebook's Theme
Are you bored with the default blue colored Facebook theme and want to get rid of it? Go change it to something super cool.

Minimalist Facebook Theme Tricks
Facebook Galaxy Theme
Post an Empty/ Blank Status
Are you tired of constantly thinking new and interesting status updates for your Facebook friends? Then, post an empty status and show your friends that you denounce the thinking that if your status isn't cool, you aren't either. Just go to Facebook, hold Alt and press 0, 1, 7 and 3 respectively and click Post. This will post the null character as your status which basically is an empty space. Laptop users can do this after activating the Number Lock.
Facebook Tricks, Tips, Hacks
This is how the empty status looks like.
Subscribe to the RSS feed of your Notifications 
Go to Facebook's notifications page and click on the RSS link to find the RSS feed containing all your recent notifications. You can then subscribe to this feed in any desktop based RSS reader to instantly know when a new notification occurs.

Change Facebook's Posted via text
Have you noticed that when you update your Facebook status from a mobile, Facebook adds a "Posted via Mobile" link at the bottom of it? You can change that to say hilarious things like "via Carrier Pigeon" or "via My Bedroom." To do this, just go to PostedVia, choose a delivery option and update your status or post to a friend's wall.
Facebook Tips and Tricks
 I posted this status from the unreleased iPhone 5 ;) 

Know when friends Unfriend you
Facebook notifies you when someone adds you as a friend but Facebook does not notify you when someone unfriends you. If you wish to access this data, you can use Social Fixer Facebook extension, which will not only allow you to do this but a lot more too.
Facebook Tricks Unfriends

Update Facebook Status from Firefox
FireStatus is a Firefox addon that allows you to instantly update your Facebook status without having the need to visit Facebook again and again.

Facebook Firefox

Use Dynamic Facebook Profile Links to Fool your Friends
This is a funny use of technology to have fun with your friends. Just say some mean things in your status and then include this link -> www.facebook.com/profile.php?=1233445566. This may look like a link to a specific person's Facebook profile but in reality, it redirects users to their own profile. This happens because of the missing 'id' parameter. You can change the numbers to anything you like.

Facebook Tricks Search
Find Exactly What you are looking for on Facebook
If you ever had trouble finding a friend or a specific post by one of your friend, you should definitely take a look at the Facebook page on searching. It will help you to get acquainted not only with how Facebook search works but also enable you to get the most out of it.

Facebook Notifications Tricks
Access Facebook Chat on Your Desktop
Have you ever wanted to chat with your Facebook friends without opening a web browser? Desktop based applications like Digsby can allow you to stay connected with all your friends even when you close your web browser. This is much similar to chatting with Yahoo! Messenger or Google Talk chat client.

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