Tech Dreamer

Good news for free users of Rapidshare.com. You only have to wait 45 seconds between downloads and you no longer have to enter a Captcha Code. The downside to all of this is that you are limited to a download speed of 500 kilobits per second which works out to about 62.5 kilobytes per second download speed. Not bad for those of you with a 512kbps connection. Another added benefit for free users is that you can now download files as large as 200 megabytes. So what are you waiting for? Start sharing those files…the ones you have rights to that is.

When you log into Hotmail with the latest version of Firefox 3, I’m sure that you encounter the following error:

“You are temporarily on the classic version of Windows Live Hotmail due to an error encountered during login. Before trying again, please clear your cache and cookies.”

I know this must be very frustrating, especially if you are accustomed to using the Full Version of Hotmail that utilises AJAX technology, which makes it so much faster than the Classic Version.

Now there isn’t an official fix at the moment but I’ve come across something that would at least solve the problem in the short term, until the good folks at Mozilla or at Microsoft can officially make all Firefox 3/Hotmail users happy.

Fix: Download and install the IE Tab which is available from the link below

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419

Open Hotmail and then click on the Firefox Icon near the bottom right side of your Firefox window to switch to “IE mode” and you will see the Firefox icon change to an IE icon .

Once this is done, the page should reload/refresh and you may be required to login once more. After you get logged in, you will notice that you can now access the Full Version of Windows Live Hotmail. Hope this helps. Leave comments and suggestions and let me know what you all think.

First off let me apologize for my absence on the blog but I’m back now. Since I’ve started using Mozilla Firefox with my Windows Live Hotmail account, I’ve noticed that horizontal white lines have been appearing on in-line images in my e-mails while scrolling down. The slower that I would scroll, the more white lines would appear. If I scroll really fast then there would be less lines. Now it seems there is either a bug in Firefox or the scripts being used by Windows Live Hotmail have some rendering issues.

I use Windows Live Hotmail “Full Version” and in “Full Message View”, ie. with the Reading Pane off, so I’m not sure if the same problem occurs if the reading pane is on. The solution that I have found to this problem with Firefox and Windows Live Hotmail is quite simple and just involves installing a Free Extension or Add-on for Mozilla Firefox.

The extension is called Stylish and can be downloaded from the link below.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2108

Once you have downloaded and installed the Add-on, you will have to restart Firefox. After restarting, you will see a new icon near the bottom-right side of your Firefox window. The icon looks like this

Open Windows Live Hotmail and then right click the Stylish icon. From the menu that comes up choose Write Style > For mail.live.com

In the new window that pops up, enter the following:

Here is the code for easy selection. Just select it, copy and paste.

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain(“mail.live.com”) {
.ReadMessagePane {overflow-y:scroll !important; overflow-x:scroll !important}

}

The Description could be anything you want actually, but I’ve use the description above as it most suits the situation. Click Save when you are finished entering the information above and scroll through some images. There should not be any more of those pesky lines.

RapidShare.com has put a new CAPTCHA system in place that asks for free users to solve an extraordinary new CAPTCHA image.

In order to download the file, you will need to decipher which letter has the image of a cat on it and input those into the box. The other image used by RapidShare.com is that of a dog. Personally I find this CAPTCHA quite tedious but I guess it’s one way of preventing free users from using those automated download scripts to beat the system.

Well the folks at Google have really outdone themselves this time. With Gmail Custom Time, being late will be a thing of the past. As the slogan for this new addition goes, “Be on time. Every time.” What a great new concept by the makers of Google. Never again will you have to worry about forgetting someone’s birthday because if you do just simply set your custom time to the date that it was supposed to be, click the send button, and all your problems will be fiexd.

Image courtesy Gmail.

Now onto Google’s new Adventure of Many Lifetimes known as Virgile. This is an initiative by Google and Virgin to create the first human civilisation on the planet Mars.

An invitation.

Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.

What a great opportunity for everyone who can pass The Test to be a part of the new society on the red planet we call Mars. If you have any doubts about this article or think that it is some elaborate April Fool’s prank, then feel free to CLICK HERE and get all the relevant information and more straight from the horse’s mouth…Google.

According to the PC World Blog, Google Docs has gone offline. No longer will you have to be connected in order to make changes to your Google Docs. You will now be able to work on your documents even when you’re offline. Taking this new feature into consideration and the fact that Google Docs is a free service, MS Office may soon be a thing of the past.

The offline-service is being rolled out in phases right now, first with the word processor application. Only some users will have access to the offline word processor, but over the next few weeks it should become available to all users. At the same time, the spread sheet application will proceed to be available offline, first only for viewing but then editing will be available as well. The application for slide show presentations will remain as an online-only service for a bit longer than its counterparts. It will eventually get offline-access status along with other Google Apps in the near future.

With Google Docs being available offline, it will now have a huge edge over its Microsoft equivalent. Remember Google Docs are already available online and can be accessed from any location simply by logging into your Google Account. Once you are using Google Docs, there will be no need to carry around copies of your work on USB drives and you will never have the problem of forgetting your work at home. Once there is internet access, your work will be accessible. The down side of this is you can no longer make excuses for not having your work delivered on time.

I know you’ve all heard of the Home Pregnancy Test. Now there’s a new kid on the block, the Home Paternity Test, labelled as the Identigene kit. The kit can be bought in the US for a price of US$29.99 but the catch is you don’t get the results (which cost a bit more than the kit) right away. You get some swabs in the kit which you have to use to collect the cell samples from inside the cheeks of the alleged father, the child and ideally the mother. The swabs then have to be packaged and mailed to Sorenson laboratory in Salt Lake City, Utah. The swabs are analysed at the lab and the results are either phoned, mailed or reported online within about three to five business days. The accuracy of this test is between 98 percent and 99 percent. The processing fee at the lab is US$119.00 so all in all you end up spending about US$150.00 in total to find out “who’s your daddy?”

Google has recently launched a new and FREE product called YouTube Insight which will allow anyone with a YouTube account to access detailed statistics about videos that they uploaded. Cool features such as the geographical location of visitors and also the popularity of your video against similar videos will now be made accessible using this new product. You will also be able to check your video’s “lifecycle” which basically means even more detailed stats such as:

how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks.

You might be wondering to yourself…what does all this mean to me? Well, with this new found information, you could be well on your way to figuring out ways of increasing views to your videos and ultimately becoming more popular on YouTube.

Tops for females are now optional in Copenhagen. This is not a joke folks, women in Copenhagen are now allowed to swim and walk around topless in public pools.

The decision is the result of a year-long campaign by a pressure group, the Topless Front, which says women should be treated the same as bare-chested men.

Campaign leader Astrid Vang, 20, who took her shirt off with others to protest at a leisure centre at Christmas, said: “We women would like to decide by ourselves when our breasts should be sexual and when not.

“In swimming pools they should not and that is why the breasts should not be covered – We will bathe topless just like men.”

The Danish campaign was inspired by a Swedish group called Just Breasts, which was formed after two women were asked to cover up their breasts by a lifeguard at a public pool near Stockholm.

Swedish protesters carried out several full-frontal marches in their country but are still campaigning for bare-chested equality.

One of their leaders, 22-year-old Ragnhild Karlsson, said: “We want our breasts to be as normal and desexualised as men’s, so that we too can pull off our shirts at football matches.”

Activists expect a flurry of similar campaigns-across Europe, including in Britain.

Authorities in Vancouver, Canada – often considered to be a bastion of Victorian values – have allowed topless women in swimming pools and on beaches for several years.

The only protest against the move came from lifeguards who said they had problems knowing what to hold when rescuing swimmers in difficulties.

In Copenhagen yesterday, the city’s Culture and Leisure Committee voted overwhelmingly to allow topless bathing.

Frank Hedegaard, of the Socialist People’s Party, said: “I cannot understand what some people find so offensive about women’s breasts.

“This decision is important in order to stop the idea that women’s bodies are only sex objects.”

According to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, piracy is funding terror! He basically said that the profits from illegal activities such as piracy and counterfeiting are ending up in the pockets of those pesky terrorists. Mr. Mukasey is also devoting more of his department’s time and resources into dealing with crimes of this nature so think twice.

“Criminal syndicates, and in some cases even terrorist groups, view IP crime as a lucrative business and see it as a low-risk way to fund other activities,” Mukasey said. “A primary goal of our IP enforcement mission is to show these criminals that they’re wrong.”

Keeping this in mind, the next time you want to get a quick fix from your favorite Bit Torrent client, think again, you just may be the cause of the next 9/11 event.