Instant messaging (IM) and chat are technologies that facilitate near real-time text-based communication between two or more participants over a network. Windows Live Messenger is the most popular IM client today with 294 million active worldwide.

Language plays a major role in any form of communication and Instant Message Language is an important factor behind the popularity of an IM client. This is the reason why QQ, used mostly in China, is probably the largest used Instant Messaging Client in the World, but most of us do not know about it.

But I just discovered a new Web 2.0 startup, which breaks the Instant Message Language Barriers and allows you to receive Instant Message in your preferred language.

Welcome to MeGlobe

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The free web client of MeGlobe lets you type in your own language, but sends a translated version, in real time, specific to the native tongue of whomever you are chatting with. Use of MeGobe is super easy, no downloads are required, you don’t need to install anything. Just register with them and start using this Instant Message Translation service.

But where is the Web 2.0 part here ?

It is interesting. They have made this IM language converter user driven. They acknowledge that it is very difficult every time to correctly translate the emotions with a machine. And so they have built in a feature, which allows you to edit the translation. These IM language edits are remembered by MeGlobe, thus making it better and better.

These contributions are used to teach MeGlobe™ to become a better translator. Every correction from the community brings us closer to our goal of erasing the borders of language. Creating a universal translator has huge potential, but requires lots of work. By no means has it been perfected, but with your help we’re getting better every day.

We all know how useful are Hotkeys, also known as KeyBoard shortcuts if you want to speed up your work on PC.

A keyboard shortcut (or accelerator key, shortcut key, hot key, key binding, keybinding, key combo, etc.) is a key or set of keys that performs a predefined function. These functions can often be done via some other, more indirect mechanism, such as using a menu, typing a longer command, and/or using a pointing device. By reducing such sequences to a few keystrokes, this can often save the user time, hence “shortcut”.

We use many hotkeys like CTRL+C, CTRL+V etc., but most of us use only a limited set of hotkeys. We do not use many of them, because we want to avoid the hassles of remembering them. And more often than not, these shortcut keys are not globally available for all programs we use on our system.

If it is possible to easily define shortcut keys, then the life would be a little simpler.

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How to define Hotkeys KeyBoard of your own

I am sure there must be many ways to define hotkeys, but I have just found a freeware utility, which can define hotkeys like a breeze.

Welcome to HotKeyMan.

Ever wanted to setup personal shortcuts for often used tasks to be globally available in all open programs? With this small freeware program you can do just that. It is easy to set up the program for your personal needs. A simple guide will help you setup the initial hotkey settings the first time the program is started. After that, the hotkeys can be used all over Windows. You can define hotkeys to manipulate window state, close a running application, open a document, save screen capture to file, exit Windows or send keystrokes to the active window.

Use it to believe it. You sure will love this neat way to define hotkeys.

Firefox provides elaborate Privacy protection measures with its built-in preferences. These preferences allow you to control settings to decide how and when you get exposed to the online intruders and you can set these settings as per your convenience and requirements. However, if you want an enhanced protection, you need to some .xpi installation. .xpi files are popularly known as Firefox Addon in common terminology and are a breeze to install. You can check our post on How to install xpi firefox addons.

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How to increase online privacy by installing xpi Firefox addons

Check out these Firefox addons, which basically allow you to browse Internet through Proxy Servers, thus hiding your identity and IP address from intruders.

FoxyProxy: Updated May 5, 2008 | 23,741 weekly downloads | 1,316,586 total downloads

A hugely popular Firefox Extension. FoxyProxy is an advanced proxy management tool that completely replaces Firefox’s limited proxying capabilities. This xpi installation allows you to switch an internet connection automatically across one or more proxy servers based on URL patterns. Put simply, FoxyProxy automates the manual process of editing Firefox’s Connection Settings dialog.

This has a feature rich interface but it also adds to its complexity.

PhProxy: Updated April 18, 2008 | 3,795 weekly downloads | 200,802 total downloads

PhProxy acts as a protective screener between the user and the Internet. The PhProxy server downloads the contents of the web page into its memory, and then displays it to the user, which means that only the server’s IP is logged, and not the user’s.

Torbutton: Updated August 13, 2007 | 17,873 weekly downloads | 1,661,118 total downloads

Perfect for those who use one proxy or none at all. In my case this is Privoxy. No need to use FoxyProxy, which is excellent itself but only if one is really using multiple proxies and want to create black/white lists.

I love Firefox. And the single most important factor is its Open Source Architecture, which allows third party developers to develop Firefox addons, which seamless integrate with Firefox to give you huge versatility.

My latest find is InterClue, the nice Firefox Addon, which is a smart way to browse Internet so as to cut your time spent as well as your bandwidth uses.

InterClue allows you to browse Internet faster. It gives you a smart snapshot of a link, if you hover your mouse over it. I find it far better than a similar product Snap. Snap was a headache. It really added to the clutter on a web page, and I found it to be really annoying to browse a page having Snap enabled on it.

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But InterClue is much better. If you unintentionally hover your mouse over a link, it just pops up a small icon besides the link. And when you hover the mouse over that icon, then only the snapshot screen is opened. Far better than Snap.

Besides this, InterClue gives you much more information than Snap. It also gives information about the meta data of the page. See the screenshot, to know the power of InterClue.

Interclue can give you:

• A text content summary
• A small snapshot of the page
• Sizes and dates of linked files
• Usefule stats and metadata
• Next actions – save, email…
• And more. Check the options!

Despite its powerful features, many people don’t like InterClue, because they think that it obstructs their vision.

But I liked it.

There are many ways to answer a question like How to Write a Blog Post. There are many web tools available. Some bloggers use blog writing tools like Windows Live Writer, while others use the built in WYSIWIG text editors. Some of the Blog Writing Tools are mentioned below.

1. ScribeFire: ScribeFire is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox that integrates with your browser to let you easily post to your blog: you can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog.
2. Windows Live Writer: One of the most popular web tools for writing blog posts from the stable of Microsoft.
3. MarsEdit: Powerful Blog Publishing For Your Mac, which allows you to write, preview, and publish a blog post without a web browser. However it is not FREE.
4. BlogJet: BlogJet is a blog client for Windows that allows you to manage your blogs without opening a browser.
5. Qumana: Qumana features include easy text formatting and image insertion, simple Technorati tagging, and advertising insertion with Q Ads.
6. Elicit: Elicit is a desktop blog client that integrates Web and RSS services from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Bloglines etc. in one desktop application for the purpose of creating content for blogs. But it is also not free.
7. Ecto: Ecto is a feature-rich desktop blogging client for Mac OSX, supporting a wide range of weblog systems.
8. RocketPost: It is touted to be designed for serious bloggers and business users.It claims to be the only blog editor with WYSIWYG editing, full local editing and full blog import. You have to buy to use it.
9. Thingamablog: Unlike most blogging solutions, Thingamablog does NOT require a third-party blogging host, a cgi / php enabled web host, or a MySQL database. In fact, all you need to setup, and manage, a blog with Thingamablog is FTP, SFTP, or network access to a web server.

Besides all these software and tools to write a blog post, I have recently learned that Word 2007 is also a powerful Blog Writing Tool. I have been using Windows Live Writer to mostly write Blog Posts till now, but I find Word 2007 to be even better in some cases. Word 2007 seems to give you a richer interface. For instance, with one click, you can insert any of the following into your blog post.
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• Pictures
• Shapes
• SmartArt Graphics
• WordArt
• Symbols

Formatting your blog post is much more easier in Word 2007, than in Windows Live Writer. I also found that the speed of Live writer to be slower than Word 2007, both to start and work.

However, the availability of many useful plugins make Live Writer a useful piece of software to write blog post, which is missing in Word 2007. Yet another thing is that Live Writer supports Technorati Tagging while it does not seem to be possible for Word 2007.

You have to first open a new document in Word 2007, and select the option of a Blog Post. When opening for the first time, it asks you to add new blog account, where you enter the URL address of your blog and the username / password of your blog. Thereafter you will know for yourself, how to write a blog post with Word 2007.

A few screenshots…

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This blog had earlier carried a post about how to Auto logon for Windows XP.

With many people now switching over to Windows Vista from XP, I thought it appropriate to write a tip on how to Auto logon in Windows Vista. This is also a simple trick.

Click on Start Menu > Run.

Type netplwiz in the Dialog Box and hit Enter. Following Window will open.

Uncheck “Users must enter a username and password to use this computer” check box.

Click Apply.

You will be prompted to enter the Username and Password of the account to which you want to activate Auto Logon in Windows Vista. [If no password, then simple press Enter].

Click OK.

Simple steps, but very useful. These small tips here and there save you lots of time and hassles and make your digital life more productive.

This blog has earlier carried a post on how to Restore last session in Firefox. Firefox restores session automatically, which you had opened last time, in case of system crash or some unexpected errors. But this tip explained how you can do that every time you open firefox.

But after that post, I had received mixed reactions.

A few of my readers have appreciated that cool tip and found that very useful. But yesterday, I was contacted by a reader, who found this feature bothering him too much. He even wanted to get rid off the built-in feature of Firefox, where it prompts you to restore firefox session after it had closed due to some unexpected error or a system crash. So, how to do that.

How to get rid off Firefox Restore Session Dialog Box

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This is even easier. You just have to change the value of the browser.sessionstore.enabled flag. It’s easy.

• Type about:config in your Firefox Address bar.
• Select browser.sessionstore.enable
• Double click to change the setting to false

Simple. Now you will no longer get the Firefox Restore Session Dialog Box.