Store your videos on SkyDrive and Google Drive & also play them directly

Did you know, you can not only upload video files to SkyDrive and Google Drive but also play them online.

Although it is possible to upload video files of any format, SkyDrive can play H.264 (.mp4) and Windows Media Video (.wmv files) videos through a Silverlight player.

Google Drive lets you upload and play the following video formats:

• WebM files (Vp8 video codec and Vorbis Audio codec)
• .MPEG4, 3GPP and MOV files - (h264 and mpeg4 video codecs and AAC audio codec)
• .AVI (many cameras use this format - typically the video codec is
• MJPEG and audio is PCM)
• .MPEGPS (MPEG2 video codec and MP2 audio)
• .WMV
• .FLV (Adobe - FLV1 video codec, MP3 audio)

It provides a YouTube-like interface & also lets you add caption tracks to your video files.

Also see:
Popular Audio File Formats

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HOW TO make Google skip redirection step on clicking search result

There have been times when I wanted to just copy the URL of a site mentioned in a Google search result without having to go to the website & then copying it from the address bar.

However when I right click & copy the URL, this is how the address typically looks -
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=menu_elements_selector
&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&ved=0CEIQFjAE
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.jquery.com%2Fattribute-ends-with-selector%2F
&ei=LdQ8UKOkJYPTrQfn0IHIDA
&usg=AFQjCNFmICOvDtxuImTTeXY3pCDQNW6yVQ

(URL broken with new lines for readability & to preserve formatting)

Digging into the source code reveals that there is a mousedown event that fires up when the link is accessed & re-creates the HREF of that anchor tag so that you have to pass through a quick additional Google step before you can reach the search result site

I wished there was a bookmarklet that could stop Google from mangling the URL and skip the redirection step. Guess what, there is bookmarklet Zap Events that can remove all JavaScript events assigned to elements in a web page.

It only zaps the following 4 events - "mouseover","mouseout","unload","resize". I tweaked the code a bit to include the "mousedown" event as well -

javascript:(function(){var%20H=^
["mouseover","mouseout","unload","resize","mousedown"],^
o=window.opera;%20if(document.addEventListener/*MOZ*/&&!o)^
%20for(j%20in%20H)^
{document.addEventListener(H[j],function(e)^
{e.stopPropagation();},true);}^
%20else%20^
if(window.captureEvents/*NS4*/&&!o)%20{%20^
document.captureEvents(-1/*ALL*/);^
for(j%20in%20H)^
{window["on"+H[j]]=null;}}%20else/*IE*/%20{function%20R(N)^
{var%20i,x;for(j%20in%20H)^
if(N["on"+H[j]]/*NOT%20TEXTNODE*/)N["on"+H[j]]=null;^
for(i=0;x=N.childNodes[i];++i)R(x);}R(document);}})()

(remove  ^ & newline character when you're using this code)

With this modified bookmarklet, I can now copy the actual URL in a Google Search result.

Update 5/Sept/12: Found that this redirection feature bugs a lot of people. This thread on the StackExchange WebApps forum has simpler bookmarklet code to address this issue:

javascript:function rwt(a,f,g,l,m,h,c,n,i){return a};

Related:

• JavaScript Bookmarklet Builder
• Google Mobilizer Bookmarklet - view just text of web pages
• Is there a no-javascript version of search?

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What is Inbound Marketing?

It is how you can promote your site for free. This image from SEO expert Rand Fishkin's article sums it up well -

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IE10 - first browser to auto-correct text while you type

Although Internet Explorer 10 is the last among popular browsers to implement spell-checking, it is the first to support auto-correction. Did you know, IE was the first to implement CSS (in IE 3) and the idea of AJAX besides a lot of contributions to HTML5

Some interesting facts on this feature from the IE blog -

• Preexisting text will not be spellchecked, however pasted text will be checked when it is inserted.
• Spellchecking is active by default on <textarea> and contenteditable elements, and off by default for text boxes
• Web developers can override the defaults using the spellcheck attribute - spellcheck=true (enabled)
•  In the rare case that auto-correct changes something that you didn’t want changed, you can undo the change via CTRL+Z (Undo) using the keyboard, or bring up the auto-correction context menu using the mouse. In addition to using the mouse, the auto-correction menu can be activated via the keyboard by moving the insertion point inside of the word and pressing SHIFT+F10 (that key combo works to trigger any context menu). From the auto-correction menu you can also prevent the word from being auto-corrected in the future.
• By default, as you enter text into any HTML textarea element (a multi-line input box) or any region of editable HTML content, the spellchecking engine will be used to check the last entered word. The word is checked against a dictionary associated with the current keyboard input language. If that word is misspelled or repeated it will be identified as a potential error using the familiar red squiggly underline. The identification of potential misspelled or repeated words is done in the background so that it does not slow your text entry.
• You can add frequently used words to this dictionary or ask it ignore certain words.
• In Windows 8 this custom dictionary will be roamed to any other Windows 8 machine that you use via the cloud. 
• Internet Explorer 10 currently supports spellchecking in 15+ languages. It does not include any Indian languages.

The same blog entry also reveals that there will be a IE10 version for Windows 7

In Windows 8, spellchecking support is available to applications across the entire operating system, including IE10. Of course, spellchecking will also be available as an IE10 browser feature on all supported versions of Windows (including Windows 7).

This MSDN article indicates an IE10 version  for Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2 will come in the future -

Internet Explorer 10 is available for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, and is expected to be released for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

 Also see: The History of IE

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"Hidden" features in Google products

I recently had to explain to a senior citizen, an Internet newbie, on the phone how to upload files onto Google Docs/Drive.

It then stuck me as odd that the Upload button next to the Create button doesn't have a label on it but rather a stupid icon. I was suprised about how a company that supposedly spends a lot of time on usability testing and picking the right shades of color could not have kept things simple and intuitive by giving a button a label like it's normally done.

Let's say you accidentally closed the Tasks window in Gmail. How do you get it back?

Its under the dropdown-kind-of-thing that you get when you click on the little arrow next to the Gmail "label"

to be continued...

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HOW TO quickly save all URLs in tabs within a IE or Firefox window

This tip applies to Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Picture this - While searching for something on the Web, you have opened a dozen tabs and for some reason you have to turn off your PC/laptop quickly. How do you save  all the addresses in tabs within a window for reviewing later?

Madhivanan has a simple solution -

Go to Tools > Internet options

In the General tab, click the Use current button in the Home page section. It will display all URLs in the textarea above it.

Copy & paste it in some document for later use.

The actual purpose of the Use current button is to set URLs so that the related pages open automatically when IE is opened.

This tip can be extended to Firefox as well -

Go to Tools > Options

In the General tab look for the Use Current Pages button in the Startup section. When you click on the Use Current Pages button, all the URLs of the pages open in different tabs are copied to the Home Page text box with a pipe delimiter. Copy the text to get all the URLs.

The keyboard shortcut to simulate clicking on the Use Current Pages button is Alt+T+O+C (tested in Firefox 14)

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"The Best Programming Advice I Ever Got"

InformIt has got authors (Erik M. Buck, Obie Fernandez, Danny Kalev, Eric Lippert, Rob Pike, Mark Summerfield, Bill Wagner) of some popular programming books to share the best programming advice they have ever received. Here it is paraphrased in brief -

• Write less code. 
• Take a moment to understand the error message at the top of an exception/stack trace before making additional changes to your code.
• ..language changes and skill improvements — require constant reading. 
• ..be part of a team that values progress over politics, ideas over territory, and initiative over decorum. 
• ..thinking before debugging is extremely important. If you dive into the bug, you tend to fix the local issue in the code, but if you think about the bug first, how the bug came to be, you often find and correct a higher-level problem in the code that will improve the design and prevent further bugs. 
• TDD & refactoring  
• Make code usable before you make it reusable.
• Participate in forums

Related:
Interviews with Programming legends

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