NazJam Tech Blog

Generate Color Palettes From Your Images For Free!

Nasir — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:22:00 +0000

During designing process, have you ever come in such a situation where you had to decide what colors to use to theme around a certain image say logo or banner etc. Will you select a color picker and point out every color used on that image one by one? That is not a good option, is it?

Mailchimp, the leading E-mail marketing solutions provider company, has come up with a solution for that in the form of a service named Pictaculous. Just upload any image, and it will fetch the colors from it and display the color palette, so you can stick to that color scheme to bring uniformity to your designs.

In addition to this, it also shows different palettes from sites such as Adobe Kuler and COLOURlovers. Below is an option to get color schemes exported in adobe swatch format, for further convenience.

Pictaculous also works on your Phone. Just email the picture to color@mailchimp.com and get a reply within few minutes. A preview of what you will get on a reply can be seen on the right.

After using it, I am sure that you will forget your current color picker tool.

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Got HP 540, My First Other Than Desktop PC

Nasir — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:42:00 +0000

Few days ago, I have decided to buy a laptop as sitting all the time in front of the desktop PC knocked me off, which turned out in severe back pain, and neck ache. So after searching for some substitute, I came across HP 540, which was fulfilling most of my requirements and was under my budget too. So without further wait, I bought it.

Naturally, as may be expected from one like me going to have hands-on with his very first Notebook, I was very excited too to get my machine out of its box, before which I took some shots of to fulfill my little wish of making that moment a memorable one. Here they are.

I installed Ubuntu and XP side by side, by installing Ubuntu under windows XP with Wubi. It deserves to be told to you that Ubuntu picked up and was running in no time with all the drivers working, had power setting optimized by default etc. While in XP, I had to go through all the ‘this n that’s manually. And the touch scroll also doesn’t work in XP.

With its 1280×800 WXGA display, I can open a Firefox window side by side with another window of either Windows Explorer, Gtalk or Net Meeting etc. I have my browser resized to approx 1024×768 resolution (which i am used to).

Sound and graphics are good, but the sound gets a little choppy when set to max and played on internal speaker. However, I listen to music with headphones usually, in which the sound works great.

Although I’ve got a drivers CD from the shop where I bought the laptop i.e. Galaxy.pk, but there were mistakenly some wrong Audio and Bluetooth drivers in that CD. But thanks to the official HP site took me out of this problem. After some initial struggle with laptop settings and functions now I am running it with great peace of mind.

And last but the very good thing for me is the battery time which is officially announced to be 2.5 hours, which with little adjustments, can be extendable to nearly 3.5 hours. Which is good if not great for anyone who lives in a city like Karachi.

I will recommend buying this laptop to anyone having limited cash in his/her pocket, and who wants nothing less than the great Core2Duo.

Comments

June 25, 2009, romi writes: i'm agree with u bro..
June 27, 2009, Muhammad Siyab writes: congrats on the new laptop.. enjoy :D .-= Muhammad Siyab´s last blog ..10 Interesting Facts About Lightning =-.
July 1, 2009, Yasir writes: i have purchased this notebook (hp540) recently and its working fine. The only shortcome of it is its internal mono speaker sound which is not high enough but its reasonable. Its light, with wide TFT and long battery time. Its not accompanied with a lot of bells and wistles still its very good.

Customize Your Character Map With Eudcedit

Nasir — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:55:00 +0000

Character Map can have more for you than providing lots of useful special characters and symbols through a tool named Private Character Editor. It also lets you hand-draw your characters and symbols. Needless to say, this way you can also draw your initials or your signature (provided you have good calligraphic skills), so as to put them at the end of your e-mails for instance. So, thinking of it as a useful tool but not known as much as it should be, this post is aimed to spread the word and to make the tool come handy to you.

From the Start menu, go to Run and type eudcedit there, click Ok.

The Select Code window will open up showing the Hex codes that are for assigning them to the characters that you design, to put it another way every time you create a character file, it is assigned a code and the first time you are going to design your character or a word say your name etc., it is assigned the code of E000. The code range spans from E000 to F8FF. I have selected the E000 code and clicked OK.

The Private Character Editor window having a toolbar appears having a basic toolbar on its left side, using them you can design or draw your character or word just like you do in MS Paint, I have used the default selected pencil tool to freehand draw my initials. The Editor has no significant difference from MS Paint except in its limited space.

When done, in the Edit menu, click on the Save Character button. This way your character is saved in All Fonts(Private Characters).

To access your drawn character, type charmap in the Open box in the Run.

In the font type of All Fonts(Private Characters), click to Select and Copy your character to Paste it to your desired files.

6 Online Activities To Waste Your Time Smartly

Nasir — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:12:00 +0000

For people to get escaped from boredom which usually they get stuck into when not having any sort of job remained from their daily routine, there are activities designed which they can have their leisure time pass with smoothly. These activities may frankly be called ‘time wasters’, reflecting the sole purpose of their being. I googled for them a little and found out a bunch, selecting from which introducing some of them to you (if you have not already known them).

1 – DB-Quest:

This is a little stupid fun game in which a player has to move over the maze to come across the question bots. Then the question bot will ask a question regarding database terminologies. Keep answering and progress through levels. The top 10 scorer will get a chance to submit their own question.

2 – Whack Your Boss:

Have you ever wanted to kick your boss in the *** but never got enough courage to do so? Now in this animation, you can find some creative ways from given office supplies to put the full stop on your boss mouth(virtually of course). Be as brutal as you can, but with a caution: “never try it at office” .

3 – Bomomo:

At a first glance, this site seemed to me to be a time eater only, but after playing with it for some time, I realized that this fun app could also be used as a rough sketchpad for logo designing.Try it, play around and get some random inspiration.

4 – Tone Matrix:

This tool is simply a sine wave synthesizer which is triggered by a 16step sequencer. whatever it is, the tone it makes is amazingly beautiful. and you can copy/paste the tones also with the right click.

Here is my tone:

512,73728,0,2048,0,32768,0,67584,0,0,33792,0,1024,8192,4096,32768

5 – Zombie Boxes:

Digital creatures, virtual spiders, whatever you call them, these creepy being don’t care. All they want is to follow and eat your mouse pointer, so just save it from them as fast as you can

6 – Factory Balls:

In this fun game, you have to process factory balls in a step by step approach to get it to the desired shape. Once a ball gets a desired shape, a level is completed with the ball goes packed in the box.

Comments

June 27, 2009, Natalie writes: Thank you for the resources. I'm getting tired of Yahoo's free online games which are very limited. .-= Natalie´s last blog ..Will Replacement Ink Damage Your Printer? =-.

Ninjai: A Well Crafted Animated Series Not Just For Kids

Nasir — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:40:00 +0000

Currently is a 12 chaptered story, but hopes are to see further additions soon since the cruel Takagawa’s fate is undecided as he is still at large, also it is written on their website faqs that they are working on the 13th episode along with 11th and 12th, (this is a somewhat earlier reply as the 11th and 12th chapters are available now). The group calling themselves the Ninjai Gang, also write about their other on-going projects as the reason of the chapters’ delayed release which many of the Ninjai lovers have complained about.

A little yet pretty much skilled ninja boy named Ninjai, is on a search of his very own existence, for which he on a journey throughout the world. On his way through, the confident warrior Ninjai, is met up with evil characters who think of him as an ordinary young innocent boy and want to take advantage of him. But Ninjai proves them wrong, as he replies, “I am young but not small” in a discussion to the man who helps him cross the river in the 4th chapter.

Little bird is an assisting character to Ninjai, to whom Ninjai opens his heart out. They remain loyal to each other till the last chapter. Last chapter displays the little birds’ big plan causing a serious blow to enemies. “That was a very good plan you had?” Ninjai rewards the Little Bird afterwards when they have done with it.

There are many violent scenes in the series as you may expect by its association with the martial art. In this regard there is also an option at the beginning of chapter 11 to choose either an under-13 version or the normal more bloody one of it.

Though I rarely watch animated movies/shows etc., personally speaking, when I was watching this beautifully crafted animated series, I got glued to my seat from the first through the twelfth chapter. This series has the potential to get its viewer stuck in front of it regardless of the age.

I liked the story that is up to now, hope to see the future continuation follow along the path.

13 Useful Keyboard Shortcut With The Windows Logo Key

Nasir — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:10:00 +0000

Either you want to speed up your workflow, or want to impress your friends with how you do so many tasks without touching the mouse, learning different Keyboard shortcuts is a way to go. Below is a list of 13 shortcut Window Key combination in which where I will write Win, I will mean for the Key there.

Win+F1: Opens up the Help and Support Center Window

Win+M: Minimizes all open Windows

Win+R: Opens the Run command Window

Win+E: Opens up the Microsoft Explorer Window. (And not the browser IE. )

Win+Tab: Allows you to switch through Windows opened in the Taskbar.

Win+Pause/Break: Displays the System Properties Window

Win+L: Locks your Computer

Win+F: Displays the Search Results dialog box.

Win+D: Minimizes all Windows and takes you to the desktop, pressing the combination again restores all the minimized Windows.

Win+Ctrl+Tab: Toggle between the Start menu, Quick launch pad and the System tray area (when you are viewing the desktop).

Win+U: Opens up the Utility Manager

Win+Ctrl+F: Launches Search Results-Computers Window.

Win+Shift+M: Restores the window which was minimized by Win+D or Win+D.

Got any other ‘Win+Some Key’ shortcut? Tell by commenting below to let others know.

Comments

June 12, 2009, Arafat Hossain Piyada writes: Very unique shortcut. Honestly new to me, may be due to my love on mouse. [rq=5573,0,blog][/rq]10 Killer application that boost your hard disk health and stability

HAL: Robotic Suit That Can Increase Physical Capabilities Up To 10 Times

Nasir — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:30:00 +0000

HAL, short for Hybrid Assistive Limb, is a wearable Robot exoskeleton from the Japanese robot Manufacturer Cyberdyne, primarily benefiting: people having mobility problems, people who have to lift heavy loads and of course people having some Iron-Man inspiration.

The HAL works as follows: A person wearing the suit, when tries to move, electrical signal from his brain are transmitted to the muscles. These electrical signals are sensed by the sensors stuck with the skin.

Through these sensors HAL gets to know the movement’s direction and force, the mode is called ‘voluntary control system’. The other mode of operation is called ‘robotic autonomous control system’, operating on the basis of movement information stored in the device’s database.

According to the Manufacturer, HAL being a exoskeleton built, need not the wearer’s support and supports itself, thus, appearing lighter to the wearer. However, it has the weight of 23 Kg, a battery driven product remains operational for around two and a half hours continuously. Multitude of activities one can do wearing it include walking, standing, objects lifting, climbing up stairs and down stairs and a lot others.

Prices for the suit for rent are around $1450-$1500 and $2200 per month for one-legged and two-legged versions respectively. For purchase the price is $4200. For now, all are in Japan only. Words are that there are planning to make the product reach European markets, nothing could be said for the US for now though.

Phoenix Freeze: Your Laptop Privacy Guard

Nasir — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:59:00 +0000

If you work on your laptop at a public place and don’t want to take your laptop all the time with you when you move away from your cabin or sitting place, your privacy is at risk. To get you out of this uncomfortable situation, the guys at Phoenix Technologies have come up with a software named Phoenix Freeze that guards your privacy in your absence by locking down your laptop or notebook and prompting for the password.

It requires a blue-tooth enabled phone to pair with a blue-tooth enabled laptop. Assuming the phone in your pocket, the software senses the distance between your phone and the machine and depending on the configuration you had entered locks your laptop if you are out of the range.

There is also a notable “Green” mode option to turn off the screen when the configured threshold distance is crossed to consume power from being wasted. On you return, Phoenix Freeze automatically turns on the screen and logs you in once you are inside the “safety” zone.

The bad part of the software is its currently unavailability for Mac users but hopes are that it will soon be out as they say they are working on this, for now its available only for Windows XP and Vista.

Download from here for a 14-day trial, for now though I have no info on how much it costs.

[Via]

Comments

May 7, 2009, Harsh Agrawal writes: This software sound handy and useful. Stumbled
May 7, 2009, Phoenix Freeze: Your Laptop Privacy Guard | Tea Break writes: [...] This cup of tea was served by: NazJam Tech Blog [...]
May 8, 2009, Broadband writes: It's worth the try, especially someone like me that work away from home regularly on my laptop. Will be all ears to see what others are saying about it. Thanks and much appreciated.
May 9, 2009, raised toilet seat with arms writes: Important information, very glad you posting this. I enjoy learning new things everyday so I like subscribing to blogs like yours. Charles

PCitYourself: PC Building Made As Easy As 1-2-3

Nasir — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:45:00 +0000

Have you build the PC yourself you are reading this post now on? (If yes, then this website I am reviewing is still for you as it will definitely enhance your knowledge in one way or another). Or got it done from the company (or maybe from the geek next door), wouldn’t it be good if you can do all this stuff on your own? That is from purchasing the best parts, to assembling them to installing an operating system in it all by yourself.

For this you don’t need to take a course of any type, just go to PCitYourself, stimulate your inner geek (you will have one from now if hadn’t yet) running in no time!

The site is sectioned in three parts: choosing, building and installing. In the choosing part, you will get to know about different components of a PC coupled with cool animations, how to choose them for your needs, and online stores from where you can order components right away.

In the next section, which is building your PC, is the place where you will get the opportunity to get your hands dirty. With the videos given for assistance, you can assemble all the components of the PC easily.

The last section, which is Installing, comprised of instructions to setup your BIOS, setting up Windows and drivers. This is the most useful section as this problem may occur few times, and it is also a matter where most noobs got stumped.

In addition to this, there is a forum also where you can ask for more specific PC related problems.

Links:

Facebook Group

YouTube Page

Comments

May 2, 2009, PCitYourself: PC Building Made As Easy As 1-2-3 | Tea Break writes: [...] This cup of tea was served by: NazJam Tech Blog [...]
May 8, 2009, Meeting rooms writes: really useful, just finished building my system ,actually coupling it now.

Put Your Desktop On Fire With Napalm

Nasir — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:49:00 +0000

Some things are practically of no utility but still catch attention. Napalm is the example. Though its not a downloadable program in the sense to come handy to you like software you download ordinarily, but their is some thing in it making it successful enough in getting its space in many Windows users PCs.

Its a Windows equivalent of Compiz on which you can write the text to make it burn. Allowed herein also is the option to load a .bmp image to flame.

After downloading and installation, you will have a configuration window in front of you, allowing you to make alterations according to your likes. The big top-left button of Start Over is a mean to start drawing text from the beginning. In the system tab, the checking on the Enable drawing enables you to write your freehand fire text.

Download the program for your desktop and feel the Napalm effect.

[Via]

Comments

May 1, 2009, seosoeasy writes: Thanks a bunch.I really appreciate your effort to share this program with us.

NazJam Tech Blog

Generate Color Palettes From Your Images For Free!

Related posts:

Got HP 540, My First Other Than Desktop PC

Comments

Related posts:

Customize Your Character Map With Eudcedit

Related posts:

6 Online Activities To Waste Your Time Smartly

1 – DB-Quest:

2 – Whack Your Boss:

3 – Bomomo:

4 – Tone Matrix:

5 – Zombie Boxes:

6 – Factory Balls:

Comments

Related posts:

Ninjai: A Well Crafted Animated Series Not Just For Kids

Related posts:

13 Useful Keyboard Shortcut With The Windows Logo Key

Comments

Related posts:

HAL: Robotic Suit That Can Increase Physical Capabilities Up To 10 Times

Related posts:

Phoenix Freeze: Your Laptop Privacy Guard

Comments

PCitYourself: PC Building Made As Easy As 1-2-3

Comments

Put Your Desktop On Fire With Napalm

Comments

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