IT – Adnan's Den

Block Annoying Facebook Quizzes

At last I’ve gotten rid of Facebook quizzes from my Facebook home page!

I liked the Facebook and I still am. But it is getting ridiculous day by day with the increaments of quizzes. Yes I am talking about the Facebook quizzes. At first those were fun but now a days I am sick of them. Instead of seeing what my friends are doing, I’ve to see what types of quizzes are they taken. My home page is flooded with quizzes. It was getting out of control until I got the right solution today, thanks to Maroof for pointing out the solution.

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Use a Widget and Promote Bangladesh!

You should already all know about the New 7 Wonders of Nature campaign. And you should know that Cox’s Bazar is in the top 5 natural wonders too. But we have to promote Cox’s Bazar more and more. Previously it was in the first position but now it is in third position. We need more campaign.

The New 7 Wonders association has released a widget to show your support to your favourite place by placing that to your site or blog or any social profile like Hi5, Facebook etc. So why are you waiting for? Just grab a widget for promoting Cox’s Bazar and place that to your site or blog or profile and let the world to have an oppertunity to vote Cox’s Bazar. This widget also shows the live ranks of the selected natural spot. I’ve put this widget in my blogs. And thanks to AJ (cause I’ve seen it first in his blog). Following is a preview of the widget.

[clearspring_widget title=”New7Wonders of Nature” wid=”48607fb99aab19ef” pid=”491761494cdcf952″ width=”165″ height=”324″ domain=”widgets.clearspring.com”] [clearspring_widget title=”New7Wonders of Nature” wid=”48607fb99aab19ef” pid=”491e9de199068372″ width=”165″ height=”324″ domain=”widgets.clearspring.com”]

For installing the widget just press the GET & SHARE button and follow accordingly. Not a complex job! So if you are a Bangladeshi, why are you waiting for! Grab it and show it…

Save the Google Page Creator

It is really a shocking news that Google is going to collapse it’s Google Page Creator (GPC). Instead of GPC they are introducing Google Sites (GS). I’ve noticed it recently. I couldn’t resist my surprise at this news. GPC is a simple way to create web pages without knowing HTML. GPC’s rich text editor is now included in many other Google services, but Google decided to focus on the more powerful GS. Google doesn’t allow new users to sign up for GPC. While current users are still able to use the services of GPC, new users are being directed to its sister site, Google Sites. Google is expected to move all Page Creator content to Google Pages later in the year.

Google Sites is almost similar to GPC. I said ‘almost’ because it doesn’t allow users to upload any HTML file. Which means users have to pick the websites’ look from GS’s default template; users don’t have any privilege to set their own HTML pages. It is a bad news for me, because all of my GPC sites are using their own HTML files not GPC’s default one. Though Google said that they will shift all the files, images and web pages stored in GPC to Google Sites later this year, this may be a concern for some as it will lead to broken links because GS and GPC follows a different URL structure. More over as GS doesn’t support any uploaded HTML pages, the transition may permanently delete all of those unsupported files. To me, GPC is far far better than GS.

I actually have no idea why Google is closing their one of the most popular web services. Google Sites is nothing more than a wiki. Do the people need a website or a wiki for their personal or business homepage? Google is saying that GS is more powerful than GPC as GS uses the contents management. Well… this is the only thing the GPC is lacking of. Wouldn’t it be better if the feature is added in GPC? Wiki is obviously an important feature in today’s internet, but people will not like it as their home page. So, what if both GPC and GS are staying side by side? I don’t any necessity of closing either one for surviving the other.

Users of GPC is already depressed hearing this news. They still believe that GPC will not be closed at all some how. They have also taken an initiative to save the GPC by a petition. The same debate is going on Google Page Creator Discussion Group. I recommend every GPC user to sign the petition. And above all I still believe that the world really still needs Google Page Creator. So a request to Google, “Can’t you please save the Google Page Creator from it’s termination!“

Kung Fu Panda with Firefox3

Well it’s not like that Kung Fu Panda was released with Firefox3! It’s my weekend that came with Kung Fu Panda and Firefox3. So the heading should be “My Weekend: Kung Fu Panda with Firefox3”. But… well… I couldn’t resist myself to do that joke! 😀

At last I’ve watched it! Yeap… I am talking about the animation movie Kung Fu Panda. I’ve been waiting for it. And this waiting was over in this weekend. Actually I always waiting for a good quality DVD print. But my little sis could not bear the awaiting any more and she bought it (and of course with my money) though the screen quality of the DVD was poor. The film is surely worth watching. The film is about panda named Po, who dreams to be a kung fu warrior. Only problem is his bulky body which creates the barrier to become a warrior. But things changed when he was accidentally picked up as the Dragon Warrior by the Tortoise Master Oogway (though Oogway continuosly claimed that choosing Po was not any accident). When Po became the Dragon Warrior, it was obvious that he have to face the evil snow leopard warrior Tai Lung, the former student of Master Shifu. Now it’s Pos’ responsibility to defeat him. But one little proble: Po doesn’t khnow the Kung Fu! I was stunned by the opening of this film. It opens with a hand drawn 2D animated sequence which resembles to Samurai Jack. Traditional Dreamworks opening was also changed!

Another surprise for me in this weekend was the Firefox 3. I’ve been a fan of FF for a long time. FF2 was great for using over the IE7. When I was introduced with Opera and Firefox, I barely used IE since then. Though IE7 has some good features which were not included in FF2, I liked FF2 because of it’s ease of use. And now it launches the version 3. First impression after opening the FF3 was just “WOW!”. A cool interface with all buttons in appropriate palces. I’ve not used it so much yet, so can’t discuss all the new features. But one thing amused me, FF3 can zoom the page with text and pictures together.

Well… a pretty good weekend, huh? An worth watching movie and the new upgradation of the best browser in the world.

Bangladeshi Blog Aggregator: β version launched

UPDATE: Now we’ve a new Bangladeshi Blog Aggregator named BDBloggerz. All Bangladeshi bloggers are requested to submit their own blogs there.

For the last few weeks who have read and commented my post about Bangladeshi Blog Aggregator, they will be happy to know that Russell has kept his promise. He has launched the Beta version of the Bangladeshi Blog Aggregator. At last it has done. It is just the beginning. This site needs more polishing and needs an enormous way to go. But it can’t go that long without our support. As a Bangladeshi Blogger it is our duty to make a smooth way for this site. Previously some site has been lunched for the same purpose, but they failed to sustain. We hope that this time it will be a successful project.

By setting up the site, Russell did a tremendous job for all of us. We the Bangladeshi Bloggers at last got our own Blog Aggregator. We hope it will not only be a Blog Aggregator but also be a Bloggers Community for Bangladesh. Therefore I am inviting all the bloggers of Bangladeshi origins to join this aggregator.

As the site is in testing mode I have some suggestions (though I’ve mention some key features in my previous post).

As a blog aggregator I think the site needs a 3 columns theme. As a personal site a 2 column site is more suitable than a blog aggregator. Cause it has to show more thing but in less space. User may not have that much patience to scroll through the whole site. 3 sidebars instead of 3 make this job easier.
In the first page the posts are displayed in full length. A full length post does not fit in a blog aggregator. It would be more decorous if only a few lines (as excerpts) for the post (under the post heading) is displayed.
Any one have any design sense so that we’ll have a gorgeous logo and some blog badges for this newly introduced aggregator? So that we can put on them in our own blogs.

As the days go by, we hope more suggestions will come from the bloggers to develop the site.

Bangla Typing with Avro Keyboard

Avro Keyboard Startup Splash

Like the most of the Bangladeshi people, I don’t know the Bangla keyboard layouts. Because in Bangla scripts we’ve 11 vowels, 35 consonants, 5 modifiers and numerous consonant conjuncts. To make it more complex, there are several keyboard layouts which are differ from each other. It is a quite difficult matter for me to be handy with one of those keyboards. What a shame for me! Being a Bangladeshi I don’t know how to write Bangla in IT world! But that problem was pacified when I met with Avro Keyboard.

I received several questions from my known-circles about how a complete idiotic ignorant of Bangla Key-layouts like me writes in Bangla. Actually that’s why I must thank to Avro Keyboard. Because this keyboard supports English to Bangla phonetic typing method. That means if you write “amar sonar bangla.“ it’ll show “আমার সোনার বাংলা।“ automatically. Isn’t it fantastic! See a snap shot on how your English text is converting to Bangla using Avro Keyboard.

Avro Keyboard is a free software. Any one can download it. After installing it’ll be automatically stored in your system tray leaving a small toolbar on the top of your desktop. This toolbar indexes all the options for using the keyboard. This tool bar is also very stylish in outfits. Just look it at below.

Another exciting feature is that you can use mouse for typing Bangla like the Character Map of Windows OS. For the totally newbies (who even can’t use keyboard) this is a damn good option for writing in Bangla.

Now you all know my secret of writing Bangla in the Blogosphere or in Facebook or Orkut! But to use it on your browser first you need to set up your browser for Bangla Unicode. I prefer Firefox for that job. Read my guide for Firefox users to prepare Firefox for Bangla unicode.

Voter List is in Web

For the first time Bangladesh Election Commission has published a web site containing the complete list of all voters of the country. Any one can access the site through internet. To access the information one has to provide the 17 digits PIN (printed in the back of the slip which was given after taking photograph), birth information (format has been given) and a verification code (printed on below). Take a look on the screen shot I’ve given below.

Main disappointment is there is no link of this site in the Bangladesh Election Commission’s website. As BEC is manipulating this process it is common sense that there should be a link to the Voter List site. Another drawback is that if any information is incorrect then there is no option to make it correct, except a text field which is used for Comments purpose. Probably they put the box to get message from the user for any inconvenience or mistakes. In my case, I saw some severe mistakes and I used the Comment Box to send them feedback about the mistakes. But it has been more than 10 days that I saw the informations were unmodified. I still don’t know how to resolve this.

The bright side is, the whole site is build in Bangla Language. So people will feel comfort to use the site. They also provide the Bangla font that will be required to view the page. Overall Bangladesh is advanced to the recent technical world another step. Hope the site developers will take necessary steps to make the site more matured by giving the users option to make correction in their information. Whatever this is, it is indeed a great job!