13-most essential open source apps that you probably like to say thank you

Today, we are going to say big Thank You to everyone who supports us, appreciate us, love us and always be there for us when we need them. So, how can we forget those that makes our online life easier and did the tremendous work for us. They delivered us those applications/software that help us to get the routine work done for our daily use. There are many that we can not count and list exactly but we are trying to make a list of 13 Most Essential Open Source Apps That You Probably Like To Say Thank You. And Yes! Happy Thanksgiving…

You are welcome to share if you want to say Thank You to more Open-Source Applications that made your life easier. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed.

Downloadable Web-Based Applications

WordPress As An Open Source Fastest Growing And Damanding Blogging System

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

phpBB™ As The Most Widely Used Open Source Forum Solution

With a large and highly customisable set of key features coupled with a standards compliant interface, phpBB™ will grow with, and complement your website. With millions of installations worldwide, it is no wonder phpBB™ is one of the most popular ways to create and support a community.

Drupal As An Powerful And Open Source Content Management Platform

Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website. Tens of thousands of people and organizations are using Drupal to power scores of different web sites from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites.

Mindquarry DO As A Free And Open Source Application  for Team Collaboration

Mindquarry DO is an Open Source collaborative software platform for file sharing, task management, team collaboration and Wiki editing that is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Mindquarry runs as a web application with an optional desktop client for Windows, Linux and Mac OS that allows for desktop synchronization and offline work. As a result, you are able to connect with team members and share information from wherever you are, effectively improving team-work and increasing productivity within your team.

PrestaShop™ As An Open Source Professional e-Commerce Shopping Cart Software

The PrestaShop e-Commerce Solution was built to take advantage of essential Web 2.0 innovations such as dynamic AJAX-powered features and next-generation ergonomy. PrestaShop guides users through your product catalog intelligently and effortlessly, turning intrigued visitors into paying customers.

jobberBase As The Simple, Free And Open Source Job Board Software

jobberBase is a great open source job board software for anyone. You can get online your job posting website with jobberBase. It’s easy to install and configure to start your job board.

ModSecurity As An Open Source Web Application Firewall

ModSecurity is a web application firewall that can work either embedded or as a reverse proxy. It provides protection from a range of attacks against web applications and allows for HTTP traffic monitoring, logging and real-time analysis. It is also an open source project that aims to make the web application firewall technology available to everyone.

Downloadable Desktop Applications

OpenOffice As The Free and Open Office Productivity Suite

OpenOffice is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.

Mozilla Firefox As An Open Source Faster, Safer And Smarter Web Browser

Mozilla Firefox is a fast and powerful web browser designed to run on both Linux and Windows. There are far fewer issues with spyware, adware, and pop ups making it far more secure than Internet Explorer.

Amaya

Alternative:Â Adobe Dreamweaver

Firefox 3 sets the pace with dozens of new features, including the smart location bar, one-click bookmarking and blindingly fast performance. Avoid online scams, unsafe transactions and forgeries with simple site identity. View Web pages faster, using less of your computer’s memory.

ClamWin As An Open Source Antivirus program for Microsoft Platform

ClamWin Free Antivirus comes with an easy installer and open source code. You may download and use it absolutely free of charge. It has High detection rates for viruses and spyware, Scanning Scheduler, Automatic downloads of regularly updated Virus Database etc

Gimp As An Image Manipulation Program

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

Ubuntu As A Community Developed, Linux-Based Operating System

Ubuntu is a community developed, Linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. It contains all the applications you need - a web browser, presentation, document and spreadsheet software, instant messaging and much more.

Wine As An Open Source Virtual PC 

Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X, OpenGL, and Unix. Think of Wine as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100% non-Microsoft code, however Wine can optionally use native Windows DLLs if they are available.

This Article grab from  http://www.smashingapps.com

thank you to smashingapps.com

All About GOOGLE Search

Here Videos talk about how we can use Google more efficiency,customize,friendly & its features

Spelling Improvements

talks about new ways in which we try to save you time with spelling corrections.

Google Squared

demonstrates Google Squared, a new experimental search tool that lets you customize your search results in a table.

Maps in Search Results

shows you the convenience of maps when you need them on Google Search Results Pages.

International Results

talks about internationalization of Google Search result pages around the world.

User Experience

User Experience Researcher, Melanie talks about the process and research to build Google's Search Options Panel

Wonder Wheel

talks about everything you can do with Google's Wonder Wheel, a tool in the Search Options Panel.

Search Options Panel

talks about his work on Google's Search Options Panel, one of Google's web search functionalities.

Product "Plus Box"

shows a neat feature on some of our Sponsored Links that gives you additional information about their products.

Personalized Suggestions

talk about the addition of personalized suggestions as you type your searches into the Google Search box.

Search Freshness

talks about a working on indexing recent content as it comes up around the web for Google news.

Spelling Corrections

shows you how misspellings are corrected on Google Search.

Sitelinks

talks about his project that shows you shortcuts to go specific pages of sites as part of the search results.

Longer Snippets

Ken talks about showing you longer snippets when you enter a longer query


Video source : http://www.youtube.com/user/Google

FIREFOX WALLPAPERS

To download click on image














Mozilla Firefox wallpaper collection

bing's commercial TV advertisement

Induction Bing commercially

commercial TV advertisement










user experiences



introduction to bing



A product that solves users needs

wubi installer in Deep

Still making excuses not to install Linux? Not willing to partition your drive? Well, the solution has arrived: Wubi.

It's Easy...

The first thing you need to do is download Wubi. It's an impressively small 957kb. You will need 256 mb memory, 5 Gb hard disk space, and a machine running Windows 98, 2000, XP, or Vista.

1. Set the Install Drive: The drive to which Ubuntu will be installed (note: one of Wubi's main features is that you do not have to make a Ubuntu partition so simply select the disk that Windows is installed on)
2. Set the Installation Size: The size of the Virtual Drive that Ubuntu will use (how much space you'll have for Ubuntu files). Note that the absolute minimum is 4gb.
3. Set the Desktop Environment: This allows you to set the GUI that Ubuntu will use. It defaults to Gnome (my personal favorite), also available is Kubuntu (a KDE environment) and Xubuntu (a Xfce environment). If you don't know which one you want use Ubuntu (Gnome) or Xubuntu (Xfce) if you have an older or lower spec computer. You can also install whatever version of Ubuntu you want, including 32-bit (expect a second tutorial shortly).
4. Set the Language: This is pretty self-explanatory. It should be noted that you can change this post-install.
5. Set the Username
6. Set the Password: Check out this article on creating strong passwords.
7. Click Install

Accessibility Options

There is a second page of settings you can go through: Accessibility Settings.

1. From the main install page click Accessibility
2. Choose a Visibility Aid: Note that you can only choose one.
   1. High Contrast: This changes the color scheme of Ubuntu to a higher contrast one as an aid to visibility.
   2. Magnifier: This allows users to use an on screen magnifier. They can move this magnifier over the screen and it will magnify the section under it.
   3. Screen Reader: This allows text and other output to be read out to a user using text-to-speech technology
   4. Braille Terminal: This allows Ubuntu to use a Braille Terminal (aka Refreshable Braille Display)
3. Choose a Mobility Aid: Note that you can only choose one
   1. Keyboard Modifiers: The most commonly used keyboard modifier is sticky keys. This allows the ctrl, alt and windows keys to be stay pressed after only one press by the user. This is useful if the user is only able to press one key at a time.
   2. On-Screen Keyboard: This allows the user to input text via an onscreen keyboard, by clicking keys.
4. Click Next
5. Click Install

Wubi will now download the version of Ubuntu that you selected under Desktop Environment and install it. When you start your computer a boot option will come up allowing you to choose between Ubuntu and your other OS.

Uninstallation

So you've tried Ubuntu, and decided it isn't for you. How can you uninstall it? It's easy. Arguably Wubi's best (and hopefully least used) feature is that it allows Ubuntu to be uninstalled like any other program. Just open Add or Remove Programs (under XP) or Programs and Features (under Vista), select Ubuntu and click modify or uninstall.

Wubi it's that easy.

install ubuntu with WUBI

Many novice users fear the technical process that has do be done before or during the installation of a Linux distribution

Wubi is an officially (sometime not)supported Ubuntu installer for Windows users that can bring you to the Linux world with a single click. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other Windows application, in a simple and safe way. Are you curious about Linux and Ubuntu? Trying them out has never been easier!

Wubi is Simple

No need to burn a CD. Just run the installer, enter a password for the new account, and click "Install", go grab a coffee, and when you are back, Ubuntu will be ready for you.

Wubi is Discrete

Wubi keeps most of the files in one folder, and if you do not like it, you can simply uninstall it as any other application.

Wubi is Free

Wubi and Ubuntu cost absolutely nothing (free as in beer), but yet provide a state of the art, fully functional, operating system that does not require any activation and does not impose any restriction on its use (free as in freedom).

Requirements

{1}256 MB memory

{2}5 GB harddisk space

{3}Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista

Ready to install

Run Wubi, insert a password for the new account, and click "install". The installation process from this point is fully automatic. The installation files (700MB) will be downloaded and checked, after which you will be asked to reboot. Do so and select Ubuntu at the boot screen. The installation will continue for another 10-15 minutes and the machine will reboot again. This is it. Now you can select Ubuntu at the boot screen and start using it.

Easy to uninstall

You uninstall it as any other applications. In Windows go to the control panel and select "Add or Remove Programs", then select Wubi/Ubuntu and uninstall it. You can also use the uninstaller that you find in the installation folder.

What wubi installer do?

You keep Windows as it is, Wubi only adds an extra option to boot into Ubuntu. Wubi does not require you to modify the partitions of your PC, or to use a different boot loader, and does not install special drivers. It works just like any other application. Wubi is free of spyware and malware, and being open source, anyone can verify that.

Is like wubi install is virtual Environment

No. This is a real installation, the only difference is that Ubuntu is installed within a file as opposed to being installed within its own partition. Thus we spare you the trouble of creating a free partition for Ubuntu. And we spare you the trouble to have of having to burn a CD-Rom.

Download here

Green search Engines

Not many of us are environmental fanatics. Most of us can’t even place our own ecological footprint. But that should never stop us from doing our bit for the environment. Today, thanks to the internet we can ‘contribute’ right from our desks, whether it is by increasing our own awareness or by being part of a campaign needing mass support.

The power of search engines helps us wade through the universe of the web. This vehicle today is also being used as the agent of action to change the way we look at our planet. The environment should concern us all directly, so here are ten search engine services we can use with a click of the mouse to give back to our planet :

Forestle – Save An Acre Of Rainforest

Forestle, powered by Yahoo’s search technology, helps to save 0.1 square meters (0.11 yd²) of rain forest per search.

The ad-revenue generated from the web search goes to The Nature Conservancy which uses it to further the cause of rain forest protection. The company has estimated that an average user does about 1000 searches per year which translates into 100 square meters of conserved rain forest. The realization of your efforts is posted as monthly reports which details the area of rain forests saved.

Znout – The Google Way

If Yahoo is not your scene check out Znout from the same company but with Google behind the search tech. Znout is a Co2 neutral Internet search engine. No, the search engine does not spew out Co2 – Znout uses the ad-revenue to buy renewable energy certificates which balances out the carbon footprint caused by Znout.

Green Planet Search – Green & Slick

Green Planet Search is a website designed for your eco-habits. The Flash-driven green website is pleasing to the eye and the scruples as its home made search engine is strictly for eco-search. The website is devoted to environmentally-relevant content - educational, original news, events, blogs, products and reviews.

EcoWho – Towards Eco-Friendliness

EcoWho search indexes nearly 3 million ecologically relevant webpages. Value added offerings include an eco-news section, an ecological glossary, a blog section and an emerging article directory. The website is still under development but the search feature is sound enough.

GreenLinkCentral – Human Edited Green Search

GreenLinkCentral aims to be a one stop information source for everything that is environmental. The websites and links are vetted by the GreenLinkCentral team to ensure significance and quality. On top of the search box you will find three more useful links – Top Searches (for search suggestions), Articles (arranged in blog style categories) and Website Reviews (listing green websites).

Relying on human inputs rather than bots has the disadvantage of moderate results but a cursory glance through them revealed them to be closer to home.

Truevert – Focused On The Environment

Truevert is still in beta but it works well. Powered by Yahoo!’s open search web services platform – Yahoo BOSS, it delivers targeted environmental results. The front page draws in feeds from the popular green sites and blogs. Results are displayed beneath the query box along with a Preview icon. An Interesting Phrases icon lists the interesting phrases for the document. Search results can be narrowed down by using Themes on the left which acts like a filter for a particular keyword.

Ecocho - You Search. We Grow Trees

Ecocho offers a simplistic interface but a noble intent. It donates its revenues from advertising to afforestation programs. For every 1000 searches, Ecocho sponsors five trees.

Powered by Yahoo, searches on Ecocho allow the company to buy enough carbon offset credits to remove 1 ton of CO2 from the atmosphere. Results can also be filtered by Region, Language and Document Format.

ClimateGift – A Portal & A Search Engine

ClimateGift is not only a well developed search engine but an ecological portal too. The website partners with other environmental organizations and passes on advertising revenue from user searches to these partners.

When the page loads, the web user can pick any of the organizations on display to be the beneficiary. From this point on, ClimateGift donates 50 percent of the ad-revenue to this non-profit entity every quarter. The website features news, articles and a Tools tab with a few applications loaded.

A logged in user can personalize his homepage with things such as news, weather, sports, entertainment, photos, videos, music, email and even a calculator. For a normal search a log-in is not required.

GreenMaven – Gateway To The Green Web

GreenMaven is a web service which uses Google’s custom search service to collate green news and links from the worldwide web. The search service claims to have mapped over 10,000 websites. It also has a business directory with nearly 4000 listings.

What I liked about the site was its capable search and the ability to delve directly into Digg-ed green articles.

EcoSeek – For Things Green

EcoSeek is a bit different from the other search engines listed. It is tuned specifically towards eco-friendly and green products. The service strives to educate all consumers about eco-friendly products, manufacturers and local earth-conscious retailers. A user can search through 13,000 Earth friendly products from 790 retailers.

Searches can be made by category. Though the search feature has a commercial slant, it helps the consumer make informed decisions about a green lifestyle. A free membership allows a user to take part in ‘green auctions’ for some of the products listed on the site.

What do you think of these green initiatives? Do you share the optimism that such web services can preserve a corner of the only place we can call home?

More about Search engine ………………

source: click this

Google Search Tips

Basic Examples

This Search Finds Pages Containing...

(1) biking Italy - the words biking and Italy

(2) recycle steel OR iron -  information on recycling steel or recycling iron

(3) "I have a dream" - the exact phrase I have a dream

(4) salsa –dance - the word salsa but NOT the word dance

(5) Louis +I France - information about Louis the First (I), weeding out other kings of France

(6) castle ~glossary - glossaries about castles, as well as dictonaries, lists of terms, terminology, etc.

(7)  fortune-telling - all forms of the term, whether spelled as a single word, a phrase, or hyphenated

(8) define:imbroglio - definitions of the word imbroglio from the Web

 

Calculator

Operators Meaning Type Into Search Box (& Results)

(1)  + – * /  basic arithmetic       12 + 34 - 56 * 7 / 8

(2)  % of   percentage of                45% of 39

(3) ^ or **  raise to a power   2^5 or 2**5

(4) old units in new units  convert units

               300 Euros in USD130lbs    in kg, or 31 in hex

 

Restrict Search

(1) city1 city2       Book flights.          

sfo bos  (Book flights from San Francisco (SFO)  to Boston (BOS).

(2) site:           Search only one website or domain. Halloween site:www.census.gov
(Search for information on Halloween gathered by the US Census Bureau.)

(3) [#]..[#]       Search within a range of numbers.
Dave Barry pirate 2002..2006
(Search for Dave Barry articles mentioning pirates written in these years.)

(4) filetype:   (or ext:)     Find documents of the specified type.
Form 1098-T IRS filetype:pdf
(Find the US tax form 1098-T in PDF format.)

(5)  link:   Find linked pages, i.e., show pages that point to the URL.
link:warriorlibrarian.com
(Find pages that link to Warrior Librarian's website.)

 

Specialized Information Queries

(1) book  (or books)   Search full-text of books.
book Ender's Game
(Show book-related information. Note: No colon needed after book.)

(2) define, what is, what are  Show a definition for a word or phrase.
define monopsony, what is podcast
(Show a definition for the words monopsony and podcast. Note: No colon after define, what is, or what are.)

(3) define:  Provide definitions for words, phrases, and acronyms from the Web.
define:kerning
(Find definitions for kerning from the Web.)

(4) phonebook:   Show all phonebook listings.
phonebook: Disney CA
(Search for Disney's phone numbers in California - CA.)

(5) rphonebook:   Show residential phonebook listings.
rphonebook: bill jones NY
(Search for the phone number of every Bill Jones in New York State - NY.)

(6) movie:  Find reviews and showtimes.
movie: traffic
(Search for information about this movie, including reviews, showtimes, etc.)

(7) stocks:  Given ticker symbols, show stock information
stocks: goog
(Find Google's current stock price.)

(8) weather  Given a location (US zip code or city), show the weather
weather Seattle WA, weather 81612
(Show the current weather and forecast. Note: No colon after weather.)

 

Alternative Query Types

(1) cache:  Display Google's cached version of a web page.
cache:www.irs.gov
(Show Google's cached version of the US Internal Revenue Service home page.)

(2) info: (or id:)  Find info about a page.
info:www.theonion.com
(Find information about The Onion website.)

(3) related:  List web pages that are similar or related to the URL.
related:www.healthfinder.gov
(Find websites related to the Healthfinder website.)

 

Restrict Search to Sites where Query Words Appear

(1) allinanchor:
All query words must appear in anchor text of links to the page.
allinanchor:useful parenting sites
(Search for pages that are called useful parenting sites by others.)

(2) inanchor:  Terms must appear in anchor text of links to the page.
restaurants Portland inanchor:kid-friendly
(Search for pages on Portland restaurants for which links to the page say they are "kid friendly.")

(3) allintext:  All query words must appear in the text of the page.
allintext:ingredients cilantro chicken lime
(Search for recipes with these three ingredients.)

(4) intext: The terms must appear in the text of the page.
Dan Shugar intext:Powerlight
(Find pages mentioning Dan Shugar where his company, Powerlight, is included in the text of the page, i.e., less likely to be from the corporate website.)

(5) allintitle: All query words must appear in the title of the page.
allintitle: Google Advanced Operators
(Search for pages with titles containing "Google," "Advanced,", and "Operators".)

(6) intitle: The terms must appear in the title of the page.
movies comedy intitle:top ten
(Search for pages with the words movie and comedy that include top ten in the title of the page.)

(7) allinurl:  All query words must appear in the URL.
allinurl:pez faq
(Search for pages containing the words pez & faq in the URL.)

(8) inurl:  The terms must appear in the URL of the page.
pharmaceutical inurl:investor
(Search for pages in which the URL contains the word investor.)

 

Restrict Search to Google Groups

(1) author:  Find Groups messages from the specified author.
flying author:Hamish author:Reid
(Search for Hamish Reid's articles on flying.)

(2) group:  Find Groups messages from the specified newsgroup.
ivan doig group:rec.arts.books
(Search for postings about Ivan Doig in the group rec.arts.books.)

(3) insubject:  Find Groups messages containing crazy quilts in the subject.
insubject:"crazy quilts"
(Find articles containing crazy quilts in the subject line.)

 

Restrict Search to Google News

(1) location:
Find News articles from sources located in the specified location.
queen location:uk
(Find British news articles on the Queen.)

(2) source: Find News articles from specified sources.
peace source:ha_aretz
(Show articles on peace from the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.)

 

Restrict Search to Froogle

(1) store:
Find Froogle products from the specified store.
jeans store:gap
(Find Gap jeans.) 

 

Thanks  www.GoogleGuide.com