Recently Twitter has redesigned its Micro Blogging Platform site. Along with that, the guy at the Next Web has created TwitterKeys. It is a browser bookmarklet that pulls up expressive characters for easy copy & paste of all those crazy Unicode symbols that people love to include in their emails and blog posts. The TwitterKeys are divided into 3 Pages. See the link below to add TwitterKeys to you Twitter.

TwitterKeys | Part 1

TwitterKeys | Part 2

TwitterKeys | Part 3

Just few days after Google Chrome was released, Paul Douglas from TechRader has provided 30 Tips, Tricks and Shortcuts for Google Chrome.

1. Create desktop and Start menu shortcuts to web apps such as Gmail – go to Gmail.com and then select Create application shortcuts… from the Page Control menu (in the top-right corner of your browser – it looks like a page with the corner folded over). Now choose where you want to place your shortcut. This works for other Google apps such as Calendar and Documents, and other services such as Windows Live Hotmail.

2. Control + Shift + N open an ‘incognito’ window – sites you view in this window won’t appear in your history and cookies served by sites in this window will be deleted when the window is closed.

3. You can open a link in an incognito window by right-clicking the link and selecting Open link in incognito window.

4. Alt + Home loads your Google Chrome home page, with thumbnails of your most visited sites shown in the active tabbed window.

5. Control + T opens a new tab. You can drag tabs around to change their order or drag a tab out of the window into its own window.

6. Control + Shift + T opens your most recently closed tab. Press the key combination again to open the tab closed before that one. Google Chrome remembers the last 10 tabs you’ve closed.

7. Jump to different open tabs using Control + 1, Control + 2, Control + 3, etc. Control + 9 takes you to the last tab.

8. Control + Tab lets you cycle through your open tabs in order.

9. Control + Shift + Tab cycles through your tabs in the opposite order.

10. As with Firefox 3, you can drag a link onto a tab to open it in that tab, or drop it between two tabs to open a new tab in that position.

11. To bookmark a site click the star on the left of the address bar and then select a folder to add it to.

12. Control +B hides the Google Chrome bookmarks bar. Press Control + B to bring it back again.

13. Right-click or hold down the back button and you’ll get a drop-down list of sites to go back through. Show Full History, at the bottom of the list, opens a new tab with your full browser history.

14. Control + H is a faster way to bring up the History page.

15. You can delete history for chosen days by scrolling to the day you want to delete and clicking Delete history for this day on the right-hand side of the window.

16. Control + J brings up your Downloads page.

17. To clear an item from your Downloads page, right-click an entry and select Remove.

18. Press Control + K or Control + E to search from the address bar. Once pressed, you’ll see a ? Symbol appear in the address bar and you can simply enter your search query and hit Return.

19. Right-click the top of the browser window and select Task manager to see how much memory different tabs and plug-ins are using. Highlight one and click End process to stop it running.

20. Shift + Escape is a quicker way to bring up the Google Chrome Task manager.

21. To see what plug-ins are installed, type about:plugins into the address window.

22. You can also type the following commands into the Google Chrome address window: about:stats, about:network, about:histograms, about:memory, about:cache, about:dns.

23. Type about:crash to see what a crashed tab looks like.

24. A three-second diversion: type about:internets. (Only works in Windows XP.)

25. Edit any web page – right-click a page and select Inspect element. Now edit the HTML source code and hit Return to view the changes.

26. To make Google Chrome your default browser, click the Tools button (in the right-hand corner of the browser window – a spanner icon). Select Options, click the Basics tab and then click the Make Google Chrome my default browser button.

27. To delete cookies, go to Tools > Options > Under the Hood. Scroll down to the Security section, and click Show cookies. Now you can click Remove all or remove individual cookies.

28. To clear more data such as the Google Chrome browsing history and cache, click the Tools icon and select Clear browsing data…

29. To clear the most visited web sites that appear on your Google Chrome start page, you must clear your browsing history using the method above.

30. Clearing your Google Chrome browser history will also stop matches from previously browsed sites appearing as suggestions in your address bar.

Mozilla Firefox works great on its own browser, but it’s the thousands of extensions that make it shine. I have pulled together about 10 add-ons which provide a quick access to handy blogging tools.

• Wordpress.com Sidebar – Adds a quick access sidebar to get to your WordPress.com account.
  
• 
  
• Firefox Universal Uploader – Universal program for uploading to sites such as Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, and Facebook.
• FireFTP – It is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.
• Adsense Notifier – Displays your current earnings from Google Adsense in the status bar.
• ShrinkThisLink Link Shrinker – Use the ShrinkThisLink service without leaving the page.
• StumbleUpon – StumbleUpon discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more.
• ScribeFire Blog Editor – ScribeFire is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.
• SEOpen – Provides some basic tools to help with search engine optimization. Including google backlinks, yahoo backlinks, PageRank check, http header viewer, and more.
• PayPerPost Opps Hider – Doesn’t it annoy you that PayPerPost opportunities can’t be hidden? There are tons that you can’t post or don’t want to take. With this extension you can easily hide PayPerPost opportunities by clicking a small checkbox.
• coComment – This extension allows you to activate coComment! from the right-click context menu and reduces your onscreen movement time so that you don’t have to move all the way from the comment text box to the Bookmarks and then back to the Submit

There are alot of social networking plugins for Wordpress CMS. But here are my top 5 favorite Social WordPress Plugins…

1. SimpleTwitter – It allows Wordpress blog owners to add Twitter messages to their templates. Once installed, the plug-in is used by adding the following call in a template.
2. ShareThis – This WordPress plugin provides a quick, simple to use, and unobtrusive way for users to add your post to many social bookmarking sites, or to send your post link via email, AIM, Facebook, MySpace and more.
3. Stumble Reviews – Add the reviews that appear on StumbleUpon for a given page to be displayed on that page.
4. Digg Digg – Integrate Digg Button into Wordpress Content, Setup screen provided to let user choose where user want to display Digg button.
5. Social Bookmarking RELOADED – Add the social bookmarks service’s icons to your articles in your blogs in order to submit them easily. Plugin based on Apostolos Dountsis one.

The Amazon store now has more than 360,000 books that you can download and read on your Kindle e-book reader.

Read Kindle Books without the Kindle Reader

If you don’t have the Kindle device, you can still enjoy any of these Kindle books on your Windows computer using the free Kindle for PC application. Amazon is also working on a Mac version of Kindle Desktop but until that happens, you can download the free Kindle app from iTunes store and read books on the move using your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Find and Download Free Books for Kindle

While most eBooks available on the Amazon Kindle store are paid, here are some simple ways by which you can find and download free books for reading on your Kindle Reader or your Kindle Desktop application.

# 1. Google Books on your Kindle

Project Gutenberg, Google Books and FeedBooks are some popular sites that offer a large collection of public domain books in the standard ePUB format.

The Kindle for PC application cannot read ePUB files directly but you can use the excellent Stanza program (from Amazon itself) to convert these public domain books from .epub into .mobi format that you can then import into Kindle Desktop for reading*. That means you now have millions of out-of-copyright books for your Kindle for free.

You can also use Stanza to convert PDFs, HTML web pages and other Office documents into .mobi format for reading inside the Kindle App but I see little reason why would anyone want to do so since the reading experience is not all that great.

# 2. Find Free Kindle Books on Amazon.com

Before your proceed, please log-in to your Amazon account, choose “Manage your Kindle” and change the country associated with your Kindle account to “United States”. This is important because most “free” content on the Kindle Bookstore is currently restricted to North America.

OK, now let’s explore ways to find free Kindle books:

# 2.1 Big Deals – This is more of an official listing of Kindle books that are currently available as a free download on Amazon.com to Kindle users. You should also check the Bestsellers category on Kindle Store as it again lists quite a good number of free titles.

# 2.2 Sort by Price – When you search for a Kindle book (or any other item) on Amazon.com, it displays search results by relevance.

If you change this default sort order from “Relevance” to “Price: Low to High”, you’ll get a list of all Kindle books that match your search keywords and are available as a free download. For instance, here’s a list of Kindle books that are related to “India” but cost exactly $0.00.

# 2.3 Listmania - This is another resource where you can discover Kindle books that are available for free.
Listmania Lists are basically a list of products compiled by Amazon users. You can use search phrases like “free kindle books”, “kindle freebie”, “penny kindle book”, etc. to discover lists that may free books you are looking for. For instance, here’s one Listmania List of 27 classic books for Kindle that are absolutely free and here’s another one that also includes copyrighted books.

# 2.4 Use Google – Here’s an unofficial method to help you find Kindle books that are available for free on Amazon.com.

You can use the following search query in Google to search the Amazon store for free Kindle books – just replace the search-phrase in green with the name of the book, author, book category, etc.

intitle:kindle site:amazon.com "you save * (100%)" search-phrase

For instance, here’s a list of free Kindle books related to Abraham Lincoln while here’s a list of Kindle books on Shakespeare that are again free.

Note: Kindle Pricing for International users

If the cost of a Kindle book is mentioned as $0.00 on the Amazon Store, it will still show up as $2.00 for you if the country associated with your Kindle is something other than United States. This is because Amazon charges a $2 roaming fee for “international downloads”.

You can either temporarily change your Kindle country to US or use the “Transfer via Computer” option when buying a book and you won’t be charged that extra $2 fees. Thanks Dhamini Ratnam.

Good news, Gmail fans. Google is experimenting with a new ability of Gmail to work offline, when an active Internet connection is not available. This feature relies upon the Gears platform, a browser add-by Google which can plug itself to Internet Explorer, Firefox and comes pre-installed in Chrome.

When offline, you’ll still be able to read retrieved emails, compose, and search. As and when Internet comes online, Gmail will automatically sync the changes you’ve made with Gmail servers. For instance, send unsent messages or check for new messages and retrieve them to your local cache.

Take a look at this video tour:

How to get this feature?

Offline Gmail will be slowly rolled out this week to the English interface of Gmail. Here’s how to enable the feature:

1. Change the language & Country of your Gmail interface to English & USA.
2. Make sure you use a browser supported by Gmail Labs and Gears: Internet Explorer 7.0+, Firefox 2.0+, Safari 3.0+, and Google Chrome. You can’t use Gmail Labs in Internet Explorer 6.
3. Wait until this feature is added to your account. When you see "Offline Gmail" in Gmail Labs, enable the feature, save the changes and click on the "Offline" link that will be displayed next to your username.

Are you bored of your current Facebook Design and are looking to customize your Facebook profile page? Now you can customize your Facebook Profile with PageRage. You can simply change the background layout/design on your Facebook Profile.

First of all you need to add the PageRage Super Profile (Facebook Application) and you can choose your preferred Layout/Design. There is a lot of skin to dress your Facebook Profile. The problem of this application is your friends need Yontoo Layers (Firefox Extension/IE Add-ons) to view your layout/design.

So this means your friends are only able to view your layout/design on Browser which they installed Yontoo Layer. Yontoo Layers currently works with Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2.x on Windows XP and Vista, as well as Firefox 2.x on Mac OS X. If your friend doesn’t have Yontoo Layers, then they will be viewing the default Facebook design

The famous Micro Blogging Platform has finally transformed to a brand new design. It looks more in line with current web applications and retains its characteristic simplicity it does not include new features, but if it significantly improves the aesthetics and a little accessibility.

According to the official blog, a lot of these changes are with a view of the future gttt ttwhere if you can add new features. Perhaps the section for more changes has been to design, where you can customize the background and the color of the subject in a more insightful.

I think the change you feel good service, because by now it seemed that it was not working to improve it or to a very slow. Now we have to wait for new features.

The holiday season is near and you want to send personalized email greetings to all your fr iends, family members and customers using the standard Gmail (or Google Apps with Gmail) s ervice.

How to Send Bulk Emails using Gmail

Since the web interface of Gmail doesn’t support personalized emails, you should connect your Gmail account with Microsoft Outlook (via POP3 or IMAP) and also import the Gmail address book into your Outlook Contacts.

Now you can use the mail merge feature of Outlook to send personalized messages to every single Gmail contact from the desktop.

This may sound like an easy plan but there’re strict sending limits and, if you aren’t careful, Google may even block your Gmail account temporarily for up to 24 hours and you’ll neither be able to send nor receive any emails during that lock-out period.

Email Sending Limits in Google Apps

If you are using Gmail with Google Apps, you cannot send messages to more than 500 unique email addresses per day.

For instance, if you send one email to Person A and another one is addressed to Person B and C, you have already exhausted three slots (out of 500) even though only two messages left your Inbox.

Email Sending Limits for Gmail users

If you want to send bulk mails using a regular Gmail account, the rules are similar.

You can only send out emails to a maximum of 500 recipients during a 24 hour* period but if you are using a desktop client (like Outlook), that limit is reduced to 100 messages in a day.

[*] The Gmail help site mentions this limit as 500 recipients per message but a Google employee on the Gmail support site has confirmed that this cap is not just per message but per day.

Workarounds for sending mass emails
With all these limitations in place, Gmail is obviously not the best option for reaching out to a very large customer base. However, if you have no other option, it may be a good idea to plan well in advance.

For Gmail: Distribute the mail merge process over 2-3 days so that you never exceed that 100 messages per day quota.

For Google Apps: You can either upgrade to a Premier edition or create multiple accounts in Google Apps as each will have its own 500-recipients limit.

Google Earth is probably the first and only desktop application to have AdSense Ads. These ads are is now showing in at least two different places inside the application:

Figure A: When you search for a location or business, the ads are displayed in the search results itself.

Figure B: When you click a placemark (any red pin on the map), the ads are displayed next to the review /address of that location.

Google makes an exception
I find this interesting because Google policies strictly don’t allow software developers to integrate AdSense ads in their desktop applications. If that policy changes, we could see more and more of Office 2010 Starter or FeedDemon like applications that are completely free to the end-user but supported by web advertising.

There was a time when long-distance and international phone calls were a luxury but, thanks to VoIP or Internet based telephone services, this is no longer the case.
You can now call your friends and family members anywhere in the world at extremely low rates (sometimes even free) and some of these VoIP services don’t even require you to have an Internet connection at home.

VoIP Services for Making Phone Calls

Most people have heard of Skype, and it still is one of the best VoIP services around, but there are quite a few other good options as well that let you make phone calls over the Internet using your regular landline, mobile phone or your computer.

There are three kinds of Voice over IP (VoIP) solutions that let you enjoy crystal-clear* phone calls at a fraction of the price that your phone company charges:

1. Hardware based – You get a dedicated hardware router that sits between your Internet modem and your corded /cordless phone so you can make and receive phone calls just like before. The only difference is that calls are now routed through the Internet and not your phone company so you usually end up saving money.

2. Software based – You install a VoIP software on your computer or your web-enabled mobile phone and make phone calls via the Internet connection bypassing your phone company. It doesn’t matter if you mobile phone is connected to the Internet over Wi-Fi, GPRS, EDGE, 3G or WiMAX.
3. Web based – Web based VoIP services neither require any hardware nor software. You open the VoIP service provider’s site, type the phone numbers and you’re instantly connected. Some services also offer special hotlines (or direct access numbers) that let you make Internet phone calls using your traditional phone even if you don’t have an internet connection.

Let’s look at popular VoIP services that fall in each of these categories:

1. Dedicated VoIP Hardware

This is usually the best option for people who want to make regular phone calls over the internet but while they are relaxing on the couch and not having to sit in front of the computer screen.

To use dedicated hardware-based VoIP solutions, you need a router, sign up for the appropriate service (listed below), and connect the box to your internet and the standard telephone. Here are some of the best hardware based VoIP products that also provide you a traditional phone number so you can both place and receive calls through VoIP. And none except magicJack would require a computer.

VoIP Service:	Costs Involved and Features:	Pros and Cons:
	Vonage – Vonage makes your VoIP experience very similar to a traditional telephone service. Simply plug the Vonage box into your internet connection, then connect your regular phone to the Vonage box and start making calls.	The hardware costs $79.99 and you pay $24.99/month for unlimited calling to US and 60 other countries. Vonage is available in the U.S., U.K. and Canada but you can ship the device to your family members in other countries (like India) and they’ll be able to call you at local rates.	Pros: Worldwide calling, flat rate, simple setup, works like a traditional phone service. You can carry the device while travelling and save on calling cards /hotel bills.Cons: Monthly service cost is high, long contract.
Ooma – You simply plug the Internet line into your Ooma device and then connect any corded / cordless phone into Ooma. That’s it – you can make unlimited phone calls inside the US for free.	The hardware costs $249.99. There are no monthly charges except $12/year for taxes and other fees. A $9.99/month premier plan is available that adds number porting, an additional line, and advance telephone services.	Pros: Unlimited free calls to any phone number in the US, low rates for dialing international numbers, no long-term commitment.Cons: Entry-cost is a bit high.
Skype Phones – Skype is best known for offering voice and video calls through the computer, but they also provide hardware to help you make calls over the internet without a computer. This gives you the convenience of a traditional phone with the value of Skype calls.	Standalone Skype phones start at $79.99 though you can go for USB phones that cost a little less but require a computer. With a Skype phone, you can make phone calls to all other Skype users for free or refer to this price chart for calling international numbers.	Pros: Powered by one of the most popular internet telephone services and no long-term commitment. Skype is available worldwide. Cons: The unlimited calling plans aren’t available in all countries.
magicJack – A cross between a software and a hardware offering, magicJack is a small USB device that connects to a Mac or PC. You then connect a traditional phone to the magicJack device and make free phone calls to any number in the US.	It costs $39.95 for the first year (device cost + yearly charges) and then all you pay is $19.95 per year. Calls from your magicJack from any country to the U.S. and Canada are free while calls to international phone numbers are charged based on their rate table.	Pros: Cheap hardware and low-yearly fees. Cons: Requires a computer.
PhoneGnome – It’s a simple box that you plug-in between your Internet modem and the landline phone and start talking. PhoneGnome is the oldest player in this segment.	The hardware costs $99.99 and there are no monthly bills. For $5/month, you can pick any 10 phone numbers in US, Canada and other countries and you’ll be able to make unlimited calls to those numbers for free.	Pros: With PhoneGnome, you can also make calls to GoogleTalk, Windows Live, and Yahoo Messenger using your regular phone. They also ship to international locations. Cons: Requires invitation.

2. VoIP Software for Desktop and Mobile Phones

Your first introduction to internet based telephone services was probably through services like Skype that allowed you to make voice and video calls through your computer. In order to make VoIP phone calls through your computer, all you need is a headset cum microphone and one of the following programs.

Service:	Price:
Skype – Available on Windows, Mac, Linux, Windows Mobile and iPhone. Nokia, Sony and Samsung users can use Skype Lite for making calls from their mobile phones.	Free calls to another Skype user, rates per minute to any number worldwide start at $0.02/minute. Unlimited minutes to any one country cost $5.95/month, while unlimited minutes to over 40 countries worldwide cost $12.95/month.You may buy a personal phone number of any country for $60/year and your friends /family members in that country can call you from their regular phones by paying only local call rates.
Windows Live Call – Requires Windows Live Messenger which is available only on Windows.	Free calls to any Windows Live Messenger user, rates per minute to any number worldwide start at $0.015/minute. You can also send text messages to mobile phones for free but a limitation with Windows Live Call is that it is only available in select countries.
Yahoo! Voice – Requires Yahoo! Messenger which is available for Mac and Windows.	Free calls to any Yahoo! messenger user, rates per minute to any number worldwide start at $0.01/minute. For $2.49/month, you can get a dedicated phone number (of US, UK or France) for your computer so that friends can call you directly from their landline or mobile phones. All calls to 800 numbers are free with Yahoo! Voice.
wengoPhone – Available on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Windows Mobile, or via a Firefox extension.	Free calls to wengoPhone users, rates per minute start at 0.006€/minute (wengoPhone is a European-orientated service).
pfingo – Available for Windows PC, Nokia, Sony and Motorola mobile phones.	Free calls to other pfingo users, rates per minute to any phone number worldwide start at $0.04/minute. You can get an international phone number for Singapore, Australia, US, UK or China and your contacts in these countries can call you at their local rates.
Vopium – Available for all popular mobile phones including BlackBerry, HTC (Android), iPhone, etc.	With Vopium installed, you can use your mobile phone call to anywhere in the world with rates starting at 7¢/minute. If you are in a Wi-Fi zone, you don’t even have to pay the local charges to your phone company but a downside is that Vopium is not available in all countries.
Truphone – Another popular mobile VoIP application that is available for Nokia, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry phones.	You can call other Truphone anywhere in the world from your mobile phone for free while international calls to other landline and mobile numbers start at 5¢/minute.

3. Make VoIP Calls with (or without) Internet

Yes, you can make cheap international phone calls over VoIP without even having an internet connection as long as you a landline or mobile phone.

There are VoIP services that offer a local phone number which you can call using your normal phone, then dial the number of the person you wish to call, and your call will be routed over the internet by the VoIP service. Then there are services that let you enter your phone number and the number you are calling on a website; your phone will ring, and when you answer it, it will automatically dial the number you wish to call.

Service Name and Features	Costs involved
Jaxtr – Jaxtr offers local numbers for most countries – simply call that number and then input your friend’s number. Jaxtr will send an SMS message to your friend containing a local number. She can call that number and you’ll be connected. If you are located in a country with non-local Jaxtr numbers or if you want to skip that call-back option, you can make direct phone calls using the web dialer at jaxtr.com – enter your number and the number you wish to call, and the phones will simultaneously ring.	You can make unlimited free calls to landlines and mobile phones in countries where Jaxtr has a direct access number and when the other person is willing to call-back on the number that he receives by text. For direct dialing, the rates start at 13¢/minute.
Jajah – Like Jaxtr, Jajah also provides direct access numbers for many countries around the world. You call a local number from your phone followed by the number of your friend (it could be long-distance or an international call) and Jajah will connect the two parties. It will also assign a unique number for your friend so you call him or her directly without having to dial that local access number. Alternatively, you can type your own phone number and that of your friend on the jajah site and you’ll be connected. You may use this desktop browser or any internet enabled mobile phone to call friends via Jajah.	All calls between Jajah users are free while calls to any number worldwide start at around 5¢ per minute. If the friend you are trying to reach is on Twitter, you can use the @call service of Jajah to make a free phone call and talk upto 2 minutes without revealing your personal phone number.
Rebtel – You get a local phone number that will connect you directly with your friends and family abroad.It works like this. You type in your friend’s international number and Rebtel will provide you with a unique local number corresponding to that international number. You can then use your regular landline or mobile phone to call your friend’s international number through a simple local call. With Rebtel, you can call anywhere in the world but the person initiating the call (i.e., you) should be located in a country that is supported by Rebtel.	In case you calling the other person directly using the local number provided by Rebtel, the rates start at $0.01/minute. However, there’s a way by which you can make free international phone calls with Rebtel. Once your friend is assigned a unique local number, give him call on that number. When he picks up, ask him to hang up and call you back on the number displayed on his phone while you wait on the line. You’ll be instantly connected and will only have to pay local charges for an international phone call.

VoIP calls are generally cheaper than regular phone calls but make sure you have a decent broadband connection for better voice quality. Also, they are no replacements for your traditional phone as none of them offers access to emergency services like 911 in US.

If you are using FeedBurner to syndicate the RSS feeds of your blog, you can now easily track all the incoming traffic from feed clicks through Google Analytics.

Just open your FeedBurner dashboard, click the title of your RSS feed and choose "Configure Stats" under the Analyze Tab. Tick the options that say "Item views", "Item click" and "Track clicks as a traffic source in Google Analytics" and save.

In addition to click counts, you’ll also know the exact source from where that click may originated.
This is useful data because, for instance, it will help you understand if people who subscribe to your feed inside Google Reader are more engaged than your "My Yahoo!" subscribers (or vice-versa).

Traffic from clicks inside your RSS feed will be included under "All Traffic Sources" and "Campaigns." in your Google Analytics reports. Select "Ad Content" from the segment drop down in the traffic source data table and it will show you the incoming traffic from your RSS feed segmented by specific feed readers or email clients.

Read Kindle Books without the Kindle Reader

If you don’t have the Kindle device, you can still enjoy any of these Kindle books on your Windows computer using the free Kindle for PC application. Amazon is also working on a Mac version of Kindle Desktop but until that happens, you can download the free Kindle app from iTunes store and read books on the move using your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Find and Download Free Books for Kindle

While most eBooks available on the Amazon Kindle store are paid, here are some simple ways by which you can find and download free books for reading on your Kindle Reader or your Kindle Desktop application.

# 1. Google Books on your Kindle

Project Gutenberg, Google Books and FeedBooks are some popular sites that offer a large collection of public domain books in the standard ePUB format.

The Kindle for PC application cannot read ePUB files directly but you can use the excellent Stanza program (from Amazon itself) to convert these public domain books from .epub into .mobi format that you can then import into Kindle Desktop for reading*. That means you now have millions of out-of-copyright books for your Kindle for free.

You can also use Stanza to convert PDFs, HTML web pages and other Office documents into .mobi format for reading inside the Kindle App but I see little reason why would anyone want to do so since the reading experience is not all that great.

# 2. Find Free Kindle Books on Amazon.com

Before your proceed, please log-in to your Amazon account, choose “Manage your Kindle” and change the country associated with your Kindle account to “United States”. This is important because most “free” content on the Kindle Bookstore is currently restricted to North America.

OK, now let’s explore ways to find free Kindle books:

# 2.1 Big Deals – This is more of an official listing of Kindle books that are currently available as a free download on Amazon.com to Kindle users. You should also check the Bestsellers category on Kindle Store as it again lists quite a good number of free titles.

Read more: http://petnol.blogspot.com/2009/12/download-free-books-for-your-kindle.html#ixzz0buzKAgQQ
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

# 2.2 Sort by Price – When you search for a Kindle book (or any other item) on Amazon.com, it displays search results by relevance.

If you change this default sort order from “Relevance” to “Price: Low to High”, you’ll get a list of all Kindle books that match your search keywords and are available as a free download. For instance, here’s a list of Kindle books that are related to “India” but cost exactly $0.00.

# 2.3 Listmania - This is another resource where you can discover Kindle books that are available for free.
Listmania Lists are basically a list of products compiled by Amazon users. You can use search phrases like “free kindle books”, “kindle freebie”, “penny kindle book”, etc. to discover lists that may free books you are looking for. For instance, here’s one Listmania List of 27 classic books for Kindle that are absolutely free and here’s another one that also includes copyrighted books.

# 2.4 Use Google – Here’s an unofficial method to help you find Kindle books that are available for free on Amazon.com.

You can use the following search query in Google to search the Amazon store for free Kindle books – just replace the search-phrase in green with the name of the book, author, book category, etc.

intitle:kindle site:amazon.com "you save * (100%)" search-phrase

For instance, here’s a list of free Kindle books related to Abraham Lincoln while here’s a list of Kindle books on Shakespeare that are again free.

Note: Kindle Pricing for International users

If the cost of a Kindle book is mentioned as $0.00 on the Amazon Store, it will still show up as $2.00 for you if the country associated with your Kindle is something other than United States. This is because Amazon charges a $2 roaming fee for “international downloads”.

You can either temporarily change your Kindle country to US or use the “Transfer via Computer” option when buying a book and you won’t be charged that extra $2 fees. Thanks Dhamini Ratnam.

Read more: http://petnol.blogspot.com/2009/12/download-free-books-for-your-kindle.html#ixzz0buzD61Nk
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Puru Pratap Singh, a class IV student from Gurgaon in India, has won the Doodle 4 Google contest and you can see his artwork live on the Google India homepage.
The theme of this year’s Google Doodle contest was "My India".

Dennis Hwang, who is the creative genius behind every holiday logo that you see on the Google homepage across countries, was also in Delhi for the award function.

Puru, who is just nine years old, gets a laptop computer for winning the Doodle 4 Google Competition and his school (Amity) will receive a technology grant of around $2000 from Google India.

Some 4,000 logos were submitted by school students from across India for the contest and, though you won’t see any of them on the Google homepage, some of them very extremely creative. Here are my favorite picks:

And here’s a time-lapse video that shows how Dennis Hwang draws a Google Doodle from start to finish.

Read more: http://petnol.blogspot.com/2009/12/google-homepage-sports-new-logo-drawn.html#ixzz0bs7XflMG
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Good news for Nokia users who carry an N-Series or E-Series mobile phone. You can now download the Google Mobile app for your Nokia phone and search Google using simple voice commands as demonstrated in the following video.

Speak your queries instead of typing them


Google Voice Search app is location aware so you don’t have to mention the name of your city or locality when using location specific queries like “nearest pizza restaurant or “medicine shops”.

The Google voice search app is integrated with Google Suggest but in addition to regular search queries, the voice app can also auto-suggest websites so you reach your favorites sites more quickly as you no longer have to type the full address of a domain.

In addition to Nokia S60 phones, Google Mobile App with Voice Search is available for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android based mobile devices.

The Google Voice Search application for Nokia is available for English as well as the Chinese Language. More details on the Google India blog and Google China blog