Google's Countdown timer to New Year 2010

Google.com features a countdown clock to welcome the coming New Year 2010. The clock counts down in terms of seconds. To see the clock , proceed to google.com (if your are using Google in other domains like co.in, co.uk.. , use the "Go to Google.com" on your Google homepage.)
Now without entering any search query, click the "I'm feeling lucky" button. You will see a countdown timer as shown in the image below.


Thanks @kv for your tweet and @ramanujam for sharing it.



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Keep your desktop clean with Fences

Does your desktop always get messy , no matter whatever you do to keep it organized? Worry not , because Fences is here to take care of your desktop.

Fences is yet another powerful tool from Stardock that keeps your desktop icons and files in an organized manner. It creates so called “Fences” which are essentially a icon group. You can use the default groups provided when the initial run or you can create your own Fences.

The layout can be altered as per your need. One of the cool features of Fences is Quick Hide. With this feature, you can make your icons disappear by double-clicking anywhere in the desktop. In the same way. they can restored with a double click. Above all, the software is available for free.

Download Fences

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WeTransfer - Online file sharing upto 2GB without any registration

We already saw an online file sharing tool iFile.itwhich allows you to upload files upto 250MB. Now, here is another online file sharing tool , WeTransfer, that allows you to upload and share upto 2GB. And all this without any registration.


WeTransfer has striking interface, that makes your fire sharing experience feel like a breeze.

Here's a quick review of their features:

• Upto 2GB file upload and sharing
• No registration/signup required
• Easy to use interface
• 2 Weeks time limit
  

Site : http://www.wetransfer.info/




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Changing Default OS in GRUB2

In the latest Ubuntu release , Ubuntu 9.10 (codenamed 'Karmic Koala'), the usual GRUB bootloader has been replaced with GRUB2. The GRUB2 menu entries are stored in a file /boot/grub/grub.cfg , which you should NOT edit manually. (as opposed to older menu.lst, which you can edit).

If you want to change the default OS (and other options like timeout), open the file in gedit '/etc/default/grub' with root privileges

To do this , Press Alt+F2 and then enter the command,

gksu gedit /etc/default/grub

Then change the value of GRUB_DEFAULT corresponding to your desired menu entry. The default value of 0 corresponds to the first menu entry. Therefore, to have the 'n'th menu entry as default OS, set the value n-1 to the GRUB_DEFAULT (i.e. set 2 if you want the 3rd menu entry to be default)

Now open up a terminal and type

sudo update-grub2

Now reboot your system and that's it. This will come in handy when have a Dual boot of Windows and Ubuntu set up and you want to set Windows as the default OS.


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Optimize your firefox profile databases for better performance

Since the release of version 3 , Firefox have been storing your bookmarks, cookies, rss feed information and such information in SQLite databases for better performance. On continuous usage, these databases can get fragmented and increase in size and may cause performance problems.

The databases can be defragmented again manually, which will optimize your firefox performance. Webupd8 explains how to perform this defragmentation in Windows, Linux and Mac OS. After trying out in a test system, ghacks author Martin, reported that it reduced the size of the firefox profile folder from 64.9MB to 53.4MB. He added that , heavy users with many bookmarks and rss feeds will most likely experience a large reduction in the size of the profile folder.

Source: ghacks
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Recover your Gmail password by SMS

Google recently launched a service to recover your Google account password by SMS. It is not uncommon that people forget their passwords for countless number of web applications they use. But forgetting important passwords like those of your email accounts and bank accounts can lead to lot of troubles. So normally these applications have some features to help you recover your password like the "Security question" feature.

Google had taken a step forward and introduced a new feature to recover your password by SMS. All you have to do is to login into your Google accounts page and then select the 'Change Password Recovery Options' . Add your mobile phone number in the option provided and click 'Save'. That's all. Simple isn't it. (If you got doubts, take a look at the screenshot below)

Next time, when you forget your password , goto password-assitance page and enter your Username. You will receive a text message (SMS) with the recovery code.

To take a look at the official google announcement , visit Official Gmail Blog

Also , take a look at our guide to sending free SMS from your Instant Messenger/ Gtalk .

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