Top 5 Requests for Google Reader

1. Collapsible Header
   

   Just like when pressing u collapses the left-hand links. Why can't we press h, for example, to collapse the space-wasting headers and give us more reading room? We don't need to stare all the time at Google Reader's logo, my email address, settings, help, and expanded/list views.
   

2. More than 2000 items for offline Reader
   

   You knew this was coming. You do not actually read all items in all the feeds you're subscribed to. I usually scan my feeds for interesting items to read so I skip a lot of items. Therefore, having 2000 items limit is somehow low and forces me to use some services like Yahoo Pipes to filter my feeds. However, automatic filtering is not a good idea because it may filter out things that you might find interesting.
   

3. Pre-fetch in offline Reader
   

   There is a noticeable delay when you try to open the next item in Google Reader offline mode. Prefetching next unopened item (or next five items even) and storing it in cache would totally eliminate this problem. And add an option in the settings page for prefetching while you're at it.
   

4. Podcasts in offline Reader
   

   When downloading the 2000 items to switch Reader offline, add a parallel progress bar to download enclosed mp3 files found in the downloaded items. This parallel bar can be canceled by the user and with a check box for "never download mp3 files again." Google's flash mp3 player can be configured to read from the locally stored mp3 file. This can be extended to video podcasts as well. Options to enable offline podcasts can be added to the settings page.
   

5. Enough with this Beta talk
   

   Google redefined "Beta" recently. So many Google services are so popular and stable yet they are marked as beta. I move to remove beta from Google Reader. It's perfectly stable and ready for prime time, folks, take my word for it!

New MTC ad (Black is in)

This is the new ad from MTC it just says "BLACK IS IN" it is rumered to be a reference to Blackberry. MTC will support blackberry in Kuwait just like they did in Bahrain.

How to change the product key for Microsoft Office 2007

This is direct from Microsoft's support website.


1. Close all Office programs.
2. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate and then click the following subkey:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Registration

4. Under the Registration subkey,

a. Right-click the DigitalProductID registry entry, click Delete, and then click Yes.
b. Right-click the ProductID registry entry, click Delete, and then click Yes.

5. Close Registry Editor.
6. Open an Office program, such as Microsoft Word. When you receive a message that prompts you for the product key, type the new product key, and then click OK.

Head to Microsoft's support page for full details.

Warhammer Online Interview

This is the English translation of an interview posted in the German website war-welten.de.

Frage: Buffbots were a huge problem in DAoC, how are you trying to prevent that in WAR?

Antwort: At first, there is no /stick command in WAR. You would actually need to play both characters in order to keep you buffed or even to follow your mainchar. Furthermore there are no traditional support-classes in WAR. The Warrior Priest, for example, is able to buff and heal but if he isn’t fighting himself he is not building up Righteous Fury. Without Righteous Fury his abilities are a lot less effective. This is also true for the shaman and his Waaagh.

Frage: Are you playing classical pen & paper roleplaying games yourself and how would you compare WAR to pen & paper games?

Antwort: I’ve played pen&paper games as long as I lived in Germany. I’ve even tried the Warhammer pen&paper game, but my group chose to play “Das Schwarze Auge”. But I’m playing the Warhammer tabletop game. I set up my second army and we’re playing every lunch break in the office. It’s hard to compare the tabletop with the MMO, but you’ll recognize a lot of things and feel at home. We’ve heavily based the MMO’s design on the original tabletop models. Everything from clothing to colors, every emblem and every tiny detail is based on the tabletop game. When you enter the world, you’ll instantly feel at home, if you know the Warhammer universe.

Frage: What is WAR offering for casual gamers?

Antwort: Warhammer is not exclusively designed for powergamers! WAR should be a game. I don’t want to goof on World of Warcraft, don’t get me wrong. It did much for the market itself. But it seems like everyone is thinking WoW invented the genre. Everyone is comparing everything to WoW, saying “uh that’s just in wow” which makes my hairs stand to the end. MMORPGs have a more than 10 year old tradition and we need to change the concepts to make them more suitable for beginners. I like complex games but you can’t make them to inaccessible. As a matter of fact you can do nearly everything solo in Warhammer, but it makes more sense to level in a group, which is a part of online gaming. As always, powergamers will progress faster and will be first to achieve a lot of higher content, but nevertheless a casual gamer will have a lot of things to do too and will see a lot of the things a powergamer will encounter.

Frage: Will there be different difficulty settings for groups?

Antwort: The mobs have their individual level which creates the difficulty itself. Then there will be mobs with special abilities and heroic mobs which you should avoid by running for your life, if you’re solo. The harder mobs will grant, of course, bigger rewards.

Photoshop, Online, Cross-Platform, Free! YES!

"Photoshop" and "Free" almost never come together in the same sentience. Now they do. in six month you will be able to "log on" Photoshop Online to edit your pictures with ease and did I mention its free?

Check out the full story at IT Wire

Why Google Image Search is Faulty

Google Image Search is not fit to search for artists. Well, non-pretty artists anyway.

What Google Image Search does basically is display tens of pages of rough results for a keyword (Pixar, for example). Then, the computers count the number of images that people actually click on. Those images are then "promoted" to the front pages depending on the number of clicks they receive, the rank of the hosting page, and other known and unknown variables. This will enhance the search by showing "interesting" pictures first and hiding the ones that are ignored. It works like a huge human filtering machine.

This method works great if you want to search for Mandy Moore, fruit basket, or donkey. However it will mess up when it comes to what I call the eye-candy effect. It will show you the creation of the artist not the artist's own portrait and will show other anomalies.

If you want to see pictures of Pixar, the company, you will search for Pixar, but all you'll get is movie screen shots and sketch art. If I wanted that I would search for Pixar movies and Pixar sketch. I must search for Pixar crew or Pixar company to find what I'm looking for. Another example is if you are looking for pictures of Leonardo da Vinci, all you'll see is his art and one or two pictures of him. Search for Leonardo da Vinci portrait and you'll see the man himself.

What I'm saying is that I have to be specific enough to get around Google's flaws in image search results. Why is it messed up? well, people click on pretty pictures. If I search for Pixar and find a nice colorful picture of Neemo I would defiantly click on it, and so will many other people. If more people click on images that are not related to the search queries, there will be more chance that the search results will be irrelevant to the search query. Would you click on a picture of a group of women when you search for iPod? I think you might. Is it relevant to the search? You be the judge, and help Google mess up search even more.

Google, not the end user, needs to fix image search to get around eye-candy effect.

Command and Conquer 3 New Spider Race

Looks awesome. I'm going to play Supreme Commander while waiting for this one. Real-time strategy genre is heating up once again.

Web 2.0 The Machine is... US

This is a very short introduction to Web2.0 just in case you were living under a rock for the bast two years.

Kuwait Infoconnect Expo

Microsoft used the exhibition to announce Windows Vista

Warhammer Online Classes Revealed

There will be four classes per race; the tank, the melee DPS, the healer, and the ranged DPS.

Empire Classes:


Chaos Classes:


Warhammer Online links:

• WAR-RvR.net
• Warhammer Vault

Supreme Commander New Videos

The game looks great. It is polished up more and looks like an end product. check out the newest trailer video:



And here is a game-play video:



Can't wait to try it out.

MTC E-GO USB Data Card النهاية تمت

Its official! MTC announced today the new USB data card E-GO! should I say I told you so?

The details are:
- 3.6 Mbps HSDPA (firmware supports 7.2 Mbps but MTC network can't support that speed yet)
- It is for corporate MTC customers only (no personal accounts, sorry to hear that)
- Package 1: 2-year contract, unlimited download, minimum 5 USB cards purchased, (14 KD/month and the card comes free)
- Package 2: 1-year contract, 5GB per month download limit, 0.00002 KD (0.02 fils) per extra KB (i.e. 1 fils for each extra 50KB), (16 KD/month and the card costs 60 KD)

My personal opinion: This is ridiculous. Only companies can buy this. Why advertise something for the public and only make it available to the corporates?

Windows Vista Ultimate.. Now!

Guess what landed on my desk this morning? Yup the ultimate. I'm doubting that this is the final version simply because its not released yet. And as far as i know, all windows vista versions come in one desk and it depends on the key and what version that key unlocks. However, I need to reinstall widows on my home PC anyway and I wanna fiddle with vista a little. So if it turns out to be a beta i have noting to loose.

MTC Ads "The End" النهاية

I've been asked a lot recently about MTC's new ad campaign. Inside sources tell me its for the new USB Data Card. Thats not all, the same source also mentioned that the maximum speed is 3Mbps, which means a maximum download of 380 KB per second! Which also means a 600 MB download should take less than 30 minutes. I personally can't wait to get my hands on one of them.

Update: My sources updated me saying that the speed of this card is the same as current laptop-only cards. The price of the USB cards is lower and they are smaller, and they will be available very soon. Alwatan newspaper confirms this in this article.

Steve Jobs Macworld Keynote, introducing iPhone

Less than 24 hours after Bill Gates' boring keynote, Steve Jobs shows him how to make a world-class keynote at Macworld.

Video:
Features of the iPhone



Links:

• List of introduced products
• Photos of the iPhone
• More iPhone photos
• View the keynote video in full here