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Digital Inspiration

Digital Inspiration is your guide to all things related to software, technology and Internet.

How to Watch YouTube Videos While Working on other TasksToday

You plan to watch a lengthy video clip on YouTube but the problem is that you have lot of other stuff to do and therefore can’t focus all the attention on just one video. You need to browse web pages, check emails in Outlook and maybe complete that presentation while the video plays on your screen.

Fortunately, this is possible with a simple hack - just decide where that video should be placed.

You can either watch the YouTube video from the Firefox sidebar or, if you are working with other application or don’t use Firefox, create a standalone YouTube player window and move it anywhere on the desktop in Always on Top mode. See screenshots.

Case 1. YouTube Player inside the Firefox Sidebar

Case 2. YouTube Player on top of other Windows

Here are the steps involved for either of the methods discussed above.

1. Get the full screen mode address of the YouTube video clip. It is something like

Get a Log of your Online Activity as an Image with FriendFeedToday

FriendFeed recently added an image based feed widget that lets you export a log of your online activity as a still image. This is helpful if you like to include your lifestream in an email message or need to embed it in a site that doesn’t support JavaScript (e.g. MySpace & WordPress.com).

To get started, simply login to you FriendFeed account and go to Embeddable Widgets. Uncheck the Logo, Comments and Subscribe option to remove all the FriendFeed branding.

While there are enough services already convert feeds into images, the feed widget from FriendFeed is far better because it supports image thumbnails and you also have more control over the output image.

For instance, you may choose to convert either you full lifestream into an image or  selected service like pictures uploaded on Flickr, items you wish to buy on Amazon, your blog entries, LinkedIn updates, etc. The width of the image can be customized as well.

See some sample images (they appear still but will update automatically if new content is posted) -

Learn How To Pronounce Foreign Names CorrectlyToday

If you ever happen to interact with individuals from different countries who have unfamiliar names, the audio pronunciation guide from HowToSayThatName.com will come pretty handy.

"How to Say that Name" is a huge audio database of people’s names in various languages - you can simply click the name to hear how a native speaker would pronounce it.

The database has pronunciations all popular names (and surnames) from languages like English, Chinese, German, Russian, Korean and even Hindi.

You can either browse names alphabetically (by language) or use the search function. Thanks Richard Byrne and Fred Delventhal.

Also see: Find Gender from the Name, Spell Names on the Phone

Learn How To Pronounce Foreign Names Correctly - Digital Inspiration

Exchange Your Windows PC or TV for an Apple iMacToday

Exchange your old Laptop or TV for a new Apple iMac

"Beautiful but expensive" - that’s how most people like to describe Apple products here in India.

Now to lure this set of cost-conscious consumers (and also vanish some Windows computers), Apple India has come up with a exchange offer where you can walk into any of the Apple retail stores with your old Windows PC (or laptop or TV) and get Rs. 6,000 ($120) off on the purchase of a new iMac.

The basic model of an iMac costs around Rs 56,000 in India. Other than this exchange offer, faculty members and college students can buy MacBook Laptops at a discount of around 12%.

This iMac offer is valid until December 27, 2008.

Exchange Your Windows PC or TV for an Apple iMac - Digital Inspiration

Registration for .TEL Domain Names Now Open!Today

A .tel domain name, like a virtual business card, is primarily for people / businesses who don’t have a dedicated website but need simple mechanism to put all their contact information on the web.

So if your name is Raghav, you can register a domain like www.raghav.tel and put your phone numbers, email addresses, IM ids, snail mail address, links to social networks, etc - all in one place.

How is .tel Different from .com

The main difference between a regular .com and .tel domain is that the latter stores all your different contact information at the DNS level (like whois database records) and you don’t have to worry about creating a website.

If you are willing to book a .tel domain for your own self (see example), just head over to Domain Monster as they are now accepting pre-orders. You can even try a .tel domain before buying one using this link.

Personally, I can’t think of a single reason why would someone invest in a .tel domain where there so many