Refine your image search with visual similarity- Today's Tip

Today's Tip:
Similar Images allows you to search for images using pictures rather than words. Click the "Similar images" link under an image to find other images that look like it.

Thats what is known as Google Similar Image Search...

Rare Metals Vanishing


If you were wondering how long will global reserves of some important metals that are used in electronic devices last, here’s a clue.

Tantalum is a rare metal that is used in the manufacture of cell phones and camera lenses but you’ll be surprised to know that if every human on the planet were to consume this metal at the same rate an average US resident today, the metal supplies won’t last for more than 20 years.

Similarly, we won’t be left with any stock of Indium, another rare metal used in LCDs and touch-screen displays, after 4 years if the world consumes this metal at the same rate as US today.

This report, which roughly demonstrates how quickly time is running out for some rare and important metals, was original published in New Scientist in 2007.

Armin Reller, a materials chemist, estimates that we have, at best, 10 years before we run out of Indium. Its impending scarcity could already be reflected in its price: in January 2003 the metal sold for around $60 per kilogram; by August 2006 the price had shot up to over $1000 per kilogram.

I-Am-Halal Makes Internet Searching Safe for Muslims and your Kids

Muslims generally use the term “Halal” to designate food items that they are allowed to eat under the Islamic law (like fish). The opposite of “halal” is ‘haraam’, another Arabic term which is used for food products that Muslims are forbidden from eating (like pork).

This page describes in detail how stuff is classified as Halal or Haram according to Islam. And its not just about food, the term Halal can refer to any action that is permitted under the Quran while prohibited actions are known as “Haram”.

A Search Engine for Muslims (and your Kids)
Extending the Halal and Haram concept to the Internet, Ramadan Kareem has created a search engine called I am Halal that might just prevent you (Muslims and Non-Muslims alike) from “accidentally” bumping into any explicit (or “Haram”) content on the Internet.

Unlike Safe Search in Google which simply removes all adult sites from search results, I-Am-Halal, which uses search results from Yahoo, employs a double-layered filter.

When you type a search query (e.g. sex) that can potentially retrieve “haram” search results, the search engine would require you to confirm whether you really want to see those search results. When you say yes, it will fetch the relevant pages but will still filter out content that is not deemed as family-safe.

The search results page will also contain thumbnail images of web pages alongside the site links and description. And in addition to websites, you may also use IAmHalal.com to search for images and news stories on the web.

I am actually quite impressed with “I Am Halal” and, other than the religious side of things, this is something good for your kids as well. For instance, if they type a query that is bound to return explicit results, the search engine would simply refuse to work for that query.

Hope it is a good service.

Turn Google Docs into a Distraction Free Writing Tool

When all you want to do is write, a distraction-free writing tool can come really handy as it will automatically hide all the distractions on the desktop and you can therefore concentrate on your writing.

Dark Room (Windows), Microsoft Word, Write Room (Mac), Internet Writer (Web-based), JDarkRoom (Java), PyRoom (Linux) and Q10 (Portable) are some of the popular distraction-free writing tools for various platforms.

There’s an app as well to help you create that perfect writing environment on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Distraction-free Writing with Google Docs
If you have Google Docs, you really don’t need to download another text editor as Google Docs offers everything (and even more) that you may need in a perfect distraction free writing tool.

To get started, open this page and click the “Use this Template” button. Now press Ctrl + Shift + F followed by F11 and you are all set to do some creative writing.

If you are interested in the details, here’s how you can quickly turn Google Docs into a online distraction-free writing tool:Step

1: Create a new document in Google Docs and choose “Edit CSS” from the edit menu.

Step 2: Paste the following code into the CSS Box and save.

body {
font: 16px "Courier New";
color: #00ff00 !important;
background: #000 !important;
width: 800px;
margin: 10px auto;
}
Step 3: Now hit Ctrl + Shift + F to remove the menu bar in Google Docs and then hit F11 to turn your browser into full-screen mode. That’s it.

The above example uses green text on a black background. If you like to change the color of text or that of your screen, just edit the color and background property in the CSS to a different hexadecimal value. You may also modify the font-family, size, or the line-height property to adjust the text spacing and other formatting.

Women Are a Majority On All Social Networks Except One

The latest data from Google Ad Planner suggests that female users form a majority on all popular social networking sites except Digg where 64% of the traffic is from male users. The male to female ratio on LinkedIn and YouTube stands at 1.

I think this is interesting....Why does this happen? Who knows!



Special Thanks: David McCandless, Brian Solis and Labnol.