Rex Is Excited

Google has opened up their calendar system so that you can have real two-way sync of your online Gmail calendars with iCal. You can set up multiple calendars with what appears to be full iCal functionality, and have them "push" changes to Google. You can read their detailed instructions for help getting things going. (You'll then need to click the Enable Google Calendar in Apple's iCal link on that page.)

With these new abilities, the workarounds mentioned in this hint and comments are no longer necessary.

World Map of Social Networks - click to enlarge

This world map courtesy Oxyweb should help you visualize the popularity of various social networks across different parts of the globe.

There aren’t any major differences with the previous world map except that we have more detailed data for Asia, Europe and African nations. Oxyweb has used Alexa traffic data to determine the popularity of social sites so the margin of error stands high.

Also see: Social Sites that aren’t Facebook or MySpace

World Map of Top Social Networks - Digital Inspiration

Jacob Joseph launched Mutiny as a personal blog some five years ago but it soon acquired the shape of a community blog with dozens of contributors (they call themselves mutineers) who all have day-jobs but still contribute religiously to Mutiny.

Now what this team has done is even more interesting – they have launched a print magazine based on their blog. This is probably the first blog that is available for reading both inside news-readers and on news-stands.

The motivation for launching a blog as a print magazine was simple – they want to reach more people as only a minuscule minority is reading blogs online at least in India.

My initial reaction to Mutiny’s blog magazine is exactly the same as Amit Varma - "It takes gumption and commitment to take a bold step like that, and I wish them all the best."

The first issue is available online as well.

Mutiny Blog Now Published as a Print Magazine - Digital Inspiration

If blogs, personal emails, social networks and other time wasting websites  are banned at your workplace, show this to your boss.

A study of office workers in UK has found that banning access to websites at work actually decreases staff productivity.

Tea breaks and fag breaks have long been the most common types of break within office culture but the report shows that online breaks are fast becoming the most popular choice of break for office workers.

Unlike popular notion that employees waste time on the Internet, this research says that taking a 10-minute online break during the course of the working day helps reduce stress and results in a more happier workplace.

From Google News. Here’s the full report. The study is commissioned by a company that makes some popular computer games.

Related: How to Access Blocked Sites

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Banning Websites in Offices Can Make Employees Less Productive - Digital Inspiration | FAQ | RSS

Many (but not yet all) YouTube videos are available in higher-quality QuickTime versions, and many sites have published methods of downloading those higher quality versions. However, this blog post contains a slick bookmarklet that actually replaces the YouTube Flash video player with the embedded QuickTime player, then plays the high quality video in the QuickTime player.

[robg adds: To use the bookmarklet, just drag it from the linked page to your bookmarks toolbar. Load a video in YouTube, then click the link in your toolbar. The page will then reload with the QuickTime player in place of the Flash player. (If you see the QuickTime logo with a question mark, this means that video isn't available in a high quality version.) The linked blog post has an easy-to-use drag-to-the-toolbar...

Remember Yahoo! Newsglobe (screenshot) - a project that would let you read news headlines from across the world on a rotating globe.

There’s something on similar lines now from Google - its a new layer on Google Earth that displays latest news stories from the New York Times for any geographic region in the world.

Say you are interested in current news from downtown area of Manhattan, zoom in with Google Earth and if there’s news pertaining to that region, you should see a placemark with the NYT logo - click it to read the news in an overlay window. Sweet.

Check the Google Blog for instructions on how to enabled this 3D news browser in your Google Earth. Thanks Steve.

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Google Earth Does a Yahoo! 3D News Globe With New York Times - Digital Inspiration | FAQ | RSS

Want to see yourself on CNN news, BoingBoing or the front cover of all top magazines like TIME, Wired, Cosmopolitan, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, etc.

Try these fake magazine cover creation tools:

1. MagMyPic - Just upload your picture and this service will instantly put that on the cover of TIME, Rolling Stone, Fortune, People, Maxim, Vogue and other popular magazines. The service is quick but you have no control over the text appearing on the magazine cover.

2.Condenet.com - This is an excellent service for creating a personalized Wired Magazine Cover - you can pick your own picture, tag lines and even control the placement of various elements using simple drag-n-drop. You also get a printable version of the Wired magazine cover.

3. U.R.Celeb - This is an excellent Windows software to create fake magazine cover image on the desktop. Unlike MagMyPic, this software offers you tons of control - you can change the magazine headlines, resize photos and the branding is non-obtrusive.

Supports CNN Breaking News, TIME, Vogue, PlayBoy and other popular magazines.

4. BoingBoing - It’s tough to get BoingBoing editors to link to your blog but with this post generator, you can create your own BoingBoing story. Stuff in a few words and your BoingBoing Story is ready.  

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Become a Celebrity: Put Your Face on Magazine Covers and CNN - Digital Inspiration

Some businesses (particularly in UK) have blocked access to Facebook during office hours as IT managers feel that surfing social networking sites at work could make employees less productive.

If you also happen to work in such a company where the office firewall has restricted access to Facebook, there’s a workaround - your email.

A new service called MoDazzle makes it possible to use Facebook (and LinkedIn) through email commands.

For instance, you can send an email to fbreadwall@modazzle.com with the subject SELF to read messages posted on your Facebook wall - alter the subject like JOHN to read John’s Facebook wall.

You can do most Facebook actions via email including poke, status updates, writing on a friend’s wall, read messages lying unread in your Facebook Inbox and so on.

Modazzle.com - also supports LinkedIn and Google Maps.

The service could also pick up in schools and countries like Syria and UAE that have banned Facebook on religious grounds.

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Access Facebook Via Email - Digital Inspiration

Here are some inside office pictures of Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Al Gore. No points for guess who maintains the most organized office space:

[Al Gore In his Office - Getting Things Done ?]

[Steve Ballmer working in his Office at Microsoft]

[Bill Gates Office - couple of Tablet PCs, very organized]

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The Most Organized Office Workspace - Digital Inspiration

The name DecentURL may sound just like any other URL shortening service but it’s actually the most useful of them all - it makes your web URLs short and meaningful.

That’s because DecentUrl automatically fetches the title of the web page and appends it to the short URL. And if you don’t like the default title of the web page, type a custom title yourself.

 

Consider the following cases:

1. www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jyNkr34C9s - This YouTube Video URL offers no clue about the actual video and one will have to visit the YouTube website to know what the video is all about.

2 .www.decenturl.com/youtube/wallstrip-chat-dan-lyons - This is another representation of the same YouTube video but here one can easily make out that this video has something to do with WallStrip and Dan Lyons, the man behind “The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs.”

Perfect for sharing long URLs of blogs and web videos in email messages.

http://www.decenturl.com [via Reddit]

Related: Create Very Comlex and Long URLs