photo from boston.com
If you wanted to donate money or help people of Haiti than make sure you contact the right person. Your responsibility is to check the authenticity of the organization or the people claiming to help Haiti victims. Following is the link of an article by lifehacker which list various websites and links which are not fake.
Google Language tool provides translation between different languages and is widely used all over the world. Few of my Turkish and Egyptian friends frequently use google language tools and they are not satisfied with the translation. Sometimes translations are wrong or does not fully depict the words or even convey the meaning. The most important reason for bad translation is the beauty/semantics in each language which are impossible to translate. This tool translates major languages of the world except one. It is a national language of the country which has very high profile IT industry.
Urdu the national language of Pakistan and the 5th world most widely spoken language [according to SIL (1999)]. George Weber’s wrote an article about the world’s 10 most influential Languages, and Urdu was rated 10th.
Also according to him Urdu is 4th most spoken language in the world with 4.7 percent of world population.
According to wikipedia countries with large numbers of native Urdu speakers are[source]:
| Country | No of speakers | as per year | % of total population |
| India | 51,536,111 | 2001 | 58.2% |
| Pakistan | 38,765,000 | 2001 | 44.2% |
| United Kingdom | 400,000+ | 2001 est. | |
| Bangladesh | 50,000 | 0.06% | |
| United Arab Emirates | 600,000 | 0.7% | |
| Saudi Arabia | 382,000 | 0.43% | |
| United States | 350,000 | 0.1% | |
| Afghanistan | 320,000 | 0.8% | |
| Canada | 156,415 | 2006 | 0.5% |
| Oman | 90,000 | 2.8% | |
| Bahrain | 80,000 | 11.3% | |
| Mauritius | 74,000 | 5.6% | |
| Qatar | 70,000 | 8% | |
| Germany | 50,000 | ||
| Cuba | 10,00 | ||
| Norway | 27,700 | 2006 | |
| France | 20,000 | ||
| Spain (Catalonia) | 18,000 | 2004 | |
| Sweden | 10,000 | 2001 | |
| World Total | 88,459,578 |
I see these facts and I wonder why google language tool does not have urdu translation facility.
Apart from google there are various other websites which provide Urdu to English and vice versa translation but only to single word [other words they have English<->Urdu dictionary]. I would like to appreciate http://www.urduword.com/ and http://www.hamariweb.com/ for providing best translation and other language services. Also google labs for providing Roman Urdu tool. But the need for sentence/phrases translations is still there and very few people are working on it.
Hats off to the guys from http://www.paktranslations.com/ who are putting lots of efforts and had initiated a first step towards urdu language tool. Currently they are in beta phase so only English to Urdu translation of sentences and websites are facilitated by them. They are continuously working and making lots of improvement in their tool. Their tool is not accurate but something is better than nothing.
The facts that Urdu is spoken all around the world, it is under top 5 most spoken language, 10th most influential language, and have lots of quality literature are clearly shouting Urdu should be included in Google language tool.
I would like to hear your comments what do you think why google has not included urdu in language tool.
I had never created 360 panorama or small planets before. I had previously read various articles and seen very interesting photos as well. I was very excited to make something like it, but never got a chance to make it.
On my trip to Blagoevgrad and Rila Monastery Trip with ESN people I found a very interesting place. There was non-functional spring in the middle of the steps and they were forming a perfect circle. At that point I thought how about a group photo by making small planet shaped circle. So I calculated number of people and walked around the circle. I gathered people and asked them to hold their hands around the circle and stay still. I went to middle of the circle and after I was satisfied with the formation, I adjusted the focus of my camera[in auto focus mode] and switched to manual focus. It is very important to have the same settings[aperture, shutter etc] for all your shots. I could have taken the 6 or 8 shots but I was not using the tripod so for better alignment I took 10 shots covering everyone.
When I came back I stated stitching the photos using Photoshop. I used photo merge option of adobe and selected “perspective” in “Layout”. I loaded 10 photos and they had very high resolution and the result was the picture having size of 28.2 MB. I purpose that you should reduce the size and then continue otherwise adobe might crash and you might lose your data [or you should save psd formats side by side without reducing the size].
The photomerge option resulted in Raw Panorama of the shots and each photo was in Layers. As I had told you I did not used the tripod and few people were not aligned perfectly. Thats why I had to carefully align the picture manually. Also I wanted to make small planet shaped circle so I had to be careful with the ends of the picture.
After I was satisfied with the stitching I applied “Polar Coordinates” filter [Filter->distort->polar coordinates]. My first small planet was ready … but what the … The ends were not perfect[it needed extra adobe photoshop magic...]. I had to do some basic adobe photoshop in order to remove the deficiency. [Always use tripod or try to learn advance adobe photoshop].
The resulted picture as you see is not very satisfying… I tried various adobe photo shop techniques to squeeze the people and make it perfect but it was taking too much effort. Now I search for some tutorials and wanted to look others similar pictures. After reading some stuff I realized I was doing the same thing but if I add some empty space at the lower part of the picture, the inner circle will be more wider and people will look better.
I had already saved the straight Panorama so I increased the height of that image and applied the filter. This time the result was much better. But I did not kinda liked the inner white circle, so I thought how about stretching the grass[lower part of the image] and this increased the height of the image as well. After doing that I applied the polar coordinate filter and the end result was the following picture.
I learned a lot from my first experience and next time I will do better than that. Try increasing the height upto the width and see you will have better results. I am open for suggestion and comments, do let me know what you think.
I was searching for waterproof camera and found a very interesting article. Ofcourse If you are using SLR then I would recommend the waterproof kit[kind of plastic bag] for you. If you like photography and like to buy new waterproof camera then you must check out this comparison. [source:http://www.popphoto.com/Features/The-5-Best-Waterproof-Compact-Cameras]
1. Canon PowerShot D10
$330 street, 12.1MP; 3X optical zoom; waterproof to 33 feet
Canon’s first foray into waterproof digital compacts looks like a cross between a Digital ELPH and a diving bell. With a waterproof rating down to 33 feet, it’s among the deepest divers in this category, but its 2.5-inch LCD and optically stabilized 35–105mm (equivalent) f/2.8–4.9 zoom lens aren’t at the front of this pack. Like the other cameras here, the D10 is freeze- and shockproof, in this case surviving temperatures down to 14 degrees Fahrenheit and falls of up to 4 feet.
www.powershot.com
2. Fujifilm Finepix Z33WP
$200 street, 10MP; 3X optical zoom; waterproof to 10 feet
Borrowing design cues from Fuji’s teen-targeted Z30, this underwater shooter is one of the tiniest and most stylish, as well as the most affordable. Its 2.7-inch LCD is as large as they come on this type of compact. But it’s waterproof only to 10 feet, and its 10MP and 35–105mm (equivalent) f/3.7–4.2 optical zoom aren’t groundbreaking.
www.fujifilmusa.com
3. Olympus Stylus Tough 8000
$400 street, 12MP; 3.6X optical zoom; waterproof to 33 feet
Olympus offers some of the most rugged compact cameras you can get, and its latest fits the mold. You can shoot down to 33 feet underwater, drop the camera from up to 6.6 feet, and use it in temperatures down to 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Plus, its metal construction can withstand up to 220 pounds of pressure. Sensorshift image stabilization combats hand shake, and the zoom, while not league-leading, spans an equivalent 28–102mm f/3.5–5.1.
www.stylustough.com
4. Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1
$400 street, 12.1MP; 4.6X optical zoom; waterproof to 10 feet
Panasonic has stepped up to the pool in a strong way with its first waterproof digital camera. Its optically stabilized 28–128mm (equivalent) f/3.3–5.9 zoom offers a nice balance of wide angle for underwater and midrange tele for land-based adventures. At 12.1MP, it affords plenty of resolution, and it has an ample 2.7-inch LCD. While we wish it could go deeper than 10 feet, its 720p video recording should make playing in the backyard pool more fun than ever.
www.panasonic.com
5. Pentax Optio W60
$250 street, 10MP; 5X optical zoom; waterproof to 13 feet
Pentax was one of the first to offer dunkable digital cameras with its WP series years ago, and now it’s a major force. This model has plenty of room to the left of the lens to hold onto, and we like the 720p video recording, though we’d rather have a faster rate than its 15 frames per second. Its Super Macro mode should be a boon below the surface, letting you focus as close as 0.4 inches from the front of the 28–140mm (equivalent) f/3.5–5.5 lens.
www.pentaximaging.com
Its been more than 6 months since I am having spam friend request in my msn messenger. Each day I get two or three friend request which always contains “@yahoo.com” and if added, they send spam messages. I tried blocking them all, set permission on my live profile and also tried accepting their friend request. But nothing seems to work, I cannot avoid them. I am still searching the way to stop these requests, but no matter what my course of action is its all in vain.
They are so annoying that I am thinking to leave msn messenger. But at the same time I searching to resolve this problem. If anyone is going under the same situation or have successfully conquered then please do share your thoughts.
Here is the link which promises to stop the spam, but its not effective.
http://www.pcmech.com/article/three-ways-to-stop-instant-messenger-spam/
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