I’m back! hopefully for good this time. This will take a bit of time getting used to it. Bear with me for the moment!

Making use of Google Docs’ Optical Character Recognition (OCR), here’s a little hack to get that text out:

First, choose to upload your file at Google Docs. Check the box that says “Convert text from PDF and image files to Google Documents” before clicking on Start Upload.

It helps if the source is sharp and of large resolution. There is a size limit of 2MB for files being uploaded, and for PDFs, it will not convert from the 11th page onwards.

Have fun!

Find it hard to focus while doing work with your facebook updates flashing the background? Try the Magic Work Cycle where you can set timers to notify you when to do work and when to drop it and play. All you need is to have lots of self discipline and stick to it!

Alright, back from the MIA status with this cool website I chanced across – featuring “Google Gravity” (http://mrdoob.com/projects/chromeexperiments/google_gravity/).

Go ahead and give this search engine a go!

Have a friend who is constantly twitting their life away and wondering if he/she ever sleeps? Now you can find out their sleeping time through this cool site: http://www.sleepingtime.org

Basically what this site does (I believe) is that it observes the tweets of a particular Twitter username and periods of inactivity to determine when the user sleeps. Apparently, my sleeping time is from 6pm to 2am

Ever wanted to have your own Xbox Achievement for your own site, video or picture? Now you can generate your own Xbox Achievements with this nifty achievement generator at http://achievements.schrankmonster.de/

{ devpeng } unlocked!

Generate your own custom achievements and award them to everyone, ranging from your buddies all the way to your boss. Just make sure that they are all Xbox gamers

Before the world of MMORPGs was created, there existed a genre of games known as Interactive Fiction, or IF for short. Most IF games are purely text based that allow players to explore and interact with a large world that usually contains elements of fantasy such as dungeons, monsters and magic.

The game requires a lot of imagination and thinking skills on the user’s part but the game play is fairly intuitive. The game describes to the player, in words, the current location you are in with any objects of importance. Using simple verbs and phrases, such as look at and pick up, coupled with nouns, users can interact with the game world objects. However, problems often arise when some interpreters do not recognize similar, but complex words such as observe as compared to look. Movement within the game is often categorized as the four cardinal directions and the intermediate points between them where applicable.

Players will have to use their critical thinking skills to put pieces of the puzzle together to advance through the story. However, because of the lack of graphical representation, some players may find such games hard as certain events are rather obscure; for example, finding a sword to cut open a pillow in order to obtain an essential item for the later part of the game. Occasionally, with the “correct” wordings, the game response can be humorous, ranging from kicking on a locked door or attempting to pocket a gate.

To have a better understanding of IF games, you can go to iFiction.org to see a repository of IF games by famous creators such as Will Crowther and Don Woods back in the 1970s. Of the games there, Colossal Cave (aka Adventure) was one of the first computer games I ever played when I was younger.

Give it a try! Have fun!

There is a simple way of determining which versions of the .NET framework is/are installed on your computer without the use of third party applications or programs.

Simply navigate to this address in your Windows Explorer:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework (replace C if your OS is not installed on that drive)

and look at the numers on the folders there. The numbers represent the .NET framework version that has been installed on your computer.

Quite a while back, I was flowing through the day with my daily routine today when I suddenly thought of an analogy about processes and threading. While this may not be the best way to illustrate the concept of threading, it could be used to better explain it to non IT-savvy people/peers.

How does one insert symbols not found on your keyboard, such as the copyright, fractions and yen? Firstly, there is the Character Map which can be located in the Start menu (All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map). The character map is a very nifty tool that can displays all the characters that a particular font pack supports and allows you to take your pick, buffet style.

However, one might point out that most word processors already have auto converting features that help map a particular string of text to the desired symbol. For example, typing ™ or (c) would get you the trademark and copyright symbols respectively. But how about online email composers or text fields? Though the Character Map is useful, the process to get it out to add just one symbol is rather troublesome.