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!

Go ahead and give this search engine a go!

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

{ 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

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!

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.

Imagine a household that has an ordinary family living in it. At any point of time, anyone in the house can make use of water critical appliances and tasks, such as flushing the toilet, showering, washing of dishes and clothes. Everyone will be happy if there is an unlimited quantity of water flowing into the house. However, if there is a fixed amount of water running through the main pipe at any one point of time (which is true for most households), there will be a worry of insufficient water when two water demanding processes are being done (e.g. showering and washing of clothes).

Now let’s inject some technical jargon into this analogy. A household is like a single process, which is basically a representation of a program, such as a web browser. The water that comes to the house (process) is the resource(s) that are allocated to it. The ability for the various family members to use water throughout the house at the same time is similar to the process being able to carry out many tasks simultaneously, via threading (e.g. loading a web page and downloading a file). A program can have many threads, just as a house can have many water related activities.

Now, the water comes from the same source – such as a main pipe (processor/CPU). The water flowing through the pipe has a fixed pressure which determines how much water the household will get at any one point of time. The water pressure is akin to computer resources allocated to a single process (a single household) at any one point of time.

Within the process (household), all the threads (water related activities) share the same resources (water) given to the process, in terms of memory and computation time. If a particular thread uses up all the processing time or resources, the other threads will not get any. Similarly, should one activity in the household use up all the water, the other activities will not get any.

Thus we can see that threads within a process share the same resources that are allocated to it. A process can have many threads to allow it to do multiple tasks at the same time, but if one thread uses up most of a particular resource, the other threads will not be able to run properly.

This marks the end of this Threading Analogy. Comments are welcomed!

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.

Some characters actually have a four digit code which you can press on a number pad (not the numbers on top of the keyboard) to activate them. To know the four digit code of a particular character, bring up the character map and select the symbol that you use often. Now look at the bottom right of the Character Map and you will see something like Keystroke: Alt + XXXX. This is the symbol’s particular keystroke.

Character Map Keystroke

To enter a symbol, press the Alt key, followed by the 4 digit code, and then release the Alt key. Tada! You have just inserted a symbol on the fly. Do note that common characters (such as the alphaberts) are not assigned a keystroke and that different font packs have different characters for the same keystroke. You can also see how the symbol is described by looking at the bottom left of the Character Map.