The Opera Logo

Opera is my favorite browser just after Google Chrome for PC. I really like it the way it looks, the way it loads. You can stop loading images and lots of interesting features that make your browser smooth and steady.

What about the same feeling on your tablet, the iPad? No worry, mate! You have an Opera Mini App for the iPad. Smoothly designed for the iPad and the iPad 2.

Opera has a special feature called the Speed Dial. Just like Chrome, you can click on the page you added to Speed Dial. The newly designed feature is the new social sharing button for the most popular social websites, Facebook and Twitter in just 2 taps.

Whats the best part? Its absolutely FREE!

The pace at which Facebook has penetrated the social media landscape is simply astonishing. From a niche college social network to one of the most popular destinations of the web, Facebook has influenced the very fabric of the web.

First it was the like button which gave Facebook too much data on which websites people visit, the behavioral data on how people share content across the world wide web and how that data blends into Facebook’s social graph and demographics.

From the past few days Facebook is constantly advertising an alleged Yahoo! Answers competitor below its advertising sidebar titled – “Get a Facebook Sneak Peek” which asks the user to apply as a beta tester for upcoming Facebook products.

After clicking through the link you’re taken to page which states that Facebook is in a process to launch a brand new product which will be as exciting as Facebook photos and Facebook events. In case you didn’t know, Facebook is the world’s largest photo sharing website (storing more than 15 billion photos) ahead of Flickr (hosting about 4 billion images).

Facebook is directly taking an aim on Yahoo! Answers which is a massive community-driven, user-generated Q&A (question and answer) content site. It is also one of the most successful product in Yahoo! arsenal.

I think opening a Q&A site is very intelligent from Facebook’s perspective given that there are more than 400 million active users of which 50% log in to Facebook everyday! Also, the user engagement of Facebook is greater than any other site on the web.

To get things started Facebook has made it mandatory for users “to submit 3 great sample question and answers” and that they must be provocative. These “mandatory requirements” will surely help Facebook get the initial surge of content that is required to make any user-driven content site successful.

Once the product is launched, Facebook will become a stronger destination with increased time spent onsite, increased number of pageviews and more content to place relevant social ads on. Which ultimately means more money for Facebook!

P.S: Ironically, Yahoo! Answers recently celebrated its 10 millionth answer! I wonder if they could continue celebrating like this once Facebook launches its not-so-secret Q&A product!

Email services are NOT storage!

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Before the good old days of Gmail, Yahoo! mail provided a whopping 4 MB of storage. Although 1 GB looked too much back then I’ve been running out of my Gmail storage space at an alarming rate. I’ve deleted a lot of old emails to keep my inbox storage from getting full. Most of the storage in my inbox was eaten by attachments like – photos (yes, I guess email is the largest photo sharing service!), PDF’s, presentations, spreadsheets, WordPress backups and a lot more!

My Gmail inbox is approaching 80% of its capacity!

While there are a lot of services that let you backup files and share them with your friends without clogging their inbox with huge files that quickly consumes their storage space, not many of them are reliable! Remember, most of the corporate email services still have limited email inbox storage so sending even small files can over time fill it with less-important stuff.

BoltFile – share your files quickly, safely and securely!

I’ve been searching for a service which would let me share files with my family, friends and other contacts quickly and reliably. One service that I’ve really liked is BoltFile not only because of its intuitive dashboard but also because of the level of security, ease-of-use , and reliability it provides.

Sending a file with BoltFile is like sending email! click to enlarge

BloggersUnite for Haiti

Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere has been hit by a scale 7 earthquake. Authorities predict the casualties might well be in the north of 50,000.  The country has had a harsh and unstable history. Most people in Haiti live on less than $2/day and unemployment is rampant.

At such an unfortunate time, it is our moral duty to help those in need. Every little bit helps no matter how small. And you don’t even have to do anything special like going there for volunteering you can provide help by making donations to NGO and other volunteering organizations.

If that is not possible you can also do your bit by spreading the word using your social presence like Facebook, Twitter, social bookmarking, blogging and even a combination of these. It is at such times that we as humans must unite and what better platform than social media?

Please email, tweet, fb your friends and request them to come forward for help.

Here are some of the ways that you can provide your help in the form of donations -

- The first organization that comes to mind when any calamity is encountered is The Red Cross. You can make financial donations to The Red Cross International Relief Fund by calling 1-800-RED-CROSS or online at http://www.redcross.org

- You can also text “HAITI” to “90999″ and it will make a donation of $10 to the American Red Cross to help with the relief efforts. It’ll be deducted from your mobile’s prepaid balance or will be added to your next bil if you’re on a post-paid plan.

- To donate $5 to Wyclef Jean’s Haitian Yele charity, text “Yele” to 501501. The money will be added to your next phone bill.

- To find out how to help the International Rescue Committee,visithttp://www.theIRC.org or call toll free, 1-877-REFUGEE.

- To donate through Oxfam’s emergency appeal, visit http://www.oxfam.org.uk

Google has a page known as Google Crisis Response with more information - http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/

If you’re a blogger please visit BloggersUnite for Haiti web page for other useful links and information. I’ll try to update this page often. If you’ve got any useful piece of information kindly share it in the comments. I’ll even include it in the main post if you want (including links to your blog or twitter or whatever).