How To: Create Your Own Chrome Theme in 2 Easy Steps!

Tech18:

Google Chrome comes with best and simple UI which takes very less time to load when compared to other browsers. Here is a chrome app which can beautify your browser with custom themes built by yourself.

Google introduced theme development for Chrome browser as soon as it came out of beta version. And there were many developers who took time and created some amazing theme. But, did you find your favorite theme?

My Chrome Theme is a Chrome App created by the Google Chrome team to help you create your own theme. Believe it or not, within 2 easy steps you can design your theme. You can even share it with your friends!

Steps to create your own Chrome Theme

Before we start with tutorial, download and install the My Chrome Theme app.

Download

Click on new tab, navigate to apps menu in your browser. Now click on the app you just downloaded. Click on Start Making Theme button. Now follow the below 2 steps to get down with your theme!

Step 1: Background Image

Select an attractive image for your theme and upload it or use web cam to take one. The app will upload the image and show you a preview of how it will look.

Once the image is previewed, you will get an option to adjust the image. The options are,

• Fit to screen
• Fill Screen
• Tile Image
• Custom

At the bottom of this page, you have a slider with two options, Design Mode and PreviewMode. When you slide to the Preview Mode, it adds Chrome Web App icons to the theme and previews this custom theme in New Tab Page.

Once you are okay with the image uploaded and adjustment. Go to next step.

Step 2: Coloring Your Theme

In this step, you can change the color of the toolbar, new tab and background tab. You can set custom color for all these or click on “I’m feeling lucky” to let the app choose colors for you, based on the image you have uploaded.

You can skip this step to apply the default grey color.

Give a name to your theme and give a description if you want to (not mandatory). Click on Make my Theme! Button and you are done!

Here is a theme Tech18 created. Download

Here is a theme that I have created. Download

Don’t forget to share your new theme with your friends! If you know any other way of developing Chrome theme, please share it with us.

The pigeon's passengers

Mountain Imperial Pigeon. Photo: Ramki Sreenivasan/ Conservation India.

How the imperial pigeons play a crucial role in regenerating our rainforests.

There is a modesty in their conquest of mountains. From the heights, they commandeer vistas of rugged mountains covered in forest or countryside dotted with great trees. From tall trees on high ridges, they scan the landscape, their heads turning on long and graceful necks. They have scaled peaks, even surpassed them. Yet, they speak only in soft and hushed tones that resonate among stately trees. For, the imperial pigeons are a dignified lot, keeping the company of great trees.


Down in the valley, the pigeon's voice throbs through dense rainforest: a deep hu, hoo-uk, hoo-uk, repeated after long pauses, like the hoots of an owl. In the dawn chorus of birdsong, it sounds like a sedate basso profundo trying to slow the tempo of barbets and calm the errant flutes and violins of babblers and thrushes. The calling pigeon, in a flock with others, is in a low symplocos tree whose branches shine with dark green leaves and purple-blue fruit. They are busy picking and swallowing the ripe fruits, each with fleshy pulp around a single stony seed.


These large birds, neatly plumaged in formal greys and pastel browns, are Mountain Imperial Pigeons — a species found in the rainforests of the Western Ghats and the Himalayas in India. In more open forests and on grand banyan and other fig trees along the roads through the countryside, one can see their cousins, the Green Imperial Pigeons shaded in more verdant sheen. As a group, the imperial pigeons have a penchant for fruit that necessitates roaming wide areas in search of food. Weeks may pass in a patch of forest with no sign of pigeons, but when the wild fruits ripen, the nomadic flocks descend from distant sites and the forest resonates with their calls again.

The transporter

Like other birds such as Hornbills and Barbets in these forests, imperial pigeons eat fruits ranging from small berries to large drupes, including wild nutmegs and laurels and elaeocarps (rudraksh). Yet, the pigeon's bill is small and delicate in comparison with the hornbill's horny casque or the barbet's stout beak, which seem more suited to handling large fruits with big stony seeds. The imperial pigeon's solution to this problem is a cleverly articulated lower beak and extensible gape and gullet that can stretch to swallow the entire fruit and seed.


Lured by the package of pulpy richness in fruit, the pigeon then becomes a transporter of seed. Many seeds are dropped in the vicinity of the mother tree itself, scattered around with seeds from rotting fruit fallen on the earth below. The concentrated stockpile of seeds below elaeocarp and nutmeg trees is attacked by rodents and beetles, leaving little hope for survival and germination. But when the pigeon takes wing, some seeds go with the pigeon as passengers on a vital journey, travelling metres to miles into the surrounding landscape. Voided eventually by the pigeon, the dispersed seeds have an altogether greater prospect of escape from gnawing rat and boring beetle and — when directly or fortuitously dropped onto a suitable spot — of germination. By carrying and literally dropping off their passengers where some establish as seedlings and grow into trees, the pigeons become both current consumers and future producers of fruit.


Still, it is the quiet achievement of the trees that seems more impressive. Rooted to a spot, the trees have enticed the pigeons to move their seeds for them. Deep in the forest, one discovers a seedling where no trees of that kind stand nearby, bringing a rare pleasure like an unexpected meeting with an old friend. The pigeons are plied with fruit and played by the trees. The modest conquest of the mountains by the pigeons is trumped by the subtler conquest of the pigeons by the immobile trees.

Peril of extinction

In speaking of the pigeon's passengers, one recalls with misgiving the fate of Passenger Pigeons. The Passenger Pigeon was once found in astounding abundance across North America in flocks numbering tens of millions — flocks so huge that their migratory flights would darken the skies for days on end. Yet, even this species was exterminated by unmitigated slaughter under the guns of hunters and by the collection — during their enormous nesting congregations — of chicks (squabs) by the truck-load. Within a few decades, the great flocks and society of Passenger Pigeons were decimated in vast landscapes transformed by axe and plough, plunder and profiteering. By 1914, the species — at the time perhaps one of the most abundant land bird species in the world — had been reduced to a single captive female. The last known Passenger Pigeon, Martha, died in Cincinnati Zoo in September 1914, closing the page on another wonderful species, in another sorry chapter of human history on Earth.


Our pigeons are more fortunate, but in many areas they, too, are dying a slow death. Some fall to the bullets of hunters who take strange pride in their dubious sport or skill. Some roam large areas of once-continuous rainforests, which now have only scattered fragments. The mountain imperial pigeons are still seen winging across in powerful flight from one remnant to another, over monoculture plantations and stagnant reservoirs. Their forays are getting longer, and their journeys often end fruitless. Our countryside, too, is becoming bereft of their green cousins, as grand banyans and other fruit trees vanish along our widening roads, and diverse forests of native trees are replaced by miserable Australian acacias and eucalyptus, if they are replaced at all. As their homes are whittled away, the hornbills, barbets, and other pigeons vanish silently. With them vanish subtle splendours and prospects of regeneration. On the roads, the vehicles speed along on their wheels of progress, carrying passengers of a different kind, barely aware of the majesty and opportunity for renewal left behind.


From the valley, the imperial pigeons take wing and — in a minute — fly high and swift over the mountain to distant rainforests. There, sometime in the future, new seedlings will perhaps still emerge in a silent testimony. A testimony that one can forever fly high and strong if one only consumes what one also regenerates in perpetuity.

E-mail: trsr@ncf-india.org

18 Amazing Features of Samsung Galaxy S3! | Tech18

Samsung has been one of the best smartphone producers of the year 2011 and now they are back again. They held an unpacked event at London to showcase their new model Galaxy S3.

Amazing Features of Samsung Galaxy S3!

There were lots of rumors spreading on net from past couple of months about its design, screen size and others! But all those rumors were lashed out today.Well, it’s amazing!, as its powered by Android 4.0.04 Ice Cream Sandwich Operating System with 1.4GHz quad-core application processor. Here are some more amazing features of Samsung Galaxy S3:

1. 4.8″ HD Super AMOLED display with 1280×720 screen resolution.

2. 8-megapixel rear-facing and 1.9-megapixel forward-facing camera.

3. 8.6mm thick and 133g weight. mimicking warmth & beauty of nature!

4. ‘Smart Stay’ technology uses the front-facing camera to detect if you’re looking at it, so it knows whether to keep the screen awake.

5. ‘S Voice’ a new voice recognition technology introduced in Galaxy S3! It listens, responds quickly and understands 8 different languages!

6. The new ‘Smart Alert’ feature ensures you don’t miss notifications, while ‘Social Tag’ keeps you up-to-date with friends & family.

7. Sharing features: ‘S Beam’, ‘AllShare Cast’, ‘Buddy Photo Share’ and ‘AllShare Play’ ensure you stay socially connected. ‘S Beam’ which expands on Android Beam, allowing you to share a 1GB mobile file with a friend in just 3 minutes, or transfer a 10MB music file in just 2 seconds—without using WiFi or a cellular signal – by tapping your phone together with another Galaxy S3.

8. Texting someone, but decided to call them instead? Simply raise the phone to your ear & the ‘Direct Call’ feature activates.

9. Touchwiz on GALAXY S3 has been enhanced, from ring-tones to live wallpaper and lock screen, to create a relaxed & peaceful experience.

10. ‘Pop up Play’ is another innovative feature that is perfect for doing two things at once.

11. 8-megapixel with LED flash, zero shutter lag, ‘Burst shot’, ‘Best photo’, ‘Face zoom’ & ‘Group tag’.

12. HD video can be recorded even with the front-facing camera and while you are taking a video you can also capture a still shot.

13. With a 4.8” HD Super AMOLED display, this phone offers a captivating vivid & incredibly sharp experience, and true color rendition.

14. Display is super fast with a 0.01ms response speed & is more energy-efficient, so you can enjoy longer hours of battery life.

15. Despite a generous screen, the size of the phone is only 22% larger than the earlier version Galaxy S2 due to a reduced bezel.

16. It also features wireless charging and Wi-Fi Channel Bonding, which doubles the Wi-Fi bandwidth.

17. There’s a range of stylish accessories to enhance the experience: Flip Cover, AllShare Cast Dongle & S Pebble.

18. Experiential features: 3 Hubs (Game, Video, Music), mobile payment & ‘S Health’personal wellness app to name a few.

Galaxy S3 has the fastest web browsing, seamless multi-tasking, supreme graphics quality and an instantly responsive UI on a larger screen. It is designed to recreate the natural world’s gentle curves, with natural ergonomics for a wonderful fit in your hands.

It will be launched in 145 countries partnering with 296 mobile operators around the world.3G version will be launched at the end of May, starting with Europe. 4G version will be available in North America, Japan, and Korea during this summer. And will be available in Pebble Blue and Marble White.

Additionally, Samsung Galaxy S3 will also provide 50GB storage on Dropbox!

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