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!

Sir James Dyson explains his bladeless fan

The Hindu : NATIONAL / KARNATAKA : Theme park in Hesaraghatta ruffles feathers

The Hindu : NATIONAL / KARNATAKA : Theme park in Hesaraghatta ruffles feathers


The last surviving grassland in the city, Hesaraghatta, is being threatened again — this time by a theme park and ‘film city' proposed for a landscape that supports a unique biodiversity, including migratory birds.

A 350-acre area has been earmarked for either a theme park or a film city, or both, according to officials at the Department of Tourism. The project finds mention in the State Budget, which proposed a “theme park” to be set up under public-private partnership in Hesaraghatta. The budget also speaks of a “wellness circuit” covering Bangalore and Mysore, “coastal circuit” and a heritage circuit.


Not long ago, environmentalists were alarmed by a Rs. 140-crore ‘tree-planting' project embarked on by the BDA in the Hesaraghatta grassland, which, they alleged, would destroy the habitat of wintering raptors such as harriers, tawny eagles and short-eared owls.

The official said that a detailed project report was now being prepared for the project and that the tourism department was waiting for a response from investors. “The 350 acres could be used for either one or two projects depending upon the size of each. We are waiting to hear from the investors about the size and nature of the project.”

Killing a catchment

Meanwhile, naturalists, birdwatchers and wildlife photographers who have made Hesaraghatta their haunt, are naturally concerned.

Leading bird expert S. Subramanya points out that the land slated for the theme park was the very space where trees were planted in a project that ran up to crores of rupees. “Besides being a waste of public money, the project will also destroy a unique grassland habitat, a home for some rare wildlife.”


A checklist of wildlife prepared by Dr. Subramanya lists jackals, the Indian fox and 133 species of birds, including migratory birds of prey, in the grassland. The globally threatened lesser florican was spotted here after 100 years last December.

Says photographer Mahesh Bhat, who lives in Hesaraghatta: “On the one hand, they have called for tenders to remove silt from the canals and tanks around Arkavathi river in order to rejuvenate them. And on the other, they are killing one of Arkavathi's main catchments, Hesaraghatta.”

TAP 2011 Results | TPRF: Food for People | causes.com

Just in time for World Water Day (tomorrow), TAP Founder Becky Straw has posted a TPRF blog entry sharing the results of last year's water campaign, a program very similar to this year's. http://bit.ly/GICQoU Enjoy the report, and be inspired to participate with a contribution for this year's TAP matching fund on Causes.

Dieffenbachia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dieffenbachia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you have a plant like the one in the picture below, get rid of it.

This plant is very common at our houses, gardens, parks and offices (popular as indoor & outdoor plant). The plant (Dumb Cane or Dieffenbachia) is now proven to be dangerous, so, please take care!

I know that the leaf of this plant causes itching if its sap (milk) touches your skin. But there are more dangerous facts! Read the details below.

May be useful for you. You better believe it.
Please read below.
One of my friends almost lost her daughter who put a piece of the leaf of this plant in her mouth and her tongue swelled to the point of suffocation. This is one plant but there are others with the same characteristics of coloring. Those are also poisonous and we should get rid of them. Please watch out for our children. As we all leave our children at home in the hands of a nanny, we should give them a safe environment where they can play .

Name: Dumb Cane or Dieffenbachia
"This plant that we have in our homes and offices is extremely dangerous!
This plant is common in Rwanda. It is a deadly poison, most specially for the children. It can kill a kid in less than a minute and an adult in 15 minutes. It should be uprooted from gardens and taken out of offices. If touched, one should never touch his/her eyes; it can cause partial or permanent blindness. Please alert your friends

Avaaz - Killing thousands to make millions

In days, a multi-billion dollar Swiss pharma company may get the Indian Supreme Court to shut down our supply of affordable medicines.Only we can stop this outrage.

Novartis is suing our government so it can squeeze more profits from the sick and needy. If Novartis wins, it will threaten Indian companies’ ability to produce low-cost medicines for malaria, AIDS, cancer and other life-threatening diseases, depriving millions around the world of the treatments they desperately need and threatening thousands of Indian jobs. But people power can push Novartis to drop the suit before the final ruling.

One man is masterminding this stealthy attack on the health of millions -- Ranjit Shahani, who heads Novartis India and India’s massively powerful pharmaceutical lobby group. When 100,000 people have signed the petition we’ll stage hard hitting actions targeting Shahani by name and push him to drop the case!

Avaaz - Killing thousands to make millions

30 giant hornets vs. a whole honey bee hive

Thirty Japanese giant hornets take on an entire hive of European honey bees and slaughter 30,000 bees in three hours.

Not having evolved alongside the giant hornet, European honey bees don't have a natural defense against them. But the Japanese honey bee does:


The Japanese honey bee, on the other hand, has a defense against attacks of this manner. When a hornet approaches the hive to release pheromones, the bee workers emerge from their hive in an angry cloud-formation with some 500 individuals. As they form a tight ball around the hornet, the ball increases in heat to 47 °C (117 °F) from their vibrating wings, forming a convection oven as the heat released by the bees' bodies is spread over the hornets. Because bees can survive higher temperatures (48 to 50 °C (118 to 122 °F)) than the hornet (44 to 46 °C (111 to 115 °F)), the latter dies.


source: http://kottke.org/12/01/30-giant-hornets-vs-a-whole-honey-bee-hive

Replacing our old worn-out kilogram

The standard measure for the kilogram needs to change because, offically speaking, the universe is gaining mass. The trick is finding a technique that ties the kilogram to a fundamental constant (like the second is tied to energy transition times in cesium atoms).

Familiarly known as Le Grand K and held in a vault just outside of Paris under three bell jars, [the international prototype kilogram] dates back to the 1880s, when it was forged by the British metallurgist George Matthey from an alloy of nine-tenths platinum and one-tenth iridium. As a metric unit, the kilogram is "equal to the mass of the international prototype," according to the official definition. In other words, as metrologists like to point out, it has the remarkable property of never gaining or losing mass. By definition, any physical change to it alters the mass of everything in the cosmos.

Aside from a yearly ceremonial peek inside its vault, which can be unlocked only with three keys held by three different officials, the prototype goes unmolested for decades. Yet every 40 years or so, protocol requires that it be washed with alcohol, dried with a chamois cloth, given a steam bath, allowed to air dry, and then weighed against the freshly scrubbed national standards, all transported to France. It is also compared to six temoins (witnesses), nominally identical cylinders that are stored in the vault alongside the prototype. The instruments used to make these comparisons are phenomenally precise, capable of measuring differences of 0.0000001 percent, or one part in 1 billion. But comparisons since the 1940s have revealed a troublesome drift. Relative to the t'emoins and to the national standards, Le Grand K has been losing weight -- or, by the definition of mass under the metric system, the rest of the universe has been getting fatter. The most recent comparison, in 1988, found a discrepancy as large as five-hundredths of a milligram, a bit less than the weight of a dust speck, between Le Grand K and its official underlings.

source:http://kottke.org/12/01/better-kilogram