HOW TO automatically read your favorite English blogs in your native language

If you like reading blogs in English in your native language but find having to translate them EACH TIME with online translation tools a hassle, then this Google Reader tip will come as a big time-saver. This tip will help only if your native language is one of the 21 languages that Google Reader currently supports.

Here are the steps:

1. Subscribe to the feed of your favorite blog with Google Reader
2. In Google Reader, go to the Settings option that's on the top menu on the right
3. In the Settings page, in the first tab Preferences, select your native language from the Language combo box.
4. Click on the "Back to Google Reader" link to view the blogs you have subscribed to.
5. If you have subscribed to multiple blog feeds, select a single blog Subscription from the Subscriptions panel on the left.
6. In the detailed listing of Feeds in the main panel, click the "Feed Settings..." drop down that is in the section below the blog title.
7. From the drop down list, choose "Translate into my language." (if you have changed your language in step 3 to a non-English language, you would see the message "Translate into my language." & all other labels in Google Reader in your native language)
8. Voila! Now all the posts will appear in your native language.

If you have subscribed to multiple feeds, you would have to repeat steps 5 to 8 for each feed subscription.

Also see:
Google Reader - the online/offline Feed Reader
HOW TO use Google Reader for bookmarking useful pages
HOW TO access web pages faster on a slow Internet connection

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Project Tuva makes Science fun

"...many of the sciences are so abstract, and the amount of things you have to learn before you start connecting to those practical issues can be very daunting." - Bill Gates

Microsoft Research has been releasing a lot of interesting projects this year - Songsmith, an improved Translator, WorldWide Telescope (WWT) and now Project Tuva. Some of them are offbeat and path-breaking.

Project Tuva is an interactive educational video application built with Silverlight.

Project Tuva is an interactive video experience that makes learning about science relevant and exciting through annotations authored by researchers and subject-matter experts. Project Tuva is launching with Richard Feynman's Messenger Series lectures, a cornerstone set of seven talks at Cornell University in 1964. These videos are enhanced with a number of different layers of contextual information: full transcripts and captions, fully searchable transcripts, time-synchronized contextual "extras" that link to web resources to learn more about a spoken topic, the ability to take notes while watching, integration with Microsoft Research's own amazing World Wide Telescope project, and more.

Written in Silverlight, it uses Smooth Streaming to dynamically switch between different bit rates of video without interrupting playback. This allows the video to play in a way that's more immediate than the usual buffer-then-watch online video experience. It uses a sophisticated and fully liquid layout system to adapt to different screen sizes and viewing aspect ratios. All modifications the user makes to the interface's layout are remembered between sessions.

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Startup 101 - free, online serialized book for first-time entrepreneurs

Ever wanted to be a Web entrepreneur? Startup 101 is an online serialized book that shows you what's invovled in becoming one.

"Startup 101" is a serialized book about the thrills and spills of starting a Web technology venture....Startup 101 is for first-time entrepreneurs who want to go through the whole startup life cycle - including raising money, building a valuable business, and making a lot of money by selling the venture or taking it public.

This is the tentative list of chapters -

1. 10 things to be clear about before you start
2. Are you really an entrepreneur?
3. How first-time entrepreneurs can work well with investors
4. Creating your vision, mission, strategy, and plan
5. Finding the right wave to ride (secular trends)
6. Working booms and busts to your advantage (cyclical trends)
7. Building your team pre-financing
8. Building an advisory board
9. Finding a URL and company name
10. Company registration choices
11. The Capital-Raising Ladder
12. How to pitch to a VC or angel
13. How not to get screwed by VCs
14. Understand the scale vs. profitability trade-off
15. Build an insanely great Web service
16. Learn to negotiate and close
17. How to be an effective executive
18. Steps in building a brand
19. How to get noticed
20. How to scale without losing your shirt
21. Maintaining focus, health, and passion during the grind-it-out phase
22. How to build the A-Team
23. How to hit your numbers
24. How to build an effective board
25. How to build age-appropriate processes
26. Planning your exit
27. When and how founders should hire a professional CEO
28. Read some great books for inspiration
29. Negotiating your exit
30. Congratulations! What's next?

At this moment, the first 17 chapters have already been published

Also see:
Free SQL Server 2008 Learning Resources
Learning resources on Design Patterns for .NET Developers
Free C++ Learning Resources

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Save the Earth

Just in case you haven't heard of it yet or seen it, HOME is a documentary movie by Yann Arthus-Bertrand with breathtaking photography on how we can preserve the Earth before it's too late. It is available for free viewing on YouTube.

Synopsis of the documentary:

In 200,000 years on Earth, humanity has upset the balance of the planet, established by nearly four billion years of evolution. The price to pay is high, but it is too late to be a pessimist: humanity has barely ten years to reverse the trend, become aware of the full extent of its spoliation of the Earth's riches and change its patterns of consumption.

If you are concerned about the environment, you should also take a look at the book Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World. It tells the thought-provoking story of the drinking water crisis across the world through 250 photographs by the world’s top photojournalists. You can download the book in PDF format for free from Amazon.

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HOW TO test a web page in different versions of IE

Pete LePage, an Internet Explorer Product Manager discourages running multiple versions of IE on the same box (he calls them "Frankenbuilds") using tools like IETester.

There 2 good free alternatives for testing your web application in different versions of IE -

• Install the Virtual PC (VPC) images of IE
• Use Expression Web SuperPreview for testing across multi-platform versions of popular browsers

For help on using a VPC image, check this step by step guide.

Also see:
HOW TO easily verify your website design in different browsers/OSs

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