Google Chrome users are probably familiar with the T-Rex dinosaur that shows up when your computer is not connected to the Internet. The T-rex had short arms and therefore lot of things were out of its reach. Chrome, like that dinosaur, too is having trouble reaching the Internet.
What’s even more interesting is that the offline dinosaur in Chrome is also a game. Press the space bar to activate and your Chrome tab will quickly turn into a moderately addictive game.
The game is written in JavaScript and you can find the complete source code in the Chromium repository. Thanks Codepo8 for the discovery.
And it’s not just about Chrome for desktop, the dinosaur game is available in Chrome for Android as well. Switch to airplane mode and give it a shot. The only difference is that instead of the space bar, you need to tap on the screen to jump / fly the dinosaur.
The story, There’s a Game Hidden inside your Google Chrome, It works on Android too! , was originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal on 19/01/2015 under Games, Google Chrome, Software.
Your mobile phone has a globally unique number associated with it, called the IMEI number, that uniquely identifies your device within the mobile network. If your phone gets lost or is stolen, you would need to provide this IMEI number to the law enforcement agencies and the telecom operator for them to blacklist your device and prevent anyone else from using your phone on their wireless network.
As you probably know, it is relatively easy to find the IMEI number of your mobile phone. While there are apps that will help you retrieve this number with a tap, you don’t really need one. Just open the phone dialer, call *#06# and the IMEI number will be displayed on the phone’s screen. Alternatively, you can open device Settings – About Phone – Status and long-press the IMEI number to copy it to the clipboard.
If you have however lost your phone but did not record the IMEI number beforehand, you can still retrieve the number from your Google Account.
Just go to google.com/settings, sign-in with your Google account and expand the Android tab. Here you will see of all Android devices that are connected to your Google Account and it will list the IMEI number of your phone as well.
In the case of iPhone, the IMEI number is printed on the box itself. And if nothing works, trace the phone’s receipt – the vendor may have written the IMEI number o the phone on it at the time of sale.
The story, Lost your Phone? You Can Still Retrieve its IMEI Number , was originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal on 19/01/2015 under Android, Software.
Your blog (abc.blogspot.com) is hosted on Blogger and you would now like to move the blog from Blogger to WordPress (self-hosted) with a personal domain name like abc.com. What is the easiest way to switch from Blogger to WordPress without losing Google search traffic, page rank and your existing feed subscribers?
WordPress provides an easy one-click option for importing blog posts and reader comments from Blogger into a new WordPress blog but there’s more to migration than just transferring content. For instance:
The Importer tool available inside WordPress will only transfer content from Blogger to WordPress but if would also like to take care of the various issues listed above, follow this step-by-step tutorial. It takes less than 5 minutes to complete and you’ll also be able to transfer all the Google Juice from the old blogspot.com address to your new WordPress blog.
Before you start the migration, it may be a good idea to backup your Blogger blog including the XML template, blog posts and comments just to be on the safe side.
If you need assistance with the Blogger to WordPress migration, please get in touch with me using the contact form at ctrlq.org. This is a paid option.
<?php
function labnol_blogger_query_vars_filter( $vars ) {
$vars[] = "blogger";
return $vars;
}
add_filter('query_vars', 'labnol_blogger_query_vars_filter');
function labnol_blogger_template_redirect() {
global $wp_query;
$blogger = $wp_query->query_vars['blogger'];
if ( isset ( $blogger ) ) {
wp_redirect( labnol_get_wordpress_url ( $blogger ) , 301 );
exit;
}
}
add_action( 'template_redirect', 'labnol_blogger_template_redirect' );
function labnol_get_wordpress_url($blogger) {
if ( preg_match('@^(?:https?://)?([^/]+)(.*)@i', $blogger, $url_parts) ) {
$query = new WP_Query (
array ( "meta_key" => "blogger_permalink", "meta_value" => $url_parts[2] ) );
if ($query->have_posts()) {
$query->the_post();
$url = get_permalink();
}
wp_reset_postdata();
}
return $url ? $url : home_url();
}
?>
<html>
<head>
<title><$BlogPageTitle$></title>
<script>
<MainOrArchivePage>
window.location.href="http://labnol.org/"
</MainOrArchivePage>
<Blogger><ItemPage>
window.location.href="http://ift.tt/15ibh5s;
</ItemPage></Blogger>
</script>
<MainPage>
<link rel="canonical" href="http://labnol.org/" />
</MainPage>
<Blogger>
<ItemPage>
<link rel="canonical" href="http://ift.tt/15ibh5s; />
</ItemPage>
</Blogger>
</head>
<body>
<MainOrArchivePage>
<h1><a href="http://ift.tt/1y8XIR3;
</MainOrArchivePage>
<Blogger>
<ItemPage>
<h1><a href="http://ift.tt/15ibgOY;
<$BlogItemBody$>
</ItemPage>
</Blogger>
</body>
</html>
We are almost done. Open any page on your old Blogger blog and it should redirect you to the corresponding WordPress page. We are using a permanent 301 redirect on the WordPress side and therefore all the Google Juice and PageRank should pass to your new WordPress pages. (video)
The above method works for regular blogspot.com URLs and also country-specific Blogger domains like blogspot.co.uk, blogspot.com.au or blogspot.in.
The Blogger Import tool moves only posts and comments from Blogger to WordPress but not images. And that should be fine because the image URLs in your imported WordPress posts are still pointing to blogspot.com (where the images were originally hosted) and therefore nothing would break.
Also see: Move Blogger on Custom Domain to WordPress
When you move from Blogger to WordPress, the URL of your RSS feed will change as well. Go to Blogger -> Settings -> Other and choose Post Feed Redirect URL under Site Feed. Here you can type the web address of your new WordPress RSS feed here and the existing RSS subscriber will automatically move to your new feed.
If you are using FeedBurner, just replace the source from Blogger RSS feed to your new WordPress feed.
Now that your new WordPress site is up and running with all the old Blogger posts, here are a few important things you should do:
The story, How to Migrate your Blog from Blogger to WordPress , was originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal on 16/01/2015 under Blogger, WordPress, Internet.
With Android L, you can easily record high resolution videos of your phone or tablet’s screen without having to root the device. Android Kitkat too allowed screen recording but with Lollipop, the process has become almost as easy as recording screencasts on your desktop – you launch an app (there are several alternatives to choose from), hit the record button and everything that’s on your screen, including touches, will be captured as a MPEG-4 video.
A quick search on the Google Play store returns a dozen Android apps that support screen recording for Android v5 or later.
Some apps are free while others are paid but they mostly offer a similar set of features. You can record the screen as well the on-screen touches so the viewer has a better idea about how you are interacting with the apps. They can record the external microphone audio but none of the apps I tried allowed recording of internal system audio. Maybe that is a limitation of the Android platform.
The most popular option is Mirror that will not only record your Android screen but it can also mirror your phone on to your desktop using AllCast Receiver, a free app for Chrome. There are no complicated settings to choose from, the recording is smooth but the big downside is that the app adds a fairly big watermark and you do not have option to disable it.
Shou.TV is another app than can record and also live cast your phone screen to the desktop without the watermark. It is the only app that can save the video in multiple formats including MKV, AVI and MOV. There’s however a definite lag when casting the screen on the desktop that makes it less usable.
iLos and the screen recorders from Rivulus and Misty let you record the Android screen in multiple resolution including 1280×720 and 1920×1080 pixels at 30 frames per second. The recorded screencast can display touches, there are no ads and you can record videos of unlimited length. These apps do however add their icons in the notification window while the recording is in progress.
Another app in the category is SCR that offers a unique feature – it can add the picture-in-picture effect to your screencasts. That means it can use the front camera of your phone and overlay a live video of yourself on the screencast. The app is freemium and you need to upgrade to remove the watermark or to increase your screencast length which is limited to 3 minutes.
I also enjoyed using Rec. that has a very clean interface and allows you save your settings as separate presets. You can turn off the screen and it will stop the current recording session. You do however need to upgrade to show the screen touches and for recording the microphone audio.
This screencast video was recorded on a mobile phone running Android 5.0.1 and rendered as an animated GIF
To conclude, as you may have noticed, most of the screen capture programs for Android are very similar and it is thus difficult to pick an absolute winner. Still, if I were to choose one, my vote would go to the Unlimited Recorder for creating screencast movies and Mirror for mirroring the Android screen on to the desktop.
The story, The Best Screen Recorder for Android 5 , was originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal on 12/01/2015 under Android, Screencasting, Software.
