Parallels Workstation for Windows & Linux - Free Download

Parallels Workstation is a commercial desktop virtualization program that lets you run multiple Operating systems on the single physical computer and you can easily switch between them without rebooting.
For instance, you could be running Windows Vista and but some of your programs (like your old Tally accounting software) require Windows 2000 or XP. In that case you can download Parallels Workstation, create a virtual machine for Windows XP and run it over Windows Vista just like any another software program. You can also use Parallels Workstation to run Linux on a Windows machine or vice versa.
If you are planning to rebuild a computer, it is recommended that you use a virtualization program like Parallels Workstation for all experimentation work - i.e., any software that you plan to use on a temporary or trial basis should be installed on the virtual machine and not on the main computer.
Parallels Workstation sells for $50 but you can request a licensed activation key for free using this Lunarpages offer. Key in your email address and they’ll immediately send you the download links for the trial version and serial number to convert the trial into a full retail version.
Virtual machines are very helpful for web designers as well as it lets you test websites on different browsers - you can have a virtual machine with IE 8 and another one with IE 6 while your main desktop is running the latest IE 7.
In case the above offer expires by the time you read this, you can always download the free Virtual PC (Microsoft) or Sun’s VirtualBox which is available for Mac as well.

web pages deleted-RECOVER IT from the internet

You opened a web page on the Internet but the server hosting the site returns a 404 error

meaning that either the web page has been removed or moved to a different location.

To recover the lost page, the best option is that you search the page across all three major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Windows Live Search) and hope that a copy of the web page exists in the cache somewhere.

If the original page is not available in any of the search engine’s cache, you can repeat the search process at Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine - it is the largest web repository holding a snapshot (or backup) of over 10 billion web pages.

This will come handy when you are trying to recover an accidentally deleted website or you need to retrieve a web page that no longer exists at the original location.

source: http://web.archive.org

How TO INSERT a YOUTUBE videos to your POWERPOINT

Before you embed You Tube videos in PowerPoint slides, always think of the medium(s) you’ll use to deliver that presentation.

It’s not uncommon to see presenters in conferences struggling to get the video right thus breaking the entire rhythm of their presentation. The problem could be due to poor Internet connectivity or computer missing the right codecs or something else.
Now you can easily save yourself from getting into such embarrassing situations by planning ahead. Will you be presenting to a live audience in a Wi-fi enabled conference room with good Internet speed or are there any chances that you may have to deliver the presentation video in an offline environment (like a classroom)?

The reason I asked this is because each situation requires a different approach. Let’s see how we tackle each of them:

Embed YouTube Videos Directly into PowerPoint

This is the easiest approach and recommended if are sure that the presentation venue will have great connectivity. Download the YouTube Wizard plug-in from skp.mvps.org and upon installation, this will add a new "Insert YouTube Video" command to your PowerPoint Toolbar.
You simply have to type the URL of the YouTube video and follow the wizard to add the YouTube video player in your current slide. You can resize as well as reposition the player anywhere on the slide.

Get Videos from Google Docs into PowerPoint

Now consider another possible case – you spent lot of effect preparing an elaborate presentation inside Google Docs with several YouTube clips but how do you import all this into PowerPoint.
While Google Docs does provide an "Export as PPT" option, the problem with this format is that it converts all embedded YouTube clips into static images which is something you don’t want.
here’s however a simple workaround – just publish that Google Docs presentation as an HTML slideshow and then insert it like a web page in PowerPoint using the liveweb
plug-in. Thus you can play YouTube clips inside PowerPoint though they are part of your Google Docs presentation.

Another advantage of this approach is that if you change any of the clip in your original Google Docs presentation, it will be reflected in the PowerPoint presentation as well.