Protect against online Plagiarism with Copyscape

Copyscape is a search engine, with a little different purpose. It finds the web pages which has copies of your content. It is a very creative idea, where you type in the URL of your website or page whose content you want to check in internet. Once you hit the Go button, Copyscape will return the pages in internet which has parts your content. Parts of content means even small paragraphs or phrases of your content. Though Copyscape only finds the text duplicates and not other media like images or sounds, this itself is very useful. Consider, a person sits down and writes an online tutorial for some new tool, and hopes to earn small pennies with ads and banners. But, without his knowledge someone else might have been using this content to boost his own revenues, with the original content maker not even aware of this. This is where we can use Copyscape to detect the plagiarists.

The free and open version gives you only the top ten results, and you need to sign up for a premium account to get all the results. Also, for the premium crowd, copyscape provides tools like Copysentry, which will monitor your web content continuously and reports every new duplicate that sprout in the internet. Another premium tool is where you can copy-paste your offline content and check if it is there in internet. Already many lawsuits have been filed against plagiarists with the help of the Copyscape tool (according to Wikipedia), including the one by a small CSS tutorial Author, who sued Apple for copying his content.

How does it work? Copyscape uses Google APIs to do the job, along with their own proprietary algorithm to exactly pinpoint copies. The site owned by a company called Indigo Stream Technologies, Ltd. and was launched in 2004.

The low points being that it cannot detect other media plagiarism except textual content. Also, it cannot tell which is the original copy and which is the duplicate, and that most professional tools will cost you. Anyways, for bloggers and other people who use internet as a writing medium, Copyscape is a tool to bookmark. They also provide a banner to post in websites showing “Page protected by Copyscape, do not copy”.

Copyscape search page.

Copyscape Forum discussing on IP rights.

Codevalley

The Last Theory, my first novel

Sorry all for not posting anything for over a week. I was busy with publishing my maiden web novel, the Last Theory. It is a sci-fi sequel, where I will be posting one chapter a week, and depending upon reader comments and feedback I will take forward my story.
Last Theory is a scientific theory which I have been working on for the past few years. I thought I would put it down as a novel. Again, there I found the medium, Internet and "Blog" as very interesting, and that is how I am attempting to write a blog novel.
Hope I will get nice response to my novel as I am getting to this blog.
You can check out the novel here.
http://thelastheory.wordpress.com 

The Ubuntu of Cricket games, by the fans.

One of most compelling and challenging sector of software industry is the gaming industry. Development of each game requires years of hardwork and millions of dollars of funding. But, still most of these games, developed with such effort find a fan following and manage to earn something for their effort. The gaming market being so large, you have many genres associated to it. You have, strategy, action, racing, sports etc.
I being a great cricket fan has always looked upon big banners to produce a genuine cricket game, with vivid gameplay and graphics. Electronic Arts, one of the legends of console gaming, never lived up to their expectations in this regard. EA cricket, right from cricket 2000 to cricket 2007 were not even the shadows of EA FIFA soccer brand. Be it the gameplay, or graphics. They could have easily adopted the FIFA graphics into cricket. Wonder why they never did it. Then you had Brian Lara Cricket, this was too not too better, apart from relatively better gameplay, both were limited in the aspect of enjoyability, for any cricket fanatic.
The Art Of Cricket
This saw the birth of TAOC, which is actually a cricket game, being developed by game modders, game patchers and designers. It started from the set of cricket enthusiast who patched cricket games in the market, through a forum called Planetcricket.net We already have seen those thousands face packs, ground mods, AI mods for EA cricket and other cricket games. Now, they have taken up the challenge of developing a cricket game of their own. And when I went through their website and checked the features, it looked awesome, least to say. There are also a few videos of the game which is still in the making. It looks better than any cricket game available currently. With over 38 shots to choose from, different bowling actions to bowler and over 30 stadiums, vivid player rendering to advanced options like Duckworth Lewis, Dew factors, Day and night matches which has fading light as match progresses, even the twenty20 format playable.
As I browsed the whole site, the most interesting part was that, the forum was filled with discussions between the developers and fans, and people suggesting what they would want from the game.
This "underground" ultimate cricket game might be out by this year. This could called more like an Open Source Cricket game. They might charge a very nominal fee for all the effort they have put for this, which by no means is a problem for fans. I can't wait to lay my hands on this new public owned cricket game, till then these are the links for you to check and drool over.
TOAL Features.
TOAL teaser Videos.
TOAL Website

Yahoo! divorce’s Microsoft for Google.

Recap

It looks pretty much like a prime time soap. For month’s Microsoft had been negotiating and proposing to Yahoo!, first came with a 31$ buyout offer, later raised it to 33$ trying to make ends meet. But finally Yahoo! pulled off. Again with the help of Icahnn, Microsoft tried to acquire the strategic search portion of Yahoo! The final talks happened on Thursday, and reportedly, Yahoo! were ready to accept the earlier 33$ whole buyout, which Microsoft were no more interested in. Instead, Microsoft were willing to pay 35$ a share for a 16% on Yahoo! to get the search market portion. This Yahoo! found unacceptable and were not even willing to think about. Yahoo! quoted in a press statement “...that such a transaction would not be consistent with the company's view of the converging search and display marketplaces, would leave the company without an independent search business that it views as critical to its strategic future, and would not be in the best interests of Yahoo stockholders.” (The trademark “interest of shareholders” argument).
Yahoo! also noted that it was Microsoft who has now moved off the full buyout bid, even at the earlier quoted price. And this followed a heavy 12% dip in Yahoo’s share closing at over 23$.

The Twist
A little while later, Yahoo! announced its new fiancée, Google. It had already struck a 10 year deal with Google to divert some of Google’s search traffic to Yahoo! and is expecting an additional 800$ million revenue this year. But is this the forbidden Apple that Yahoo! is trying to have? Subsequently the story could go such a way that, Yahoo! will become more and more dependent on the Google’s cash, and will not be able to survive without it. Is Google playing the Wolf in the lamb’s skin? We all know Google’s motto of “don’t be evil”, will they keep that word? Only time can tell.
But this is what Google CEO Eric Schmidth had to say, “This agreement will preserve the competitive and dynamic online advertising space.” But how? Hope we find an answer soon.
Now, Google, the new found friend of Yahoo! is also sharing there IM circle with Yahoo! and Yahoo! chat can support Google buddies, clearly an advantage Google deal.
Already the Anti-trust authorities are scrutinizing the deal and pretty skeptical over the happenings.
So what will Google do with this new found friend? Is Yahoo! falling into bigger trap to waiver off immediate slaps from Icahn and Microsoft? How will Microsoft react? What can Icahn do? Wait for the next episode.

-codevalley

Let’s bury the iPhone, Omnia unfolds an era

Samsung’s growth and rise as a mobile phone market major went unnoticed, until earlier this year when they surpassed Motorola to become the World's 2nd largest Mobile phone manufacturer. Lately Samsung has been putting a very strong and challenging competition even to the market leader Nokia. With constantly launching new handsets with rich features and presenting those with competitive prices have been their strategy.
Now, they have come up with a dream phone, a phone which has everything one could think of, a phone which could be could challenge a 2 year old PC, in short we call it Omnia.
Overview
Omnia is a candybar phone with a 3.2” touch screen and WQVGA display on a 12.5mm thin body with platinum finish. It has a 5MP camera with almost professional features and runs the latest Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. It has a built in memory of 8GB or 16GB and supports additional memory via memory card. It even has a laptop like optical mouse for one hand navigation. It also has WiFi, GPS, Word, Excel, Powerpoint what not?
Multimedia
Going into details, the camera has face detection, smile detection, auto focus, long panoramic shots with auto-panorama shots. There is also extending video recording features like adding subtitles, live dubbing, trimming video etc. The display looks very vivid and clear and the touch interface used is a new patented Samsung technology called TouchWiz, which is genuinely above par to iPhone’s interface. It has support to all major video formats including DivX, Xvid etc.
Connectivity
The phone has GPS for navigation and geotagging. Along with the normal EDGE, Push mail, FM Radio, GPS, Bluetooth A2DP, Wi-Fi, USB 2.0 etc, it also has HSDPA 7.2mbps, Quad-band GSM. It also has Outlook for handling e-mails.
User Interface
No stone has been left unturned in this new Samsung’s all in one package. Omnia has a multitouch with TouchWiz technology, (do watch the video at the end), with intuitive tap, sweep, drag and drop operations as well as an on-screen qwerty keyboard. It also has unique calling and texting methods. Another elegant addition is a widget full desktop, which can be fully customized, (I have never seen a thing like this before). There are also dedicated keys for communications and other shortcuts.
The phone can also download large files and store in them, thanks to the native windows OS in it. It can be used much like a PC without great difference.
Only negatives I could find is the display resolution of 240x400 which I feel is ordinary. Also the 5MP camera doesn’t seem to have a camera cover.

Overall, Omnia SGH-i900 is a PC packed into 12.5mm of metal which is designed for the pocket.
Omnia will be launched by June in South East Asia, and later by July in UK and rest of the world.
And iPhone, what is that???
TouchWiz Demo video


-codevalley

iPhone 2.0, double the performance, half the price.

iPhone 3G or the iPhone 2.0 was revealed yesterday here by Steve Job and it has already been creating hype with so many diggs and search results for the same. I don't believe in rehashing information, but I thought I should let my readers know what is actually different in the new iPhone compared to its older sibling.
The looks
The new iPhone looks little bit thicker but shapier compared to the original, which is understandable, but there is no difference in the display size or resolution (it remains 3.5 inches). The 3 hardbuttons (short cut keys) are now in metal, rather than in plastic (as was in original iPhone). The headphone port now allows the normal headphones to be connected to it. The phone has single color for the back side also, instead of the original metallic back. The phone is also available in ivory white for the 16GB version.
Features
The changes in features includes a faster processor and network chip which boast of 2.6 times faster internet, and also 3G capability.  There is also a front camera for video call. The new iPhone also has AGPS which makes it more useful for map applications like Google Maps, working better. Also theres is a unified push method which allows all background IM and email programs to fetch data at one time from Apple's server which caches the data, thereby increasing battery life because of less network seek. Also, the new iPhone would support software upgrades meaning which is a big plus. You also have a sim card ejector to pull out the sim card.
Pricing
Pricing is the most important difference that iPhone 3G has to offer. If the former version cost you 399$, the new iPhone would cost you only 199$, yes, only half the price. That would be THE cheapest touch screen phone, or maybe smartphone ever heard. I am not sure why Apple took such a drastic step. But Steve Jobs would not do things without some great thought behind it.
-codevalley

New look to my blog, thanking all my readers.

For the past 1 month, I have taken my blogging very seriously and I am investing a lot of time into it as well. I am in turn being encouraged by increased traffic. My heart felt thanks to all the visitors. I felt the blog needed a makeover. So I have put on a new template and also bought the domain http://www.thecodevalley.com
This is only a beginning, I would keep on improving my blog, so that keep my visitors happy. And did I tell you that I would like all your feedbacks more than anything? Keep throwing in your feedbacks be it positive or negative. It would only help me serve you better. I am also looking for a designer to do a full makeover of the my blog's looks. If any designer is reading, please feel free to respond.
If you feel my blog has been any use to you and would like to support me, feel free to use the button below to donate any amount.

Thanking you all,
-Narayan aka codevalley

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Review: Ubuntu 8.04, a definite show stopper!

As usual, as May approached, I went to the ubuntu portal to get my copy of new Hardy Heron, for the past 4 releases, this has been the modus operandi. I get my copy, try it out, explore the feature, be happy for some days, but it used to fade out soon, for some reason or so. Butby the time 7.10 released, I had got my laptop, and Ubuntu refused to run on it. So I was away from the tux for quite a few months. Even when I got my Hardy Heron CD, i did'nt give much hope of running it in my laptop. In fact the CD pouch remained unopened for over a week, until I thought of trying it on my desktop.
First of all, I have an AMD desktop, with Nvidia board, so I knew, there are possibilities of driver issues, but I was proved wrong, and I got my Ubuntu going in 20 minutes. Nothing really noticeable from the previous versions. The same old brown theme, the drum sound everything the same. But again, I began to notice subtle but definite makeovers. First of all, my update manager "suggested" if I would want to use the restricted NVidia graphics drivers so that I can get the maximum out of my card. I gleefully accepted the request, and by the time I also noticed, my bluetooth dongle was infact working perfect, Ubuntu had installed required drivers for it. I paired up my PDA to it and downloaded some songs.
Now, I got excited, I went on to install all the updates, and began setting the OS up. The Compiz was already active with the Nvidia Driver in place, all the Aero effects and more was in the offering. Suddenly I remembered, during installation, it had even ripped the users and their documents & setting from the Windows XP, that was really a handy option, now I had all my documents ready in the Linux desktop.
In the meantime I also tried the same installation in my laptop, that too running on an AMD/Nvidia combo. No problems at all, everything went smooth, and while I was downloading updates I noticed, the internet is pretty fast, compared to windows. All the drivers also got into place automatically, bluetooth, ethernet, wifi, everything got detected, even my Webcam started rolling, once I installed cheese (I had issues with it on my Windows ).
Now, I went through the packages, somehow I got a feeling that in this release, the Ubuntu people have gone soft on the restricted drivers, it was easily locatable and installable, right from my graphics card driver to installing mp3 codecs,, all done in the background. When I opened youtube, I was asked whether I want to install flash (yeah, that is also restricted software), and went ahead to install flash 9.0. The same when I installed my favourite amarok, I could get mp3 songs songs rightaway. Another thing I noticed was, it was easier to locate installed software from the main menu itself, even if it is a gnome package or KDE package. And the number of packages and support has increased many folds. I could access my NTFS drives in read/write mode, get windows TTF fonts installed, burn DVDs etc. I could not login to my G.ho.st Virtual PC though, I am not sure why. The login kept on failing.
For the first time I felt Ubuntu has outshined Windows (Vista). The plenty availability of software packages, crash free environment, and more importantly very userfriendly and neat interface, now anyone can shift to Ubuntu from Windows with ease. It really is worth a try. I have not logged onto my windows for the past one week. And I send files from my desktop to laptop via bluetooth.
On the negatives, Canonical is not anymore sending you 50 CDs just as you request, so that you can have Ubuntu's hung above your car's rearview mirror. And every two days, I get an updated kernel worth 50 MB, so my internet is put to full use.

If you people want me to, I will blog more about this Hardy Heron release, but only if you would ask me to, and tell me what you want to know, so start sending me your opinions and comments.
-codevalley

Review: G.ho.st OS...nothing haunting about it.

Recently I came across a variety of online virtual desktops, which claim that they are Virtual Operating Systems and give you the ultimate experience across PCs. In fact, one of the early birds in this category was Desktoptwo. Desktoptwo came into limelight almost 2 years ago, and now we have a dozen more competitors which are fighting for the spot. At first I thought of comparing each of them, but once I reviewed the G.ho.st OS I felt it deserved a full blog review.
G.ho.st stands for Global Hosted Operating System, and they have got a unique and creative domain name g.ho.st. They call themselves a virtual computer. At first when I came across this, I was pretty laid back. I had already tried Desktoptwo. I hardly used it though, because I never found real use for a virtual OS, where the network bandwidth is still at premium, these flash based players take ages to load, and even though they offer web storage, it takes hours to upload stuff, and download them back. But, still I just went on to the ghost portal, still curious about the peculiar domain name.
Once the portal opened, I was pulled in. The designers have done a very good job, with nice artwork, and appealing logo and colors. I involuntarily clicked on sign up. Again, a minimal and simple sign up took place and I got the confirmation mail. Now, I logged on to the OS. I was expecting at least a few 10 minutes before I could log on, since I have a 64kbps network connection. But amazingly I could see my desktop hardly within 3 minutes. The desktop gave a Vista like feel, with icons, designed in a cartoony way. There were a few gadgets lying over, a ghost tour, clock, some sticky notes, etc. The tour was more of pictures and less text which compelled me to finish it. It was pretty informative.
You have a virtual OS framework and you allow 3rd party applications to run over your framework, that is basically what ghost is upto. So, logically it does qualify for the name, virtual PC. Next I went through the start menu, there were applications found in a normal linux installation like accessories, games, widgets etc. It also had a browser app, so it would be actually a browser inside a browser, a nice way to proxy. Next I went to the mail client, rather a rich app like outlook with many features like calender, address book etc, The mail can be configured to a pop client in your mobile phone or so, so that you get your g.ho.st mails into it. Also this email client itself can download mails from other players like GMail, Live etc, through POP configurations. That was useful, I have configured my mails into this. You have another option to configure your logins, something like the OpenID. All your login-passwords can be stored in this application which automatically authenticates to these services once you log into your ghost OS. You have ZOHO Office suite, Google Docs, and many other third party apps, that you can run in your Ghost.
Now, the techie part, the OS fully works on Flash, though it was indeed light and fast, there might be incompatibility issues where you don't have flash. G.ho.st also provides 5 GB space, which is not readily available, you get 1 GB initially and rest 4 when you refer 4 friends. You can use ftp to upload and download stuff on to your ghost web drive. I tested g.ho.st in Internet explorer, Opera and Firefox, it worked without a difference. Unlike Desktoptwo, I feel like working from inside my G.ho.st OS, it gives me a feeling of a conventional OS and amazingly fast too. Only negative I found is that they used the peculiar domain name even for the email ids, like codevalley@g.ho.st Also I found occasionally there are login problems, where you get stuck in the login screen. But, ghost is still in Alpha stage, since April 2007, let us wait for the main release.
I would recommend you g.ho.st, and is worth trying out. It gives you an out of the box experience, also did I tell you that ghost is a joint venture by Palestinians and Israelis?

G.ho.st website

codevalley