How to Upload Large PDF Files to Your Blog

You cannot actually post a raw PDF file directly into your blog. The other thing to consider if you're able to convert a very large pdf file to html or txt is the page size limit. Fortunately there's a lot of ways to get around with it. Here's my story..

A few days ago, I was struggling to post a large PDF file into my blog. This file has 774 pages!! Yes you read it right, but I did it with a dash of patience and and a pinch of persistence. It's a complete list of successful examines who passed the 2007 Nursing Board Exam (Philippines). I tried to convert the file to both text (txt) and HTML files using Adobe Acrobat Pro and upload it in this site, but the file size exceeds the limit. Well, just imagine how many pages, but my idea was to put it inside a box and you can scroll it to view the file. Anyways, that simply didn’t work.

So with my googling power, I stumbled upon the following solutions. I tried each one of these to find out which can do the job.

SaveFile is a free File Hosting Website where you have to register for an acoount... upload the file up to 60mb... they will provide you a link to embed in your site. To view that file, click the link which leads you back to their website, and while there, you have to find another link to access the file. Duh… Not Recommended, more cons than pros.

Gmail account. If you already have this, just login to your account, compose an email, attach the file to that email, send it to youself, open the attached file as HTML, then copy and paste it to your website. Easy huh. But it only converts, from PDF to HTML, 3 pages of my file. My verdict: Very handy and recommended for small files.

Scribd is another File Hosting Website that works for large files. With this, you can upload any file type, upload multiple files at the same time, and convert to flash files which can then be embedded in your site. While viewing, you can pan, scroll, adjust the view size, search a word or name within the file, print, download the file as PDF, MS Word, Plain text or MP3, print, email it... Wow!! For me it is more convenient than downloading the file locally and viewing it using Adobe Reader or even Foxit.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for iGoogle social!

8/12/2009 12:00:00 PM

We launched iGoogle in 2005 as a way for people to quickly and easily personalize their Google experience with all the information on the web that was most useful to them. Now tens of millions of people choose to use their iGoogle homepage to check email, track the news, watch videos, chat with friends and much more. Today, we're pleased to tell you about the new social features that we're introducing to iGoogle.

First, we're excited to introduce social gadgets for iGoogle. Social gadgets let you share, collaborate and play games with your friends on top of all the things you can already do on your homepage. The 19 social gadgets we're debuting today offer many new ways to make your homepage more useful and fun. If you're a gaming fanatic, compete with others in Who has the biggest brain? or challenge your fellow Chess or Scrabble enthusiasts to a quick match. Stay tuned in to the latest buzz with media-sharing gadgets from NPR, The Huffington Post, and YouTube. To manage your day-to-day more efficiently, check things off alongside your friends with the social To-Do list gadget.

Your friends are able to see what you share or do in your social gadgets either by having the same gadgets on their homepages, or through a new feed called Updates. Updates can include your recently shared photo albums, your favorite comics strips, your travel plans for the weekend and more. To help you manage who you are sharing with, we've created a Friends group. You can add and edit friends in this group at any time. If you already have a Friends group within your Google Contacts, you'll be able to easily share with those friends on iGoogle as well. If you don't care to share, iGoogle's social features are optional and can be disabled on a gadget-to-gadget basis with just a few clicks.

It's developers who have really made iGoogle into the rich experience it is — growing our gadget directory to over 60,000 gadgets today — and we know iGoogle developers will help us quickly expand our collection of social gadgets. You can get information about how to build social gadgets for iGoogle on our developer site: code.google.com/igoogle.

We introduced these new social features recently to Australia users and are gradually rolling them out to users in the U.S. over the next week. Don't fret if you don't see your iGoogle page updated yet — just check back soon. The Google homepage has always been a place that connects people to information, and we're excited to now also be a place that connects people to each other. We hope these social gadgets make iGoogle an even more fun and personal homepage for you. You can learn more by checking out the video below.



Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience and Rose Yao, iGoogle Product Manager

How to transfer contacts from a Nokia to a Blackberry cellphone

Here’s the situation: just got a Blackberry 9000 and needs to transfer contacts from old Nokia N93.

Here’s the solution:

1. Using Nokia PC Suite, I synched Nokia mobile phone to either Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express (Windows Address Book). I’m really not a big fan of Microsoft Outlook so I never installed it on any of our computers / laptops. Outlook Express, however, is, I think, always installed in XP or Vista operating systems. So, in my case, I synched to Outlook Express. I’m not really sure but I think Outlook Express uses the Windows Address Book.
2. Using the Blackberry Desktop Manager, I synched from Windows Address Book to Blackberry Device. You have to select where to sync from using the Synchronization configuration window.
3. That’s it.

There are several solutions available in the Net and there’s this solution about exporting your contacts to CSV, import it your e-mail client or Gmail, export it to CSV, use ABC Amber Converter to convert the CSV file to an IPD file (this is the file where Blackberry holds its contacts) and restore the IPD file to your Blackberry device.

While this solution works, it’s not entirely accurate. The mobile phone number ends up being saved in the Notes field of your contact card. If someone calls or sends you SMS, you won’t know who called or sent.

The Windows Address Book sync approach, on the other hand, (more?) accurately saves the mobile number to the appropriate Blackberry contact field. In fact, in the Blackberry Desktop Manager, you can select which Windows Address Book fields map to which Blackberry contact fields.