I often get asked from friends to help them troubleshoot their PC problems. It’s not a problem if they’re sitting in front, but more often than not they’re communicating from somewhere far and that’s when you wish there’s an application out there like Yuuguu!

Well here it is! Yuuguu is a free service allowing it’s users to share each others’ desktops. It means you can view/use your friend’s PC as if you were sitting right next to them. Imagine the uses:

1. Work remotely:
You’re at home and need to login to your Office PC. With Yuuguu you can remotely logon to your PC, and interact with colleagues as though they’re next to you.

2. Web Conferencing
I’d recommend using Yuuguu with skype. It’s a great combination to give anyone a presentation remotely and also speak to them live.

3. Troubleshoot PCs
IT Admins of small businesses can trouble shoot PCs in their offices which may be in their premises or somewhere else. All you need is an internet connection.

Any more uses of Yuuguu you can think of ?

Signing up is as simple as signing up for Yahoo Messenger or Gtalk. A user can control what level of permission and share your desktops with as many users as you want!

Has the Internet changed how you read the news? It certainly has changed for me, and saving me lots of time. I remember the pre-internet days when I had to wait for dinner time to watch the news, or wait for next morning, to read the headlines.  The internet of course changed all that. These days all the small and big news & content providers have an online presence that provide the news that is up to date. From CNN and BBC to The Hindu and Times of India.

So how can Netvibes.com save you several hours a week? Well, instead of sitting infront of the Idiot box during dinner time waiting for the news to show up, or spending hours visiting all the websites to track the news. You can use Netvibes.com to brings the latest news from the sources you select, neatly arranged in a nice package, waiting to be read.

Below are some steps I’ll show you on how to setup your page at Netvibes, and add your favorite news source to track, with some cool tips & tricks to manage them.

1. Visit Netvibes.com and setup your account

Setting up your account is as easy as clicking on the ‘Register Now’ link and then entering your email and password.

I was really surprised to see this site! Inshort, it’s like the Google Maps for India. MapMyIndia allows the user to search any place on the map of India by entering the location details. eg:

“S block, Greater Kailash II, New Delhi”

It’s not there yet, ’cause when I tried entering the Vakil Housing office address, it just recognised the ‘bangalore’ in it. But nonetheless it’s a great start, with some cool Ajax features like dragging the map & zooming! Some of the other features available:

* When browsing a city or town it shows the popular places to visit.
* Registered users can create & save their locations. (e-locations)
* Right click to see driving directions from

Below is the location of our office which I’ve marked with a blue indicator (e-location):

Considering that it was iPod’s 5th b’day earlier this week, I thought this would be a good time to review a few podcasts that I keep download and listen to farily regularly.

The first podcast on my list, goes with the really wicked title…The Naked Scientists. The Naked Scientists Podcast is described as, ” a media-savvy group of physicians and researchers from Cambridge University who use radio, live lectures, and the Internet to strip science down to its bare essentials.” Other than being educational & highly-informative, these podcasts are most of all so very entertaining. Dr. Chris Smith is without doubt one of the wittiest and most talented presenters that BBC Radio has. I’ve listened to quite a few of their shows and I’m yet to see been caught off-guard by any question thrown at him. And he this knack of simplifying and explaining the most complicated scientific theories/phenomenans. This podcast is a must for anyone who has even a passing interest in National Geographic or Discovery TV channels.

Here’s a Web Service that I’ve been meaning to write for a long time. Riya.com is a free photo sharing website with a difference. Once you upload your photos, using it’s face recognition technology it can match the faces of the same person across all photos!

So once you’ve got a whole bunch of photos uploaded on Riya, you can automatically browse through them by the people present the in photos! Try Riya today!

Interesting Fact: Riya is founded by an Indian, Munjal Shah. Check out his Blog here: http://munjal.typepad.com

There is a happiness test to figure out how happy you are, interviews with celeberity mind mechanics, how the Bhutan is the only country where happiness is at the heart of Government Policy and…loads of such interesting content - all with a single purpose: to make you happier (or is to make you aware how miserable you are?)

Click here to checkout the “The Happiness Formula” from BBC:

Do check out this useful website on our fair city, promoted by Sify.com. What we found most handy is the live traffic update covering Brigade Road, Hosur Road, Mekhri Circle and Basveshwara Circle. Additionally, it has info on weather, rail and fight timings as well.