Monitor your internet connection with Bitmeter

BitMeter 2 is a bandwidth meter, it allows you to visually monitor your Internet connection by displaying a scrolling graph that shows your upload and download speed over time.

For many users, the killer feature is the ISP Restrictions screen. There, you can tell BitMeter your ISP's monthly limit and request an alert when you approach it. An included calculator helps you determine how long a download will take. Both of these features will help you budget your online time more efficiently.





Other BitMeter features:

• Audio notification at regular (configurable) time intervals - different tones are played according to your current upload or download speed (tone boundaries are also configurable)
• Audio notification each time a certain amount of data is transferred (uploaded, downloaded or both)
• Animated System Tray icon shows upload and download speeds
• Check for new version (with auto-check option and proxy support)
• Select any combination of network cards to monitor or ignore
• Configurable graph scale - set to any value, or set to auto-adjust according to your speed
• Connection Speed Helper
• Option to display current graph maximum on screen
• Change units used in readout (Kb,KB,Mb,MB)
• Change graph type (bar or line graph)
• Interval bars with adjustable time period
• Adjustable scroll interval (anywhere between 1 and 60 seconds)
• Save favorite color combination for later use, or use one of the pre-configured color-schemes.
• Configure System Tray tooltip information (including speeds and days totals)
• Show or hide readout area, or adjust its font-size.
• Auto-start option for current user, or all users
• Manual and automatic backup options of configuration and traffic history information.

Browser Statistics Month by Month

If you are wondering about the market share of different browsers by 2008 then here is the statistics (courtesy w3schools).

Browser Statistics Month by Month

2008	IE7	IE6	Chrome	Fx	Moz	S	O
November	26.6%	20.0%	3.1%	44.2%	0.4%	2.7%	2.3%
October	26.9%	20.2%	3.0%	44.0%	0.4%	2.8%	2.2%
September	26.3%	22.3%	3.1%	42.6%	0.5%	2.7%	2.0%
2008	IE7	IE6	IE5	Fx	Moz	S	O
August	26.0%	24.5%	0.1%	43.7%	0.5%	2.6%	2.1%
July	26.4%	25.3%	0.3%	42.6%	0.5%	2.5%	1.9%
June	27.0%	26.5%	0.5%	41.0%	0.5%	2.6%	1.7%
May	26.5%	27.3%	0.7%	39.8%	0.7%	2.4%	1.5%
April	24.9%	28.9%	1.0%	39.1%	0.9%	2.2%	1.4%
March	23.3%	29.5%	1.1%	37.0%	1.1%	2.1%	1.4%
February	22.7%	30.7%	1.3%	36.5%	1.2%	2.0%	1.4%
January	21.2%	32.0%	1.5%	36.4%	1.3%	1.9%	1.4%
2007	IE7	IE6	IE5	Fx	Moz	S	O
December	21.0%	33.2%	1.7%	36.3%	1.4%	1.7%	1.4%
November	20.8%	33.6%	1.6%	36.3%	1.2%	1.8%	1.6%
October	20.7%	34.5%	1.5%	36.0%	1.3%	1.7%	1.6%
September	20.8%	34.9%	1.5%	35.4%	1.2%	1.6%	1.5%
August	20.5%	35.7%	1.5%	34.9%	1.3%	1.5%	1.7%
July	20.1%	36.9%	1.5%	34.5%	1.4%	1.5%	1.9%
June	19.7%	37.3%	1.5%	34.0%	1.4%	1.5%	1.8%
May	19.2%	38.1%	1.6%	33.7%	1.3%	1.5%	1.7%
April	19.1%	38.4%	1.7%	32.9%	1.3%	1.5%	1.6%
March	18.0%	38.7%	2.0%	31.8%	1.3%	1.6%	1.6%
February	16.4%	39.8%	2.5%	31.2%	1.4%	1.7%	1.5%
January	13.3%	42.3%	3.0%	31.0%	1.5%	1.7%	1.5%
2006	IE7	IE6	IE5	Fx	Moz	N7/8	O
November	7.1%	49.9%	3.6%	29.9%	2.5%	0.2%	1.5%
September	2.5%	55.6%	4.0%	27.3%	2.3%	0.4%	1.6%
July	1.9%	56.3%	4.2%	25.5%	2.3%	0.4%	1.4%
May	1.1%	57.4%	4.5%	25.7%	2.3%	0.3%	1.5%
March	0.6%	58.8%	5.3%	24.5%	2.4%	0.5%	1.5%
January	0.2%	60.3%	5.5%	25.0%	3.1%	0.5%	1.6%

IE	Internet Explorer
Fx	Firefox (identified as Mozilla before 2005)
Chrome	Google Chrome
Moz	The Mozilla Suite (Gecko, Netscape)
S	Safari (and Konqueror. Both identified as Mozilla before 2007)
O	Opera
N	Netscape (identified as Mozilla after 2006)
AOL	America Online (based on both Internet Explorer and Mozilla)

iPhone 3g Unlock Video

Are you looking for an Unlocked iPhone 3G? Even I had been searching for one that is not tied up with AT&T. Yellosn0w posted a video demonstrating unlocking of iPhone 3g and it claims that the trick/software would be available from the eve of Dec 31.

Check out the video here.

Free - Giveaway of the Day

Giveaway Of the Day is a convenient initiative allowing you to get the best commercial software titles - for free. The main object of the site is for the readers to sample the site’s sponsors’ offerings. You get free “pro” versions of software of Premium Booster, Advanced Windows Care and stuff. You’ll be given one copy of the software free everyday.

Although you get these licensed softwares for free, you cannot update the software and cannot claim tech support either. You must install and register the software on the same day. They also give away some small games like the “Brave Dwarves Pack” everyday. Besides there is a great forum where they have a list of freeware alternatives for essential software. There’s no registering on the site. Just open the site and start downloading.

During the last December days the site will repeat the best giveaways of the past year. These programs won the best ratings from users and gained the greater number of downloads and unique visitors on their giveaway day.

Listen to Britney Spear's Latest Album

If you are a Britney Spear fan then you must check out imeem. imeem is a social media service where users interact with each other by watching, posting, and sharing content of all digital media types, including blogs, photos, audio, and video.

Less than a week after the album leaked online, Spears has teamed with imeem.com to stream the entire CD online in advance of its December 2 release date. Check out Britney's latest album CIRCUS . The best part is that you can listen this album for FREE and of course, Spears' always vocal fans have weighed in on what they think of the 13-track album, leaving comments in the imeem page such as, "I luv ya Brit" "She's back," "Oh wow this is awesome," and "Sheez hot!!!!!!."

There are so many other songs that you can here in the music section of imeem.

Gmail's New Look - Themes

Check out the new Gmail themes that google is rolling out slowly(typical Google). Just like some other mail services Google's mail has stepped into a ne w stylish makeover.

You'll find a tab named "Themes" in the settings page and you'll be able to choose from 30 themes. "We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we're launching today, there's a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company," mentions Gmail's blog.


There are some themes that changes itself with the day.
You know what, you still have the choice of selecting Gmail's classic theme.

Video chat in Gmail

Yet another BIG thing from Google - Video Chat in Gmail. Video chat was available with yahoo messenger since long and Skype's messenger also has this feature.

To access this feature go to the following link http://mail.google.com/videochat
cand install the plugin. Restart your browser and the plugin is ready to use..

Once the plugin is installed, using the new features is very simple. Just hover over any name in your Gmail chat list and select “Start video chat” or “Start voice chat.” There’s a full-screen view and you can also choose to pop out the chat into a new window.

The only downside is that even if you install the plug-in, you’ll have to wait for your friends and contacts to do likewise before you can video chat.




Its quiet surprising to know that Google developed this feature for its web mail rather than for Google Talk.

Gmail for mobile 2.0

Google released the latest version of Gmail for mobile and renamed it as Gmail for mobile 2.0 for J2ME-supported and BlackBerry phones, the latest version definitely has quite a lot of improvements and is much more faster than then earlier one.

The focus in the second iteration was to produce a faster and more reliable experience for users. The online application now offers faster performance and smoother scrolling, with no freezing. Users with multiple Gmail accounts also can now switch between them without using different applications to access messages.

Gmail for Mobile 2.0 offers the option to save multiple e-mail drafts in the phone and adds shortcut keys that enable users of phones equipped with QWERTY keyboards to press 'z' to undo, 'k' to go to a newer conversation, and 'j' to go to an older conversation.

As an added bonus, for those who won't find themselves in signal range, the updated Gmail for Mobile boasts offline support, and lets users compose and read e-mail when there is no signal. All outgoing messages written when a user is offline are saved in the outbox and sent automatically when coverage is restored.

Check out this video from Google.

The GPhone is available now

Google's and HTC's baby, G1, is now out. Google has officially announced the first Android phone, G1, which will be released on T-Mobile some time in early October. Its said to be one of the closest threat to the iPhone.
The G1 is available with a two year contract with T-Mobile for $179 + taxes. G1 is based on Google's very ambitious mobile operating system Android.

Nonetheless the Android operating system that powers the device, and which was designed in part by Google, looks to be full of potential, and certainly compares favourably with anything the iPhone has to offer. The promise of an Android Market, from which users can download additional software and programs for their phone, acts as a warning shot across Apple’s bows.



The G1 has a slide-out Qwerty keyboard as well as a pleasingly responsive touchscreen. It has a 3MP camera but, like the iPhone, it doesn’t have a camcorder function. G1 is 3G compatible i.e. its capable of high-speed 3G network connection for surfing the Web or downloading information quickly and effortlessly. You can easily access Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube and other Google applications.




They should have called it GPhone instead of G1.

Streetread consolidates Finance and Business news

If you are one of those people who search the internet for all kind of Financial and Business news then try Streetread. This webapp will keep you updated with the latest happenings of the market.

Streetread seeks to completely eliminate the daily procedure of searching with a single-page interface that automatically gathers all of the financial headlines and data the web has to offer - and all without ever having to reload the page.

It allows you to access different news sources like Barron's CNNMoney Forbes etc all at one place. All you got to do is to select a news source and you will be able to see all the headline links sorted by date.

After creating a free account, and loading the stock symbols you're interested in, viewing the latest headlines for a symbol or financial website is just a single click away.

Send Future Mails today with Emailfuture

Emailfuture is a web based application that can let you send emails to anyone on a future date and time. The look and feel of this small website is very attractive (atleast I felt so).

You can mail yourself reminders about a future event, anniversary, your girlfriend's or boyfriend's birthday. Send yourself a mail at the end of the day with a reminder to buy grocery or beer cans. There is a long list of activities provided on the website itself, that you can do with the help of this application.

Check out this beautiful site yourself.

Some Online TV channels and Movies

Are you out of India and missing your favorite television shows? Then miss no more, just plug in your broadband and get ready to see some television action. Here are some sites that can be your savior (I have all my doubts on their legitimacy though):

1. bhejafry : This is one of the most popular site to stream sports channels and latest hindi movies. You can also watch your favourite TV shows here including those saas bahu soaps.
2. iDesitv : If you like to watch those news channels then this site is for you. It has all the major news channels like IBN, NDTV, CNBC and STAR. Apart from these it has some regional channels. The movie section is yet to start though.
3. nrifun : This one is my favorite as it has some english movies apart from the TV shows, hindi movies and regional TV shows and movies. You can also watch Live cricket matches here.
4. Muft : Being one of the oldest site in the business this site claims to be "Your #1 TV on Internet". This site has almost all TV shows in hindi and other regional languages of India. It also has videos under different categories and also latest bollywood news (all kinda gossips).
5. Irani Chai : You can watch Hindi and South Indian movies here.
   

Apart from these sites there must be other good online streaming sites which you can post here if you are aware. tvdekho is also one of my fav site but its facing some legal action from STAR. We hope to see it in action very soon.

You can also find most of the popular shows on YouTube.

YouTube's Journalism Contest - Project:Report

YouTube in partnership with Pulitzer Center has started a journalism contest - Project: Report (made possible by Sony VAIO and Intel) for non-professional, aspiring journalists to tell stories that might not otherwise be covered by traditional media.


There are three rounds of Project and in each round: Report, reporters will be given an assignment to complete. Each of these assignments gives you an opportunity to report on the important individuals, issues, and communities in your life that most people do not yet know about.

Round 1 assignment is to profile someone in your community, in three minutes or less, highlighting a story you think deserves to be heard by a wide audience. Last date to submit Round 1 video entry is by October 5 midnight EST.The panel of journalists from the Pulitzer Center will then choose 10 semi-finalists.

The assignment for Round 2 will then be announced, and the judging for this round will be opened up to the YouTube community to determine the five finalists who will move onto the third and last assignment.

Winners of each round will receive technology prizes from Sony VAIO and Intel, and the grand prize winner will be granted a $10,000 journalism fellowship with the Pulitzer Center to report on a story outside of their home country.

So if you have that journalist thing in you then just grab a camera and start rolling. 10 grands is a lot of money.

Upload photos by email in Picasa

If you dont want to install Picasa's uploader application and still like to add photos in your picasa account then there is an easier way.

Log on to your Picasa account and go into settings. Go down on the page and you will find a check box that says Allow me to upload photos by email  - check this box.

Enter a secret word and you will get your unique mail id. Now all you got to do is to send pics at this email id and thats it. This email id shouldn't be shared with others.

By default, Picasa uploads your pics to the built-in drop box albums, but you can choose your destination by entering the name of an existing album in the subject of your email.

You can attach photos upto a size of 20MB in jpg, gif and png format.

Google's new baby - Google Chrome

Google's new baby, Google Chrome, is here to download. So is it like any other browser? I guess not. There are quiet a few features that catches your attention right away

• I found chrome's looks as exciting new experiment that just shows you the tab and the address bar rather than all those old options of file, edit, history etc. Who need them anyway.
• The address bar apart from being an address bar also acts as a text box for google search .
• When you open a new tab, the window gives you options of most visted sites and your recent bookmarks.
• Create shorcuts for different applications/web pages on your desktop, start menu or quick launch bar. Click on the second last option on top right that says Current the Control Page and choose Create Application Shortcuts and follow the instructions.
• You can drag tabs out of the browser to create new windows or accumulate different windows into one.
• Each tab thats there in a window runs independently so if one is eating all memory then you can check the culprit by right clicking on the topmost bar of the browser and selectingTask Manager.
• If you are about to open a site that might contain a malware then Chrome will warn you.

I guess its enough of reading now. Just go and download Google Chrome and experience the difference yourself.

These simple but very powerful applications makes me a huge fan of Google.

Mobile Gmail 2.0 for BlackBerry

Gmail's mobile client for BlackBerry has been updated and you can now download version 2.0.5 at http://m.google.com/mail. One of the most important changes is that you can add the credentials for multiple accounts and switch between them without entering the password. There's also support for Google Apps accounts, which previously required a separate application.

Users from the PinStack forums report that the application lets you copy-paste text when composing messages, it saves more than one draft message and there's a new option to preload the archived messages.

Gmail's help center mentions that "the Gmail application will run in the background, periodically checking for new email. This uses data. If you do not want Gmail to run in the background, you must explicitly quit the program by going to Menu > Exit Gmail".

Translate YouTube's Search Results

YouTube is testing a new option that can translate the search results into your language using Google Translate. Now that you can independently select the interface language, it would be nice if the user-generated content was available in the same language.

YouTube didn't translate the titles and descriptions for all the videos, but it decided to use Google Translate's JavaScript API to perform the translations when they are needed, much like Twitter Search. If you click on "translate results into my language", YouTube sets a preference and all the search results will have titles and descriptions in your language, assuming it's supported by Google Translate.

The translation API offered by Google can be easily integrated in web applications, especially that it can now preserve HTML markup. I expect to see a lot of applications that take advantage of the API, from webmail services like Gmail to browsers and IM clients.

Get Olympic updates on iGoogle

With the start of Olympics in China, many people would be searching google for getting updates on events and medal tally. Looking at the popularity of Olympics a new google gadget has been released that can help you get latest updates on your Google homepage.

All you got to is open iGoogle and add this gadget from here. You can get updates on events scheduled, medals tally (for all the participating countries) and latest news on the games.

10708 players will be participating in this huge extravaganza.

Firefox 3 Digg Extension Released

Bookmarking site Digg has released an extension for Firefox 3.

Some of the new features that this extension contains are:

- Notifications: No matter where you are on the web, you can discover popular Digg stories and stay up to date on what your friends are Digging, submitting and commenting. These notifications are fully customizable. Within your preferences you can track different categories and media types, and turn notifications on or off.

- Digg Toolbar: Displays Digg counts & comments as you browse around the web. You can also Digg and submit stories directly from the toolbar, which is collapsible to save space. The toolbar respects user privacy by passing only hashed URLs to Digg to check if they’ve already been submitted.

To install this extension click here.

Check out the video

Digg Firefox 3 Extension from Kevin Rose on Vimeo.

Make firefox run faster consuming less memory

These are two very simple yet very effective tricks for firefox 3.

To make firefox consume less memory do the following steps

1. Open Firefox and type about:config in the firefox address bar, press Enter.
2. Search for the following entry browser.cache.memory.enable and see if its true; if not then right click on this entry and set its value to true.
3. Now, Right-click any where on the page and create a new entry by right click >> New >> Integer and name it browser.cache.memory.capacity and enter the value as mentioned below :
   The value has to be according to the size of your RAM memory.
   If you have:
   256 MB of RAM, enter “4096”
   512 MB of RAM, enter “8192”
   1 GB of RAM, enter “16384”
4. Restart Firefox.

To make firefox run faster do the following:

1. Open about:config just like we did above.
2. Search for the following entries
   
   * network.http.pipelining
   * network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
   * network.http.proxy.pipelining
   
3. Right Click the entries and modify to set network.http.pipelining to true, network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to 30 and network.http.proxy.pipelining to true
4. Right-click any where on the page and create a new entry by right click >> New >>Integer and name it nglayout.initialpaint.delay and set the value to 0

   This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

5. Restart Firefox.

Customize your Gmail Web Clips

Web Clips show you news headlines, blog posts, RSS and Atom feeds, and relevant sponsored links, right at the top of your Gmail inbox.
If the web clicps being displayed are not from your interest categories then you have an option to customize these web clips.
Log in to your Gmail account and go to Settings.
Click the Web Clips tab and there you have it all. Several categories of web clips are showed here. You can easily add or delete any of these categories.
You can also add your own URLs to get your favorite blogs and other news right above your inbox by using the search box provided on the left hand side of the page and thus adding a URL of your interest.

ReadyBoost - Speed up Windows Vista with USB drive

Your spare USB drive can help make your Vista run faster, with its ReadyBoost feature. The process is quiet simple.

Plug in the USB drive and you will see some option from the AutoPlay menu. Choose "Speed up my system" and the drive is all set to work for Vista and make it faster. Vista uses this memory as an extra cache.

Some prerequisites for the USB device are:

• The USB device must be at least USB 2.0
• The device must be able to do 3.5 MB/s for 4 KB random reads uniformly across the entire device and 2.5 MB/s for 512 KB random writes uniformly across the device.
• The USB has to have at least 64mb of free space

Just in case if your USB drive is not showing the above option then try the following trick:

• Open regedit (start->run->regedit)
• Expand - HKLM (Local Machine)->SOFTWARE->Microsoft->Windows NT->CurrentVersion->EMDgmt
• Find your device.
• Change Device Status to 2
• Change ReadSpeedKBs to 1000
• Change WriteSpeedKBs to 1000
• Plug in the USB device.
• Enable Readyboost.

Do not forget to take a backup of your Registry.

Microsoft requires IE8 Beta Testers

Microsoft is looking for beta testers to test IE8 beta. Currently the only way to directly file a bug with the IE Team is to be a part of the IE8 Technical Beta program on Microsoft Connect. The next beta version will be released sometime in August.

If you wish to be a part of making IE better by contributing great bug reports then you can email microsoft's IE team at IESO@microsoft.com and tell them a little about yourself including why you’d be a great beta tester.

Microsoft released the first beta of IE8 in March at its MIX 08 conference. The company plans to add more support for industry standard protocols, such as CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), in the browser and has responded to developer feedback that it needs to bring them in to test IE8 as much as possible so they can prepare Web sites for these changes.

Microsoft made IE 7, the current version of its browser, more standards compliant when it was released in October 2006. However, many Web sites that had been developed to work with older versions of IE that did not support open standards did not work on IE7 and had to be recoded. Microsoft hopes to avoid a similar problem with IE8.

Travellers to US may loose their laptops to federal Agents

This report was published in Washington Post.
U.S. federal agents have been given new powers to seize travelers' laptops and other electronic devices at the border and hold then for unspecified periods.

Under recently disclosed Department of Homeland Security policies, such seizures may be carried out without suspicion of wrongdoing, the newspaper said, quoting policies issued on July 16 by two DHS agencies. Agents are empowered to share the contents of seized computers with other agencies and private entities for data decryption and other reasons.
DHS officials said the policies applied to anyone entering the country, including U.S. citizens, and were needed to prevent terrorism.

The policies cover hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes -- as well as books, pamphlets and other written materials

Track IP address and location of a mail

I was wondering how to find out the IP address of the machine that sends a mail. I thought it might take a lot of effort but its quiet simple.

Lets take Gmail first:

1. Open your Gmail inbox and click on the mail for which you wanna know the IP address.
2. Click on the downward facing rectangle near the Reply button.
3. Now click Show Orginal from the menu and this show a window full of text.
4. Search for the line that says Received: From and this will contain the ip address of the sender machine.
5. To find out the location of an IP address there are so many utilities available on the net. To access one such application click here.

To access this information in Yahoo, open a mail and in the Bottom Right hand side corner click on Full Header and you can retrieve the IP address.

Secure your Gmail with https

Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer or HTTPS is a URI scheme used to indicate a secure HTTP connection. Https keeps your mail encrypted as it travels between your web browser and mail servers, so if you are into a shared wifi network then nobody else can read your mail. Banks and credit cards applications always use this secure protocol.

Gmail is now the first free mail provider that has started using https, as google claims that Gmail was built with an idea that one could run a company on it. Previosly, anyone could hace accessed this secure link at https://mail.google.com but now google has provided an option in your gmail settings to run your mail on https by default.

Login to your gmail account and go to settings, check for a setting that says Browser Connection and choose your option according to your requirement.

Earn money and Write your experience through Google's Knol

Knol, yet another feather in Google's cap, is a new innovative and interesting service created for sharing knowledge.

Knol, as Google says is a unit of knowledge, is built with the idea that a user can write about any topic they want and can also share with the public. Its different from wikipedia though, as in wiki anybody can edit a topic whereas knols preserves ownership of one's topic.

A user can write about any topic or subject they feel like, although its subjected to Terms of Service and Content Policy defined by Google.

Every knol will have a profile of its author. Knol writers will also be able to make money through Google ads if they allow google to put relevant ads on their knol. Wikipedia already has an entry on knol(Googlepedia I must say).
I am yet to try putting in a video in a knol.

Here are some links to knols that may be helpful to you:

Basics of Writing Knols

• Creating and publishing a new knol
• Entering text into a new or existing knol
• Using the formatting bar
  

Managing Knols

• Listing all of your knols
• Managing your author profile
  
• Managing versions of your knol
• Specifying settings for your knols

Advanced Knol Techniques

• Inserting Images
• Creating and formatting tables
• Creating links and references
• Working with the HTML source
• Changing your bio/profile

Best Practices: Writing Good Knols

• Things to do
• Things to avoid
• Publishing tips for authors

Search query format to get better results in google

Do you often search for files in Google? Do you always have a tough luck searching for files? If yes then read on this post.
Just try the following query format to search any file in Google .

?intitle:index.of? <file name> <file extension>

I tried to search Bob Sinclair's World Hold On (Children of the sky) with the following search query
?intitle:index.of? world hold on .mp3 and I got the result in the first page itself.

Open Office 3.0 Second beta release is now available

OpenOffice is an open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. In other words its an alternative to Microsoft Office that is available without any cost.

The Open Office 3.0, second beta, is now available for download. There are several new features added to this version.

In addition to read and write support for the Microsoft Office binary file formats (.doc; .xls, .ppt, etc.), OpenOffice.org 3.0 is now capable of opening files created with Microsoft Office 2007 or Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac OS X (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.). Thus, OpenOffice.org users can interact with users still using Microsoft Office.

OpenOffice.org now also has a solver component which allows solving optimization problems where the optimum value of a particular spreadsheet cell has to be calculated based on constraints provided in other cells.

OO's other new features includes

• displaying custom error bars
• enhanced image crop feature
• support for Open Document Format (ODF)
• sharing of spreadsheet among users
• display of Multiple Writer Pages While Editing
  
• enhanced support for XML

Install OpenOffice and you are all set to create/read documents in standard format.

Rediffmail includes Orkut & Facebook feeds

Rediffmail has included a new tab for its users; tab for Orkut and Facebook feeds. Just click on the tab next to the inbox tab and provide your login id and password for Orkut or Facebook.

This seems to be a major step taken by Rediff to lure Indian web mail users yet again. I guess this is also a first step to make rediff some what like iGoogle, who knows we might soon see a dashboard full of applications in Rediff.

I personally don't like using rediffmail or in other words I am a big fan of gmail.

yahoo mail in Hindi

I just got to see an option of changing my yahoo mail font to hindi. I couldn't understand the motive of Yahoo to provide hindi font to the users. Probably Yahoo would have also changed Windows to hindi, if Microsoft - Yahoo deal had materialized.
Just think of START button as "Shuru Karen" (read in hindi). I didnt get this option in my other Yahoo accounts though.

Track your lost/stolen Laptop with Adeona

Is it hell of a time to track your lost or stolen laptop? The sheer thought of loosing my laptop gives me sweat of a lifetime(really cant afford to lose it). But now we have Adeona, pheww!!! Developed by University of Washington, Adeona is the first Open Source system for tracking the location of a lost or stolen laptop.
All you got to do is to install Adeona on your laptops which then use the Open Source OpenDHT distributed storage service to store location updates from the laptops. If a laptop is lost or stolen the owner can track it with the help of information, like IP addresses of last used location and local network topology, sent by Adeona. It is only the owner who can see the encrypted information as it is password protected.
Probably soon we might have such tracking systems for all kind of mobile devices. These tracking systems send, over the Internet, updates regarding the current location of the device to a remotely administered repository. If the device is lost or stolen, but maintains Internet connectivity, the tracking system can keep tabs on the current whereabouts of the device.

What Google seeks in future young Nooglers.....

The new employees at Google are called Nooglers and Google has some suggestions for aspiring Nooglers. The top most thing that Google looks for in a candidate is their non-routine problem solving skills. According to Google "the non-routine problems offer the opportunity to create competitive advantage, and solving those problems requires creative thought and tenacity".

One example that google gives is designing a spell-checker for the Google search engine. The routine solution would be to run queries through a dictionary. The non-routine, creative solution is to use the query corrections and refinements that other users have made in the past to offer spelling suggestions for new queries.

The factors that Google considers while recruiting someone are:

• analytical reasoning
• communication skills
• a willingness to experiment
• team players
• passion and leadership

So all you wannabe Nooglers just dont hesitate in trying out something new and try to think out of the box. Read the full article here.

Google's Search App for iPhone

According to Google it has made searching on iPhone easier and more fun through its first native app for the iPhone and iPod touch -- Google Mobile App.

Google Mobile App provides you a single text box to search through your contacts and the web. As soon as you start typing, it searches Google for things to help you. These could be typing suggestions, website suggestions or easy access to a search you made before. Google Mobile App even searches as you type so that you see results as soon as you finish typing. The Application remembers the things you do most and puts them at the top. Finally, Google Mobile App also uses the My Location feature to detect your current location and show nearby businesses on a map.

To get Google Mobile App, tap the App Store icon on your iPhone, or open iTunes, and search for 'Google Mobile'. You need to have the latest iPhone software update to see the App Store. Google Mobile App is currently only available in the US App Store, but will be available in other countries very soon.

Some good to have iPhone Applications

The new iPhone 3G is here and its available in Apple stores from this Friday so I thought why not find out some cool applications that goes quiet handy with iPhone.

• Truphone - This application allows you to make calls from your iphone over the internet. The application owners claim that a user can make cheap international calls from their iPhones. The rates can be seen here. The other features includes no roaming charges, free calls to Truphone to Truphone. The user can even call anyone on GTalk. To make a call on GTalk all that is required is to enter a gmail id like bizztratalks@gmail.com in the Truphone app and dial it. Although the first time a Truphone user calls a Google Talk user, an invitation is sent that has to be accepted before regular calls can
  be made. Once the invitation is accepted by the Google Talk user, calls can
  be made when both users are online.
• Loopt - Loopt recently announced a new version recently that was designed specifically for iPhone. Its a social mobile networking site where users can share their location photos and comments with their friends. The users can also share their recommendations for a restaurant, coffee joints or any such chill out places. In short Loopt enables users to broadcast their status to a broad set of services and find interesting locations and reviews nearby. The user can also update their status to their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Loopt is available at the iPhone Apple store.
• iZoho - iZoho is to iPhone what MS Office is to Windows OS. There are three applications available currently in iZoho - Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show which lets you view your documents, spreadsheets and presentations in Zoho. Currently you can view and edit your documents, but you cannot edit your spreadsheets and presentations (I guess now you can edit spreadsheets and presentations, not sure about this though ). You can also create new documents and view your presentations in landscape mode.
• Gas.app - Bugged of rising oil & gasoline prices? Try Gas.app on iPhone. This application allows you to find the nearest and cheapest gas station, when you provide your zip code. Not only this, the application also provides Google Map View of the station you choose. Gas.app can be downloaded from here.
  

Google goes Lively

"Be who you want on the web pages you visit" thats what Google claims with the launch of its new application Lively. Lively is a 3D virtual experience wherein you can express yourself by creating a room and adding different stuff to it. You get to choose your avatar and of course you can customize it, then you can choose different room styles and also pick furniture for your room.
You can choose to show your room to others by making it public or if you are from that not so rare breed of shy guys you may want to keep a restricted access to your room.
The idea behind creating a room is that if anyone visits your webpage and sees your room then he/she can have an idea about your interests by looking at the furniture and environment you chose. You can chat with each other and you can also interact through animated actions like dance, cry, applaud, bow and many others. Check out my room :) Right click on the avatar and choose dance1.

Make your own comic strip with Pixton

Are you bad in arts and still wanna show your creativity? Then check out Pixton.
Pixton is a new web application that can help you make your own comic strip. This is not all, you can publish your strip for others to read it. All you got to do is to sign in to your account, choose a type for your comic idea, select the characters for your comic strip and just add dialogues for your chosen characters. The publishing is simple as well.
The other features of Pixton are:

• You can the size of text in dialog bubbles.
• You can a fan of your favorite authors. Simply visit an author's profile page and click the blue button. Start growing your own fan-base too!
• You can change the colors of most of the props.
• Pixton has also added some new poses for your comic characters

Just show your imagination to the world with the help of Pixton. Its fun!!!!!

Microsoft's EQUIPT to be available after mid-july

Microsoft's Equipt, a new Office-based software-plus-service bundle, will be available on rent after mid-july. Equipt, which Microsoft describes as its “essential set of software and services for consumers,” includes a version of Office Home and Student 2007; Windows Live OneCare, Microsoft’s PC management/security bundle; a few Windows Live communication/collaboration services; and Office Live Workspace, Microsoft’s online-collaboration add-on to Office.
Equipt will be priced at $69.99/year. One license can be used for three PCs.
If and when Microsoft introduces any updates to any of the Equipt components during the year, subscribers will be entitled to receive them automatically for free as part of their paid subscription.

Video Ad Units from Adsense

Google has partnered with Broadbandtv , Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The Orchard to let AdSense publishers embed their videos and share in the ad revenue. The Adsense says that to choose any of these content providers for your video unit, you should get their YouTube username by visiting their YouTube channel, and then put this username into the "Channel" field when choosing content for your unit. The video units will be provided in two publisher friendly units - 728x90 and 160x600.
The two new formats will feature five video thumbnails - when a user clicks on one of the thumbnails, a full sized video unit will appear, along with accompanying ads


728x90

















160x600













The earnings will be generated for valid clicks or impressions on the ads which appear.
Adsense says that publishers can start using these units but I couldn't see any such option in my account.

Chat on iPhone with GTalk

iPhone and Gtalk users would love to here this news. Now they can chat with all their Google Talk buddies while on the go. The new version of Google Talk is designed specifically for the iPhone and runs in the iPhone's browser, so you don't need to download or install anything. Just visit www.google.com/talk on your iPhone, sign in, and start chatting. And because it is built for the browser, it will not only work on today's iPhones but on 3G iPhones as well. The application works from Safari and just because its a browser based app, it has some downsides. When you navigate away to another browser or application, your status will be change to "unavailable" and the GTalk session will be restarted when you return.

How to tell Firefox3 to let Gmail handle MailTo: links?

The default handler of MailTo: links is Firefox3 is Yahoo, so is there anything for a Gmail lover like me? Yes there is. You can change the mailto: link handler to Gmail. Just go through foloowing steps:

1. Open Firefox and type about:config in the address bar. Ignore the warning.
   
2. Search for gecko.handlerServiceAllowRegisterFromDifferentHost and change its value to true either by double clicking or right click-> Modify.
3. In the address bar paste the following code and press enter javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto",
   "https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","GMail")
4. You will get a message that says Add Gmail(mail.google.com) as an application for mailto links? ; just click the Add Application button.
5. Next time when you click on the mailto link you will get a pop up that allows you to choose application for mailto links. Just select Gmail and check the box that says Remember my choice for mailto links and click OK.

From now on all mailto links will be handled by Gmail.
To change this go to Tools-> options->Applications -> mailto.
In the dropdown of mailto select Application Details which will show a pop up. Select Gmail and click Remove.

Some Tips and Tricks for FireFox users

Here are some tips and tricks for all the Firefox lovers

• To zoom in or zoom out web pages just use "ctrl" + "+" or "ctrl" + "-" on your keyboard.
• To open a new tab use "ctrl" + "T" and to close the tab use "ctrl" + "W". To reopen a closed tab use "ctrl" + "shift"+ "T".
• To add a bookmark with a single click just click the star on the right side of the address bar.
• You can add keywords to your bookmarks for easier and faster access. Go to Bookmarks-> Organize bookmarks. The window that opens up is titled as Library. In the library just select your bookmark and add a keyword to it. From next time whenever you feel like opening your webpage just type the keyword in the address bar instead of the url.
• If you’re a Web developer, Firefox’s developer tools will make your life easier. The Mozilla Add-ons site offers many tools to streamline the development process, including Firebug to edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any Web page, Tamper Data to view and modify HTTP/HTTPS headers and POST parameters, and the DOM Inspector to examine any HTML or CSS element with a simple right click.

Bill Gates set to leave Microsoft

Microsoft is sure to witness a major event on 27 June 2008 when Bill Gates, founder, will leave his dream baby. Probably he will continue with his social service activities. As Microsoft's biggest shareholder, Gates will remain chairman and work on special technology projects. His 8.7 percent stake in Microsoft is worth about $23 billion.
I just got some interesting facts about Microsoft; thought I will list here.

Important Dates

Date	Event
1975	Microsoft founded
Jan. 1, 1979	Microsoft moves from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Bellevue, Washington
June 25, 1981	Microsoft incorporates
Aug. 12, 1981	IBM introduces its personal computer with Microsoft's 16-bit operating system, MS-DOS 1.0
Feb. 26, 1986	Microsoft moves to corporate campus in Redmond, Washington
March 13, 1986	Microsoft stock goes public
Aug. 1, 1989	Microsoft introduces earliest version of Office suite of productivity applications
May 22, 1990	Microsoft launches Windows 3.0
Aug. 24, 1995	Microsoft launches Windows 95
Dec. 7, 1995	Bill Gates outlines Microsoft's commitment  to supporting and enhancing the Internet
June 25, 1998	Microsoft launches Windows 98
Jan. 13, 2000	Steve Ballmer named president and chief executive officer for Microsoft
Feb. 17, 2000	Microsoft launches Windows 2000
June 22, 2000	Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer outline Microsoft's .NET strategy for Web services
May 31, 2001	Microsoft launches Office XP
Oct. 25, 2001	Microsoft launches Windows XP
Jan. 15, 2002	Bill Gates outlines Microsoft's commitment to Trustworthy Computing
Nov. 7, 2002	Microsoft and partners launch Tablet PC
Jan. 16, 2003	Microsoft declares annual dividend
April 24, 2003	Microsoft launches Windows Server 2003
Oct. 21, 2003	Microsoft launches Microsoft Office System
July 20, 2004	Microsoft announces plans to return up to $75 billion to shareholders in dividends and stock buybacks
June 15, 2006	Microsoft announces that Bill Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company in July 2008, Ray Ozzie is named chief software architect and Craig Mundie chief research and strategy officer
July 20, 2006	Microsoft announces a new $20 billion tender offer and authorizes an additional share- repurchase program of up to $20 billion over five years
Jan. 30, 2007	Microsoft launches Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System to consumers worldwide

Get your name only email ids on yahoo

Yahoo has started registration of new email addresses for its two new domains- ymail and rocketmail. To get one, please check one of the Google ads on this page that says Your-name-only email add.
or you may go here. Hurrrryyyyyy!!!!!!!!

Nokia buys Symbian

After a long courtship period of many years Nokia finally tied a knot with Symbian. Symbian's Series 60, UIQ and MOAP platforms will be merged into an open-sourced platform which is being seen as a step to counter attack Google's much-feted Android Open Handset Alliance project.

The companies that use Symbian will no longer be paying a license fee for using the platform. Nokia will contribute Symbian and its own Series 60 (S60) platform to a new non-profit organization called the Symbian Foundation. Sony Ericsson and Motorola will contribute the UIQ platform, and NTT DoCoMo will contribute its MOAP platform. The entire new platform will be made open source over the next two years under the Eclipse Public License (EPL) version 1.0. Other Symbian Foundation members include Texas Instruments, Vodafone, Samsung, LG, and AT&T.

Microsoft's XP is on its way out

Microsoft's much acclaimed and most successful operating system Windows XP will not be available in new PCs from 30 June. Microsoft's website clearly said "After careful consultation with our customers and industry partners, we've decided to proceed with our plan to phase out Windows XP in June." Although Windows XP won't be sold in stores, Microsoft and its partners will continue to offer technical support for Windows XP for months and years to come. In fact, Microsoft plans to support Windows XP until 2014.
Microsoft has decided to provide two type of support for XP - mainstream and extended.

Mainstream support delivers complimentary as well as paid support, free security updates and bug fixes to all Windows customers who purchase a retail copy of Windows XP (i.e. a shrink-wrapped, not pre-installed, copy). Mainstream support for Windows XP will continue through April 2009.

Extended support delivers free security updates to all Windows customers. Customers can also pay for support on a per-incident basis. Extended support for Windows XP will continue until April 2014. New bug fixes require the Extended Hotfix Support program.

Kool Firefox add-ons

Would you like to see a colorful icons of Firefox 3 browser? If yes then check out Qute; its a theme for firefox browser. I found Firefox 3 icons quiet dull and this is when I searched for a browser theme and landed on Qute theme for Firefox.


Wanna Share, Bookmark or Email your favorite webpage to your friends without actually copying the urls then try out Shareaholic. Shareaholic makes it easy for you to submit the web page you're on to your favorite sharing or bookmarking service, including: digg, del.icio.us, facebook, friendfeed, google bookmarks, google reader notes, kaboodle, magnolia, mixx, myspace, pownce, reddit, stumbleupon, tumblr, twitter, and ycombinator. You can also e-mail the web page directly to a friend.


More add-ons later.