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.

Refine your search with Xippee

Xippee is a browser add-in that helps you refine your search on most search engines like Google, yahoo, amazon etc. All you got to do is just double click any word from the search results and choose to add or remove that word from the query. The addition or removal of the word has to be done through the PLUS or MINUS buttons provided by Xippee. Xippee will also refresh your search results automatically. This add-in is available for all major browsers like IE, Firefox, Safari and opera. You and watch a Xippee demo download it from here.

Need a change in job? No? Then compare your salary and Rethink.

If you are satisfied with your salary, the you got to check this one. Just go to activetechpros.com and create your profile. You can then compare your salary with the average salary in your work related field. Have fun!!!!.

Yahoo to launch 2 new email domains soon

If you couldn't get your desired email id when yahoo was launched then yahoo will soon come to your rescue. Yahoo Inc. is all set to introduce two new email domains - ymail and rocketmail. The current yahoo.com web-based e-mail service has more than 260 million users worldwide.
E-mail accounts on ymail.com or rocketmail.com will have the same features available with yahoo.com addresses including unlimited storage, being able to instant message from within their e-mail inbox and spam and virus protection.

Sharing your favorite Youtube video on orkut made simpler

Did you sometime feel like sharing your favorite YouTube video with your friends on orkut? Previously, you had to go to your orkut "favorite videos" page and copy-and-paste the video URL to post these clips. Now you can share videos on orkut directly from YouTube! Click on the orkut logo under the video you are watching on YouTube, and you'll be taken directly to your "favorite videos" page on orkut. The URL of the video you're watching will already be loaded, so all you need to do is hit "add video" to post. Now that it's easier than ever, go ahead and share videos with your friends on orkut.

Some tips to make your Vista work faster

1) Disable some useless start up items first: Some of the software like Yahoo Messenger, Windows Sidebar and other applications uselessly load at start up eating away the resources like memory and cpu. To manage this

• Type “msconfig” without double quotes in the run prompt or at the command prompt
• Go to “startup” tab un check the unneeded startup items.

2) Disable the not required services: Repeat point 1 for the services tab instead of startup tab.

3) Add more memory: The simplest way to improve performance is to add more memory (RAM) to your system – 1GB (1024MB) is the minimum recommended amount, but add as much memory as you can afford.

4) Upgrade your drivers: Check for newer drivers specially for your graphics card and chipset.

5) Use USB Flash Drive: If you have a USB flash drive with at least 256MB or more of free space then you can use it to boost your system performance. All you got to do is choose “Speed up my system” when you plug in your flash drive into your system.

Microsoft's Worlwide Telescope

Who says sky is the limit, atleast not for Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope. Microsoft released its Telescope to let amateur and professionals gaze the stars and explore the universe from their computer system. The WorldWide Telescope is a rich Web application that accesses high-resolution images taken by ground- and Earth-orbiting telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. This software is quiet similar to Google Sky.
The main screen of the Worldwide Telescope contains stars visible to the human eye that are mapped into constellations. You can navigate with your mouse in any direction and zoom in or out with its scroll wheel.
The image in this post was created by NASA in 2000 and its called Earth's City Lights.
Just check out the beauty of universe through this Telescope.

Check your system's Windows Experience Index

If you are using Windows Vista and you have tried everything to improve your system's performance without much success then check your system's Windows Experience Index.

The Windows Experience Index measures the capability of your computer's hardware and software configuration and expresses this measurement as a number called a base score. A higher base score generally means that your computer will perform better and faster than a computer with a lower base score, especially when performing more advanced and resource-intensive tasks. The base scores currently range from 1 to 5.9.

To view your computer's base score:
1. Click Start, Control Panel, System and Maintenance and then click Performance Information and Tools.
2. View the Windows Experience Index base score and subscores for your computer. If you have recently upgraded your hardware and want to find out if your score has changed, click Update my score. If you don't see subscores and a base score, click Score this computer.

Now you can easily work upon those points that scored low points.

Google Talk & Yahoo messenger to enable interoperability

Recently Google announced that it has reached an agreement that gives Yahoo! the ability to use Google's search and contextual advertising technology through its AdSense™ for Search and AdSense for Content advertising programs. Under the agreement, Yahoo! has the option to display Google ads alongside its own natural search results in the U.S. and Canada.
In addition, Yahoo! and Google agreed to enable interoperability between their respective instant messaging services bringing easier and broader communication to users.
Soon you might be chatting with your friends on Yahoo Messenger through your Google Talk.

Are Emails Environment Friendly?

I was just surfing the channels on my TV when I heard that email are not actually environment friendly. I was quiet puzzled after listening this and then I tried putting in some thoughts and googling about power consumption during mail transfer.
Did we ever think what goes into sending an email from one computer (actually mail id) to other computer? Lets have a check on this.

When we send an email we use some energy and then there are these mail servers that stores your mails. These servers again requires temperature control systems which in turn requires transportation from their manufacturing plant to the installation location. Ofcourse computers, servers are also manufactured and transported.
In a study done by Information Week it was revealed that in US only the power consumption in 2005 for servers and related equipment in data centers was equivalent to about five 1,000-megawatt power plants, or your 5 typical nuclear or coal power plants. Globally its around 15 power plants. Damn!! thats kinda huge.

Now this raises some other questions:
1) What do we do or are we doing our bit to make environment green?
2) Can some energy be saved if we delete our mails regularly rather than storing them forever?
3)Is it possible to use solar energy for these mail servers?

I dont have the answers of the above questions (must be lot many in reader's minds) as of now but I do know one thing that I can help make environment green by:
1) planting at least one tree a month, that doesnt cost much
2)saving electricity wherever and whenever possible, probably by switching off my computer when I am away from it
3)saving water
4)making people realize about our environment.

Let me know if you can share some more toughts on this.

Google maps for mobile

Google offered yet another service from its internet magic box - Google Maps for Mobiles. Its available only for US mobile nos. as of now, I couldn't get it in India. If you are in US then check out the site here. You can as well check a review on this service here.

100 Best Companies to Work For...

I just saw this year's list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. The list has been published by Fortune.
Google has topped the list followed by Quicken Loans and Wegmans Food Markets.

There are other lists based on different parameters like Highest Pay, Best companies by state, Best benefits etc. Mind you this list covers companies only from America.
Check out the full list here.

Bugged with those unused files in your Laptop!! - Try CCleaner

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a freeware tool that can perform system optimization by removing unused and temporary files from your system, allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space. CCleaner cleans unused files from many applications like Adobe products (Flash Player, Photoshop, and Reader), Ad-Aware SE, Firefox, Google Toolbar, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, Nero, Norton Antivirus, Real Player, Windows Media Player, WinRAR, WinZip, and Google products to name a few.

This tool also has a Registry Cleaner that deletes old and unused entries.
I tried it on my laptop and I feel that the speed of my machine has increased, not significantly though, but still I was able to clean up the crap :).

Adobe presents Acrobat.com

Acrobat.com is a set of online services that enables a user to create and share documents from any computer, communicate in real-time across locations and simplify working with others online. With Acrobat.com, users can create Adobe® Buzzword® documents, convert documents to PDF, organize and access their documents from any internet-connected computer, share documents, and meet in real time with Adobe® ConnectNow.

Buzzword looks like a normal word processor, but it operates inside a web browser. Because Buzzword is web-based, the document you are editing is not stored on your local machine, but rather on Adobe's secure servers. This means that you can access your document from any web connection. Just like any other document editor you get all kinda tools to help you develop a document.
Adobe^® ConnectNow provides you with a secure, personal online meeting room where you can meet and collaborate with others via the web in real time. With ConnectNow you can share your screen, chat, share notes webcam or files with your friends.
With Acrobat.com you can also create pdf files online. The only drawback I found in Acrobat.com is its slow speed, although you cant expect much when it comes to online sharing and file creation. Check out Acrobat.com here.