Print only what you want with HP Smart Web Printing

You should read this article at DemoGeek.com to know about a fantastic tool that helps you save the environment by reducing the paper usage by printing only what you want on a webpage. HP Smart Web Printing tool is a simple tool that plugs into Internet Explorer or Firefox and helps you print what you want on a webpage rather than the whole web page itself.

Technorati Tags: HP Smart Web Printing,How To,Go Green

Extend your Windows Vista laptop battery life with Vista Battery Saver

Learn from this article on how to automatically turn off the power-consuming features of Windows Vista to conserve on your laptop’s battery power.

Technorati Tags: Vista Battery Saver,Windows Vista Battery Saver,Save laptop battery power,How To,Laptop battery

Make your web sites available in different languages using Google Translate Gadget

If you have a blog or a website then it would be nice thing to have the ability for your readers to translate your website into their own language. You don’t have to create different versions of your website to provide your readers with a way to read your website in the language of their choice.

DemoGeek.com has a well explained article on how to translate your website or blog to different languages using Google Translate Gadget.

It is definitely worth a read.

Technorati Tags: Google Translate,Google Translate Gadget,Website Translation,Language Translation,Multi-lingual,How To

Manage your emails better with Gmail’s Superstars

Ever felt the need to manage your emails better? If you are using Gmail then you should read this article on how to better manage your emails. A nice and simple trick to make use of that really pays off when it comes to email management using Gmail.

Technorati Tags: Gmail,Gmail Superstars,Better email management,How To

Clean up dead links on your Internet Explorer or Firefox Bookmarks

Have a long list of bookmarks on your browser and don’t know how to simply cleanup those bookmarks that are not working anymore? Follow this detailed article at DemoGeek.com to learn more on how to simply cleanup dead links on your Internet Explorer or Firefox Bookmarks. This is a definite must read which will come-in handy when you are struggling with your long list of bookmarks.

Read more on how to simply cleanup dead links on your Internet Explorer or Firefox Bookmarks.

Technorati Tags: Internet Explorer,Firefox,Bookmarks Cleaner,Bookmarks,How To,Tips

Enhance your Internet Explorer 7 browsing experience with IE7Pro add-on

DemoGeek.com has another great article on how to enhance your Internet Explorer browsing experience with IE7Pro add-on. IE7Pro is an add-on that you can download and install and it brings an experience that Firefox users enjoy with their extendable browser. Even if not as expandable and as feature rich as Firefox’s extensions are, IE7Pro does bring in some enhancements to the browsing experience with IE7.

Another well-explained article from DemoGeek.com that you should read.

Recharge your gadgets without wires

A Pennsylvania based company, Powercast, came up with an impressive product to cut the wires on small to medium gadgets and let the recharge happen wireless. That is a pretty cool concept and the good thing about this is that they just didn’t come up with the concept but they’ve made that concept into a product and have successfully signed agreements with more than 100 companies including the electronics giant Philips.

Here is how it works…A transmitter plugs into the wall, and a dime-size receiver (the real innovation, costing about $5 to make) can be embedded into any low-voltage device. The receiver turns radio waves into DC electricity, recharging the device’s battery at a distance of up to 3 feet.

Read more about this cool stuff here.

Technorati Tags: Recharge over the air, Wireless Recharge, Gadgets, Recharge, Wireless Electricity, Cool Gadget, Powercast, Cool Product, Innovative Product

ZYB: Online Mobile Phone Contact Backup Service

I just tried ZYB, the online mobile phone contact backup service and I’ve to tell ya, it is simply a great tool to make sure your cell phone numbers are safely backed up somewhere online. I always was concerned of losing my cell phone or having it not startup on a fine day. One day I happen to drop my cell phone in the rain and it wouldn’t start up after that and I still remember the moment when I was literally trying my best to make sure I get my contacts written somewhere safe. Fortunate for me that I got my cell phone back up and running without that many hassles but that taught me a good lesson and importance of keeping a backup of my cell phone contacts.

When I heard of ZYB providing the same service of what I was looking for, I thought of giving it a try. Truly it was a seamless effort to back up my cell phone contacts. Even though the web site was a bit slow in terms of performance it was simple enough to have my RAZR contacts backed up with few simple steps that ZYB will guide you thru.

One great service that I would recommend you to try.

tags: Backup, Backup Cellphone, Backup Cellphone Contacts, Backup Service

Mapplets: Google Map Gadgets

Google just released a new feature to its Google Maps called Mapplets. Mapplets are simple/small gadgets that can be embedded into the Google Maps. Mapplets can be found under “My Maps” if you are signed-in to Google network. There are bunch of Mapplets that Google has put out to begin with including, Real Estate Search, Photos, Gas Prices, Distance Measurement Tool, Earth as Art, and Crop Circles. But when you click the “Add Content” button you get a much bigger list of all the available Mapplets and I’m sure if you don’t find the one you are looking for it would be available soon.

To check out Google Mapplets you would, obviously, have to visit Google Maps.

Tags: Google, Google Maps, Mapplets, Google Mapplets, Breaking News, New Features

Folders4Gmail: Create nested labels in Gmail

As you know Labels are so convenient in Gmail to deal with the huge volume of emails. Depends on who you are it could get cluttered with so many different labels defined to handle different contexts. Folders4Gmail is a cool solution to this issue. This Greasemonkey script lets you structure the labels like folders with nested labels that could make it easy to handle the plethora of labels that you might end up with.

You can create the nested look by inserting “\” into the label name. So to create the “Middle” folder as shown in the screenshot, you need to create two labels, one with the name “Top Level” and a second with the name “Top Level\Middle.” Once you do that the script will sense the “\” and will nest the “Middle” label under “Top Level”.

Folders4Gmail is a free download for Firefox with the Greasemonkey extension. You can download the script from here.

Tags: Gmail, Labels, Nested Labels, Scripts, Greasemonkey, Greasemonkey Scripts, Tips and Tricks, How To

Bust A Name – Your domain name finder

Most of us run into this minor ache of coming up with the domain name that’s available. Often we try multiple times to see if the domain name is available or not to mostly end up with an irritating “domain unavailable” message. “Bust a Name” gives you a hand on this issue to help you come up with a combination of domain names based on some keywords and to check and see if those domains are available. By default it checks for .com, .net and .org which is pretty handy.

Take a look at this cool service from here.

Tags: Domain, Register a Domain, Bust a name, Domain Service

ExplorerXP – Windows Explorer Alternative

Hate Windows Explorer? Count me on that list too. There were off a lot of features missing in the standard Windows Explorer. I’ve tried quite a few alternatives like Explorer2, Frigate File Manager etc. But nothing made me comfortable until I found this…ExplorerXP. This is a nice little tool that has pretty much of what you miss in the standard Windows Explorer. On top of that it is FREE.

Try it from here.

tags: Tools, Free, Free Software, Free Stuff, Windows Explorer, Explorer XP, Windows Explorer Alternative

Google Voice Local Search

If you are on the road or at a place where you don’t have internet access but you carried your phone with you and want to find a business to the locality, you’ve got a solution now. GOOG-411 from Google helps you find businesses based on city, state or category. Even it connects you to the phone number listed for that business.

Try it out.

PS: Keep in mind that it’s still in experimental state.

tags: Google, Google Labs, GOOG, GOOG-411, 411, Google Voice Local Search, Tools, Tips and Tricks, Useful Tip

Recharge your gadgets without wires

A Pennsylvania based company, Powercast, came up with an impressive product to cut the wires on small to medium gadgets and let the recharge happen wireless. That is a pretty cool concept and the good thing about this is that they just didn’t come up with the concept but they’ve made that concept into a product and have successfully signed agreements with more than 100 companies including the electronics giant Philips.

Here is how it works…A transmitter plugs into the wall, and a dime-size receiver (the real innovation, costing about $5 to make) can be embedded into any low-voltage device. The receiver turns radio waves into DC electricity, recharging the device’s battery at a distance of up to 3 feet.

Read more about this cool stuff here.

tags: Recharge over the air, Wireless Recharge, Gadgets, Recharge, Wireless Electricity, Cool Gadget, Powercast, Cool Product, Innovative Product

Time Projecting Alarm Clock

I just love this little gadget from Emerson. It’s an alarm clock that projects the time on to the floor/wall or any flat surface that are at a reasonable distance. I wear glasses and I keep the alarm clock on the back of the bed (thanks to IKEA) and so it was very inconvenient to peek at the time with sleepy eyes. This new gadget allows me to project the time on the ceiling floor, just above the eye if I stretch straight on my bed. It was just so handy.

If you are ready to shell out $29.99 I would highly recommend this or one of these versions.

tags: Emerson, Projection Clock, Gadget

WordPress 2.1.1 has been hacked, advised to upgrade to 2.1.2

It’s been a breaking news on the blogosphere. That’s no surprise given the popularity of WordPress blogging platform. They just (few days back) released the latest version of WordPress 2.1.1 and that had some good stuffs that must have got attention of some of the bloggers to upgrade.

To their surprise, it’s been revealed that the copies they’ve downloaded might not be the genuine copy. Someone (?) had hacked into their servers to modify the release bits to include backdoors. So whomever have downloaded WordPress 2.1.1 for the past few days are advised to upgrade to WordPress 2.1.2.

Given the severity of this stuff, they’ve even established an email address, 21securityfaq@wordpress.org, that you can use if you have any questions regarding this. 

Source: Matt at WordPress

Google Maps now has traffic information as well

Even though I like MapQuest better than Google Maps (alternating routing is MapQuest’s major advantage), I do acknowledge the fact that Google Maps revolutionized the online mapping segment. Google just silently released a new feature, Traffic, to their Google Maps. You should be able to see a “Traffic” button on Google Maps if it’s available in your area.

Google Traffic is color coded. If you see RED, it means that there is less than 25 MPH traffic flow.  YELLOW means that there is 25–50 MPH traffic flow. GREEN means the traffic is flowing at more than 50 MPH. 

Initially, Google released this feature to San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Dallas, covering each region. Now they have released this feature for more than 30 major US cities.

Check it out, if it’s available in your area.

Technorati tags: Google, Google Maps, Google Traffic, Breaking News

Yahoo integrates Yahoo Messenger with Yahoo Mail Beta

Yahoo is in the process of releasing a killer feature on their Yahoo Mail (beta) platform, to integrate it’s ultra-famous Yahoo Messenger with Yahoo Mail. The way they are doing it makes it even neat. What that brings to user experience is that a single platform for both mail and messaging. Google tried that a while back but it wasn’t a huge hit with the users as Yahoo Messenger seems to still rule the instant messaging world.

I use Yahoo Messenger a lot and I love it. And then I use Yahoo Mail as well. So we are talking about 2 applications and so 2 windows on your precious Windows Taskbar real estate. With this integration you’ll be able to see the online status of your contacts from the Yahoo Mail and if they are online you can ping them to get them involved in a chat session. That will open up a new web tab within the Yahoo Mail window (this tab is not a browser tab, don’t get confused with that) and you can have a hierarchical view of the conversation. The neat thing about this whole thing is that you can convert the whole chat session into an email and have a record of what you said or embarrass your buddies, however you wanna’ do it.

This new service from Yahoo is not yet available to the whole public. The requirement is that you have to use their new Yahoo Mail Beta (not the traditional one) and keep your fingers crossed. If you see an online status icon next to your contacts name on the email then you are all set to chat within the context of Yahoo Mail.

Good luck.

tags: Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Mail Beta, Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger Integration, Yahoo, New stuff from Yahoo

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 is available for free download

If you are into virtualization then you should give a good hard look into the Microsoft’s latest in the virtualization arena, Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. Microsoft just released Virtual PC 2007 and is available as a free download. Of course, you’d need a machine with some spare memory and hard disk space to handle the extra load of the virtual PC.

Here is what you need to install Virtual PC 2007 on these platforms,

Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition

64 MB – Memory

500 MB – Hard Disk Space

Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me)

96 MB

2 GB

Windows 2000 Professional

96 MB

2 GB

Windows XP Home Edition

128 MB

2 GB  

Windows XP Professional

128 MB

2 GB

Windows Vista Enterprise

512 MB

15 GB

Windows Vista Business

512 MB

15 GB

Windows Vista Ultimate

512 MB

15 GB

OS/2 Warp Version 4 Fix Pack 15, OS/2 Warp
Convenience Pack 1, OS/2 Warp Convenience Pack 2

64 MB

500 MB

Download it from here.

Technorati tags: Virtual PC, Virtual PC 2007, Virtualization, Microsoft, Free, Free Download

Download: Paint.NET 3.0

Paint.NET is an absolutely fantastic extension of the handy Paint tool that comes with Windows. Rick Brewster and his team has now deployed the latest version, Paint.NET 3.0. Here are the changes in the 3.0 version,

• Simple and intuitive tab-based multi-document user interface
• Available in 8 languages: English, Chinese (Simplified), French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish
• Interactive Gradient Tool that makes it very easy to draw and then fine-tune placement and coloring of a gradient.
• User-definable color palette (as opposed to just the color wheel)
• New effects: Clouds, Median, Unfocus, Outline, and an improved Sharpen
• More intuitive and more powerful toolbar
• Generally improved and cleaner user interface
• History files are now compressed to save disk space, reduce disk activity, and improve performance.
• “Merge Down” layer command

Download Paint.NET 3.0 from here.

Technorati tags: Paint, Paint.NET, Paint.NET 3.0, Tools, Downloads

Faster Windows Live Mail M9

Microsoft has updated its Windows Live Mail service to M9. New features include:

• Much faster loading and advanced Firefox compatibility (works fully in Firefox 2)
• The Classic Mode will be the default view from Hotmail users – brand new users won’t be taken to the fully AJAX’d page but to the Classic interface for “ease-of-use” purposes.
• A new Today page rolls out, including what would be on your Today page in Windows Live Messenger.
• Recent Updates now added as a tabbed page on the Today page allowing you to switch to what’s changed (blogs, contacts and newsletters etc.)
• Search bar at the top of the page has been updated and tweaked slightly for the other themes.

Not all the servers have been updated as of yet. Use the link below to access Windows Live Mail using the bay117 server.

Access the fastest Windows Live Mail from this bay117 server. Believe me…it’s really fast.

Source: Neowin.net

Technorati tags: Microsoft, Windows Live Mail, Faster Windows Live Mail

WordPress 2.1 "Ella" released

WordPress just released it’s latest stable version 2.1, code named “Ella”, named after Ella Fitzgerald. Here is a list of features that’s been bundled with the new release,

• Autosave makes sure you never lose a post again.
• Our new tabbed editor allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.
• The lossless XML import and export makes it easy for you to move your content between WordPress blogs.
• Our completely redone visual editor also now includes spell checking.
• New search engine privacy option allows you take you to indicate your blog shouldn’t ping or be indexed by search engines like Google.
• You can set any “page” to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else, making it much easier to use WordPress as a content management system.
• Much more efficient database code, faster than previous versions. Domas Mituzas from MySQL went over all our queries with a fine-toothed comb.
• Links in your blogroll now support sub-categories and you can add categories on the fly.
• Redesigned login screen from the Shuttle project.
• More AJAX to make custom fields, moderation, deletions, and more all faster. My favorite is the comments page, which new lets you approve or unapprove things instantly.
• Pages can now be drafts, or private.
• Our admin has been refreshed to load faster and be more visually consistent.
• The dashboard now instantly and brings RSS feeds asynchronously in the background.
• Comment feeds now include all the comments, not just the last 10.
• Better internationalization and support for right-to-left languages.
• The upload manager lets you easily manage all your uploads pictures, video, and audio.
• A new version of the Akismet plugin is bundled.

Get WordPress 2.1 from here.

Technorati tags: WordPress, WordPress Latest Release, WordPress 2.1, Blog Platform

Spiral Text Generator

I love spiral texts. Generate one from here (PartyPrinter).

PS: There are other shapes like heart, wave and even maze. Also keep in mind that the output comes in a PDF format.

Visit DemoGeek.com for amazingly detailed quality articles on Computer, Internet, Browsers, Software, Programming and much more.

Technorati tags: Tools, Spiral Text

Workrave – Prevent Repetitive Strain Injury

We all know that we spend so much time in front of the PC that it would be for good to have some breaks in between. Being into an interesting piece of work we tend to forget the goodness of taking a little break.

Workrave is a nice little utility that’s dedicated for this and only for this purpose, that  keeps annoying you for a break.

Here is what Workrave has to say about this utility,

Workrave is a program that assists in the recovery and prevention of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). The program frequently alerts you to take micro-pauses, rest breaks and restricts you to your daily limit.

Download it from here.

Technorati tags: Utility, Tools, Repetitive Strain Injury

FileMenu – Handy Right Click Menu Customizer

Here is a nice little utility that comes in handy given the limitations of the default Windows menu choices, particularly the right click menu. LopeSoft’s FileMenu utility let’s you customize the choice of menus that you want to appear on the right click menu and also it allows you to add new shortcuts to the menu. It’s a great little utility and it works like a snap.

Give it a try. I’m sure it will be handy and you’ll like it.

Technorati tags: Tools, FileMenu, Utility, System Tool, Windows Menu Tool

Firefox 2.0.0.1 update is available for download

Mozilla today silently released a patch version of Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1. The update is not available yet on the Firefox homepage but you can get this update thru their FTP servers.

This update includes some major bug fixes and some fixes to memory leaks. Here is a complete list of bugs that are fixed in 2.0.0.1.

Firefox team indicates that some of the memory leak issues are because of the Adobe Flash Player issues and they suggest to download the latest Adobe Flash Player (version 9.0.28.0).

Download Firefox 2.0.0.1 (Direct Link – Approx. 5.8 MB)

Technorati tags: Mozilla, Firefox, Firefox 2.0.0.1, Adobe Flash Player

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Released

Scott Guthrie announces that, Visual Studio team shipped the final release of Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 yesterday. It is available for immediate download in all 10 languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and both traditional and simplified Chinese). 

This SP release is a pretty major service pack release and incorporates a lot of bug-fixes and feedback from customers. Included with the service pack are the support for VS 2005 Web Application Projects (which is also made available as a separate download back in May). It also contains a number of design-time performance optimizations and fixes across the product.

You can download and install it here.

Technorati tags: Visual Studio.NET IDE, Visual Studio 2005, Service Pack, VS 2005 SP1

Google Maps adds multiple destinations

The ever famous Google Maps now allows you to get directions for multiple destinations. That’s pretty cool of a feature that was missing for quite a while from a service like Google Maps and the Google Maps team has just unveiled the feature for your convenience.

To add multiple destinations to your driving directions, just click the Add destination link below the directions and add as many touchpoints as you would want.

Visit Google Maps.

PS: I’m not sure whether they have rolled this out in a hurry or not but Google Maps now complains when I tried to locate my home address. Duh!

Technorati tags: Google, Google Maps, Google Maps New Feature, Multiple Destinations on Google Maps

Google lets you register your domain for $10 per year with "Google Apps For Your Domain" feature

Last August Google announced the availability of “Google Apps for your domain”. Here is a quote from Google of what the “Google Apps for your domain” feature is.

Google Apps for Your Domain lets you offer private-labeled email, IM and calendar accounts to all of your users, so they can share ideas and work more effectively. These services are all unified by the start page, a new addition to this service, a unique, dynamic page where your users can preview their inboxes and calendars, browse content and links that you choose, search the web, and further customize the page to their liking. You can also design and publish web pages for your domain.

Until now the feature was only available to the people who already own a domain, who wanted to add Google Apps to their domains.

Now surprisingly Google added a new cool feature to it that lets people who don’t yet have their own domain to register new domains for $10 per year. Google has partnered with GoDaddy.com and eNom, two leading domain registration services, to offer domains for $10 per year. And what’s further cool is that it includes “private registration”. Private registrations helps protect your personal information by not publishing your private information to the Whois database.  

Make use of the service here.

Technorati tags: Google, Google Apps, Domain Registration, 10 per year domain registration, GoDaddy, eNom

Download Adobe Photoshop CS3 Beta

Adobe Labs now offers the new beta version of Photoshop CS3 for public download. The beta is available as a Universal Binary for the Macintosh platform as well for Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista computers, with the final shipping release of Adobe Photoshop CS3 planned for spring 2007.

The Photoshop CS3 beta is available in English only but to Photoshop CS2 users worldwide. It is available to licensed users of either the Photoshop CS2 (full, upgrade, and education), Adobe Creative Suite 2 Standard or Premium (full, upgrade, and education), Adobe Production Studio Standard and Premium (full, upgrade, and education), Adobe Video Bundle (full, upgrade, and education) or Adobe Web Bundle (full, upgrade, and education). You will need to provide your Photoshop CS2, Creative Suite, Production Studio or Bundle serial number in order to get a Photoshop CS3 beta serial number, enabling you to activate the Photoshop beta and use it beyond the two-day grace period.

DownloadSquad reports that even if you don’t own CS2 you can still try the CS3 beta for free for 30 days.

Download the Adobe Photoshop CS3 Beta from here.

Technorati tags: Adobe, Photoshop, Photoshop CS3, Download Photoshop CS3 Beta

Google releases Google Toolbar 3 Beta

Google announced on Tuesday the availability of it’s new Google Toolbar 3 Beta version. The new beta version is packed with handy features that makes downloading Google Toolbar 3 Beta a smart thing to do. Here are the new features at a glance.

• Custom buttons
• Send To
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets
• Bookmarks
• Google Account Sign-in
• Enhanced Search Box
• Google Safe Browsing
• AutoFill
• WordTranslator
• Subscribe to Feed
• Send with Gmail
• Custom Layouts
• AutoLink
• SpellCheck
• PageRank Display
• Highlight Search Terms
• Word Find Buttons
• Auto Update

Here is the full list of the new features.

for Firefox 1.5+ versions.

For Internet Explorer 6.0+ versions please use this link to download the toolbar.

Technorati tags: Google, Google Toolbar 3, Google Toolbar 3 Beta

Extendable Task Bar if you use multiple monitors

If you are upto the standards and you use multiple (extended) monitors at home or work then you should have to have these tools to make life easier. Media Chance has a Task Bar that extends to the second or even the third monitor so that you can have your own Task Bar for each monitors.

Here is what it does,

• It adds second taskbar to the extended desktop on Monitor 2 (either right or left)
• It can add third taskbar to the second Extended monitor if you have 3 monitors setup.
• It shows only applications from that Monitor
• It hides the applications on Monitor 2 from normal Windows Taskbar

 The cool thing about this tool is that it adds a “Move To” button at the top of each window which will allow you to move the window from one monitor to the other with a click of a button.

It’s a pretty handy tool if you use multiple monitors.

Visit the site here.

Download it from here. (~500KB)

Technorati tags: Multiple Monitors, Task Bar

Send text messages from your PS2 or XBox 360 game controllers

Texter™, a new plug-in kind of device for the game controllers from Blue Orb Inc. lets you send text messages from your Playstation® 2 and XBox 360™ game controllers. This would particularly be helpful for the gamers who need to message with their buddies and enemies while they are on the game. It’s particularly useful for XBox™ Live Chat.

It’s kind of a new way of typing without the traditional keyboard. They claim that its 5 times faster than the tradition keyboard typing. I haven’t tried it though so I’m not sure how true the claim is.

The Texter™ also allows you to use your controller to type on a PC!

The Texter™ is currently available for the Playstation® 2 and will soon be available for the Xbox 360.

Visit this page to get an idea of what all these means.

Technorati tags: PS2, XBox 360, Text Message using PS2 or XBox 360

Gmail gets some new features

With all the cool things that Gmail already offers, here are some new features that Gmail team has added to Gmail and is available for you to experience.

Reply on top
No more scrolling to the bottom of a long message to find the “Reply” link. Now there’s a Reply button right on top, along with a lot of other options under the little dropdown arrow.

Embarrassment-reducing new message notifications
Ever replied to a message only to find out that someone sent a better, smarter reply right before you? Now, if someone sends a reply while you’re in the middle of reading a conversation (or replying to it), you’ll get a notification that a new message has arrived. Click “update conversation” to see what you’ve missed.

Forward all
When viewing a conversation, use the new “Forward all” link on the right if you want to forward the entire conversation instead of just one message.

Chat even when your friends are offline
Chatting in Gmail just keeps getting better. Now, if you’re chatting with a friend who goes offline, your friend will be able to see whatever you were typing the next time he or she goes online.

Technorati tags: Gmail, New Gmail Features

InlineSearch – Search like Firefox in IE

For those us who use Firefox day-in and day-out are kind of blessed, particularly when it comes to trying to find something on a page. We just either start typing-in and let Firefox do the inline search and move to the block of text that matches or we “Ctrl + F” and then type-in the text that we want to find. Blessed are the Firefoxers.

Now think about the same experience if you are using Internet Explorer. IE, by default, comes with a modal search dialog that’s pretty much annoying at times of searching thru long pages. Now, blessing arrives for IEers in the form of InlineSearch.

InlineSearch is a free add-on for Internet Explorer that brings into IE the same search experience of Firefox. It pretty much behaves the same as Firefox search. It hijacks only the search shortcut key “Ctrl + F”. What does that mean? That means for those patriotic IEers you can still go back to the traditional IE search by using the Edit menu.

Here are some shortcuts that would be handy when using InlineSearch,

CTRL-F – to open/refresh the search pane

ESC – to close the search pane when in focus

F3 or ENTER – find the next occurrence

SHIFT-F3 – find the previous occurrence (Shift-Enter works too)

You can download InlineSearch from here.

Note: It plays nice with IE versions 5.5 and above.

Technorati tags: IE, Internet Explorer, IE Add-on, InlineSearch, Tool, Browser

del.icio.us tags: IE, Internet Explorer, IE Add-on, InlineSearch, Tool, Browser

SQL Doc – A handy tool for documenting SQL Server databases

Red Gate has released a public beta of a new tool, SQL Doc.

SQL Doc is a simple tool for documenting your SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 databases. You can download this beta from here.

This beta release of SQL Doc includes the following features:
- Document one or many databases
- Produce documentation in HTML, with or without frames
- Includes all cross-database dependencies
- Live preview pane
- Command line access version

Limitations:
As you know, this is a beta release and will probably contain some bugs.

And they claim that the following are the known issues which they claim will be fixed by the final release:
- Menus do not work correctly under Windows Vista
- Connection properties dialog does not always behave correctly when editing an existing project

The picture below will give you an idea of what SQL Doc can do. Click on the picture to view the original size.

Technorati tags: SQL, SQL Server, SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005, Red-Gate, Tools, SQL Doc

del.icio.us tags: SQL, SQL Server, SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005, Red-Gate, Tools, SQL Doc

Adobe Labs releases Adobe Digital Editions Beta

I’m not a big time online book (eBook) reading guy. Having said I have to say that I do have few eBooks that I wish I have the time to read. Normally I used to read ‘em (glance at ’em) using our favorite PDF readers (lately I’m pretty much impressed with the FoxIt Reader). It was boring for sure…but hey…we didn’t have a choice. But now I cannot have that excuse.

Adobe Labs lately came up with a flash based eBook Reader and they’ve weirdly named it as “Digital Editions”. The name might be fitting in their books but on my book. I wish they should have chosen a different name which can reflect more of the product than just a fancy name.

Anyway, I had this on my list of items to do for a few days now. I couldn’t find the time to download and review it a bit. Today I got the time and have downloaded the latest beta version of Adobe Digital Editions and have just peaked at an eBook that I wanted to read for a while now. It looks pretty cool to me. The installation was a breeze with “almost no user interaction”. I particularly liked the black background that tend to occupy the whole desktop area when you are in the reading mode. That’s pretty cool to make all the distractions hidden in the background.

Also, I like the way the library has been separated from the current reading pane and the cool thing is that it remembers the last layout when you’ve exited Digital Editions and takes you to that layout which is pretty helpful in places, particularly when reading, when you have a multi-page eBook and wanted to jump directly into where you left off the last time. That’s pretty neat.

Things to keep in mind is that it still is in Beta edition and so things might not have been as sturdy as it is supposed to be. And also I’ve noticed that it was taking around 50 MB of memory space when loaded with around 10 eBooks (only one open at the reading pane). 50 MB is not a big deal if you are on the multi-Gig group but if you are on the multi-Mega group then you might want to watch out as our lovely Foxit Reader (with the same eBook open) took only around 11 MB, which is quite a difference. So you weigh in your options and if you have the infrastructure to go for it then go for it. It surely is a worthy product to keep it in your Frequent Programs list.

You can download Adobe Digital Editions Beta from here.

Technorati tags: Adobe, Adobe Digital Editions, eBook Reader, Free eBook Reader

del.icio.us tags: Adobe, Adobe Digital Editions, eBook Reader, Free eBook Reader

Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP is officially released

Microsoft recently released it’s flagship media player, Windows Media Player 11, for Windows XP. I’ve been using the beta version of Window Media Player 11 for a while now and it seems to be pretty well built. I particularly like the new user interface that it comes with. It’s kind of Vista’ish but that looks something different than the blue Windows XP world.

I like the concept that there is no Stop button rather it just has the Pause and Play buttons, which is one less confusion to the user. Also, it has support for URGE, the Microsoft version of iTunes Store and it seems like they both (Windows Media Player 11 and URGE) play well together.

The drawback that I could see is that there is no support for podcasters and that’s a pretty big miss. But if you don’t really care about podcasting then you wouldn’t be disappointed with this new Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP.

Download the Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP from here.

PS: As a Microsoft standard these days for downloading any softwares this download also requires a “Windows Genuine Advantage” check.

Technorati tags: Microsoft, MSFT, Windows, Windows Media, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Player 11, URGE, Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP

del.icio.us tags: Microsoft, MSFT, Windows, Windows Media, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Player 11, URGE, Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP

Microsoft is offering Office Accounting 2007 for free

Before they change their mind go grab a copy of Microsoft^® Office Accounting 2007 Express, if it matters to you. Its available as a free download from Microsoft. On a cautious note, it is a 338MB file and so if you are not on a high speed connection you might want to do it at an off-peak time. With my high speed FiOS connection it took a good 20 minutes to download.

This is what Microsoft has to say on this new software,

Microsoft^® Office Accounting Express 2007 is everything you need to make your small business idea flourish. Whatever your idea, take it further with these great features:

Save time on everyday tasks

• Create quotes and invoices; track expenses and employee time
• Enter data once and share it seamlessly with other Microsoft Office system programs
• Manage payroll and taxes with ADP’s integrated payroll service

Get a complete view of your business

• Store and organize all your customer, vendor, employee, and financial information in one place
• Get business insights with over 20 customizable reports
• Easily share your books with your accountant through Office Live

Grow your business online

• List items on eBay, track sales activity, and download and process orders
• Email invoices and get paid faster with PayPal
• Monitor your customers’ business credit in real-time through Equifax

If the “Download Office Accounting Express” image doesn’t show-up above, please use this link to download the software. I apologize for this inconvenience.

Technorati tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Accounting 2007, Free, Free Software, Free Download

del.icio.us tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Accounting 2007, Free, Free Software, Free Download

TinyMenu – A space saving Firefox add-on

Try this add-on to eliminate the precious space the menu takes up on the Firefox toolbar. If you notice that it takes the whole line for the menu bar but half of the space is just wasted as the menu really fills only half of the line.

Get TinyMenu from here.

Here is what you should do once you install and restart your Firebox browser,

• Right-click on a toolbar and click “Customize”.
• Drag all the items from the navigation bar up to the menu bar. You’ll have to do them one at a time, so it takes a little while.
• Click “Done” to get out of customize mode.
• Right-click on a toolbar and un-select the navigation toolbar.
• Right-click on a toolbar again and click “Customize”.
• This time, drag the items from the Customize window to the menu bar (arranging it as you’d prefer). Again, you’d have to do this one at at time and so it takes a while.
• Click “Done” to get out of the customize mode.

And that’s it. You’ve just saved a line of real estate on your browser.

Technorati tags: Spacesaver, TinyMenu, Firefox add-on

Scrybe – "It will blow you up" kind of an Online/Offline Organizer

Warning: You will be amazed or stunned by looking at this stuff. Please use caution.

My search for an online organizer/companion ends right here. Yes. Scrybe, an incredibly “out of the world” online organizer with offline support as well is about to launch this month and I have no words to explain how this has been thought thru and done with perfection that I would rather let you watch this video and blow your mind up.

Recommended: Grab a chair that’s sturdy enough.

If the embedded player doesn’t work, here is the outgoing link for you to experience.

Where in this world these folks have arrived from?

Scrybe, you’ve just completely taken off of me if this holds true on the real release. I can’t wait when you folks raise the curtain up at iScrybe.com.

And, these are just simple words to say, thank you for a job well done.

Way to go Scrybe!!!

Technorati tags: Online Organizer, Scrybe, Online/Offline Organizer, Online Companion

del.icio.us tags: Online Organizer, Scrybe, Online/Offline Organizer, Online Companion

Internet Explorer 7 Is Available For Public Download – A Hack To Avoiding The Automatic Upgrade

Microsoft just managed to release the full version of Internet Explorer 7 just on time and is ready for public download. You can get the latest Internet Explorer bits in 2 ways.

• One is to go download and install it by yourself.
• And the other is to do a Windows Update.

If you don’t install it by yourself then by the time the next Windows Update happens (if you have it configured to update automatically) you’ll get the new Internet Explorer.

I agree that it looks like its been forced upon you. I can see that. But, don’t worry, there is a hack available to stop the automatic Windows Update from upgrading your Internet Explorer.

Here is how,

• Copy this command (except the quotes) to a .BAT or .CMD file “REG ADD “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\7.0″ /v DoNotAllowIE70 /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f“
• Run the file, by calling it in the command prompt or by double-clicking it.

Note: When you are ready to allow Windows Update to upgrade your browser then change the above switch from 1 to 0 for the REG_DWORD. Here is the script for allowing automatic update to do its job. “REG ADD “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\7.0″ /v DoNotAllowIE70 /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f“

Okay, so by now you must have gotten the latest Internet Explorer 7 bits and must have (mostly) installed it already. Then, what’s next? Wait there is more on the line. You can extend your Internet Explorer experience by installing some of these add-ons (that’s a new thing to IE of what Extensions are for Firefox).

There are a bunch of add-ons available, like for example,

• Pop-Up Blockers
• Parental Controls
• Download Managers
• Developer Tools
• Offline Browsers
• Music and Audio Players
• Video Players etc.

Keep in mind that there are a whole bunch of add-ons available under each category and so please pay attention before choosing one. But some of the add-ons are really useful and I hope that the add-on community will unleash more as now IE7 is available for the mainstream public.

Hope there won’t be an SP1 right away!!!

Until then, enjoy your new Internet Explorer 7.

Technorati tags: Internet Explorer 7, IE7, Browser, Windows Auotmatic Update, Stop Upgrading To IE7 Automatically, IE7 Add-Ons

Windows Live Mail Desktop (Beta) – A Refresh Available For Download

Windows Live Mail team has recently released a beta refresh (Build 1083) and have made it available for public download. I’ve been using Windows Live Mail Desktop and I feel it’s one of a slick and “not-so-messy-configuration-settings-to-figure-out” kind of a thing. These days I check my Gmail and MSN accounts both on the Windows Live Mail Desktop. Even though at times the Gmail server fails to respond (or something happens that sort of) the application stayed pretty stable.

With the latest refresh Windows Live Mail team claims these as some of the enhancements,

• More bug fixes
  • Over 150 of them since the last refresh build – including lots of accessibility and stability updates
• Current View settings are now sticky
  • We admit it, we made a mistake.  In the last refresh build, every time WLMd was launched, the Current View settings were lost and needed to be reset.  What a pain – especially when reading newsgroups!  I’m happy to announce that this has now been fixed.
• Update Feeds Button
  • In the RSS tab, we have added a new button for you to be able to automatically sync all your RSS feeds.
• Easier Help Options
  • Now under Help you’ll see the option for getting Technical Support.  This will take you right to our Support site so you can fill out a ticket and get assistance from our support team!
• Minimizing to System Tray
  • I think I may have just heard a small roar of excitement from our Beta testers. J  You all have been asking for this one for a while, so here you go!
• Support for Windows Live ID sign in (for non-MSN Mail, Hotmail, and Windows Live Mail account holders)
  • Adding the ability to use non-Windows Live ID accounts in WLMd was a popular customer request – and I am super-psyched that we are able to provide it for you!  You can now sign in to WLMd using any Windows Live ID account, not just one that has an email account associated with it (such as @messengeruser.com).  And for those who don’t yet have a Windows Live ID, WLMd allows you to create one as a part of sign-in! Remember that this is a very new feature for us – so please spend some time playing with it and let us know what you think!

Looks promising to me. You can download the latest refresh from here.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta, Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta Refresh, Free Desktop Email Client

Messenger Plus! Live – An Awesome Windows Live Messenger Extension

Visit DemoGeek.com for amazingly detailed quality articles on Computer, Internet, Browsers, Software, Programming and much more.

I’ve been using the beta version of Windows Live Messenger for a while now and it looks to me pretty slick. When I was looking for extensions I just came across this extension pack for Windows Live Messenger and this seems to extend the experience further.

Here are some features of Messenger Plus! Live that you might want to take a look at if you are to consider this extension,

Tabbed chats

Use a tabbed web browser? Even if you don’t, you might find tabbed conversations useful for organizing your chats by converting a myriad of windows into a simple single one. Vertical tabs on the left, normal tabs on the top. You name it. You can also use tabs to group just some special chats and keep all the rest in normal windows if you want.

Quick Texts

Tired of always typing the same? Meet quick texts and text replacements: automatic and customizable messages that can be sent with a simple shortcut or typed command, or automatic text replacing to use written shortcuts or using it as a word filter.

Custom Sounds

The Custom Emotion Sound feature brings sound integration in Messenger to the next level by allowing users to send their own sounds during a conversation. Sounds are played instantly on both ends and are transferred automatically and transparently when needed.

New emotion sounds can be easily created from existing sound files (such as MP3s) or can be recorded live from a microphone or other audio source but, if sound authoring isn’t your thing, thousands of sounds can be found in the public database or imported from sound packs.

Colors, formatting and commands

Messenger Plus! gives you the possibility to choose any color you want for front and background, and add formatting, such as bold, italic, underlined and stoke-out. It also lets you control almost every aspect of Messenger via text shortcuts called commands, much like the ones in traditional IRC chat rooms.

Personalized Status

Create custom away or busy statuses with a special name tag, personal message or even an auto-responder. Set a timer to reset your status in a certain time and organize presets to reuse common statuses.

Visit DemoGeek.com for amazingly detailed quality articles on Computer, Internet, Browsers, Software, Programming and much more.

Messenger Lock

Be it for security in shared computer environments or for avoiding your boss (which would be wrong wrong wrong!), this feature lets you lock Messenger with a simple shortcut (or Plus! menu command) and hide it in the system tray with an inconspicuous icon, the ability to password protect it and to automatically send a message to your contacts to inform them when you have locked and unlocked your Messenger.

Contacts Desktop

Similar to what ICQ used to offer, you can show the status of any desired contact on your desktop in the form of small floating windows. You can drag and drop messages or links into these to send a message to the contact, or drop a file to start a transfer.

HTML Chat Logging

Messenger Plus! Live lets you keep logs of all your conversations in a much more flexible way than the original Messenger ones. Heck, Plus! let you do that for years before MSN Messenger added it as a standard, though not perfect, feature. But what does Plus! Live improve over it?

• HTML Logs: beautiful styling and the flexibility of files you can take anywhere
• Emoticons and Winks: Everything is logged, even custom emoticons are kept and winks shown as thumbnails
• Log viewer: Shows you all your logs sorted by contact and date within Messenger Plus!
• Skinnable logs: if you get tired of the default style of logs and know CSS or get a custom.css file, just drop it in your logs folder and change their look!

Event Viewer and Event Logging

Contact sign ins and sign outs, status changes, display name and personal messages changes. Everything can be logged and archived in XML-based files which you can view from your browser.

You can also use the Event Viewer in the Plus! menu to view this info in real time, to find if a certain contact signed in earlier or analyze their status changing behavior, or even their musical tastes!

Contact List Clean-Up

Easily view stats about all your contacts (last sign in, when you had the last conversation, etc.) and clean your contact list deleting old and repeated contacts.

Run Multiple Messenger Sessions

Just check a box in the Messenger Plus! Live Preferences and you’ll be up and running for logging into more than one Messenger session at the same time, all integrating with Plus! correctly and without patching any files.

Tabbed Chats and running multiple messenger sessions were a sell for me and I liked it after I installed this extension. Above all its free.

Here is the link to the site where you can download the Messenger Plus! Live Extension.

Happy Chatting!!!

Visit DemoGeek.com for amazingly detailed quality articles on Computer, Internet, Browsers, Software, Programming and much more.

Technorati tags: Windows Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Messegner Extension, Free Extension For Windows Live Messenger

Windows Vista RC2 is available for public download (Download link provided)

Microsoft has just released the Windows Vista Release Candidate 2 (RC2) version for public download. Initially it was suspected that Microsoft will release this only to their beta testers, MSDN and Technet subscribers and to the Customer Preview Program (CPP) members. But then, things must have changed that made them to make this version available to the public, but only for a limited time.

Anyways, as always, go grab ‘em before its gone. Microsoft has explicitly said this time that it will be available only “for a limited time” and “may not have the same level of support” as RC1 (whatever that means). So you you should go grab ‘em as soon as you can if you wanted to get the feel the new Vista version and to realize the 1400+ bugs it still has.

Here is what you should have to do to get RC2.

• Navigate to this link.
• Select the version of Vista you want to run, either 32-bit or 64 bit, your choice.
• This will launch a new window where it tries to use the Akamai Download Manager (which comes in handy) to download this massive 2.49 GB file.
• Accept the security dialog boxes so that the system can allow the Akamai Download Manager ActiveX control to work.  

Now, you might need tons of patience for this monster to get downloaded. Once downloaded you have to burn the ISO image to a DVD before installing it on to your (test/spare) machine.

There is no explicit product key provided for this RC2 as the expectation was to use the product key from RC1. I haven’t tried this though but it looks like that’s what the plan is. 

How do you get the product key for RC1? Read my previous post on how to get the product key for Windows Vista RC1.

Enjoy Windows Vista (without any cost).

Latest Update: It seems like the build 5744 (which was later renamed as RC2) had some issues that Microsoft pulled it off from the public download space and have said that it will be made available for public download again once they fix the issue. So hang-in there. It will be back with may be fewer than 1400+ bugs. Keep watching this blog and I’ll update it as soon as RC2 is made available again.

Technorati tags: Microsoft, Windows Vista, Windows Vista Release Candidate 2, Windows Vista RC2, Windows Vista Release Candidate 1, Windows Vista RC1, Windows Vista For Free, Windows Vista Download Link

Transform your Windows XP to Windows Vista Look

The above are some screenshots of my desktop and my Windows Explorer. Do you think I’m running Windows Vista Beta or RC1? Guess what? You were wrong.

I run Windows XP Media Center Edition on my home desktop and the new look and feel of Windows Vista was the wonder works of this “Windows Vista Transformation Pack“. It’s a comprehensive transformation package that even transforms the startup screen and all the icons and sounds and almost everything that was Windows XP’ish. I’ve been running this for a while now and it seems to be perform pretty decent.

If you get the paid WindowBlinds program then you can even get the Vista glass effect. But without that it even looks good and very much functional. Awesome work by WindowsX.

Get the latest Vista Transformation Pack from here.

Download takes a while as the file is bigger in size. But once downloaded the installer guides you thru the process pretty much and the one thing you should be careful about is to cancel out the Windows warning dialog for some system files replacement. Don’t worry it won’t sabotage your system. I’ve done that thrice and it’s okay to do it.

May be setting a restore point before you do this might not be a bad idea. So, how do you set the manual system restore point? Simple. Just navigate thru Start >> Programs >> Accessories >> System Tools and launch ”System Restore” tool. Click “Create a restore point” option and hit the “Next” button and on the second page just give it a name (like for example, “Prior to Vista Transformation Pack”) and hit the “Create” button. That’s it. Now you are pretty much worry free to try this out. On my experience the whole process was pretty smooth.

PS: The Yahoo Widget that you see on the top right corner of the screen doesn’t come with the pack. That’s something I run separate on my machine.

Technorati tags: Windows XP To Windows Vista Transformation Pack, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Transform XP to Vista look

Google Talk Is Now Open For Public

Google recently announced that their flagship IM, Google Talk, is available for anyone to try. It used to be the case that only Gmail account holders can only try their Google Talk. But now they have opened that up for anyone with an email address. And the cool thing is you can login to Google Talk with any non Google accounts as well (of course, they say some of the features won’t work as expected if you don’t sign in with a Google account).

I really like the Google Talk client as I feel it is lightweight when compared to their competitor’s bloated IMs. Also its just so minimalistic and up to the task. I can’t wait for the day when MSN and Yahoo contacts can also be imported/collaborated with Google Talk. Microsoft have recently made a tie-up with Yahoo to collaborate MSN Messenger with Yahoo Messenger. Can they do the same with Google as well so that all 3 major IMs are collaborated to make the users life a lot easier? 

Can you guys here me? Hello!!!

Anyway’s, here is the link for you to download the latest Google Talk Instant Messenger.

Technorati tags: Google, Google Talk, Colloboration

Microsoft Releases Windows Live Writer 1.0 Beta Update

As soon as I started using the beta version of Windows Live Writer I was sold on this tool. It does what it says that it can do. And setting things up was pretty easy. Added to that is the cool thing of extending its functionality with plugins.

Now Microsoft has released an update to the earlier beta 1.0 version. Here are the list of enhancements in the latest update as per the Windows Live Writer team.

• Tagging support
• Support for Blogger Beta
• Categories are sorted by name and support scrolling, plus improved support for reading categories from your blog
• Improved startup performance
• Paste is enabled for Title region and TAB/SHIFT+TAB navigation between title and body supported
• Insert hyperlink added to context menu when text is selected
• Title attribute in Insert Link dialog
• Custom date support for Community Server
• Improved keyboard shortcuts for switching views
• Change spell-check shortcut key to F7
• Add ‘png’ to insert image dialog file type filter
• More robust image posting to Live Spaces
• Improved style detection for blogs 
• Fixed issues with pasting URLs and links
• Remember last window size and position when opening a new post
• Open post dialog retrieves more than 25 old posts

I especially like the new “Insert Tags” plugin which is a convenient way of inserting tags to your post. And you can pick and choose whom your tag provider should be. On top of that you can add any missing standard providers of your choice. That’s pretty neat. And so many other features that makes this tool from Microsoft stand out. Good job WLW team.

Get the latest Windows Live Writer Beta 1 Update here.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Writer Beta 1, Windows Live Writer Beta 1 Update, Blogging Tool, Blog Writer, Best Blog Writer, Free Blog Writer

Apple Releases iTunes 7.0.1 Update

You know the story…that the iTunes 7 was a bit more buggy and very unstable. Now Apple have released an update to iTunes 7, they call it iTunes 7.0.1.

And according to Apple,

iTunes 7.0.1 addresses stability and performance issues with Cover Flow, CD importing, iPod syncing, and more.

Get the update here.

Tags: Apple, iTunes, iTunes 7, iTunes 7.0.1, iTunes Update

I’m All Set For My FiOS Internet Connection

Here is a very decent site that tells you your internet connection speed, both upstream and downstream. It requires you enable JavaScript on your browser (if you use NoScript extension). Give it a try here.

I’m a long time Comcast high-speed internet customer. They claim that they have the fastest connection speed. To a certain level I agree…yes. But not always. It depends on how many of your neighbors use the same cable service for their connectivity. My local connection speed on my machine says 100.0 Mbps. But I know it’s not 100 Mbps for sure as I, at times, have to wait for few seconds to minutes to download a page. Particularly this was true at the time when my neighbors are up and using the service (mostly daytime).

For a proof I used the above service to find out about my true internet connection speed and here is the report.

(Click on the above image to view an enlarged/readable image)

Just by looking at the above report you can easily notice that I’m not getting any way closer to the claimed 100.0 Mbps download speed. No way closer. And my upload speed is even worst.

Now, Verizon offers FiOS (Fiber Optic Service) in my local area (thank you Verizon). And there were 2 options with FiOS. You can get 5.0 Mbps and 15.0 Mbps downstream speed. And for the downstream speeds you’ll get 2.0 Mbps upstream speed. The cool thing about FiOS is that you get the full speed that Verizon claims. Since there is no sharing of your network line with your neighbors you get the speed you’ve subscribed, like a DSL connection. Isn’t that neat?

Given the horrible customer service (I’ll soon write to you in detail about my story) and billing service that Comcast has got I’ve decided to make the move. I can report you back with some more facts after a month of usage.

You can get Verizon FiOS from here or by calling 1-800-616-4231.

Disclaimer: I don’t work for Verizon or any of it’s affiliates and the view expressed above is purely my own.

Tags: Verizon, FiOS, Fiber Optic, Comcast, Connection Speed, Internet Connection Speed Test

The All New Yahoo Mail Beta

The latest and greatest version of Yahoo Mail (its still in beta) is open for public now. You can give it a try here.

Here are some of the features at a glance.

• Reading Pane (I liked it)
• Tabbed Messages (Pretty cool)
• RSS Feeds
• Auto check for new messages
• Drag & Drop
• and many more.

I was a beta user for this new Yahoo Mail for quite a while now. My personal comments on the new endeavor is good and bad I would say. I liked the interface a lot more than others. It pretty much looks like Microsoft Outlook and the tabbed messages gives you enormous control when you are to read many emails at a time. It’s primarily AJAX at it’s best.

But the bad part that made me switch was the performance. In a normal day I receive around 50 emails on my Yahoo mail box and to go thru it all at a time on a day was a real pain. It just was so slow. Sometimes, unbelievably slow. Now I’ve switched back to the traditional ‘ol Yahoo Mail. It might be my machine as I run so many apps on my machine. I doubt that could be the case. But if you find it not that of a performance wore you can leave me a comment.

Here is the link for you to give it a try. There is nothing to loose. You can always switch back.

Tags: Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Mail Beta

Socialize:

SpamBox – A Disposable Email Address Service

Most of the time we need an email address to get something done online. You know that stuff. Once you reveal your email address you can pretty much see your spam/bulk folder gets bombarded, for a change at times your Inbox folder also.

Here is a service, SpamBox, for your rescue.

What it does is that it allows you to create a temporary email address that is valid for a certain period of time. You can specify for how long the email address should be valid to receive, for example, the verification code, confirmation code, password etc.

For the period of validity SpamBox will forward you any emails that it receives on the temporary email address and after the set period the email address will expire and you are freed from spamming.

Isn’t that a neat service?

Try it here.

Tags: Spam, Temporary Email Address, SpamBox

Socialize:

Windows Vista RC1 – Product Key and Download Link

Before they run out, go grab the latest Windows Vista RC1 (Release Candidate 1) product key and the download link.

All you have to do is,

• Navigate to this link.
• Sign in with your Passport.
• Answer few basic questions.
• Then you’ll be presented with the product key page along with the links to the download page. You might need to install the download manager as it would help downloading this massive 2.5 GB file.

(Hint: Refresh the product key page again to get another product key. It seems like a bug on the page that it allows you to grab 2 keys before it realizes)

You have to burn the ISO image to a DVD before installing it on to your (test/spare) machine.

Grab ‘em before they are gone.

Good Luck and Enjoy Vista (without any cost!!!).

Link: Windows Vista RC1

Latest Update: Alternatively you can download RC1 from this location as well.

Windows Vista Get ready site has also opened up the RC1 download. Grab it before it goes.

Tags: Windows, Vista, RC1, Product Key

Socialize:

How To: Bring Google Calendar on your Windows XP Desktop

I hate (I’m sure you do as well) that many windows floating around on my screen. But there are times when you cannot avoid.

One certain application window I always keep was the Google Calendar window. But then I hate cluttering my Windows bar with that many windows. I just came across this invaluable (at least to me) tip to bring Google Calendar on to my desktop so it will always be readily available to me in a click of a key (actually 2, Windows + D). .

Here is how you do it,

• Right-click on your desktop and select the "Properties" option on the menu.
• Click the "Desktop" tab.
• Click the "Customize Desktop" button that’s down below that dialog.
• Click the "Web" tab.
• Click the "New" button.
• For "Location:" key-in http://www.google.com/calendar/render
• Click the "Properties" button for this URL.
• Click the "Schedule" tab.
• Add at least one time each day to do the sync. Remeber: You can always refresh by yourself whenever needed but do pick a time to sync.
• Click OK to make each window go away.

When you do this, Windows might complain about unable to sync to the page etc. Just say "Ok" to that and close all the windows by clicking "Ok".

Expand the window on your desktop as much as you want or in my case what I did was I clicked on the little menu (a down arrow when you hover over the top of that desktop window) to select the "Split Desktop with Icons" option. By this way I have access to my desktop icons as well Google Calendar on the side. Great!!!

Now you should be able to see the Google login page on your desktop. Just key-in your login credentials and make sure to check the "Remember me on this computer" option and hit the login button. It might open up another window (the default web browser that you’ve set on your computer) with Google Calendar rendered.

Hey…Don’t panic. Don’t call 911   Just close the window. And right click on your (still) the log-in page on your desktop and hit "Refresh". Woila…there the Google Calendar, this time, on your desktop.

Hope you find it useful.

Tags: How To, Useful, Tip, Google, Calendar, Desktop, Technology

Socialize:

Socializer 1.0 – A Social Link Generator

Hello Blog World -

Often I found it a bit hard to generate the social links for my blog posts and everytime, prior to Socializer, I had to copy/paste from a notepad and replace the parameters and you must have sensed it by now, that’s a pain.

I just got some free time over the weekend that I just wanted to take my head out of my regular work and wanted to get this one done.

So, what is Socializer?

“Socializer” – in a nut shell – is a .NET application (or utility) that will help you generate the famous social links to be posted on to your blog with a click of a button.

How does it work?

Simple. You key in the inputs and with a click of a button you will get the output. As the inputs are self-explanatory, you key-in the URL of your post and give it a title. Hit the “Generate” button and whoila…all the links to the famous social sites are generated for you. You can the copy/paste the link to your hyperlink or to the image.

What social sites are supported in Version 1.0?

Currently I’ve got only the time to include these 7 social sites.

• Del.icio.us
• Reddit
• Digg
• Furl
• Newswine
• Blinklist
• Co.mments

But as soon as I get some time I will definitely add more sites to the list and will try to make it customizable.

How do I download?

Just click on this link.

Follow the instructions to download the ZIP file. As a safe practice always scan any downloads for any viruses before opening it up. Once you are done with the virus scan (it’s clean by the time I upload) you can then unzip the files to a folder of your choice.

There are 2 files. One is the “Socializer.exe” executable. The other is the “Socializer.exe.config” which as its name indicates is a configuration file. Please try not to mess with the configuration file. The exe is directly executable (there is not installation package) and so you can create shortcuts to the exe whereever you feel comfortable.

Licenses?

It’s just my pass time application and there is no issue with licensing as long you use it for your personal use.

And there it is. You’ve got a little application to make the social link generation a piece of cake.

P.S: If you find it useful then please bookmark my blog (or subscribe to my feed) and please pay a visit often. You might find another utility any time. It’s cooking!!!

Download

Tags: Social, Link, Generator, Utility, .NET

Socialize:

FreeRAM XP Pro

Another nice little utility that silently does the job of cleaning your computer’s memory of any orphaned windows handlers. Why do you need to clean up your computer’s memory? Over a period of time or if you are running Windows for an extended period of time and lauching applications that aren’t completely optimized (most of ‘em out there are not completely optimized, let me tell ya) your computer memory will be filled out with orphaned handlers that stays back in the memory even after you’ve exited the application.

So, doing this over a period of time, what happens? You know the answer…don’t you? It will just make you computer run crappy, like a tortoise, as your computer has to do excessive paging (paging, in a lay-man’s term, a way of shuffling your computer’s memory in an effort to give all the running applications an even slice of the available memory).

Solution: FreeRAM XP Pro.

I just came across this tool and I’m so far pretty impressed with it. After I’ve installed this tool, today morning was the first time my computer maxed-out it’s memory, that kicked-off the FreeRAM tool. I have a GIG of RAM on my laptop and what happened in the morning was that I was running closer to 1000 MB. Sounds crazy? Yes it may very well…but I do run applications that are heavy-weight in terms of their memory footprint and so at many instances I just max out of my computer’s memory. So my FreeRAM utility came up and tried to clean up some of the memory and guess what…it has cleaned up a whopping 620 MB of RAM and brought my laptop back to it’s efficient routine. That’s almost 60% of free space and none of the applications that were running at that time was afffected.

You can download one here or at Download.com.

Tags: tools, RAM

Microsoft OneNote 2003

One of the best softwares that I’ve ever came across is the Microsoft OneNote 2003 software. I’m not sure whether you are using it or not but let me tell you, you’ll love it and you won’t spend another day infront of your PC without it. Mark my words. It’s that helpful.

There are off a lot of pretty handful things with it. The most I like is the way it’s been designed. It was designed to be as a notebook and so it has multiple flaps and pages as notebook. In fact it’s a structured notebook design that you can use to note down the information in a structured manner. It comes with some standard sections, folders, pages and sub-pages. But you might find yourself getting rid of the ones that comes with it and then you’ll be on a roll.

Another neat thing is that it loads up pretty fast and that makes sense for a note-taking software to be there when you need it. Pretty handy. Then it has the auto-save which doesn’t really ask you the messy where to save dialog. That’s the dialog that sometimes takes you down a stream and then you’ll forget about the one’s you’ve saved. At least I do. With this standard storage folder (which obviously you can customize) and no-annoying save feature that’s gold for me.

Last but not least, with a Tablet PC, you’ll feel the difference.

No more words to thank Microsoft for such a wonderful tool. Good job Microsoft OneNote team.

Find out the ways to buy one here.

StatBar – Windows Statistics Bar

I just started using this StatBar, a windows statistics bar that I feel is incredibly handy. It’s a lot customizable and it seems like it’s reliable so far with accurate counters that keep you well informed of what your PC is upto.

You can give it a try here.

Qumana – BLOG Editor

Another awesome tool I came across for blogging, Qumana BLOG Editor. It’s an absolute editor to publish to the blog from your desktop. Isn’t that cool? I love it!!!