Saturday, August 30, 2008

Security the New Keyword for IE 8 in Beta Version 2

Microsoft's updated browser, Internet Explorer 8, promises an assortment of new features, with the goals of making Web browsing with IE safer, easier, and more compatible with Net standards. We looked at Beta 2. On the surface, IE 8 seems to be a lot like IE 7, but Microsoft has made a good number of changes. However, you may have seen some of the new features in its no-longer-upstart competitor, Mozilla Firefox 3.

If you accidentally close a browser window in IE 8, you can opt to restore it when you reopen the program (just as you can in Firefox). But IE 8 will group related tabs together using color coding. If you open a link from pcworld.com in a new tab, for example, it will open adjacent to the original tab, and the tabs themselves will have a matching color. You can move tabs from one group to another, but if you have three unrelated pages open, you cannot create a group out of them.

Perhaps the most novel addition in IE 8 is what Microsoft refers to as tab isolation. The feature is designed to prevent a buggy Web site from causing the entire program to crash. Instead, only the tab displaying the problematic page will close, allowing you to continue browsing.

Of course, IE 8 Beta 2 retains some of the features introduced in the first beta, including WebSlices and accelerators.

If you enable IE 8's InPrivate feature, the browser will not save any sensitive data--passwords, log-in info, history, and so forth. It would be as if your browsing session had never happened. This feature is very similar to Private Browsing in Apple's Safari browser, except that an icon in IE's address bar makes InPrivate's active status more obvious.
The browser's phishing filter—called SmartScreen— improves upon its predecessor's filter with such features as more thorough scrutiny of a Web page's address (to protect you from sites named something like paypal.iamascammer.com and a full-window warning when you stumble upon a suspected phishing site. SmartScreen relies largely on a database of known phishing sites, so a new, unknown phishing site may be able to slip through the cracks.

IE 8 displays sites' domains in a darker text color, so you can more easily see whether you're actually visiting an ebay.com page, say, or in reality a page on some site you've never heard of. Microsoft could still put a little more emphasis on the domain name (using a different color background, for example), but the highlighting is a welcome addition.

Creating a site that looks identical in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari can be a challenge. IE 8 Beta 2 offers better support for W3 Web standards —a set of guidelines developed to ensure that a Web page appears the same in all browsers. The downside is that IE 8 will break some pages designed for earlier Internet Explorer versions.
To counteract this, Microsoft has added a compatibility mode: Click a button in the toolbar, and IE 8 will display a page the same way that IE 7 does. In my testing, I found that most pages worked fine with the standard (new) mode, and that most errors were minor cosmetic ones. Unfortunately, the Compatibility Mode toggle button may not be obvious to most users, because it's pretty small; a text label would have helped.
While it likely won't convince many Firefox users to jump ship, Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 may be worth considering for people who have not yet solidified their browser loyalties.

from: http://www.pcworld.in/india/news/Internet/Security_the_New_Keyword_for_IE_8_in_Beta_Version_2/5636170/9

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Enhance your web browsing experience with IE7Pro with plug in for Windows Internet Explorer 7

IE7 Pro SetupIE7Pro is a all-in-one plug in for Windows Internet Explorer 7. With IE7Pro installed once, you will never need to look after any tunings for better internet browsing experience than this.

Version 2.2 of IE7Pro as screencasted in here, shows many settings for IE7 with just a single click. Some of them include:

Includes a lot of IE tweaks, includes:
   * Crash recovery
   * Super Drag and Drop
   * Quick proxy switcher
   * Enhanced Tabbed Browsing
   * Mouse gestures
   * Hotkey customization
   * Address bar shortcutsIE7 Pro Setup Settings

With IE7Pro one can:

1.Manage ads, block unwanted ads with ADblock

Supports blocking all forms of advertisments, including Flash ads, rich media, fly-ins, slide-ins, pop-up, pop-under.
Filters DIVs , URLs, Images, Tables, iFrames. Visit AD Filter list.

2.Enable or disable Userscripts

The most powerful user script platform for IE

IE7 Pro's Google based search

(like the Grease Monkey extension for Firefox). Also included Easy homepage.

Visit http://www.iescripts.org for more user scripts and plugins.

3. Many plugins to be checked for

4.Enable Spelling Checker as in Firefox

Checks spelling errors while composing mails, blog entries or any text area entries using the spellchecking engine from OpenOffice. Supports up to 16 languages.

IE7 Pro v2.2 Modules

Auto Form Filler:

A simple form & password manager and form filler which completely automates password entering and form filling.

It also includes Text Saver, which lets you restore the lost text while composing mails and text area posts in case of crashes.

Mini Download Manager:

IE7 Pro preferences

The smallest download manager for IE, It supports resuming Downloads and simultaneous downloads.

Inline Search:

Search the page as you type, like the Find as you type feature of Firefox.

Single IE Instance:

Use only one instance of IE to handle all the URL requests.

Accu Weather:

Display the local weather in the statusbar, Copy from Windows vista accu weather gadgets

Alexa Rank or Google PageRank:

Display the website's Alexa and Google Page Rank.

Book Burro- Remixing the bookstore:

Compare book prices from various book stores

Download Video:

Save video clips from YouTube, Google Video, Myspace, Metacafe, Break.com, Putfile, Dailymotion and Sevenload.

Download Video from YouTube:

adds a link to download flv from YouTube

*youtube.com/*v=*

Other features include Flickr Rich Edit, GMail CSS Skin, Google Blogsearch, Google Images NoFrame link, Google Link Preview, GoogleX, Myspace custom style remover, Myspace Notifier, RSS+Atom Feed Subscribe Button, Show Password onMouseOver, YouTube Resizer, YouTube.com- dark gray redesign http://userstyles.org/

Download the latest version of IE7Pro now to fully customize your IE Experience @ http://www.ie7pro.com/

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

VIPs

I was in the VIP lounge last week en route to Seattle. While in the lounge, I notice Bill Gates sitting on the chesterfield enjoying a cognac. I was meeting with a very important client who was also flying to Seattle with me but she was running a bit late.
 
Being a forward type of guy, I approached Mr. Gates and introduced myself. I explained to him that I was conducting some very important business and how much I would appreciate it if he could throw a quick "hello Chris" at me when I was with my client. He agreed.
 
Ten minutes later while I was conversing with my client, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Bill Gates. I turned around and looked up at him. He said,
 
"Hi Chris, what's happening?"
 
To which I replied, "Buzz off Gates, I'm in a meeting."

Thursday, August 14, 2008

New Domain Names - a piece of humor

Recently Gregory Nemitz and a handful of space enthusiasts proposed creating specialdomains, including ".luna" and ".moon," for Web sites based on the moon.
 
But why stop there? Here are some new proposed domains, and what you can expect from the sites in them..
 
".trek"--contains audio files of William Shatner
 
".bill"--Microsoft has bought this company
 
".love"--for people who would rather cuddle
 
".slow"--based in a distant country with no T3 lines
 
".geek"--assumes you know what all the acronyms mean
 
".404"--we stopped maintaining our servers in 1996
 
".y2k"--contains theories about the end of the world
 
".burn"--huge multimedia files will crash your computer
 
".*"--contains gossip about celebrity melt downs
 
".duh"--explains, in detail, stuff you already know

Saturday, August 09, 2008

New Firefox to Boost Open-source Video Software

Mozilla is edging closer to releasing a new version of Firefox that could increase the use of open-source video software.

Firefox 3.1, the next major release due by early next year, will likely include support for a new HTML tag specifically for embedding video in web pages. Firefox 3.1 will also support royalty-free video codec Ogg Theora.

Firefox developers at a summit last week in Whistler, British Columbia, said they had started working on native Theora support, and test builds of the browser incorporating the new feature are available.

The code committed so far is a work in progress, wrote Chris Double, a Mozilla engineer who has been handling the project, "but it's a start towards using a common codec across all platforms and will improve as we get towards the 3.1 release".

When the upgrade is finalised, Firefox users won't have to download a plug-in to play Theora content. Another cited advantage is that web developers can just use a tag to mark content, rather than needing JavaScript to launch a video.

Video on the web these days is a jumble of different software formats and products, with major ones including Apple's QuickTime, Microsoft's Windows Media, Adobe's Flash and RealNetworks' RealPlayer multimedia players. The plug-ins are free. The companies make money by selling streaming servers and encoding software.

Some see that commercial interest as potentially harmful to the internet, since content locked up in a particular format could become inaccessible due to a change in a vendor's product development plans.

Videos in formats such as .AVI can be converted to Theora using VLC, an open-source streaming media server, video player and converter from the VideoLAN Project. Another open-source converter is ffmpeg2theora.

Firefox's work will streamline the delivery of video to users, wrote a user by the name of J5 on his blog. "That to me is freedom - to allow for those who prefer open formats the ability to deliver their content without any barriers between them and theirend users," J5 wrote.

Opera Software, which makes a browser by the same name, has also implemented the video HTML tag. The company said last month that it has released versions of its latest browser that support Ogg Theora for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X operating systems.

"It's such an obvious improvement over the previous state of affairs of dealing with online video that it really makes you wonder why it took so long," wrote Ben McIlwain, an IT consultant, on his blog. "We're several years into the online video revolution now (led by such giants as YouTube), so it's only fair that we finally get native browser support for videos."

The moves by Mozilla and Opera can be seen as a strike against Microsoft, which dominates the browser market. Figures from Net Applications from last month show Internet Explorer with a 73 per cent market share, compared to Firefox at 19 per cent and Opera at 0.69 per cent.

Ogg Theora isn't supported in Internet Explorer 7. It is an older compression specification compared to Adobe's Flash 9, which uses the latest H.264 technology and is used on prominent websites such as Google's YouTube.

News from http://www.pcworld.in/india/news/Software/New_Firefox_to_Boost_Open-source_Video_Software/5341197/9

Friday, August 08, 2008

Google Plans a New version of its Search Appliance

Google plans to release today a newly architected version of its Search Appliance enterprise search device that can index more than three times as many documents as the current model.
The new Search Appliance, model GB-7007, can index up to 10 million documents, up from the 3 million maximum capacity of the existing product, model GB-1001.
However, Google will continue to sell the GB-1001, since it can be clustered in configurations of either five or eight units, providing maximum capacity for up to 10 million or 30 million documents, respectively. The new GB-7007 can't be clustered.
Those interested in purchasing the new Search Appliance can place orders already, but Google will begin to deliver the products next month.
Google sells the Search Appliance as a hardware box loaded with enterprise search software designed to let companies index and retrieve the data in their corporate systems, such as applications, document management tools, databases, Web servers, files and the like.
The enterprise search market has traditionally been populated by sophisticated products that tend to be costly, difficult to implement for IT departments and complicated for end-users to master. The Search Appliance is considered a low- to mid-range product that stands out for its simple installation and maintenance, and for being comparatively less expensive.
Since introducing the Search Appliance in 2002, Google's strategy has been to attract the many companies that have held off on implementing an enterprise search system because of price and complexity.
With this new GB-7007 model, Google extends that strategy by removing the need to cluster the Search Appliance unless a company needs to index more than 10 million documents, said Brian Babineau, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group.
"It makes enterprise search simpler for more customers," he said. "The Search Appliance offers an easy, plug-and-play solution that brings a lot of benefits."
There are a variety of options for enterprise search from players including Autonomy and Fast Search & Transfer, which Microsoft recently acquired, so IT managers need to make a clear assessment of their needs in order to find the right product, Babineau said.
For example, does the company want enterprise search for business intelligence, e-discovery or for making corporate information generally more easily available? IT managers also need to consider where the information to be indexed resides. In addition, they must determine available resources the IT department can put into implementation and maintenance, he said.
At this point, the Search Appliance continues to be a very attractive alternative for companies that are taking their first plunge into enterprise search, he said. Its simpler use and lower cost reduce the risk for IT managers, while giving their companies a chance to explore and discover the benefits enterprise search can bring them, Babineau said.
In addition to its expanded indexing capacity, the GB-7007 lets IT managers affect more granularly how search queries are resolved, a feature Google calls "biasing." For example, administrators now can bias search results based on metadata attributes of a file, such as its author.
Also, the GB-7007 lets administrators tailor results based on types of users, so that queries from marketing employees and engineers are resolved differently, for example. The product now also generates alerts for users who want to be notified of new or modified documents that contain certain terms.
Usage stats are now also more detailed, giving administrators additional details about the terms users are searching for, the results they are clicking on and the like. In security, the product now has native support for the Kerberos authentication protocol.
Companies that have stand-alone or clustered GB-1001 Search Appliances can take advantage of the software improvements in the GB-7007 by downloading the software upgrade for free, said Nitin Mangtani, Google's lead product manager of enterprise search.

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Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Bharti Airtel to Bring iPhone 3G to India on August 22

Bharti Airtel Wednesday announced that it will launch the iPhone 3G in India on August 22. iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of iPhone plus 3G networking that is twice as fast, built-in GPS for expanded location-based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs hundreds of third party applications available through the new App Store.

"iPhone has been the iconic technology revelation of this year, "said Sanjay Kapoor, president of Mobile Services at Bharti Airtel. "Airtel has been at the forefront of innovation and customer delight in the Indian telecom sector. Introducing iPhone 3G to India further underscores our commitment to enrich the communication experience of all Airtel users."

Customers will be able to purchase iPhone 3G at Airtel Relationship Centers. Details of pricing will be announced at a later date. Airtel customers who wish to receive more information on iPhone 3G can log on to http://www.airtel.in/iphone3g/

Monday, August 04, 2008

How to activate Microsoft Office Suite 2007/08?

This is a quick guide on activating or checking the activation status of Microsoft Office Suite 2007/08.

Open Activation Assistant for the 2007 Microsoft Office Suites. Simply type this phrase in Start Search feature of the start menu to get initiated. (Screenshots used in this article refer to Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 Edition)

To continue to use all of the features of your product, you must activate the product. Microsoft Product Activation is a Microsoft anti-piracy technology designed to verify that software products are legitimately licensed.

Activation works by verifying that the Product Key, which you must supply to install the product, is not in use on more personal computers than are permitted by the software license.

Microsoft Office Activation might say "The 2007 Microsoft Office release is preinstalled in your personal computer. You can try it free for 60 days, activate it with a purchased product key or buy it anytime." if you haven't already activated the Microsoft Program.

activating microsoft office 2007

Help section of the Activation Wizard or similar Wizard goes on Try Microsoft Office as

To try Microsoft Office free for 60 days, go to the Try Microsoft Office tab. Connect to the Internet and click Step 1 to request a trial activation key online. Click Step 2 to launch Microsoft Office and enter the trial activation key. Then follow the additional steps to complete the activation process. Note that Step 1 must be completed to access Step 2.

We recommend that you select the additional benefits to request an e-mail with the trial activation key for your records.

Activate or Buy Microsoft Office

To activate the software with a purchased license, go to the Activate or Buy Microsoft Office tab. Locate the product key on your purchased software or confirmation e-mail. Click activate a purchased license and enter the full product activation key. Then follow the additional steps to complete the activation process. Note that the language and suite of the purchased license should match the preinstalled software.

Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007

Related Readings:

Saturday, August 02, 2008

How to activate Windows XP?

This a brief guide to how to activate Windows XP or check if your Windows XP is activated.

Start Windows XP Registration Wizard simply by entering the command given below,

open the Run dialog box
Type: oobe/msoobe /a
Click ok.

Read if applies to you:

Microsoft Windows XP Registration Wizard appears, then follow the instructions shown.

Windows XP Registration Wizard

 Let's activate windows

 Windows Product Activation

Activation helps verify that your copy of Windows is genuine and that it has not been used on more computers than the Microsoft Software License Terms allow. In this way, activation helps prevent software counterfeiting. With an activated copy of Windows, you’ll be able to use every Windows feature.

Activation and registration are not the same. Activation is required, but registration is not. Activation is the process of ensuring that your copy of Windows is used according to the Microsoft Software License Terms, whereas registration is the process of entering information (such as your e‑mail address) to sign up for product support, tools and tips, and other product benefits.

For More information visit, Windows Genuine Advantage website and articles in the geeklog.

Friday, August 01, 2008

How to activate Windows Vista?

This is a simple and brief guide on how to check if your Windows Vista is activated or how to activate the Windows Vista if it's not already activated.

Activation helps verify that your copy of Windows is genuine and that it has not been used on more computers than the Microsoft Software License Terms allow. In this way, activation helps prevent software counterfeiting. With an activated copy of Windows, you’ll be able to use every Windows feature.

Activation and registration are not the same. Activation is required, but registration is not. Activation is the process of ensuring that your copy of Windows is used according to the Microsoft Software License Terms, whereas registration is the process of entering information (such as your e‑mail address) to sign up for product support, tools and tips, and other product benefits.

You must activate Windows within 30 days after installation or Windows will stop working.

Windows Activation Client can be opened from Windows\System32\slui.exe or alternatively just type slui in the start menu search box.

Successful Windows Activation Wizard

(The screenshot shows Successful Windows Activation Wizard)

You can activate either online or by phone. To activate online you need an Internet connection. Activating by phone requires interacting with an automated phone system.

The following screen appears after a successful Activation. The Windows Activation Wizard says "Activation helps verify that your copy of Windows is genuine. With a genuine copy of Windows Vista, you are eligible to receive all available updates and product support from Microsoft.

You can also see the Activation status in Control Panel\System and Maintenance\System ie on View basic Information about your computer.

More information:

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