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Showing posts from December, 2004

Need GMail Account ? Leave a comment

Get a GMail Invite here - If you are still without a GMail account, I have few GMail invitations to spare. Just leave a comment with your email address and if the comment is interesting enough, you will soon see a GMail invite in your inbox. While sharing your existing email address, you can use the following format to prevent spam robots from harvesting your address: Sample EMail: abc@xyz.com Put it as abc at xyz dot com

Why is Microsoft so complacent ?

Microsoft is rapidly loosing it's market share to Firefox and Opera but it doesn't seem to be worried at all. Microsoft executives have confirmed that aren't planning to ship any new or intermediate version of IE before Longhorn(2006) though they are busy building and testing a faster, more secure version internally. Though they will continue to release patches and service packs that would "extend" the functionality of IE. So that means, the About Dialog of IE would continue to show Version 6.0.abcd.xyz... and no version 6.5 or 7.0 until 2006. This must be definitely good news for Firefox which just registered over 10 million downloads, ran a very successful 2 page ad in the NYTimes and has picked up tons of loyal fans in such a short span. Even AOL is busy working on a browser. And Opera, which just released a beta version 8.0, claims to be the fastest browser and is also very popular though the free version is ad-supported. Firefox and Opera

Free SMS service for people affected by Asian earthquake

ForgetMeNot Software Limited , the operator of the 2-way messaging service ChatBar, has today announced that any families, friends and others, seeking to contact people affected by the lethal earthquake on December 26, can send FREE short message service (SMS) messages to and from affected countries through www.chatbar.com . Free SMS messages can be via ChatBar to or from the following countries: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand. SMS messages sent to mobile phones of foreign nationals roaming in those countries will also be provided free by ChatBar, although separate charges may be applied by some carriers. Paul Roberts, Director, ForgetMeNot Software, stated "We are all shocked and stunned by the devastation wrought by the earthquake. In an effort to help, we wanted to make the functionality of ChatBar available free to everyone who needs to communicate with loved ones at this difficult time. Experience has shown that SMS messages may get thro

blinkx 2.0 - Don't need to wait for Longhorn

Blinkx 2.0 is a significant update, with improved functions in many areas, as well as new features. Smart Folders in particular should prove incredibly useful as they keep your most important searches constantly up-to-date. blinkx 2.0 analyzes the Web pages, documents, and e-mail messages you view and works busily in the background to locate items that are similar. Before you even think about searching, results are ready. To accomplish this, it indexes blogs, news feeds, Web pages, product listings, video feeds, and your local documents and e-mails. In previews of the coming Longhorn version of Windows, Microsoft has introduced the concept of a Library - a folder-like construct that organizes files by content rather than by location and that automatically updates to include new matching content. Longhorn is still years off, and the initial release won't even include the Windows Future Storage component, which powers the Library concept. But don't worry; the Smart Folders featu

New York City Hair Transplant: NY Hair Restoration Surgeons

Celebrity Hair Trasplant surgery in New York City Hair transplant surgery is a minor surgical procedure that involves moving healthy hair follicles from the back and sides of the head to areas that are bald or thinning due to male or female pattern hair loss. The hair transplant takes place by surgically transferring these genetically-resistant hair follicles in the form of follicular grafts into the balding areas. The first hair transplant for male pattern baldness was performed by Dr. Norman Orentreich in 1952 in New York City. After hair transplant, proper hair transplant care is essential. The successful Brad Pitt hair transplant surgery was not cheap. A hair transplant procedure in Costa Rica will cost about $2000 while cost of hair transplant in New York City will be several times more. Robert M. Bernstein, MD has been selected as one of New York Magazine’s “Best Doctors”. Dr. Bernstein is the only hair transplant surgeon to have received this honor. Robert M. Bernstein is Ass

Egosurfing: Searching the WWW for occurences of your name

egosurfing : Scanning the World-Wide Web, databases, print media or research papers looking for the mention of your name. Do you ever search for your name in Google just to see how popular you are on the internet ? Well you are not along, USAToday reports that Some CEOs surf Web to see how they're being portrayed . Many corporate communications departments assign someone to do the CEO surfing because CEOs with delicate egos would prefer to stay insulated. But Slosberg is among an expanding group who swallow hard, then wade into the muck. The practice is not unique to CEOs and is so common among professionals, including politicians and journalists, that it has been coined "ego surfing." The term has gone mainstream. It was the question to a recent Jeopardy answer and was the focus of a recent episode of Two and a Half Men on CBS. Tracking ego surfing is difficult, but there are 25 million to 50 million Internet searches each day using proper names, according

Hair Loss Treatment, Hair Transplant, Hair Replacement, Hair Restoration weaving

Losing your hair? What causes hair loss ? Considering a hair transplant? What is the cost of hair transplant ? How will my photo look after the hair replacement surgery ? Is hair trasplant same as hair replacement. Where is the nearest Hair replacement clinic in my city. Who is the best hair transplant doctor or surgeon that performed on celebrities? What is the hair surgery procedure ? Will hair growth return to normal after a hair replacement operation ? All your hair fall related queries are answered here. The permanent natural hair loss treatment is hair weaving and hair transplantation. Due to stress, hair loss in children and women is getting as common as male hair loss pattern. You get to hear of hair loss ointment creams, herbal hair oil, hair loss ayurvedic medicine shampoo but none of these alternative home treatment works to cure the hair fall problem. One method of hiding hair loss used by bald woman is the comb over, which involves restyling the remaining hair to cover the

Add a TextArea for posting comments in your Blogger site

I know it is sometimes a pain to post new comments in Blogger sites. First the site visitor has to click the "Post a comment" site, then it takes him to another page where either he signs-in if he has a blogger account or post anonymously. This is so much to do and I feel that the visitor exits the site without leaving a footprint. Because of all these hassles, I decided to put a text area in my posts where users can post comments directly without needing to sign-in. This is already present in Typepad or Movable Type Blogs. After some tweaking of the Blogger template, I now have a textbox in all my posts. Ofcoure, I still have the normal link "Post a Comment" for those who don't wan't to post anonymously. Just add the following piece of code to your Blogger Template code, save the template and republish your blog. Click on the above image to expand. If things go fine, you will see a textarea for comment in each of you blog posts. Remember

After Blogger and Picasa, will Google buy Flickr ?

Is Google slowly moving towards having a monopoly on the web ? There are rumours on the net that Google might now be eyeing Flickr which is a very popular photo sharing service among bloggers. And there are reasons to believe this rumour. Google has already purchased Blogger from Pyralabs and Picasa - So they already have a blog application, a photo-sharing tool, now all they need is a photo storage server. Plus, Flickr offers other advantages to Google like Flicks supports an Open API, uses AdWords, uses tags, and has a strong focus on community: groups, live chats, etc. and it will certainly boost the size of Google Image database which was updated recently. Though I use Blogger for my Blog , I am disappointed with the speed of Blogger sites, and there is almost nothing new in terms of features. Why do they stop innovating once a big fish eats the small fish ? Hope the same doesn't happen with Flicks incase Google acquires it. Some say that it isn't possible

Join now and receive a free I.B.M. laptop

The e-mail messages are tantalizing: "Your complimentary iPod with free shipping is waiting." The lesson is that the only thing on this earth that is truly free is your mother's love. Everything else has a string or catch attached. Gratis Internet, a Web marketer based in Washington, has developed a system in which it buys pricey products like iPods - www.freeipods.com - and gives them away. To receive the iPod, participants are asked to sign up for one of about 10 different offers and to persuade five others to do the same. They have developed similar programs giving out $700 desktop computers ( freedesktoppc.com ), $800 flat-screen televisions ( freeflatscreens.com ) and high-end designer handbags ( freehandbags.com ). The main difference between the offers is how many others must be signed up for the main participant to receive the "free" merchandise. Its customers include Time Warner's AOL; BMG Music Service, a CD club owned by Bertelsmann; a

Favourite Firefox extensions for 2005

Firefox extensions allow you to add a host of features to Mozilla's hot new browser. DesktopPipeline has choosem some of the best for you. Mozilla's Firefox browser has spread through the Web-browsing community like, well, wildfire. While its current immunity to the malware afflicting Microsoft Internet Explorer may have sparked its popularity, one of the things that will keep Firefox in public favor is its use of extensions. These add-ons allow users to either keep browser lean and mean, or include a variety of utilitarian, interesting, or just plain fun features. Mozilla has made it very simple for Firefox enthusiasts to install and uninstall extensions via its Firefox Extensions tool. By clicking on Tools/Extensions, a window comes up that offers a list of the installed add-ons and the ability to uninstall an extension, check for updates, access any options for the applet, or look for more. McSearchPreview - Add thumbnail images to search results Gnusto - Runs t

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (XP SP3) will be a regular customer fix

Neowin reports that Windows guru Paul Thurrott has thrown up an amazing interview on his site, dealing with the creation of Windows XP SP2. Thurrott sat down with several of the project leads of SP2, and ended up painting a great picture of how this important security-focused update came to life. SP3 for Windows XP is slated to be a service pack the way we've always done service packs, and not to be a major upgrade. It will focus specifically on QFEs and fixes [to bugs] that are reported by customers. It should not contain new features . And customers have been yelling at us for the past few years about that. Read the complete interview over on Paul's SuperSite for Windows - Windows XP Service Pack 2: The Inside Story

India International School - English School in Japan

An explosion in the number of Indian workers here has prompted a long-term Indian resident of Tokyo to open a school that offers her compatriots' children an opportunity to learn about their cultural heritage. The India International School in Japan, which opened in Tokyo's Koto Ward in August, is the first of its kind. It has 35 pupils -- 23 kindergartners and 12 elementary school students, including one Japanese and two Pakistani children. Located in the bustling capital city of Tokyo, India International School in Japan (IISJ) is a private, co-educational elementary school. After careful evaluation of the curricula, IISJ has decided to opt for CBSE and ICSE curriculum as the most appropriate curriculum for their school. Students relocating from (and eventually back to) India will not be disrupting their coursework. In fact, it will only be complemented by their unique opportunity to live and share in a thriving, cosmopolitan city. "The main reason (for opening the schoo

Finally, someone has the courage to challenge Firefox

Microsoft employee Peter Torr has started a flame war in his own blog today. Torr claims that the distribution and code signing of Firefox isn't up to scratch. Torr provides screenshots of the latest XPSP2 protection IE but fails to mention the poor protection in IE 6 SP1 which many more users are still using. Nevertheless if you enjoy battling it out about Firefox vs IE then this is a read for you. Here's a snip: Recently, a lot of volunteers donated money to the Firefox project to pay for a two-page advert in the New York Times. If only they had spent some of that money on improving the security of their users by, say, purchasing a VeriSign code signing certificate. "But the thing that makes me really not trust the browser is that it doesn't matter how secure the original code is if the typical usage pattern of the browser requires users to perform insecure actions. · Installing Firefox requires downloading an unsigned binary from a random web server · In

How to use Google Scholar ?

The Georgia State University Library has a nice page to teach you how to use Google Scholar here . You can use it to search for scholarly materials (journal articles, books, theses, preprints, etc.) from "a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web." Doing a few random searches, I found content from PubMed and PubMed Central, Astrophysics Data System, ACM, IEEE, Springer, Wiley, Elsevier, American Physical Society, American Institute of Physics as well as Science, Nature, Genetics, Plant Physiology, Clinical Chemistry, and Journal of Biological Chemistry. For books, you can connect to OCLC's Open WorldCat to see if libraries in your area (including GSU) own them. As a searching tool, Google Scholar is still extremely basic. You cannot limit searches by date, language or format (to journal articles only, for example). You cannot build complex search

Google offers some Modern advice for parents-to-be

Ten years ago, when you named a new child, you just needed to make sure the moniker was easy to spell and didn't rhyme with 'smelly' or any other schoolyard taunt. But now, you've got to consider the search engine effect: is the name easily located via a Google search, or will your kid be confused with a multitude of John Smiths? The solution? A unique name for which the only possible search results would be related to your child. But not actually "unique," since Social Security records tell us that 239 girls named Unique were born in 2002 (scroll down to " popularity of a name "). Imagine a baby boy named "Angus Katzenjammer." He'd have a wide open field since that search currently doesn't return any results . Or perhaps a young lass is named " Humid Lipstocking ." With the exception of Google helpfully asking "did you mean Humid Lipsticking," it would be perfect. In reality, you don't need to be f

Avoid the surprise of seeing your artwork elsewhere on the web

The Web makes it easy to let others see your images. It also makes it easy for others to steal your images or use them without permission. That's why smart photographers add digital watermarks to their images. Ben Long looks at the options. As anyone who's ever illegally downloaded an MP3 file already knows, stealing a digital asset is really easy. With Web-based digital images it's even easier. Whether your work is delivered on-line or via physical prints, it's worth taking a few extra steps to help protect your rights as a creator. Placing a visible watermark is a great way of establishing your ownership of an image while simultaneously deterring theft. After all, an image is far less useful if it's got a big "Copyright" logo burned into it. The downside to this approach, of course, is that your lovely compositions will be marred by a graphic and, depending on where you position the watermark, there's no reason an image thief can't jus

Buy India Pictures from the Hindu Newspaper

Buy pictures from the Hindu Newspaper The Hindu Newspaper group has launched an online library of over 40,000 images related to India similar to the Corbis stock photography and digital pictures service. The site is divided into several broad categories: creative, news, sports, and historic. (It's also searchable by keyword.) I took a look at the Historic section, which stated that its photographs come from 125 years of archives. It's searchable by keyword and year span; I searched for history and got three results. The results are listed in thumbnails that are almost smaller than the list of options that follow them (Add to Cart, Add to Wishlist, Calculate Price, Show Details) but when you click on the image you get a much larger picture and many details, including an extensive caption, category and sub-category, date, and location. There's also a link to calculate price based on what you want to do with the image, from personal use to editorial use and more (decor?) The H

Google Library Project - The fineprint

As has been reported quite widely, Google has begun a massive digitization project with five libraries: Stanford University (all 8M) University of Michigan (all 7M) Harvard University (pilot of 40,000 out of 15M) New York Public Library (pilot; expand to 20M) Oxford's Bodleian Library (1M public domain) The total covered by existing agreements is said to be 15 million. Each is estimated to cost $10 to scan. Stanford's scanning unit is said to be able to do 100,000 pages a day. Oxford's scanning unit is said to be able to do 10,000 books per week. If all of them are that speed then by my math it will take a little over five years to scan them all. Similarly, the University of Michigan says the project will take six years. Most agreements indicate that the hosting library will get a digital copy of their books, which apparently they will then host for their users. In addition, Google will throw all the books into its Google Print service . Some books are alrea

Do you want to be Time's Person Of The Year

If I were in the Time Magazine's jury, I would definitely vote Firefox developer team as TIME person of the year. They gave us such a neat piece of software. If that would have happened (in my wildest dreams), the cover of the magazine would have looked something like this: If you'd like to create your own fake Person of the Year magazine cover, J-Walk has a nice and easy way out - just download this Photoshop file , add a photo, and voila! Instant fame. You will, of course, need a copy of Photoshop or Photoshop Elements in order to work with this file.

What can a Windows user do with live Linux CDs

With Knoppix, Linux is no longer just for Linux users. Live Linux CDs are a simple concept with many possible uses. Here are 5 things which a Windows user can do with a live Linux CD. 1. Try Linux without installing it - Knoppix is the "mother" of all live Linux CD's. It comes with 2 GBs of software making it the perfect distribution to try Linux with. 2. Maintain hard drive/recover data - SystemRescue CD includes a host of tools for maintaining a hard drive including a partition manager and resizing software and drive imaging software. SystemRescue CD can read a variety of file systems including Windows NTFS. 3. Reset forgotten Windows passwords - Austrumi is a good little live CD distribution that includes a tool at boot that allows you to reset forgotten Windows passwords (including Administrator). 4. Watch/listen to multimedia - Movix is a live distribution designed just for playing audio and video files from the internet, CD and DVD. 5. S

NYTimes : Firefox is a classic overnight success, many years in the making.

The Fox Is in Microsoft's Henhouse (and Salivating) With Firefox, open-source software moves from back-office obscurity to your home, and to your parents', too. (Your children in college are already using it.) It is polished, as easy to use as Internet Explorer and, most compelling, much better defended against viruses, worms and snoops. Microsoft has always viewed Internet Explorer's tight integration with Windows to be an attractive feature. That, however, was before security became the unmet need of the day. Firefox sits lightly on top of Windows, in a separation from the underlying operating system that the Mozilla Foundation's president, Mitchell Baker, calls a "natural defense." For the first time, Internet Explorer has been losing market share. According to a worldwide survey conducted in late November by OneStat.com, a company in Amsterdam that analyzes the Web, Internet Explorer's share dropped to less than 89 percent, 5 percentage p

MMS Video Scandals in India Not Limited to Bollywood Celebrities

Sometime back, a student posted video clips of the infamous DPS MMS scandal on the Bazee website (now part of ebay India) and that led to the arrest of the CEO because of flaws in Indian cyber laws. But that was just a tip of the iceberg. With prices of computer webcams and camera phones equipped with video cameras coming down, YouTube and other video sharing sites were flooded with MMS videos that are often shot with hidden cameras and often without permission. And since these clips fall under the category of "user generated content", there's little one can do to get such content removed from the Internet. Also, the mobile service provider, web-hosting company, ISPs, search engines and cyber cafes cannot be held liable for serving these videos. But MMS videos are not all about voyeurism. For instance, filmmaker Nandy used MMS clips in a creative way to promote one of his Hindi films on mobile phones. The other angle is money (or advertising dollars). You may have come ac

Watch Indian Bollywood Movies Online Free

How to watch Latest Indian Movies over the Internet for free ? Or how to download hindi movies ? That's probably the most sought after query on web - most people want to either watch hindi movies online or download the movies for offline viewing without spending money. Indian Bollywood Hindi films are popular in for their music, songs, and extravagent colorful potrayl of Indian Weddings but unfortunately most of the bollywood videos online are either copyright violations or have been posted without prior permission from the producers. While you can legally buy entire bollywood film DVDs from Indiatimes, rediff, ebay or even subscribe and watch the Hindi, Tamil, Kannada Movies, Malayalam or Telegu Movies, Pakistan Plays or films online as streaming media by paying for it, sites like Youtube and Metacafe have just taken the business out of them. For example, a simple search for "bollywood movies" or "hindi movies" will returns tons of video clips on Youtube whi

If TIME Magazine chooses Bloggers as People of the Year

Person of the Year is an annual issue of TIME magazine that features a profile on the man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year. Micro Persuasion and HypergeneMedia Blogs have some innovative cover ideas for TIME magazine. The bloggers absolutely deserve to be this year's People of the Year. If you agree, then make your voice heard. Send an email to the editors of TIME and explain why the bloggers deserve to be this year's choice.

Do you really need MS Desktop Search ?

Just when Google released the Desktop Search, Microsoft also launched the much hyped MSN Toolbar Suite Beta which promises to find files, photos, and music, the interface is fancy and cool. I am sure this has convinced you enough to download this suite and try it yourself. But just wait before hitting the download button. Why do you need MS Desktop Search when your computer already has MS Desktop Search installed - Microsoft just didn't tell you until now how to use it. It's called Windows Indexing Service, and it's a standard feature of Windows 2000 and Windows XP. You can use Indexing Service to index documents and document properties on your disks and store the information in a catalog. You can also use Indexing Service to search for documents, either through Search on the Start menu or through a Web browser. To actually use Indexing Services as it was originally intended, you need to utter a few magic words, which Microsoft has chosen to keep secret from the c

Download freeware and shareware from The Register

The Register have just announced the launch of their new download site . The download site is offering Windows and Macintosh software. Next to that, they also announced their software shop , which offers software in boxes. I'm pretty much convinced this will be one of the major download sites in no time. The content is provided by 5 Star Network , which is, just as The Register, based in the UK, and also provides the content for the LockerGnome downloads. We’re absolutely delighted in the run-up to the Festive Season™ to be able to offer our readers a little something from the Vulture Central “get-something-for-free-pay-nothing-ever” department. Indeed, we’re sure that fans of El Reg will find this a refreshing change from the inexorable “buy-now-pay-2020-at-86%-APR” Yule orgy of capitalism which has so sullied the spirit of Christmas. What has surprised me the most is that a search for "Desktop Search Tools" in the Register Download site did not re

Five great reasons to switch to OpenOffice

Jem Berkes offers some very good reasons to use OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office , and the best reasons have nothing to do with cost of the software. After all: software companies die, but information lasts forever. If a company takes the secrets of unlocking your data to its grave, where will that leave you? *OpenOffice.org runs on multiple platforms. Currently: Windows, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, Mac OS X. *OpenOffice.org is stable, and runs smoothly. *Microsoft has made it clear that it wants proprietary document formats, and inconsistent ones at that. This may work as long as Microsoft is around and developing software that supports files created by outdated products. *OpenOffice.org uses data formats designed to be easily interchanged (OASIS specification), and other projects are cooperating with the vision of open document interchange - e.g. Abiword, and KOffice.

An 82-year-old Nobel laureate will marry 28-year-old graduate student

Chen Ning Yang is a prolific author, his numerous articles appearing in the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, The Physical Review, Reviews of Modern Physics, and the Chinese Journal of Physics. In 1950 Yang married Chih Li Tu and is now the father of three children: Franklin, born 1951; Gilbert, born 1958; and Eulee, born 1961. The 82-year-old Nobel laureate Chen Ning Yang will marry a 28-year old graduate student. I just found this news very interesting so I decided to share it. Via Notes Above the Underground

Forget Reliance Mobile Support *333

I know calling *333 on your Reliance India Mobile and then waiting for a operator to get free so that she can answer your simple queries - this whole exercise is such a pain. Then Reliance IndiaMobile Discussion Forums are there for your rescue. RIM Services - Discussions related to Reliance Indiamobile services. (RIM Postpaid, RIM Prepaid, Miscellaneous, FWP/FWT, FLP) R World - Discussions related to the much hyped 'R World' service of Reliance IndiaMobile R Connect - Discussions related to the 'R Connect' service of Reliance IndiaMobile P.S. I am not sure if these forums are supported by Reliance Infocomm but the users are very quick to answer your queries. The owner of the website just confirmed that the website is not associated with Reliance Infocomm. Reliance IndiaMobile Discussion Forums

Preview the Firefox Ad that will run in NYTimes tomorrow

The Firefox Advertisement for New York Times is complete and would be published tomorrow. The Mozilla Foundation has announced that the long-awaited New York Times advertisement for Mozilla Firefox will run in tomorrow's edition (Thursday 16th December 2004). The two-page black and white ad ( small image of the ad , large image of the ad ) features the names of the 10,000 donors on the left with a large Firefox logo graphic and quotes from satisfied users on the right. A PDF of the finished ad is available but be warned: it's a large and complex document. Spread Firefox ealier announced that at the conclusion of their New York Times advertisement donation drive they have raised $250,000, with roughly 10,000 names to be placed in the ad. The team expects to use roughly $50,000 on the actual ad itself, and the remainder will go towards the Mozilla Foundation, and Firefox 1.0 launch activities. More info is available in the FAQ. Update: Red Herring has an interview with

Some really bad news for Google

At the time, when Google Desktop Search is already competing with big players like Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves, Gartner has just made the going even tougher. Don't use Google desktop search in your business, warns Gartner. Google Desktop Search has great potential for business use. Its security problems and lack of corporate-ready functions, however, make it unsuitable for widespread use right now. Gartner has warned that companies shouldn't use the new Google Desktop Search tool because of security concerns and a lack of features. In a three-page research document, the authors - Whit Andrews, Maurene Grey and David Smith - say the tool that was released in beta in October is "not the proper search tool for businesses right now". Instead they reiterate concerns put forward by the CEO of Google rival Copernic, David Burns, two months ago: "Google's 'Consent to Collect Nonpersonal Information' states that GDS collects non-personal data; however, the policy i

Looking for Google pictures for some news story ?

At Google Press Center , you will find Google images in low and high resolution formats which you can use in your blog posts. Ofcourse don't forget to read the permissions page. Interested in the history of the Google epic, read The Google Timeline here . The Google Press Center offers a nice and compact view of what's up at the Google Search Center.

Sabeer Bhatia is back with new ideas

The first, Telixo.com , came about after Bhatia's handheld ran out of power and he scrambled to find the details of a meeting he had scheduled in India. Forced to wake up his assistant in the middle of the night in California, he wanted to find a simple way to access his entire schedule and contacts via the mobile phone. He settled upon text messaging as the solution. Users of the service can upload or sync their contacts, notes and calendars to Telixo and request information via SMS. For instance, sending a text message ".cal 12 13 04" to Telixo will receive a reply with all meetings scheduled for that day. Another Bhatia company now in beta is Hotseasons.com , a travel site that focuses on hotel ratings. The idea sprouted from his personal frustration with travel research. "I found that in doing hotel research online, all the hotels sounded the same," he said. "You arrive, and the room they give you is really [bad, ] but they call it a 'suite

Download the latest Adobe Reader update

Adobe Reader 6.0.3 update This update addresses several potential vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader versions 6.0.0-6.0.2. Note that currently there are no known malicious exploits of these vulnerabilities. Adobe recommends that all users of Adobe Reader 6.0 apply this update as a proactive measure. This update addresses three issues: - Preventing playback of malicious content in Flash media embedded in a PDF File. For more information see Adobe Knowledgebase article #321328 - Vulnerabilities in the PNG library (libpng version 1.2.5) that could be exploited with malformed PNG images. For more information see CAN-2004-0597. - An issue with how the eBook plug-in works with *.etd files during eBook transactions. For more information see CAN-2004-1153. Download Adobe Acrobate 6.03 Update here . (1.8 Mb) Via Adobe Reader 6.0.3 update - English, Japanese - Adobe Reader for Windows - Downloads

Ask Jeeves joins the Desktop Search race

Ask Jeeves Desktop Search The battle is definitely on with AJ.com announcing its plans to release a test version of its desktop search tool. Daniel Reade, vice president of product management at Ask Jeeves, said many of the releases and announcements were an effort to keep up in the search arms race. Ask Jeeves announced its desktop plans in June, when it acquired desktop search firm Tuckaroo. "To be a major search player going forward, you're going to need all the access points to search," he said. He thinks users eventually will access search engines through the Web, browser toolbars, desktop search applications and mobile devices. Ask Jeeves positions its desktop search tool as more user friendly than offerings from competitors. It lets users control the speed of the indexing and which files are cataloged. The tool is integrated with common Windows dialogue boxes. For example, when opening a folder, an Ask Jeeves Desktop Search box appears for quick sear

MSN Toolbar Suite fails to get a place on my desktop

I installed MSN Toolbar Suite today, must say the installation was very smooth, I even tried it for some ten minutes but then, I was looking for my Add/Remove Programs shortcut to delete it. The only thing good about this suite is its interface which is typical Microsoft, and impressive. Apart from that, none of the features seemed to have impressed me. I will stick with my Copernic suite which offers me "Search as you type" feature alongwith inbuilt file viewers for most of the file types. Its so strange that for indexing Outlook items, Outlook application needs to be running. This requirement is coming from a company that has developed both Outlook and the Toolbar Suite ? I am so disappointed. I might try the next versions of MSN suite if they promise to support .CHM and .HLP files. Read my related post: What I look for in an Ideal Desktop Search Product ?

Donate your computer power for treatment of diseases.

Google would like to request your help with Google Compute, a new feature for the Google Toolbar. By turning on this feature, you enable your computer to work on complex problems when it would otherwise be idle. The work it does is automatically sent via the Internet to researchers who combine it with information sent by thousands of other users. The first beneficiary of this effort is Folding@home, a non-profit research project at Stanford University that is trying to understand the structure of proteins so they can develop better treatments for a number of illnesses. In the future Google Compute may allow you to donate your computing time to other worthwhile endeavors, including projects to improve Google and its services. The Google Compute feature of the Google Toolbar shouldn't affect your regular computing activities and you can easily disable it at any time for any reason. Google Compute is designed to run even on low-bandwidth connections such as modems. The

MSN Desktop Search Toolbar Suite - What the web is thinking ?

My first thought - MSN Desktop Search doesn't work on Firefox, you need to dowload another 6 MB iFilter file from Adobe.com to support indexing PDF files, the desktop search is integrated with the toolbar - no stand alone app, it can index almost all the office file types, text, web pages and emails. So the gist is that I don't get any new feature from this tool that my existing Copernic or X1 or blinkX doesn't offer. So I better wait and watch for the next version. If you are using a browser other than IE, you get this warning Warning! Your browser does not meet the minimum system requirements. You are recommended to use the MSN Toolbar Suite with Internet Explorer 5.01 or later. All the following comments have been picked from the blogs of some great minds on the web with due credits to the authors at the end of the post. The last hour I’ve been playing with the new MSN Toolbar Suite Beta and I’m very impressed! I’m using Scoble’s Desktop Search Reviewer’s Guide t

What filetypes can MSN Desktop Search index ?

Looking for e-mail, documents or photos? MSN Desktop Search lets you search your computer for documents and files, photos and videos, music, and Outlook and Outlook Express items such as e-mail messages, contacts, and appointments. Desktop Search lets you search your computer for many types of files. File types you can search You can search all of the content in most common document file types, including text files, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Outlook and Outlook Express items, and web pages. In addition, if you installed the Adobe plug-in when you installed MSN Toolbar Suite, you can search all of the content of PDF files. You can search for keywords in the titles of music, image, and video files, as well as program executable files. Locations you can search Desktop Search lets you search files in all indexed locations. By default, Desktop Search indexes your e-mail files and all files saved in the My Documents folder. However, you can have Desktop Se

Why use Yahoo Desktop Search over other tools ?

The Yahoo-branded application, available in early January, will let people search their PCs as well as the Web via Yahoo Search, but future iterations will include navigation for Yahoo's instant messenger archives, address book and free e-mail service. Why should you use Yahoo! Desktop Search (X1) instead of other desktop search tools: Relevance : Ability to pivot data by any dimension: recency, creator, recipient, type, etc. Comprehensiveness : Ability to index 225+ data types, email attachments. Freshness: V1.0 Beta: Scheduled in increments ,V1.0: near real time Presentation :Rich native user-interface Search-as-you-type, previews, post-search actions.

Monitor your upload/download statistics (bandwidth usage)

RAS Graph & Stats is a network/dialup monitor and stats tool. It provides real time graph of traffic. Detailed stats provide daily/weekly/monthly/yearly stats/user defined range. Stop watch. etc.. This app which makes it so easy to monitor bandwidth, basically picks up where the old NetStat left off by providing stats for network card (cable/dsl/etc) RAS G&S is freeware and now Win9x/Win2k/XP compatible. It is definitely the best bandwidth monitor out there in the Free category. Download RAS Graph & Stats here . Via RAS Graph & Stats v1.20

A 3D Desktop (GUI) for Windows OS

The SphereXP is a 3D desktop replacement for Microsoft Windows XP. Taking the known concept of three-dimensional desktops to its own level. It offers a new way to organize objects on the desktop such a icons and applications. See more screenshots of The SphereXP here . Please keep in mind that project is more of a vision. Due to the limitations of Windows I'm not able to do everything as I would like to. I know it is still not very usable, but I'll try to make it work as I can. I hope when there's time for it, this theory will have a satisfying implementation. The Sphere is theory of an 3D workspace. The SphereXP is an example of the theory. The environment is user-centered. It is represented by a sphere. The user is exactly in the middle of it. All objects are situated around the user. He can easily turn around and manipulate with the objects. All the objects that users are used to having on their regular desktop are now integrated in a three-dimensional environment. .

Top forum discussions at CNet Forums

1. Looking for utilities to test my firewall 2. Treo 650 or Treo 600? 3. Making IE the default browser 4. Alternative free e-mail client to O.E.? 5. How do I transfer video on tape to my PC? 6. Best DVD burning/editing software? 7. Is the iMac worth every penny? 8. I get red X s on many Web pages, why? 9. Can a virus survive hard drive reformatting? 10. Is it OK to delete all temp files? Via CNet Newsletter

What's happening ? AOL to Use Copernic for Desktop Search

While Yahoo has announced a deal with X1, AOL's pact with Copernic is a smarter move. X1 is processor-heavy and RAM intensive, which means that Yahoo will have to trim it down a lot, in order to make a free download feasible. Meanwhile, Copernic is more efficient and less draining - I've never seen a slowdown with it installed - and should be a more compelling download. The company plans its own desktop search application that is packaged as part of the new AOL browser that's in beta testing. Any AOL member can access this by signing into AOL, then using the keyword "beta" to reach the beta download area. I've just downloaded the beta but haven't had a chance to play with it. But the desktop search is powered by Copernic, another well regarded desktop search app. Just recently, Mamma acquired Copernic and now AOL plans to use Copernic Technology. Wow !! So much is happening and that also so fast. It is not long before I need a search tool to tell me

A Letter from Josh Jacobs, the President of X1

Josh Jacobs, President X1 As you may have heard, Yahoo! has chosen X1 Technologies to power their consumer desktop search solution. X1 has spent the last couple of years working with our users to build and evolve the most robust desktop search technology on the market and believe that partnering with Yahoo!, a leading Search Engine, presents X1 with enormous opportunity from a distribution perspective. Yahoo! has been intently focused on developing advanced search technology, along with products that compliment the experience and we are pleased to be working with them on their desktop search initiative. Because of our partnership with Yahoo!, millions of computer users will now be able to increase their personal productivity via the power of X1 Desktop Search technology. We believe this partnership validates our expertise as the leader in desktop search and are excited to have millions of people using the most robust search experience available. Over the coming weeks you can expect to

Web Design also affects Search Engine Rankings

The size of a web site can have a huge impact on search engine rankings. Search engines love content , so if you have only a few pages to your site and your competitors have dozens, it’s difficult to see a top page ranking for your site. In some cases it may be difficult to present several pages of information about your business or products, so you may need to think about adding free resources for visitors. It will help in broadening the scope of your web site (which search engines like) as well as keep visitors on your site longer, possibly resulting in more sales. While web sites that offer the visitor a more esthetically-pleasing experience may seem like the best choice for someone searching for your product, they are the most difficult to optimize. Since search engine robots cannot read text within graphics or animation, what they see may be just a small amount of text. And if we learned anything from point #1, small amounts of content will not result in top rankings. If you re