A new Series40 phone by Nokia is no great surprise but with the new 6260 Slide, Nokia has announced a phone that looks really good on paper.

For the first time an S40 phone will feature assisted GPS, Wi-Fi and a 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera with flash. Pictures taken can be easily shared and uploaded to Nokia’s Share on Ovi service or other picture and video sharing site.

Ideal for social networking addicts! The Nokia 6260 slide is equipped with the latest 3G technology plus high speed uploads (HSUPA) and downloads (HSDPA). It also features quick access to search engines and points of interest straight from the home screen, the new 360° navi-key also allows a whole new mobile Internet experience.

Nokia can be expected to launch the phone sometime in January or February of next year for around €300 (Rs. 19,295).

For more details on specification, visit here.

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When tech giants like Google and Apple work on a collaborative project, the whole speculation around it goes hyper. We knew that Google was working on some Apple app. Now let’s spill the bin, which is quite tasty too. Google has created an iPhone App, that will let you search via voice on the iPhone. Google has done something pretty amazing with voice recognition and mobile platforms. This application will, quite simply, sell iPhones.

Google iPhone spoken search will be made available to Apple iPhone and iPod users today via the Apple iTunes store, and will let users ask questions that are not only local directory sensitive (like the 1-800-GOOG-411 experiment) but also basic search questions which request facts or figures. The application uses advanced speech recognition software which interprets the user’s vocal request, and passes it on to Google’s search engine. The results can be displayed in as little as a few seconds, depending on the network speed.

The Google results, according to the New York Times, can automatically detect the location of the iPhone via GPS and serve localized results. So if you’re standing in the middle of Times Square and ask “Where is the nearest Afghan restaurant?” your results would be locally targeted and different than if you were standing in the middle of Tribeca.


The voice search option in Mobile App for iPhone is turned off by default. Moreover, it comes with a warning that the speech-recognition only works in English, and is most effective when spoken with a North American accent. So how does it cope with the British tongue? Actually, the rather poor translation of our headline aside, our first impression is that it’s pretty good.

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Microsoft released the most expected Xbox 360 game console and online service, dubbed the New Xbox Experience (or NXE). The Microsoft's Xbox 360's first impression is quite positive and the new software can be described as fresh, simple and extreme fun.

With a complete graphical revision, the update adds new features like customizable avatars, the ability to install games to the console's hard drive, and puts a much greater focus on the Xbox Live marketplace. The Microsoft's gaming console is made almost an all purpose device via the new Xbox software, since it permits the users to stream movies from Netflix, play games, create avatars, communicate with other Xbox users and share pictures. Latest navigational designs are also included in the new Xbox software and the Live Experience has replaced the old blades with a more user friendly system.

"The next time you turn on your Xbox 360, the way you enjoy entertainment in your home will be changed forever," said Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox Live at Microsoft. "The New Xbox Experience will not only be easier to use from the very beginning, but it will give you new ways to connect with your friends and family and offer up more entertainment choices than any other device connected to the TV."

Microsoft has also built the dashboard into the Xbox guide. The tabbed interfaces known as "blades" will now include every feature and option, including access to the full games library at any time. Both casual and hardcore gamers are being aimed at by the Xbox and it also provides a multi-purpose device that can be seen as the future of entertainment.

The New Xbox Experience is available now as a free software update to all Xbox 360 owners with an internet connection.

For more details visit here. Let us know what you think about this change.

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Microsoft has announced an renewed version of its Internet-based Windows Live communications platform. Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail in particular have been equipped with a new user interface and added functionality for the benefit of its users. By announcing a series of changes to its Windows Live services, Microsoft aims to give more of a social-networking flavor to the company's communications services.

To populate its news feed, users will have the option to include their activities from a variety of other sites. The company has signed up reviews sites like Amazon and Yelp, blogging sites like WordPress and Twitter, as well as some less well-known social-networking sites. With the update, Spaces, Windows Live Hotmail, and Windows Live Messenger will get deeper ties with one another.

Among the new functions is the ability to create Windows Live Groups. These let friends, colleagues or family members gather in groups for easier communication. As part of the latest changes, Microsoft is also upping the amount of storage provided with its SkyDrive service to 25GB from 5GB. Part of this wave of changes is also the update to Windows Live Hotmail, in which Microsoft has merged its standard and classic modes. Windows Live will also now include an automated POP3 e-mail retrieval capability. This will allow users to bundle all of their electronic communication into Microsoft's Hotmail e-mail service. Access to the service from mobile devices is now supported as well.

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Happy news for all ‘Gizmo’ buffs. The technology goes one step higher day-by-day and technology giant Samsung proves that by announcing its latest mobile phone called ‘Samsung Tobi 3030’. It is now targeting a new section of customers called preteens in the mobile phone markets.

Samsung Tobi 3030 has lots of features, say Weighing less than 100 grams, the GSM compatible phone has a TFT screen, which can display a resolution of 144x176. The newly launched phone is eco friendly as it made out of bio-plastics, non-toxic paints and non-allergenic materials. It also contains specially animated characters and themes. The phone has added safety features like making calls in emergencies and guarding against fake calls.


This new sliding phone has 15 MB internal memory. Using a microSD slot it can be expanded up to 8 GB. It has a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth and is USB compatible. It is available in many colors like pink, blue and orange that are likely to appeal the pre teens. Details of pricing are not yet known and it is expected to be available in retail stores soon in Italy and UK.

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It was suprising when the sources from the Maharashtra home ministry confirmed that all the 10 terrorists involved in the Mumbai attack got familiar with the terrain of the city by using the Google Earth service. Google Earth is a virtual globe program that was originally called Earth Viewer. It maps the earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS 3D globe.

One Times report said that nine of the 16 fidayeens had lived in Mumbai to recce (reconnoitre) the terrain. Another report said “the ten terrorists had not come to Mumbai before this to conduct any 'recce' and they had learnt about the locations with the help of Google Earth". This highlights the dilemma that Google Earth/Google Maps (and its Microsoft and Yahoo counterparts) face in making available information that might be used for deadly purposes.

Despite such complaints, Google Maps still provide aerial photos of sensitive sites such as the French defense ministry. Even if Google Earth does not (as one humorist suggested) provide real-time imagery, Google (and others) provide plenty of pictures that would be hard (if not impossible) to obtain by a terrorist or other non-governmental attacker.

It’s one thing to say that “everybody’s doing it” and thus no individual firm faces any need for self-restraint on sensitive locales. On the other hand, as more crimes (or military attacks) are committed using such tools, there will be public pressure to do something about this problem.

Lets hope no such tools are made available for such destructive acts.

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Gmail is one of the popular tools of Google. There is no doubt that Gmail has some inbuilt unique features which no other email client has and hence it will very soon become the most popular web based email program.

Here are some of those features:

1. Many people might know that there are two ways to load Gmail. One is "Standard" view for those people who have faster internet connection. Second one is "Load Basic HTML" view, for those who don't have faster internet connection.

But, there is one more way which will load your Gmail even faster and that is "mobile" version. Just type m.gmail.com in the address bar without http/www protocol and press enter, you will see the difference yourself.

2. While sending an email to another Gmail user, you can simply send the mail to his id, i.e. you can skip ‘@gmail.com’ and still the mail gets delivered to the exact recipient.

3. You can get the RSS feed of your Gmail inbox in the same manner like you get feeds of different websites in your RSS feed reader. The feed URL that you would need is http://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom

The only drawback here is that the feed requires authentication and hence it is not viewable in some feed readers which includes Google Reader. You can view it in desktop based RSS readers like FeedDemon.

4. Consider, your Gmail id is myusername@gmail.com. Now, send mail to my.username@gmail or MYuser.name@gmail and check your inbox. You will find those mails in your inbox though the mail ids were different.

Well, for Gmail its not different. Gmail allow registeration of any username only once. Once you sign up for a particular username, any dot or capitalization variations are made permanently unavailable for new registration. If you created myusername@gmail.com, no one can ever register my.username@gmail.com, or MYuser.name@gmail.com. Gmail doesnt consider .(dot) as characters.

But, the reverse case is not possible for security reasons, if your Gmail id is my.username@gmail.com. Now, if you try to login by just giving "myusername" as user name(without dot), you will fail.

5. When you register for Gmail, you get two mail address automatically. Consider, you’ve got an email address as username@gmail.com, you automatically get another email address which is username@googlemail.com. Both are same.

This can be helpful when you want keep different mail address for different group of contacts and filter out mails from any of these addresses.

6. This is one of the best feature of Gmail which can be used to track spammers.

Just send a mail to youremailid+typeinanythinghere@gmail.com, adding +(plus) followed by anything and the mail ends in your inbox !!

Nowadays, whenever we register with any website(www.abc.com), we are required to enter our mail id.
So lets consider that you give your id as myemailid+abc@gmail.com.

Now, log into your gmail id and set up a filter for that mail id to a different folder. Now if you get spam on that particular id, you will know who sells your id.

7. Gmail provides you with some useful searching tips as follows:

• ‘after:year/month/date’ , ‘before:year/month/date’ can be used for finding the mails sent or received after or before the specified date.
• ‘OR‘ can be used as ‘from:A OR from:B’ where A and B are senders, can also be used as ‘to:A OR to:B’, this will display all the messages sent to A or B.
• ‘-‘ (Hyphen) is used to make exclusions, like ‘Apple-Nokia’ will display the mails which have word ‘Apple’ but not ‘Nokia’.
• ‘filename:‘ type in filename:filename.doc will display the mails which have filename.doc as attachment in them.
  

Hope, the above tips helps you to use Gmail in a more efficient way and share your views!!

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Yahoo! Sites continued to lead the market in Japan with more visitors in September, according to comScore. Google Sites captured second followed by Microsoft Sites. ComScore released its ranking of the top search properties in Japan during the month of September 2008. And although the same two leaders in the U.S. -- Google and Yahoo -- top the list, it's Google that's trailing in Japan.

According to ComScore's qSearch data, 5.9 billion searches were conducted in Japan in September and the average person searched 96 times during the month. Yahoo led the way in search query volume with 3 billion searches and 51 percent market share, but Google wasn't far behind with 2.3 billion searches and 39 percent market share. Microsoft, which makes the third-most popular search engine in the U.S., only mustered 90 million queries during the month to take the fourth spot in the country behind Japan-based Rakuten.

"The search market in Japan is dominated by Yahoo and Google, which combine for more than 90 percent of the market," Maru Sato, managing director of ComScore Japan said in a statement.

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Whenever you have queried for something on Google Search, you would have got the search results based on their popularity. But, there are times when you would have liked if the search results returned were latest.

It's possible though, Google has a hidden feature which lets you sort the search results based on the date.

Consider, you are looking for "Gmail", then the normal URL will be something like this

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Gmail&btnG=Search

The results returned using the above URL will be based on their popularity. Now, to sort the results based on date, add the parameter &as_qdr=d in front of your normal URL as shown below

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Gmail&btnG=Search&as_qdr=d

The results returned by adding the parameter are sorted results so that you can easily know which are latest updates.

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Are you the kind who has always wished for a system that would offer you complete control over your home? A system that let's you control virtually all things electronic - remotely?

A new type of smart technology from mobile phone maker Nokia looks set to turn that fantasy into a reality. The Home Control Center, which will go on sale at the end of next year, will mean British consumers are one step closer to living in "networked homes", where everyday systems and devices are connected to the internet, allowing the home owner to monitor and activate them remotely using their mobile phone.

Nokia's platform will run the open-source Linux operating system, meaning that third-party manufacturers that make fridges and televisions, will be able to build compatible technology into their devices at minimal cost. The HCC will allow users to initially control things like electricity usage and basic control of their electronic gadgets. However, in due course, it will implement more complex tasks like security, air conditioning and ventilation. Features for the module include ethernet connectors, WLAN support, and SD card reader. The CPU runs at 533 Mhz and has 6GB of storage space.


Smart homes are already a feature in countries such as South Korea, where some modern buildings use fingerprint access, rather than conventional keys, to gain access, and many devices within the home are connected to super-fast broadband internet.

It is not yet known how much the Nokia Home Control Center will cost when it goes on sale towards the end of 2009. View the complete specifications here.

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Kampo Interactive has released Balance, a tilt puzzle game for the Mac and coming soon to the iPhone. It can be played by simply tilting a laptop. Besides the mouse and trackpad, the game can make use of the accelerometers built into all Apple notebooks, including the various MacBook, PowerBook and iBook models.

Here’s how the game is described: “Balance requires both puzzle solving and hand-eye coordination skills without any time pressure as players tilt the playfield to guide one or more balls between various 3D obstacles to their destinations. The game has 75 levels that are continuously expanded by downloadable level upgrades. Players can share their best times over the internet along with recordings of their sessions for others to watch. Free level upgrades and no time pressure is also offered by Balance.”

A 60-minute demo of the game is available for download here. The full version of the game requires registration fee of US$19.95.

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Ever wondered running two operating systems on a single mobile phone? But it has become reality, thanks to the iPhone Dev Team. They have successfully released their own draft version of iPhone Linux after reverse engineering the original Linux 2.6 kernel.

This draft version of iPhone Linux OS can run on your iPhone, iPhone 3G or iPod Touch. Being a draft version, many drivers are still missing, but it's enough that a real alternative operating system is running on the iPhone.

Some of the features which are currently supported include Framebuffer driver, Serial driver, Serial over USB driver, Interrupts, MMU, clock, etc.

The developers have also made a basic multi-boot front end known as OpeniBoot that lets users toggle between Apple's own operating system and an alternative platform.

The Accelerometer, Touchscreen, Write support for the NAND, Wireless networking, Sound and Baseband support are some of the features which do not currently have any software support.

Here's a demo video:

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One of the primary limitations that people will notice in Gmail is the lack of HTML support in email signatures.

Google has heard this complaint for a long time from it’s huge user base, but still they haven’t addressed this, despite making other useful changes and incorporating some popular Greasemonkey scripts right inside Gmail such as the Label Colors.

Till now, some of us have been relying on Greasemonkey scripts for Gmail to get HTML signatures but it wasn’t very straight forward or user-friendly.

Now there is one Firefox extension named Black Canvas’ Gmail Signatures which is set to change all that. This is especially useful for people using more than one Gmail account since it can allow you to add four custom HTML signatures in whichever account you’re sending the message from.


Once installed, you get a new drop-down menu that lets you select one of your four custom signatures. These can be managed directly within Gmail, and comes with an editor that shows you a live preview of whatever HTML you drop in. Included are four presets with nicknames like personal, business, and family, all of which can be renamed to suit the type of signature you've set up.

Gmail Signatures is an experimental add-on, so you must register with Mozilla's Firefox add-ons site to download it.

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Owen Louis, 21 from Portsmouth has found a unique way of saving electricity when charging his iPod - by using an onion soaked in energy drink.

Owen, who happens to be a music fan, was worried about the amount of electricity his MP3 player was using, and decided to use the vegetables to power up his device.

Owen Louis’ technique involved boring two holes in an onion, soaking it in an energy drink then sticking a USB cable into it, and device enables him to charge his iPod for an hour.

“I was watching TV with my laptop on and my iPod playing and thought, ‘How much electricity must I be using?’” Metro.co.uk quoted him as saying.

“A friend showed me the experiment as a laugh but I thought it was the greatest thing I have ever seen, and do it religiously every day,” he said.

Louis, from Portsmouth, said that the idea was a foolproof way of staying green as the onion decomposes and the drink bottle can be recycled once finished with.

Phil Stubbles, a physics lecturer from St Vincent College in Gosport, Hampshire, said that almost all vegetables could power iPods because they contain ions, which react with energy drinks to create a charge.

“The only problem is you have no control over how long it may work for ... and it can be smelly,” he added.

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On November 25 2008, the Fedora developer community announced the release of Fedora 10, a new version of the popular open source Linux distribution. Fedora 10 is built on Linux kernel version 2.6.27 and is sponsored by Red Hat.

During development stages of Fedora, there was a security breach in project servers by malicious hackers and this was the main reason of Cambridge, the code name for Fedora 10, coming into the gossip way before it was launched. But the developers handled the security breach very well resulting in the successful launch of Fedora 10.


This version has been released with in six months after the release of Fedora 9, but the new release introduces some important new features and technologies that bring more robustness and usability to the desktop user experience.

Some of the new features and improvements include addition of OpenOffice 3.0, new virtualization features, internet connection sharing, faster booting, a new security audit tool.

For full details on the release, you can go through the release notes and also download Fedora 10 for free from project website.

Posts your comments after giving a try on this new version and how different it is from the previous version.

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Good news!! One of the most popular FPS game, Quake 3: Arena has been updated to support Nokia S60 phones.

According to Decoder, the game running can be played on those handsets which features Texa's OMAP 2420 chipset technology, which means you can only host games on a Nokia N95 8GB, N82 and E90.


The compatible handsets can now also take advantage of mouse and keyboard support by using bluetooth-enabled peripherals with the game.

Unfortunately the one of the most popular S60 handset, the N95, is incompatible with the game due to a lack of system memory.

The mobile version of the game comes with all the mod-cons of modern gaming too, including remappable controls and full-screen anti-aliasing. Games can be hosted both locally and over any nearby access points.

The details on how to install and the files required to run Quake 3 Arena on your S60 handset can be downloaded from the developers website.

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TooManyTabs is a new experimental Firefox extension that lets you store over 50 extra tabs in a single row so that you can quick access them later on. That may not be exciting enough because it will be hard to navigate to find the right tab when there are too many tabs but the great thing about this extension is that it frees up your memory by making them appear as idle.

The tabs can be added to TooManyTabs row by clicking a yellow arrow that replaces the favicon in an active tab and it can be opened up by clicking the same tab in the TooManyTabs row. The tab added to the TooManyTabs row will be removed from the memory.


TooManyTabs can restore up to 20 recently closed tabs, helps you specify custom colors for easy identification of your favorite tabs and also lets you specify favorite sites for quick opening later on.

Since, TooManyTabs is still in experimental stage, you need to register with Mozilla to install it. The current version of TooManyTabs is available for Windows, Mac and Linux systems.

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The recent domain hijacking incidents by unauthorized third parties were due to phishing and not because of any Gmail vulnerability, according to a post on Google security blog.

According to Google, the attackers had sent customized e-mail messages to web domain owners encouraging them to visit fraudulent websites, such as "google-hosts.com", so that they can collect their Google usernames and passwords. Once they had access to the Google mail accounts, they would set up filters designed to forward email conversations from web domain providers.

Google has recommended few ways by which you can keep your own Gmail account secure.

1. Always use HTTPS when accessing Gmail account. This can be changed from the "Settings" > "General" tab in your Gmail interface.


2. Enter your Gmail sign-in credentials, only if the web address begins with https://www.google.com/accounts..

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Nokia has proved once again that they are one of greatest mobile manufacturer in the world by launching its first full touch interface cell phone- Nokia 5800 XpressMusic in its line. Nokia announced today that the highly anticipated Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is now, or soon will be, available in select markets globally, including Russia, Spain, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Finland, among others. The latest in Nokia's XpressMusic range, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic delivers an affordable music device with a touch screen interface to the mass market.

Aiming to put music into the hands of millions, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic offers all the music essentials including a graphic equalizer, 8GB memory for up to 6000 tracks, support for all main digital music formats, and a 3.5mm jack. Built-in surround sound stereo speakers offer the industry's most powerful sound.


Making the most of touch screen technology, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic delivers easy and fast access to all music, video and photos through a one-touch 'Mediabar' drop down menu. The Media Bar also offers a direct link to the Web and to online sharing. Because the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic supports Flash content, individuals can surf the entire web.

The innovative 'Contacts Bar' lets people highlight four favorite contacts on their home-screen and, through a single touch, track a digital history of recent text messages, emails, phone logs, photos and blog updates.

For the best screen resolution available on a mobile phone, the 3.2" widescreen display brings photos, video clips and web content to life in vibrant color and true clarity. With a 16 by 9 aspect ratio and 30 frames-per-second playback and recording, the device is ideal for VGA quality video recording and playback. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic also features a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and, with a single touch, images or videos can be shared via a favorite online community, such as Share on Ovi, Flickr, or Facebook.

Ensuring a seamless music experience, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic also provides easy access to browse and purchase tracks from the Nokia Music Store, where applicable, while the newly updated Nokia Music PC software allows for easy drag-and-drop transfer of songs and management of any music collection.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic supports 60 languages worldwide and offers a variety of input methods including a virtual alphanumeric keypad, a virtual computer-style QWERTY keyboard, a pen stylus -- and for true music enthusiasts, a plectrum -- are all available.

The phone will cost a whopping $446! In addition to this, the price is subject to variation as vendors will bundle it with some kind of promotional merchandise and free gifts, so you can expect to pay about $100 or more.

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Scoop is an RSS Feed Reader Adobe Air Application with offline/online Google Reader synchronization built in. You have to just link your Google Reader account with Scoop.
It will download all your subscriptions so that you can read it offline.

You can link multiple Google Reader accounts simultaneously with the same Scoop client. You can read and tag your feed items and Scoop will synchronize your changes with Google when you’re back online.

Current features included in this first Beta:

• Offline mode - all new posts/feeds get stored locally + offline changes you make get synchronized with Google when you’re back online
• Instant notifications of new scoops/posts from your favorite blogs and websites.
• Popular Google Read keyboard shortcuts like J/K for moving forwards and backwards through your reading lists.
• Auto-update feature - the application will alert you when a new version of Scoop becomes available.
  

Currently, Scoop for Google Reader is in beta so it won’t download images when switching to the offline mode. Scoop is currently available for Windows, Mac or Linux systems.

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“Mark your calendars now” says Apple. Want to bag yourself some cut-price Apple gear? Perhaps you're thinking of splashing out on a new aluminium MacBook? Or maybe a second-gen iPod touch? Well, mark this Friday in your diary with a fat red marker: Apple is holding a one-day sale.

Apple is launching its largest Black Friday sale in history which could, or at least should, include the iPhone. 28th November, 2008 will see Apple slash prices on stacks of kit, much like they do with their US "Black Friday" sales.


There's no word on exactly which bargains we'll see, with Apple's email simply stating: "Lots of gifts. 1 day not to miss. The special one-day Apple shopping event. Friday, November 28".

Apple has not unveiled any pricing for their annual sale, but the company may want to follow up its this year's back-to-school sale with something comparable.

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According to the Internet in India (I-Cube) study jointly undertaken by the Internet And Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International mumbai has 3.24 million internet users out of which 82% are active users i.e a whopping 2.6 million!

According to the eBay India Census 2008, India's top five eCommerce hubs are Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai. E-Commerce is helping bridge the demand and supply gap.
Over a third of all products bought by eBayers in the hilly areas are tech gadgets (Mobile Phones, Digital Cameras and USB Drives). While women from metros are buying a lot of sarees, the sellers are spread across various cities and towns. The most bought and sold items on the shopping portal are diamonds, value handsets, MP4 players, USB MP3 players and Indian stamps.

The census includes data only from shoppers on eBay India but can be used to get some idea of the market as 42 per cent of shoppers prefer eBay over other portals according to a survey by Juxt consulting.

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Nokia is preparing to begin a large-scale traffic monitoring project called Mobile Millennium, for which it will invite up to 10,000 members of the public to provide anonymous GPS tracking data through their cellphones. The first stage of a plan to provide real-time traffic information throughout cities rather than just on main routes, Mobile Millennium is being partly sponsored by the US Department of Transportation; it relies on a small Java app that both anonymously submits GPS data as well as receives amalgamated congestion updates.


Mobile Millennium uses banking-grade encryption to secure data being transmitted over the cellular networks, stripping individual device identifiers from the transmitted traffic data, and only ever bringing in information from devices located in targeted roadways where traffic information is needed.

Existing traffic monitoring systems use pavement-embedded sensors, roadside radar and cameras, which are expensive and have limited repositioning flexibility. Nokia is hoping that Mobile Millennium will be a cheaper and further-reaching alternative, and will be working with UC Berkeley fs California Center for Innovative Transportation (CCIT), the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and NAVTEQ to design, execute and analyze the traffic system.

Anybody with a GPS enabled cellphone on the compatibility list (which includes more than just Nokia handsets), the ability to run Java apps and an unlimited data plan is eligible to take part.

You can find out more details, plus download the Mobile Millennium app, at the project page here.

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Even though the Defense Department has invested heavily in cyber-security in the past few years, the Code Red computer virus did serious damage to the Pentagon's computers during last week. The attack came in the form of a global virus or worm that spread rapidly throughout a number of military networks

The acknowledgment followed reports that the military has banned the use of removable flash media like thumb drives or memory sticks in any Defense Department computer. The Military Times newspaper, however, cited a November 17 air force memo that ordered the "immediate suspension" of the use of flash media on all unclassified and classified computer networks.

The Pentagon's global information grid includes about 17,000 local and regional networks and seven million individual computers. The Code Red virus attacked systems rather than individual hard drives. It infected approximately 250,000 systems in nine hours, and at that time, officials informed military Web site operators to cut their connections to the public. The Pentagon's public network went back online five days later.

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What if we could, like mythical alchemists, change stone into gold; or like Superman, make coal into diamonds by squeezing it with our bare hands? Element Four seems to have answered this not-so-hypothetical question with a resounding “yes” with the WaterMill, a water purification and filtration system that creates “fresh, potable water from an unlimited source: the air.”It's a gadget - a machine that scientists claim can make water out of thin air.


Unlike other water harvesting systems such as fog and dew collectors which rely on a delicate combination of surface area and atmospheric conditions, and similar large-scale systems like WatAir which have more practical concerns such as special permits and community approval, the WaterMill is a small, relatively simple home appliance that draws moisture from the outside air and condenses it into fresh potable water. The WaterMill promises to provide 3.2 gallons of drinking water a day under ideal conditions - enough for a family of six.

According to the scientists, the machine not only offers an alternative to bottled water in developed countries, but it is a solution for the millions who face a daily water shortage. And, in keeping with its eco-development, the machine uses the same amount of electricity as three light bulbs.The Water Mill, which is about 3ft wide, is likely to cost 800 pounds and a litre of water will cost around 20 pence to produce.

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Calling it the ‘most advanced desktop processor’ ever, Intel India has rolled out the first member of the Intel Nehalem microarchitecture family -- the Core i7 processor. Brilliantly fast With faster, intelligent, multi-core technology that applies processing power where it's needed most, new Intel Core™ i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in PC performance.


Intel India has introduced its most advanced desktop processor ever -- the Intel Core i7 processor. The Core i7 processor is the first member of a new family of Nehalem processor designs. It speeds video editing, immersive games and other popular Internet and computer activities by up to 40 per cent without increasing power consumption, claimed Intel. The Intel Core i7 processor holds a new world record of 117 for the SPECint_base_rate2006 benchmark test that measures the performance of a processor. This is said to be the first time ever for any single processor to exceed a score of 100 points.

"Intel has delivered the fastest desktop processor on Earth to the most demanding users on Earth, the ones who are using their PCs for video, gaming and music," said Prakash Bagri, director, marketing, Intel South Asia. "When you couple what is Intel's biggest leap in chip design with other incredible innovations like Intel's solid state drives, the Core i7 processor has redefined the computer of tomorrow."

Intel Turbo Boost technology maximizes speed for demanding applications, dynamically accelerating performance to match your workload—more performance when you need it the most.

This accelerates performance to match a computer user's needs and workloads. Through a on-die power control unit and using new 'power gate' transistors based on Intel's advanced 45 nanometer, high-k metal gate manufacturing process, Turbo Boost automatically adjusts the clock speed of one or more of the four individual processing cores for single- and multi-threaded applications to boost performance, without increasing power consumption. The Core i7 also has the latest Intel power-saving technologies, allowing desktops to go into sleep states formerly reserved for Intel-based notebooks.

The Core i7 processor more than doubles the memory bandwidth of previous Intel 'Extreme' platforms, speeding the transfer of computer bits and bites in and out of the processor with Intel Quickpath Technology.

Intel Hyper-Threading technology enables highly threaded applications to get more work done in parallel. With 8 threads available to the operating system, multi-tasking becomes even easier. This allows multiple computing threads to run simultaneously, effectively enabling it to do two things at once. As a result, the Core i7 quad-core processor delivers 8-threaded performance.

Intel Smart Cache provides a higher-performance, more efficient cache subsystem. Optimized for industry leading multi-threaded games.

Intel QuickPath Interconnect is designed for increased bandwidth and low latency. It can achieve data transfer speeds as high as 25.6 GB/sec with the Extreme Edition processor. Integrated memory controller enables three channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, resulting in up to 25.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth. This memory controller's lower latency and higher memory bandwidth delivers amazing performance for data-intensive applications.

Intel HD Boost significantly improves a broad range of multimedia and compute-intensive applications. The 128-bit SSE instructions are issued at a throughput rate of one per clock cycle, allowing a new level of processing efficiency with SSE4 optimized applications.

The Intel Core i7 processor also offers unrivaled performance for immersive 3-D games—over 40% faster than previous Intel high-performance processors on both the 3DMark Vantage CPU physics and AI tests, popular industry computer benchmarks that measure gaming performance. The Extreme Edition uses eight threads to run games with advanced artificial intelligence and physics to make games act and feel real.

The Core i7 processor is the first member of the Intel Nehalem microarchitecture family; server and mobile product versions will be in production later. Each Core i7 processor features an 8 MB level 3 cache and three channels of DDR3 1066 memory to deliver what Intel calls is the best memory performance of any desktop platform.

The Intel Core i7 processors and Intel X58 Express Chipset-based Intel Desktop Board DX58SO Extreme Series are for sale immediately from several computer manufacturers online and in retail stores, as well as a boxed retail product via channel online sales.

In India, customers can buy Core i7-based systems from HCL, Wipro, Acer and Dell as well as multiple channel partners across the country.

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Rumors are going on that Microsoft might rebrand its online search engine, Windows Live Search under the name Kumo by early 2009. According to LiveSide, Kumo.com is now registered under Microsoft and is reportedly under the same name servers as SEARCH.LIVE.COM.

Kumo means “cloud” or “spider” in Japanese. Is Microsft hinting towards cloud computing? But, the concept of cloud computing is related to Internet applications and data storage systems like Google Docs. Could Kumo be the official name for something else? we don't know as of now, but will surely get an answer in the near future. However analysts point out that Microsoft’s third position in the search market is unlikely to be improved by just rebranding.

Latest reports suggests that Microsoft is focusing inwards and improving it’s own search offering rather than going out to acquire Yahoo.

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Developed under HCL's "Design for India" program, HCL "Leaptop Series 39" is India's first fully RoHS complaint laptop. The HCL Leaptop Series 39 is available in both Windows and Linux OS flavors. This is designed for Indian conditions, where the ambient temperatures are higher and the surface temperature of laptops tends to become uncomfortable, the HCL Leaptop Series 39 is designed to achieve a lower temperature differential of below 6 degrees on its palm rest surfaces.

This HCL Leaptop Series 39 meets the Energy Star 4.0 compliance standard. The HCL Leaptop B24-B2417 Laptop PC is powered by Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5750 and it features 14.1-inch Wide screen WXGA TFT-LCD display, integrated WiFi 802.11a/b/g wireless LAN connectivity, built-in Bluetooth with EDR, 8x Super Multi DVD Writer and integrated Webcam. The HCL leaptop B24-B2417 Laptop PC is powered by 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 Processor with 2-MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB (Front Side Bus) build around Intel 965GM Express Chipset motherboard and it offers 2048-MB (2-GB) DDR2 SDRAM (upgradable to 4-GB), 160-GB Serial-ATA Hard Disk Drive (5400rpm, 2.5-inch thick), and 8X DVD Super Multi Dual Layer (8.5 GB) DVD Writer. This is powered by Intel’s Centrino and Centrino2 processor technology and has a battery backup of more than four hours. It consumes less than 1.7W of energy in sleep mode and below 1W in stand-by mode and is optimized to reduce its power consumption.

On this occasion, HCL also showcased its range of Leaptops, the Z35 series, the series 28 and 24 and its latest 'MTV Edition'. Also showcased were India's first ultra portable range the "HCL MiLeap series" and range of HCL accessories including "Dictamail" and "FM Companion".

While speaking at the launch, George Paul, executive vice president, HCL Infosystems, said, “We are committed to bring cutting-edge technology products designed for Indian conditions and have brought in a range of new categories that have transformed the computing industry in India. The launch of HCL Leaptop Series 39 is yet another step towards the ‘Design for India’ products strategy.”

Leaptops are what HCL calls its line of laptops, which they say are designed to help their users leap to the top, lets see if they can live upto their claims. Starting at a price range of Rs 39,900 for the Centrino Model and Rs 42,990 for the Centrino2 range with one year standard HCL warranty, the new HCL Series 39 range of Leaptops will be available nationwide at all HCL DigiLife stores, Large Format Retail and other HCL retail outlets.

Visit www.hclnotebooks.in for more details.

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Many of you might know that currently Internet Explorer dominates the browser market with around 71% share. Firefox is fast catching up but still Internet Explorer is the number one position.

The reason behind this is simple. During 1990s, Netscape Navigator dominated the browser market in terms of usage, but it lost its ground to Internet Explorer by the late 1990s only because Microsoft pre-installed Internet Explorer in every copy of Windows that it sold.

Now, Google is also following the same strategy to gain share in browser market by shipping Google Chrome browser in the new PCs because they know that most of the users will use the browser which get shipped with their new PC.

According to Google’s Vice President of Product Management Sundar Pichai Chrome will come out of beta sometime in January at which point they would pursue distribution deals with various OEM’s. He also added that Mac and Linux versions of Chrome should be available by the first half of next year.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 final version is expected in market only by the first quarter of 2009, so this is the right time for Google to step in and strike, to gain the market share by securing pre-installation deals.

Lets wait and see whether pre-installation strategy will work for Google, the way it worked for Microsoft during late 1990s!!

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Just Dial is India’s no.1 local search destination. This caters to over 70 million unique users. As of today, this search engine covers 200+ cities in India. This unique local search service is available on:

Phone - A 24/7 operator assisted search on a single national number 6999 9999
Internet - www.justdial.com
Wireless - search by SMS on short code 53999 or wap.justdial.com
Print - b2b and b2c yellow pages

For the internet users, to make the search more easy a toolbar is provided by JustDial which is called as JustDial Toolbar. The Justdial Toolbar is designed to help the users quickly search on Justdial directly from the browser instead of visiting the website each time when they want to search. The Justdial Toolbar is currently available for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.


The Justdial Toolbar updates automatically when a new version is available. This may not happen immediately, but it will happen soon after each release.

Your Just Dial toolbar displays a number of fields each representing a special function. Here's what they mean.

Just Dial Logo
Click the "Justdial" logo on the left side of the Just Dial Toolbar to take you to the homepage of www.justdial.com.

City Drop Down
Select a City in which you want to find Information from the list of 40 cities given in the drop-down menu.

Type of Search
Use it to select the type of search you want to perform. You can search by either Company/ Name E.g. Just Dial Pvt. Ltd. or Product/Service. E.g. Courier Services

Search Box
This is the heart of the Justdial Toolbar. Enter your search terms in the Search box and hit Enter or click "Go." button. Your recent searches appear in the drop-down menu below the search box so you are saved of retyping the same search again.

Eatout
Click on the Eat Out button get details on Restaurants, Cafes, Pubs and
much more - This is your guide to eating out.

Hotels
Click on the Hotels button get details on Hotels. You can also search by Price Range, Star rating and Area.

Movies
Click on the Movies button and check out Movies, Movie Halls, get Show
Timings, do Online Movie Ticketing and lots more.

Help
Click on help and get Technical Information & tips on how to search faster and accurately.

The Justdial Toolbar can be downloaded here.

Hope, this local search engine helps you find what you are looking for!!

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ObjectDock adds a customizable dock with shortcuts and applets to your desktop. It works well as a supplement to the Windows taskbar with shortcuts to your favorite files and programs, and it can also mostly replace the taskbar entirely. It acts both as a task manager and a program launcher.

The free and fun utility focuses equally on both form and function. It's dead simple to add items to the dock. Just drag a shortcut, file or folder from the desktop or Explorer to a spot on the dock--and drag them off to remove them. You can also add new 'docklets' by right-clicking and choosing a clock applet, for example.


Users can customize the look of each item on the dock and set various animation options for when the mouse rolls over an item on the dock. To customize the dock's appearance, you can choose from a variety of skins, effects and placements. Choose whether you want it on the top, bottom, left or right of the screen, along with whether it will auto-hide or always be on top. You can also decide whether you'll get a zoom or swing effect (or nothing) when you mouse over one of the shortcuts.

ObjectDock first installs as a supplement to the Windows taskbar, with shortcuts to the My Computer, Documents, Music and Pictures folders, as well as program launchers for your default Web browser, e-mail app and music player. You'll also get calendar, weather and Google search applets.

With a little tweaking, however, you can mostly replace the taskbar. Add a Start menu launcher, tell it to always be on top of other windows and to reserve the edge of the screen, and have it display open windows, and you get most of what you get with the taskbar. But you won't see your system tray icons, at least not with the free version. The $20 Plus version adds in that system tray support, along with the ability to have multiple docks, fly-out menus and more.

If you're interested in customizing your desktop, ObjectDock is a fun way to start. On a XP test machine it uses about 4MB of memory.

ObjectDock utility can be downloaded here.

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For those of you, who use Gtalk within Orkut will see some improvements in chatting with your friends without any installation or separate window.

Many people are bombarded with chat requests when they go online, so Google has made some improvements in Gtalk within Orkut to make it "spam free" and slightly intelligent.

Google has mentioned in a blog post that they have come up with a formula that automatically predicts which of your Orkut friends you probably want to chat with, and only tells those people that you're signed into Google Talk. This automatic filtering is done based on your account activity, recent scrap conversations, best friends and people who have friends in common with you.


However, Google has provided the option to customize your contacts and you will have the final say on who will be able to see you online. These tools though have not been fully implemented in all accounts as of now.

The new improvements include

• chat with your orkut friends in real time from directly within orkut
• control which of your orkut friends can chat with you
• chat with your Google Talk and Gmail chat contacts
• visit different orkut pages while keeping your chatboxes open
  

This new feature is not currently available to all users but Google is planning to roll it out to all users over the next few weeks.

Here's a demo on how it works:

Read more...

Many people might don't know that some unexpected things could happen with computers when January 19, 2038 arrives. The example for the same is shown below and solution is also given:

1. Login to yahoo messenger.
2. Send instant message to anyone - fine its working...
3. Now, change your system date to 19-Jan-2038, 03:14:07 AM.
4. Confirm whether your date is changed.
5. Again send instant message to anyone...

Your YM crashes....

* * * YES ALL NETWORKS BASED APPLICATION WILL NOT WORK NOW * * *

Why.....

What is it?

Starting at GMT 03:14:07, Tuesday, January 19, 2038, It is expected to see lots of systems around the world breaking magnificently: satellites falling out of orbit, massive power outages (like the 2003 North American blackout), hospital life support system failures, phone system interruptions, banking errors, etc. One second after this critical second, many of these systems will have wildly inaccurate date set tings, producing all kinds of unpredictable consequences. In short, many of the dire predictions for the year 2000 are much more likely to actually occur in the year 2038! Consider the year 2000 just a dry run. In case you think we can sit on this issue for another 30 years before addressing it, consider that reports of temporal echoes of the 2038 problem are already starting to appear in future date calculations for mortgages and vital statistics!

In the first month of the year 2038 C.E. many computers will encounter a date-related bug in their operating systems and/or in the applications they run. This can result in incorrect and wildly inaccurate dates being reported by the operating system and/or applications. The effect of this bug is hard to predict, because many applications are not prepared for the resulting "skip" in reported time - anywhere from 1901 to a "broken record" repeat of the reported time at the second the bug occurs. Also, may make some small adjustment to the actual time the bug expresses itself. This bug to cause serious problems on many platforms, especially Unix and Unix-like platforms, because these systems will "run out of time".

What causes it?

Time_t is a data type used by C and C++ programs to represent dates and times internally. (Windows programmers out there might also recognize it as the basis for the CTime and CTimeSpan classes in MFC.) time_t is actually just an integer, a whole number, that counts the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 at 12:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time. A time_t value of 0 would be 12:00:00 AM (exactly midnight ) 1-Jan-1970, a time_t value of 1 would be 12:00:01 AM

(one second after midnight) 1-Jan-1970, etc..

some example times and their exact time_t representations:

Date & time time_t representation

1-Jan-1970, 12:00:00 AM GMT 0

1-Jan-1970, 12:01:00 AM GMT 60

1-Jan-1970, 01:00:00 AM GMT 3 600

2-Jan-1970, 12:00:00 AM GMT 86 400

1-Jan-1971, 12:00:00 AM GMT 31 536 000

1-Jan-1972, 12:00:00 AM GMT 63 072 000

1-Jan-2038, 12:00:00 AM GMT 2 145 916 800

19-Jan-2038, 03:14:07 AM GMT 2 147 483 647

By the year 2038, the time_t representation for the current time will be over 2 140 000 000. And that's the problem. A modern 32-bit computer stores a "signed integer" data type, such as time_t, in 32 bits. The first of these bits is used for the positive/negative sign of the integer, while the remaining 31 bits are used to store the number itself. The highest number these 31 data bits can store works out to exactly 2 147 483 647. A time_t value of this exact number, 2 147483 647, represents January 19, 2038, at 7 seconds past 3:14 AM Greenwich Mean Time. So, at 3:14:07 AM GMT on that fateful day, every time_t used in a 32-bit C or C++ program will reach its upper limit.

One second later, on 19-January-2038 at 3:14:08 AM GMT, disaster strikes.

When a signed integer reaches its maximum value and then gets incremented, it wraps around to its lowest possible negative value. This means a 32-bit signed integer, such as a time_t, set to its maximum value of 2 147 483 647 and then incremented by 1, will become -2 147 483 648. Note that "-" sign at the beginning of this large number. A time_t value of -2 147 483 648 would represent December 13, 1901 at 8:45:52 PM GMT.

So, if all goes normally, 19-January-2038 will suddenly become 13-December-1901 in every time_t across the globe, and every date calculation based on this figure will go haywire. And it gets worse. Most of the support functions that use the time_t data type cannot handle negative time_t values at all. T hey simply fail and return an error code.

Solution

"The best way to predict the future is to engineer it." Consider testing your mission-critical code well ahead of time on a non-production test platform set just before the critical date. For more general applications, just using large types for storing dates will do the trick in most cases. For example, in GNU C, 64-bits (a "long " type) is sufficient to keep the time from rolling over for literally geological eons This just means any executables the operating systems runs will always get the correct time reported to them when queried in the correct manner. It doesn't stop the executables you may still want to be worried about Well-written programs can simply be recompiled with a new version of the library that uses, for example, 8-byte values for the storage format. This is possible because the library encapsulates the whole time activity with its own time types and functions (unlike most mainframe programs, which did not standardize their date formats or calculations). So the Year 2038 problem should not be nearly as hard to fix as the Y2K problem was.

Admittedly, some don't feel that this impending disaster will strike too many people. They reason that, by the time 2038 rolls around, most programs will be running on 64-bit or even 128-bit computers. In a 64-bit program, a time_t could represent any date and time in the future out to 292 000 000 000 A.D., which is about 20 times the currently estimated age of the universe. The problem with this kind of optimism is the same root problem behind most of the Year 2000 concerns that plagued the software industry in previous years: Legacy Code. Even if every PC in the year 2038 has a 64-bit CPU, there will be a lot of older 32-bit programs running on them.

The greatest danger with the Year 2038 Problem is its invisibility. The more-famous Year 2000 is a big, round number; it only takes a few seconds of thought, even for a computer-illiterate person, to imagine what might happen when 1999 turns into 2000. But January 19, 2038 is not nearly as obvious. Software companies will probably not think of trying out a Year 2038 scenario before doomsday strikes. Of course, there will be some warning ahead of time. Scheduling software, billing programs, personal reminder calendars, and other such pieces of code that set dates in the near future will fail as soon as one of their target dates exceeds 19-Jan-2038 , assuming a time_t is used to store them.

Good luck, and hope no ones flying car breaks down in 2038 !!!

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Last week, Bill Gates was in India and planned a sudden departure to leave India in a chartered aircraft from Jodhpur Airport.

But the airport, a strategic forward base of the Indian Air Force, is shut for operations after 4 pm as repair work is under way from mid-April and the runway lacks lighting facilities for night operations.

But the airport was kept open till 5.30PM so that Bill Gates flight could take off. But, it seems the flight was further delayed because the Bill Gates family had left some luggage back at hotel. The Microsoft founder along with his wife, father and two sisters were staying at Umaid Bhawan Palace.

By the time, the luggage arrived it was already 6.30PM and it became dark. Since, the runway didn't have proper lighting facilities, it had to be lit with hundreds of goosenecks for a safe takeoff.

Goosenecks are containers filled with kerosene and lit up with wicks, used sparingly today in case of emergency when lighting fails in an airbase.

Finally, the flight took off with hundreds of goosenecks to show the way.

Read more...

Bad news for all Interner Explorer users. Microsoft has announced that it will be launching Internet Explorer 8 by the mid of 2009 rather than this year.


Microsoft had originally planned to launch the finished edition of IE 8 before the end of the current year. But now they will launching a release candidate(RC) for Internet Explorer 8(IE8) during the first quarter of 2009 and then will release the final version. Currently IE8 Beta 2 is in public which was released late August.

Microsoft representative Dean Hachamovitch said in a blog post that “We want the technical community of people and organizations interested in Web browsers to take this update as a strong signal that IE8 is effectively complete and done.”

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A Florida teenager killed himself by overdosing on drugs in front of a live online audience as some computer users egged him on, some debated his method, and others tried to talk him out of it.

Abraham Biggs Jr., 19, was found in the bedroom of his home in Pembroke Pines, Florida, on Wednesday and an autopsy showed he died of a toxic combination of opiates and benzodiazepine, a drug used to treat anxiety and insomnia, the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office said. Authorities say Biggs is not the first person to commit suicide with a webcam rolling.

He posted a link from bodybuilding.com to Justin.tv, a site that allows users to broadcast live videos from their webcams that he is planning to kill himself. Others watching in Justin.tv even encouraged him to do it, thinking the teenager will never do it. Until the teenager lied on his bed lifeless.

Some people tried contacting the admin of Justin.tv to pinpoint the location but it is was too late until the police arrived.

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Few days back, we reported that Apple has launched the latest firmware 2.2 for the iPhone/iPhone 3G and iPod Touch devices. The iPhone Dev Team has been very quick to jailbreak the latest 2.2 firmware.

They have released the QuickPwn 2.2 and PwnageTool 2.2 for the latest firmware. With this easy to use GUI software, you can easily jailbreak and update to the latest firmware.

The download links for QuickPwn 2.2 and PwnageTool 2.2 can be found here.

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A recent report says that Microsoft’s free MSRT cleaned up more than 994,000 machines of what the tool recognizes as "W32/FakeSecSen," the malware label for a broad range of bogus security program with names such as "Advanced Antivirus," "Spyware Preventer," "Ultimate Antivirus 2008" and "XPert Antivirus in its latest release.

Many times, Windows users may install the fake programs because they get duped thinking that they're real because they get ranked high in Internet search results, some rogue applications are also often secretly installed by malware that has infected a system.

Of course, none of the people who were infected with spyware knew they were infected. This meant that their computers were basically not under their own control, and that all information on their computer was vulnerable to hackers around the world.

The MSRT is updated once a month and has been responsible for cleaning up tens of millions of computers around the world. While it is free, it does have it’s limitations, and is not a complete anti-spyware tools. It does not run all of the time, to prevent new infections.

However, it is a free, once a month safety check. You will still need the other software, but this should be loaded on all Windows computers.

The MSRT cab be manually downloaded from Microsoft's Web site or via the Windows Update service.

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Have you ever tried playing a game while your system is updating its virus definitions. It's really a very frustrating task because it will drain your system resources.

Well, Symantec has realised about this, which makes the company to release Norton AntiVirus 2009 Gaming Edition. This edition is designed specifically for gaming and estimated to use 80% less memory as compared with other antivirus software.

Nothing is more worse than having the game screen automatically minimized because of a virus update pop-up after reaching the critical point in the game. To avoid all these, the Gaming Edition of Norton AntiVirus 2009 comes with a “Gamers Mode” which will suspend LiveUpdate and anti virus alerts, thus not interrupting user gaming experience but Auto-Protect will still be enabled. It will wait till the system is idle and then perform the update tasks, which inturn can be scheduled by the users.

This product is yet to be launched and the release date is not yet been confirmed. Hope, it is launched soon and every gamer should have it installed in their systems.

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Few days back, Google launched the Google SearchWiki feature which allows the users to customize the search results by promoting, demoting and adding new pages.

Some people might not like this feature because it can have negative impact on the search results provided by the Google Search. But, Google doesn't provide a way to turn off SearchWiki feature other than logging out from your Google account.

But according to a post published in Google Operating System, by installing a Greasemonkey script the interface for this additional functionality can be kept hidden. If you are using Firefox, install Greasemonkey extension, restart the browser and the add the No SearchWiki script. Google's search results will look clean again, even if you are logged in.


The script also works in Opera, which has built-in support for userscripts. Just go to Tools>Preferences>Advanced>Content>JavaScript Options, choose a folder in the "User JavaScript files" box and then save the script in that folder.

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You update your blog daily but wonder when your new post will be indexed and looking for a solution by which you can inform different search engines that you have updated your blog.

Here's one such online service, named Ping-O-Matic which will do your job.. Ping-O-Matic is a service which updates different search engines that your blog has been updated.


By entering your blog name and URL of the blog, you can select various services, which you want to ping and then click "Send Pings" button.

Give a try and see whether your pages are indexed faster at regular intervals.

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Are you one of those users whose website takes lot of time to load but don't know what is the problem and which component of the website is taking too much time to load.

Generally, several components of a web page (like Iframes, Flash, Javascript, Images, CSS,) can increase the page loading time but it is very hard to pinpoint the exact culprit that decreases the speed of the site. A normal HTML web page may have advertising scripts, YouTube videos, images and so on.

I came across two online services which can help you by pinpointing as which component of your website is taking too much of time to load.

One such service is Site24x7. Site24x7 is a hosted website monitoring service that helps webmasters ensure their websites are up and running at peak performance. The Site24x7 servers sends out HTTP or HTTPS request to your website at regular intervals of time and alerts you if it is down.
This service is available both as free and premium version. In premium version, you get some advanced features such as monitoring DNS/email servers, online web applications and so on.

Another such service is OctaGate SiteTimer. SiteTimer allows you to monitor how long it takes for a user to download one or more pages of your web site.

Both the services mentioned above, will prepare a complete report about every component found on the webpage including details like the amount of time it took for downloading a particular component, the size of that component and the existence of the same.

Hope, this will help you out there to catch the culprits slowing down your website's loading time.

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I noticed that my Blogger blog have pretty limited navigation features that only display “Older Posts” or “Newer Posts” link to let readers navigate and browse to other pages on homepage (index), archive and label pages whether hosted on blogspot.com or custom domain.But, if you see WordPress blog, it supports plugin to customize the page navigation link to numbered pages listing to make it more user friendly.

However, I found that it’s still possible to change the classic “Older Posts” and “Newer Posts” navigation link on Blogger blog to numbered pages navigation.

Below are the steps by which Page Navigation can be added to the Blogger blog:

1. Navigate to "Layout" > "Edit HTML" in your Blogger Dashboard.
2. Search for the following line:]]></b:skin>
3. Copy the following CSS code and paste or append the code above the line:

<style>
.showpageArea {
padding: 0 2px;margin-bottom:10px;margin-top:10px;
}

.showpageArea a {
border: 1px solid #505050;
color: #000000;font-weight:normal;
padding: 3px 6px !important;
padding: 1px 4px ;margin:0px 4px;
text-decoration: none;
}

.showpageArea a:hover {
font-size:11px;
border: 1px solid #333;
color: #000000;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
}

.showpageNum a {
border: 1px solid #505050;
color: #000000;font-weight:normal;
padding: 3px 6px !important;
padding: 1px 4px ;margin:0px 4px;
text-decoration: none;
}

.showpageNum a:hover {
font-size:11px;
border: 1px solid #333;
color: #000000;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
}

.showpagePoint {
font-size:11px;
padding: 2px 4px 2px 4px;
margin: 2px;
font-weight: bold;
border: 1px solid #333;
color: #fff;
background-color: #000000;
}

.showpage a:hover {
font-size:11px;
border: 1px solid #333;
color: #000000;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
}

.showpageNum a:link,.showpage a:link {
font-size:11px;
padding: 2px 4px 2px 4px;
margin: 2px;
text-decoration: none;
border: 1px solid #0066cc;
color: #0066cc;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
}

.showpageNum a:hover {
font-size:11px;
border: 1px solid #333;
color: #000000;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
}
</style>

4. Next, search for the below code by unchecking "Expand Widget Templates" checkbox.

<b:section class='main' id='main' showaddelement='no'>
<b:widget id='Blog1' locked='true' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'/>
</b:section>

5. Add the following JavaScript code right after the </b:section> line:

<script type="text/javascript">
function showpageCount(json) {
var thisUrl = location.href;
var htmlMap = new Array();
var isFirstPage = thisUrl.substring(thisUrl.length-14,thisUrl.length)==".blogspot.com/";
var isLablePage = thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")!=-1;
var isPage = thisUrl.indexOf("/search?updated")!=-1;
var thisLable = isLablePage ? thisUrl.substr(thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")+14,thisUrl.length) : "";
thisLable = thisLable.indexOf("?")!=-1 ? thisLable.substr(0,thisLable.indexOf("?")) : thisLable;
var thisNum = 1;
var postNum=1;
var itemCount = 0;
var fFlag = 0;
var eFlag = 0;
var html= '';
var upPageHtml ='';
var downPageHtml ='';

var pageCount=5;
var displayPageNum=3;
var firstPageWord = 'First';
var endPageWord = 'Last';
var upPageWord ='Previous';
var downPageWord ='Next';

var labelHtml = '<span class="showpageNum"><a href="/search/label/'+thisLable+'?&max-results='+pageCount+'">';

for(var i=0, post; post = json.feed.entry[i]; i++) {
var timestamp = post.published.$t.substr(0,10);
var title = post.title.$t;
if(isLablePage){
if(title!=''){
if(post.category){
for(var c=0, post_category; post_category = post.category[c]; c++) {
if(encodeURIComponent(post_category.term)==thisLable){
if(itemCount==0 || (itemCount % pageCount ==(pageCount-1))){
if(thisUrl.indexOf(timestamp)!=-1 ){
thisNum = postNum;
}

postNum++;
htmlMap[htmlMap.length] = '/search/label/'+thisLable+'?updated-max='+timestamp+'T00%3A00%3A00%2B08%3A00&max-results='+pageCount;
}
}
}
}//end if(post.category){

itemCount++;
}

}else{
if(title!=''){
if(itemCount==0 || (itemCount % pageCount ==(pageCount-1))){
if(thisUrl.indexOf(timestamp)!=-1 ){
thisNum = postNum;
}

if(title!='') postNum++;
htmlMap[htmlMap.length] = '/search?updated-max='+timestamp+'T00%3A00%3A00%2B08%3A00&max-results='+pageCount;
}
}
itemCount++;
}
}

for(var p =0;p< htmlMap.length;p++){
if(p>=(thisNum-displayPageNum-1) && p<(thisNum+displayPageNum)){
if(fFlag ==0 && p == thisNum-2){
if(thisNum==2){
if(isLablePage){
upPageHtml = labelHtml + upPageWord +'</a></span>';
}else{
upPageHtml = '<span class="showpage"><a href="/">'+ upPageWord +'</a></span>';
}
}else{
upPageHtml = '<span class="showpage"><a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+ upPageWord +'</a></span>';
}

fFlag++;
}

if(p==(thisNum-1)){
html += '&nbsp;<span class="showpagePoint"><u>'+thisNum+'</u></span>';
}else{
if(p==0){
if(isLablePage){
html = labelHtml+'1</a></span>';
}else{
html += '<span class="showpageNum"><a href="/">1</a></span>';
}
}else{
html += '<span class="showpageNum"><a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+ (p+1) +' </a></span>';
}
}

if(eFlag ==0 && p == thisNum){
downPageHtml = '<span class="showpage"> <a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+ downPageWord +'</a></span>';
eFlag++;
}
}//end if(p>=(thisNum-displayPageNum-1) && p<(thisNum+displayPageNum)){
}//end for(var p =0;p< htmlMap.length;p++){

if(thisNum>1){
if(!isLablePage){
html = '<span class="showpage"><a href="/">'+ firstPageWord +' </a></span>'+upPageHtml+' '+html +' ';
}else{
html = ''+labelHtml + firstPageWord +' </a></span>'+upPageHtml+' '+html +' ';
}
}

html = '<div class="showpageArea"><span style="font-size:11px;padding: 2px 4px 2px 4px;margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px;color: #000000;border: 1px solid #333; background-color: #FFFFFF;" class="showpage">Page '+thisNum+' of '+(postNum-1)+': </span>'+html;

if(thisNum<(postNum-1)){
html += downPageHtml;
html += '<span class="showpage"><a href="'+htmlMap[htmlMap.length-1]+'"> '+endPageWord+'</a></span>';
}

if(postNum==1) postNum++;
html += '</div>';

if(isPage || isFirstPage || isLablePage){
var pageArea = document.getElementsByName("pageArea");
var blogPager = document.getElementById("blog-pager");

if(postNum <= 2){
html ='';
}

for(var p =0;p< pageArea.length;p++){
pageArea[p].innerHTML = html;
}

if(pageArea&&pageArea.length>0){
html ='';
}

if(blogPager){
blogPager.innerHTML = html;
}
}

}
</script>

<script src="/feeds/posts/summary?alt=json-in-script&callback=showpageCount&max-results=99999" type="text/javascript"></script>

6. Now, Click on Save Template and see the changes yourself.

Below are the few customizations, which the Blogger users can make according to their liking.

1. var pageCount =5; determines the number of posts to be shown on each page.
2. var displayPageNum = 3; defines the number of page links in the navigation bar to be displayed (e.g. 1 - 2 - 3).

For those who use their self-hosted domain name, make the below modifications.

1. For user who is not using blogspot.com domain (using self-hosted domain name), modify the .blogspot.com and 14 (13 characters of domain name + 1) in the line of var isFirstPage = thisUrl.substring(thisUrl.length-14,thisUrl.length)==".blogspot.com/"; accordingly.

Read more...