Firefox users beware

Computer users who have not upgraded to the latest version of Firefox have to do so in order to remain safe, thanks to a hacker named Aviv Raff.

He has published a sample code http://aviv.raffon.net/2005/12/11/MozillaUnderestimateVulnerabilityYetAgainPlusOldVuln
erabilityNewExploit.aspx) that could be used to take over the computers of Firefox
users running version 1.0.4 or earlier of the browser. The exploit takes advantage of a known bug (http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/mfsa2005-50.html) in the way that Firefox processes the popular Javascript Web programming language.

This bug is patched in latest version of Firefox. So you may download Firefox + Google Toolbar from the right sidebar of this Blog using the button below Google Ads.

Windows Live Messenger Beta

Beta testers are slated to get the first Windows Live Messenger beta bits according to
Microsoft. Windows Live Messenger is the new name for MSN Messenger. Let's see this new
product of Microsoft and also if it can compete with Yahoo, AOL and Google Talk!

Windows Live
Messenger

Opera User's Face in Times Square

Opera has announced that they will be putting one lucky user's face up in Times Square
during the New Year's Eve celebrations. The ABC SuperSign will display the winner of
Opera's most recent contest that only requires a submission of your picture and the
reason why you should be chosen as their New Year's mascot.

WOW! So who will be the lucky one who will be chosen as New Year's mascot?

Webhost Sues Google

Webhost company AIT has decided to file a class action lawsuit against the internet giant Google. According to the article the dispute is over click fraud. AIT claims they have lost around $500,000 due to fraudulent clicks. They claim that Google is hitting their website from 'the same IP addresses.

Well, this story is really amazing. Till now, Google was catching fraudent clicks and now AIT is saying that Google is responsible for the fraud clicks on their site!
Bad Luck Google

Help crack the Java 1.6 Classfile Verifier

A great opportunity for all those cracks out there. As part of the development of Mustang (Java 1.6), Sun is developing a new, smaller and faster classfile verifier which they want your help in trying to break.

According to VP Graham Hamilton puts - As part of Mustang we will be delivering a whole new classfile verifier implementation based on an entirely new verification approach. The classfile verifier is the very heart of the whole Java sandbox model, so replacing both the implementation and the basic verification model is a Really Big Deal. The new verifier is faster and smaller than the classic verifier, but at the same time it doesn't have the ten years of reassuring shakedown history that we have with the classic verifier.

You can join the new Crack the Verifier initiative to if you think you can break it. So go and get your hands wet.

Yahoo Has Highest Number of Visitors

Yahoo Inc. continues to lead the portal market in the number of unique visitors. The Sunnyvale, company led the top 10 Web sites among U.S. home and work Internet users with 101.3 million visitors in August.

EMarketer Inc., said. Second was Microsoft Corp.'s site with 95.6 million, followed by its MSN portal, 92.1 million; Google, 80.4 million; America Online Inc., 75.7 million; EBay Inc., 55.2 million; MapQuest, 39 million; Amazon.com, 37.6 million, RealNetworks, 36.4 million; and the Weather Channel, 31.2 million.

Great going Yahoo!

Yahoo! buys del.icio.us

Yahoo continues with its Web 2.0 makeover. Yahoo Inc. has acquired Del.icio.us, a New York-based startup that is considered a pioneer in social bookmarking, a type of online service that lets users save, annotate and tag their favorite Web pages and share their lists with other users.

"Together we'll continue to improve how people discover, remember and share on the Internet, with a big emphasis on the power of community," Del.icio.us founder and Chief Executive Officer Joshua Schachter wrote in his company's official blog.

Let's see how this deal makes an impact on Yahoo.

Mars Swings Close to Earth

Mars will come unusually close to the Earth on Saturday; the second time in 60,000 years. The last occurrence was in 2003. "This is the best we're going to see Mars, so we should strike the iron while it is hot," said Kelly Beatty, executive editor of Sky & Telescope magazine. The Red Planet will be 43.1 millions miles from Earth at 11:25pm. So do watch out for MARS!

MSN Book Search takes Google Out

Already, Google is facing tough competition from Yahoo and now Microsoft's MSN has announced that it will release a beta book search service in 2006.
MSN Book Search will index roughly 200,000 documents and publications, according to the company. MSN is vowing to avoid the same legal troubles that Google has run into with its Print Library Project by focusing on literature already considered to be in the public domain.

Let's see how MSN fares against Google in this new battle.

Yahoo doubles price of music subscription

Yahoo Inc. will double the price of its online music subscription service, a change in strategy in the race to knock Apple Computer Inc. off its top spot for online music delivery services.

The company launched a trial version of Yahoo Music Unlimited in May, charging $6.99 per month or a slightly discounted yearly rate of about $60. That service will remain the same price, but will henceforth only allow users to download music to a personal computer with an option to buy tracks for permanent use.

From Nov 1, Yahoo will charge more for downloads to a portable device. The "to go" service will be $11.99 on a monthly basis or about $120 annually.

I don't understand that for beating Apple, Yahoo is increasing the price instead it should decrease the price!

Google Base

Google is going to lauch its new service called Google Base. According to Google, Google Base is Google’s database into which you can add all types of content. We’ll host your content and make it searchable online for free.

This is an early-stage test of a product that enables content owners to easily send their content to Google. QuickBase failed as a consumer offering but has found some use in small workgroups. Of course, since we are living in a post bubble world, some “tagging” goodness makes Google Base cooler, especially for the early adopter crowd.


Category: Google Base

Google Base

Google is going to lauch its new service called Google Base. According to Google, Google Base is Google’s database into which you can add all types of content. We’ll host your content and make it searchable online for free.

This is an early-stage test of a product that enables content owners to easily send their content to Google. QuickBase failed as a consumer offering but has found some use in small workgroups. Of course, since we are living in a post bubble world, some “tagging” goodness makes Google Base cooler, especially for the early adopter crowd.


Category: Google Base

India Beats Sri Lanka

India wrap up comprehensive win

India 350 for 6 (Tendulkar 93, Dravid 85*, Pathan 84) beat Sri Lanka 198 (Sangakkara 43, Harbhajan 3-34) by 152 runs

A magical comeback for Sachin Tendulkar, where sparkling strokeplay blended with youthful daring, inspired India to a mammoth total before the spinners taunted the Sri Lankan batsmen and completed a rout in the opening game at Nagpur. In a game that proceeded at a breakneck speed, Irfan Pathan and Rahul Dravid produced crackling 80s to complement Tendulkar's fizz, taking India to an impregnable score and giving them the perfect start to the series.

Chasing 351 was never on the cards but Sangakkara's belligerent riposte created some flutters. Any error in length was dismissed to the advertising hoardings square of the wicket as S Sreesanth, who had a fiery baptism, and Irfan Pathan were dismissed with supple wrists. Flicking with ease and dancing down the track to the medium-pacers, Sangakkara appeared to be having a joyous tennis session, unleashing powerful forehands and rasping cross-court passes.

The mighty strikes by Vaas and Dilhara Lokuhettige towards the end of the day came long after the deck was burnt and Sri Lanka will travel to Mohali knowing that when playing India, the favourite's tag, which they still retain, can easily be wrenched away when one little man is turning on the heat.

Why golf courses have 18 holes

I hope you also wonder the same thing. So some person asked Yahoo about it and here is what he got in reply -

Golf courses didn't always have 18 holes. The number of holes used to vary widely: 11, 22, 24, etc. As with most golf tradition-related questions, the reason why 18 became the standard goes back to St. Andrews of Scotland, the granddaddy of all golf courses.

The original course at St. Andrews (dating back to the 15th century!) consisted of 11 holes along a narrow strip of land next to the sea. Each hole was played twice, for a total of 22. In 1764, two of the holes were judged to be too short, so the course made the switch from 22 to 18 holes (nine holes played two times each).

One legend claims that the number 18 originated as a suggestion from one of the St. Andrews old-timers, who noted that it took exactly 18 shots to finish a fifth of scotch -- a shot per hole.

That's a quite nice answer!

Startup Flock browser

Startup Flock Inc. has released a Firefox-based browser meant to enhance the user experience by incorporating some of the Web's most social features, such as file sharing, RSS (really simple syndication) feeds and Web logging, according to the company's co-founder.

Though Firefox is different because it puts the user experience first and offers more security in comparison to Microsoft's IE, current browsers are still very similar to 10 years ago. IE faced little challenge in the browser market until recently and so has not evolved much in the way of feature innovation.

The preview of the new broswer includes technology for more efficient bookmarking and bookmark-haring through the online service del.icio.us; automated RSS feed sign-up, organization of feeds and much more features.

Download it here

Polling via SMS

You may believe it or not but technology has changed our way of living. Residents of the Swiss town of Bulach are using SMS to cast votes on a local measure regarding road speed limits. The SMS voting project will be reviewed by the Swiss government which could decide to roll out the capability across the country.

As an security measure, SMS voters also have to supply their birth date. According to the officials, SMS process is more secure than paper balloting. For example, someone could steal the voting material from letter boxes but it would be easier for them to forge a signature and cast the paper ballot then to cast a vote on someone else's behalf via SMS because of the birth date requirement.

Bulach residents will have another chance to vote via SMS in November on a different issue. The Swiss government will examine the results of the trials and may decide to allow for SMS voting around the country. Really, technology has become an integral part of our daily life!

Latest cricket rankings

England's Andrew Flintoff has moved up to fourth in the Test bowling rankings following the ICC Super Series.
Flintoff took seven wickets for an ICC World XI against Australia to jump two places in the LG ICC ranking list.
Steve Harmison picked up four wickets in the same game but he remains 14th behind new number one Glenn McGrath.

TEST BATTING RANKINGS TOP 10

1 J Kallis (SA) 894 pts
2 B Lara (WI) 855
2= R Ponting (Aus) 855
4 R Dravid (Ind) 851
5 V Sehwag (Ind) 825
6 M Hayden (Aus) 803
7 S Chanderpaul (WI) 789
8 M Trescothick (Eng) 778
9 Inzamam-ul-Haq (Pkn) 773
10 A Strauss (Eng) 760

TEST BOWLING RANKINGS TOP 10

1 G McGrath (Aus) 881
2 S Warne (Aus) 874
3 M Muralitharan (SrL) 871
4 A Flintoff (Eng) 793
5 S Pollock (SA) 787
6 M Ntini (SA) 784
7= C Vaas (SrL) 770
7=Shoaib Akhtar (Pkn) 770
9 M Hoggard (Eng) 762
10 I Pathan (Ind) 756

AOL cuts 4 percent staff

America Online Inc. (AOL) has cut more than 700 employees, or about 4%, from its workforce of nearly 20,000 employees, a company spokesman said. Most of those losing their jobs worked in providing support to AOL members, whose numbers have been decreasing.

On March 31, 2005, AOL had 21.7 million U.S. subscribers in its fee-based service, down 2.3 million from the same period in 2004 and down 4.5 million from the first quarter of 2003.

AOL, a Time Warner Inc. unit, has been reportedly in recent weeks in talks at different times with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. over these companies' interest to acquire all or part of AOL. Let's see what happens with AOL too

Exploit code raises Windows worm

Computer code has already been written to take advantage of Windows flaws that were disclosed Tuesday, a sign that a worm attack could be near.

Exploit code exists for four of the 14 vulnerabilities for which Microsoft provided fixes this week. One of the exploits was written for a flaw which Microsoft tagged as "critical". The bug lies in a Windows component for transaction processing called the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator or MSDTC.

When Microsoft released its patches on Tuesday, experts had already warned that the MSDTC flaw could spawn an attack similar to the Zotob worm that wreaked havoc two months ago. Microsoft urged users of older operating systems, specifically Windows 2000 and Windows XP before Service Pack 2, to prioritize the update that fixes the flaw, which is addressed in security bulletin MS05-051.

Microsoft is aware of Immunity's exploit code, but has not seen any attacks that use the code. Symantec predicts a worm exploiting the MSDTC flaw will surface in the next few days. It is unknown how hard the worm will hit. So please patch your windows now!

Vulnerability in Zone Alarm firewall

Malicious code masquerading as a trusted application could trick a ZoneAlarm firewall into letting it connect to the Internet, security experts have warned.

The issue affects the popular free ZoneAlarm firewall and default installation of version 5.5 and earlier of the paid product. Default installations of the Check Point Integrity Client are also affected, but the paid ZoneAlarm 6.0 products, released in July, are not affected.

Zone Labs has no current plans to update its free firewall product to protect against this issue. Its paid products offer protection against the problem because of additional technology, called an operating system firewall, that is not part of the free network firewall.

Users of the paid ZoneAlarm 5.5 products can protect themselves by enabling the "Advanced Program Control" feature, Zone Labs said.

TV Screens as Newspapers and Magazines

According to the Guardian (a newspaper) cheap, paper-thin TV screens that can be used in newspapers and magazines have been unveiled by German electronics giant Siemens. The firm says the low production costs could see the magazine shelves in newsagents come alive with moving images vying for the customers' attention as they move along the aisle. The Siemens spokesman said that one square metre of the material costs around £30, and scientists working on the screens said they should be available by 2007.

This will surely revolutionalise our way of reading newspapers but it is also true that it will cost a much higher!

Microsoft releases update for XP Media Center

Microsoft has released an update to Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 that will enhance the way consumers access digital media in their homes.

Windows XP Media Center Edition Update Rollup 2, which is available free to all Windows Media Center customers, allows users to integrate Media Center PCs with the forthcoming Xbox 360 gaming console.

This will enable customers that have both an Xbox 360 and a Media Center PC in their homes to access digital content from their PCs on an Xbox 360 at the same time, making that content more widely available on multiple devices.

More than 4 million Media Center PCs have been sold to date. There are currently for than 75 add-on services to Media Center PCs that have been built by third parties and more are expected before the end of the year by Microsoft.

Category: Microsoft Media Center

Google Microsoft War starts

According to an article in The Inquirer, "Google has confirmed that it will launch free spreadsheet and word-processing software online and take on Microsoft in one of its biggest markets. Under the deal, Google will allow web users to access Sun's OpenOffice from a toolbar."

Well if this story is true then we may see a huge revolution in the future which will lead to more competition to Microsoft and we may witness a great cut off on prices of Microsoft products. Imagine if Google Office is realeased then how many of you would buy or use Google Office?

HBO Versus BitTorrent

According to some news sources, HBO is actively poisoning the BitTorrent downloads of the new show - Rome. In addition to an older tactic of offering bogus downloads that never complete, HBO is now obstructing the downloads offered by other people. HBO runs peers that tell the tracker they have all the chunks of the show, but then send garbage data when a downloader requests a chunk. While the bogus peers can be detected, it will take much longer to download shows.

Bad luck to those people who illegally download movies form internet!

Number magic

Well I was just passing by and my PC was switched on so I thought why not create a post for you all. Well this post is just a piece of information I would like to share with you all.

Did you know that 142857 is a cyclic number i.e. its digits always appear in the same order but will rotate around when multiplied by any number from 1 to 6.

Don't believe me or are you lazy to find a calculator to prove the calculation :-). Well if you are then no problem:-

142857 x 1 = 142857
142857 x 2 = 285714
142857 x 3 = 428571
142857 x 4 = 571428
142857 x 5 = 714285
142857 x 6 = 857142



Honestly, you didn't know this before. Am I right?

Yahoo Lauches Blog Search

Well Google Vs Yahoo continues! After Google launched Blog Search just a couple of weeks ago, Yahoo has also launched its own Blog Search.

Now when you search on Yahoo! News you will see blog results as well as content from thousands of trusted news sites. The experiences and opinions published on blogs make a great addition to the mainstream news people read everyday.

Yahoo! is also integrating Flickr photos and links from My Web into the new-look news search service, which they are calling "a large grassroots media network".

So start your searches now here

The Axe Effect

I have posted too much tech news so it's time for some fun. You all must have seen the advertisement of Axe. What do you sayd after looking at these pics?

Opera 1 million downloads

Just 48 hours after Opera Software removed the ads and license fee from its popular Web browser, Opera 8.5 has been downloaded by over 1 million people, the company has reported.

Opera's new freeware status puts added pressure on Microsoft's aging Internet Explorer and even Mozilla Firefox, which soared to popularity as a free alternative to IE 6.

Opera says the majority of downloaders were IE users.
Great going Opera! If you are lagging behind then you also download the latest version of Opera and be with the world!
If you can't find a link to download it comment here I"ll give you one!

Antivirus in Nokia phones

Nokia is planning to arm its Series 60 smart phones with the Symantec Mobile Security antivirus program. The software is designed to ward off attacks that could compromise the extensive data, such as contact databases, that people store on their smart phones, the companies said. The devices typically have many computer-like features, including e-mail and Web browsing, which have made them vulnerable to attacks.

Cell phone virus outbreaks are a small but emerging threat, security experts have said.
Nokia and Symantec said their agreement follows two years of joint work to develop mobile security technology. Earlier this year, software maker Kaspersky Lab released its own mobile antivirus software.

Upcoming tech is under great security breach crisis.

Bug in Symantec antivirus

A buffer overflow flaw in the Symantec AntiVirus Scan Engine could let remote attackers run code on vulnerable machines. The problem affects various versions of the engine, which is the part of the security software that actually scans for threats. Security patches are available to correct the problem, which Symantec rates "high" on its risk impact scale.

"Symantec strongly recommends all customers immediately apply the latest updates for their supported product versions to protect against these types of threats," the company said in its alert. No attacks that use the flaw have been reported, Symantec said.

Symantec advises people to check their installation. The administrative interface should be accessible only via a secure segment of the network and should never be open outside a company's network, Symantec said. So please be cautious!

Windows XP SP3

While Microsoft has still will not confirmed that there will be a third service pack for its Windows XP OS, a preview version of the software update has been made available on the Web. An "unofficial" preview pack of Windows XP service pack 3 (SP3) is available at The Hotfix.

Ethan Allen, the creator and administrator of The Hotfix, said Wednesday he put together the preview pack from software updates he received from an internal Microsoft source that are expected to be released in SP3.

Some of those updates include Windows log-on improvements and features that fix current problems with connecting Windows XP computers to various networks, according to the SP3 forum on the site, which can be found here

A Microsoft spokesman said that Microsoft still has not decided whether or not to release SP3 for Windows XP. At this point, the Windows servicing team is reviewing the feedback on Windows XP SP2 and is still evaluating timing and alternatives for the next Windows XP servicing release.

Top 100 products

PC World has published its top 100 best products of 2005. Some programs really deserved getting a high rank like G Mail and Firefox while some have really got a low rank and I think that they must get a high rank. So here is the list at a glance:-

Firefox(1), GMail(2) (Knew it!), OSX 10.4(3), Alienware Aurora 5500(6), Skype(8), PalmOne Treo 650(10), Google(16)(Wow! Is Google a product?), PSP(19), GeForce6600GT(20), Ubuntu(26), iTunes(34), Half-Life 2(38), Wikipedia(60), ThinkPad X41(67), Mac Mini(75), Acronis True Image(83), Opera(88). Surprisingly, there is only a model of IPod in the list and that too is IPod Photo at 78 rank. Bad luck Apple.

Free 30 GB E-mail

Well now what is this? A servic that offers 30 GB E-Mail inbox for free. We are going to enter into a fight for giving the most GBs of E-Mail.

Well if you passinate about getting so much space for your E-Mail you can definately try out the service here. 30 Gigs dot com is offering 30 GB Free E-Mail service which is 15 TIMES MORE than GOOGLE'S.15 TIMES MORE than GOOGLE'S.

But be aware that according to Whois this domain has been registered only on 21st September and its pretty new so be cautious while registering and using it. I wonder how robust this service is going to be!

Yahoo Blog Search

Google Vs Yahoo this is what we are seeing and this is what being expected.
As you all know that Google has launched its blog search just 2 weeks back and now accoring to Business Week we may soon see a Yahoo Blog Search.

WOW! That's good. In this battle of search engines, atleast the Blog readers like you and Bloggers like will get the most benefit. Keep checking my blog until I post more about this exciting news.

Yahoo Site Explorer

Are you also an owner of a site or a blog? If yes, then Yahoo has made a great utility just for you. Your site/blog must be listed in Yahoo so using Yahoo Search Blog you can all pages within a domain that have been indexed by Yahoo so far.

This helps you to know whether Yahoo has indexed your latest Blog post or not. For website owners, it will let you see whether the new page you uploaded has been indexed by Yahoo.

I think this tool will prove much useful to Bloggers like me! So how this tool helps you please do tell me by commenting.

Free Adobe Trial DVD

Are you a resident of Canada, US, Australia or New Zealand ? If yes then this offer is just for you.

Adobe is sending a free Creative Suite 2 DVD containing 30-day trial versions of Photoshop CS2, InDesign CS2, Illustrator CS2, GoLive CS2 and Adobe Acrobat Pro.

U.S. / Canada residents go here and get your DVD now! Australia / New Zealand residents go here and enjoy

And please do not forget to leave your valuable comment!

Category Free CD

Hacker feedback on IE7

Microsoft showed off the preliminary work it has done on the second beta version of its popular Internet Explorer, version 7 in the Box Security Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and came away with some good feedback.

Some hackers gave Microsoft high marks for showing off some new security features on the Web browser and seeking their views, adding they would have liked to hear more technical detail on new features in IE7 Beta 2. But their impression was the presenters appeared almost apologetic.

The Beta 2 version of IE7, currently under construction at Microsoft, will likely be ready by the end of the year.

One new feature on the Web browser is it runs in higher security "Protected Mode" by default. In protected mode, all downloads and other packages are automatically dropped in the "temporary Internet files" folder, so malware cannot be deposited on the hard disk.

For businesses, Microsoft added a "Compatibility Mode" that works when a person is using the company's intranet and allows them to drop files wherever they want to on their PCs.

Let us see how the new IE will fare among Firefox and Opera, the toughest competitors Microsoft IE has to face.

Categories Internet Explorer 7

Norton Internet Security 2006 release

Symantec released the latest version of its Norton security software on Monday, adding a new "protection center" to its Norton Internet Security 2006 applications suite.

The Norton Protection Center aggregates a variety of security information and presents it in a straightforward format intended to help consumers more easily understand what security features they need to enable. It will be included in the Norton Internet Security 2006 suite and in the company's two stand-alone products, Norton AntiVirus 2006 and Norton Personal Firewall 2006.

Purchased as a stand-alone product, Norton AntiVirus 2006 is priced at $40. The new version includes enhanced detection tools for zapping spyware and adware. Low-risk adware programs are flagged but not automatically removed, Symantec said.

California-based Symantec is now selling its updated software though its Web site's online store. Packaged versions of the software are expected to be available for purchase at retail outlets within the next two weeks.

I don't think that Norton Internet Security will live up to the mark although NAV has some good chances.

Technorati tags: NortonSecurity

Google Video New features

Google has improved its Google Video service by eliminating the need for users to download software to play back videos. The service's videos now play within a Web browser without the need for additional software.

Moreover, the previously Windows-only play-back service is now available to users whose PCs run the Linux and Mac OS operating systems.

Other enhancements to the service include a larger and resizable viewing window, and more playback controls, such as pause, skip back, skip forward and volume. Also new is the availability of 10-second video previews that can be played on the search results page.

This lack of viewable content made it pale in comparison with existing multimedia search engines from competitors Blinkx, America Online and Yahoo. However, this improvement will make Google the topdog in there.

Windows Vista will boot in 2 seconds

You will be able to switch a Microsoft Windows Vista computer in two seconds.

Microsoft official Windows Vista site is claiming that a Windows Vista computer starts and shuts down as quickly as within 2-3 seconds.

Windows Vista processes login scripts and startup programs and services in the background so you can start working right away.

Other noticable feature Windows Vista are "Flip" and "Flip 3D". Flip allows you to flip through open windows (by using Alt+Tab) providing a live thumbnail of each window rather than just a generic icon and filename.

Well this will be really cool if Vista will just switch on and off in seconds! Keep going Microsoft!

Technorati tags: Windows
Vista

Flaw in IE : Windows XP SP2 at risk

A flaw has been discovered in Internet Explorer that could enable a remote attack on systems running Windows XP with Service Pack 2, eEye Digital Security has warned.

The flaw, which also affects systems running Windows XP, is found in the default installations of Microsoft's IE."The flaw is not wormable but allows for the remote execution (of code) with some level of end-user intervention," said Mike Puterbaugh, eEye's senior director of product marketing.

A Microsoft representative confirmed that the company had received the report from eEye and said it will be investigating the issue. Because the details of the vulnerabilities have not been made public, users are not at risk of an exploit being developed to take advantage of the flaw, the representative said.

Already Internet Explorer is facing tough competition with Opera (Now Free) and Firefox and surely new vulneribility will let Microsoft and IE more down.

Microsoft to XP Starter Edition in 9 Indian languages

A great news for all Indians. Microsoft will offer versions of Windows XP Starter Edition in 9 Indian languages besides English in India.
The Indian language versions of the Windows XP Starter Edition are among a number of new initiatives by Microsoft to support India's efforts to bridge the digital divide, the company said.

In June, Microsoft rolled out its Windows XP Starter Edition in India. The software is a low cost, stripped-down version of Windows XP for emerging economies like India.

Although it is under considerable pressure from organizations supporting open source software, the Indian federal government as well as state governments have declined to take a decision favoring either open source or proprietary software in education and e-governance projects.

Sony will cut 10,000 jobs

Sony has decided to cut 10,000 jobs and a number of product models over the next few years, as it reorganizes its electronics division in an effort to reduce costs.

In reorganizing its electronics business, Sony is betting heavily on Cell, a microprocessor jointly designed with IBM and Toshiba that it expects to use in future video game consoles. Sony's chief executive officer will directly oversee the division which promotes and develops the processor and related products and technologies.

A similar product-specific focus will be extended to the whole of the electronics division, with the abolition of the existing structure of "network companies" and the creation of clear business groups for specific product categories, Sony said.

Google Adsense will catch software pyrites

Amit Agarwal has made a good post about it. He says that Yahoo has been accused of supplying information to China, which led to the jailing of a journalist for "divulging state secrets".

Just like Yahoo!, Google can also become a "police informant" but for a noble and good cause - it can help the government catching software pirates who run warez websites from China.

He has also posted a picture which shows that warez website located in China is serving Google Ads but the main thing is that Google Adsense policies prohibit ads on sites with Hacking/cracking content. How did this particular warez site trick Google Adsense is also a major issue.

It would be great that if some of these pirates are caught. At least, the "real" programmer of particular software will get the reward when people Buy and appreciate his software and not these crackers!
Amit's blog is at labnol.blogspot.com/

Google Operating System (OS) - Really?

Well I think we cannot live without Google in today's life. That's why people are experimenting too much... Just see this picture.

Well looking at this picture I believe whenever Google will launch its OS it would sure be rocking!!!
Well don't think that Google is about to launch a new OS. It’s just a rumor and this picture is quite funny as well as good! What do you think?

Windows Vista - Positive Aspects

Roberto has posted a fairly nice insight of Vista on his Blog so it's my duty to share it with you

[Quote] from robert's blog
What does Windows Vista mean to me. Well to me it seems that Windows Vista is the light at a long tunnel. For years I have had to fight Windows security problems, Microsoft’s broken promises as well as the outside punks and dickheads who have nothing better to do than to cause problems and headaches.

Luckily most of the time I was ahead of them so I was more diligent. I was using security practices that Microsoft’s security teams are now starting to preach. But now Windows Vista is within our grasp.

The new security models are great, usability, reliability look vastly improved. Its in Beta and betas are typically slow I find this beta to be better than most others I have participated in (Mac OS X Public Beta –Ungodly slow.

The final release was a lot better. 10.2 was actually the first major stable release. Vista is not just another pretty face but it appears to be the first major release since Windows 2000 that I can call great. It wont be a UNIX or Linux killer, but it will be the release that Microsoft can truly be proud of.
[Unquote]

What do you think? Will it be as good as he thinks ??

Yahoo Lauches Instant Search

Do you like to play "guess what I'm thinking" games? Yahoo!'s hoping that you do and that you might want to play it every time you conduct a search at their site. Yahoo has introduced a new feature called "Instant Search" that provides a quick pop-up box with a suggested link as users type their search term into the query box.

Features:-

As you start typing words into the query box, Yahoo! takes a guess at what you might be looking for based on popular queries. As it comes up with possibilities, it pops up a word bubble with a description and a link.

You'll need to play with it at the Instant Search site and select to have it added as a feature to your Yahoo! Personalised search page.

So do your searches here:-
http://instant.search.yahoo.com/

Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape Critical Vulnerability

“The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the handling of an URL that contains the 0xAD character in its domain name. This can be exploited to cause a heap-based buffer overflow.

Successful exploitation crashes Firefox [and these other browsers] and may potentially allow code execution but requires that the user is tricked into visiting a malicious web site or open a specially crafted HTML file.”

So don't browse untrusted websites until they release a fix.
Check these URLs f u think you are affected:-
http://secunia.com/advisories/16764/
http://secunia.com/advisories/16766/

Google's portal for college students

Google building a portal for college students with Google University which will contains links to Google services that are of interest to university students like GMail, Google Talk, Scholar, Maps etc. But the most surprising this is that Google Search is missing from the Google Unversity. Google is also extending the reach of GMail through Google University. I hope that Google will continue its great work and also it will include Google Desktop Search in its portal.

Great going Google!

Download Opera without Ads For Free

Wow! Another amazing news! Opera Software will no longer force users of the free PC version of its Web browser, Opera, to view advertising banners. Just 2 weeks back it gave free serial no.s and now TOTALLY FREE SOFTWARE.

From Tuesday, the company will give away an unrestricted version of the software for use on personal computers. Previously, Opera Software offered a browser with no advertising banners for a fee, while the free version displayed advertising banners in the browser window -- in addition to any advertising contained on Web sites being visited.

The free software is now available for download, in 20 languages, from http://www.opera.com/

This move will surely challenge Firefox and IE (Well IE is already very down in respect to these 2 browsers).

Google to Lauch Wi-Fi service?

Google may be close to launching a Wi-Fi service. A page on the Google Web site instructs customers on how to download Google Secure Access, a client that the site says "allows you to establish a more secure connection while using Google WiFi."

In April, Google began sponsoring a free hotspot in San Francisco's Union Square.

In August, Business 2.0 magazine published a report on rumors that Google had begun buying access to fiber across the U.S. Industry observers have since speculated that Google may be on the verge of offering some sort of access service, potentially using Wi-Fi.

The Google Web page says that the Secure Access program can be downloaded at certain Google Wi-Fi locations in the San Francisco Bay area. However, the client can in fact be downloaded to any computer that is connected to the Internet.
The page also says that while Google Secure Access should work at any Wi-Fi location, Google hasn't tested it elsewhere.

Information about the Secure Access client is available on the Google Web site at: http://wifi.google.com/faq.html

Interview with Bill Gates - Microsoft Vs Google

This story is via ZDNetNews. Visit it for more details!

Would you buy Windows Vista?

For Bill Gates and Microsoft, that's the big question. This week at the software giant's Professional Developers Conference, Gates rallied the troops--software developers, Microsoft's most important audience--to build enthusiasm for Vista and Office 12, the new version of MS Office.

Q: More developers are becoming interested in building new applications using the Web as a platform, as opposed to the PC. Do you feel you're in competition with Google, Yahoo and other Web properties for developers' attention?

Gates: No, I don't think so. At this conference, we do give out APIs (application programming interfaces) for the MSN Search and the MSN Virtual Earth capability, so things that have been cloud-based services, you can have client applications that other services can connect to.Our search API is way better than their(Google's) search API.

Q:Well, I guess that's what you have to combat, right? They are in this phase, and when Google does anything, they get attention.

Gates: Yeah. You do me-too Google Talk, and it's a big deal. But we had our honeymoon phase, and it was fun from maybe 1985 to 1995.

Q:How does Microsoft want to bring that server-equals-service capability to the market? You have the servers. Do you have the services?

Gates: Well, let's go through it. We have Active Directory, which we are making a lot richer. We also have Passport. So we're making those very symmetric and having this federation capability be central to the architecture those things follow. We have e-mail where we have Hotmail and Exchange. We'll have hosted Exchange from some of the telcos, too. In terms of Web sites, we have some people doing hosted SharePoint now, we have Spaces, which is a low-end version of that. We'll bring those together. So our services have started out as very inexpensive but not feature-rich. Our servers are very feature rich.

Q:Looking at the open-source world, there's this movement away from selling licenses toward selling support. A lot of people are participating in that, and you have been skeptical. Why? Do you think that's fundamentally the wrong model?

Gates: The industry will always be a mix of free and commercial software. So there will be a balance between those. I think that we are going to have a lot of both. There are some zealots that think there should be no software jobs, that we should all, like, cut hair during the day and write code at night. Should you take some of those extreme views, I think it's easy to say that's not right. There are things like compatibility and 24-hour support and taking big leaps like IPTV or speech recognition. The painstaking work over a decade that you have to do, that costs hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. That's the commercial side. It's good at hiring people and selling licenses and taking the risks that go with that.

Vist ZDNetNews to raed the full interview.

The Bottom Line: Microsoft is really pushing up to competer against Google. In the coming future, we will see a huge revolution due to battle of these giants!

Beware of Google Search worm

Downloaders looking for a free "Star Wars" game may instead find themselves installing a new worm that gives them dodgy Google search results.

The worm, called P2Load.A, is being spread on P2P (peer-to-peer) programs like Shareaza and Imesh, masquerading as a free version of the Lucasfilm Ltd. game Knights of the Old Republic II.

When the software is installed, it makes changes to the computer's browser so that any user trying to access Google Inc.'s search engine is instead presented with a Google look-alike page, hosted on a server in Germany.

Even users who mistype the www.google.com address are redirected to the fake site, which also supports the same range of languages as Google.com. This redirection is achieved by modifying the hosts file in the infected computer's operating system, which is a kind of address book used to quickly connect the browser to Web sites.

P2Load.A affects Windows computers running either the Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers.

Using keyboard can cause hacking

An audio recording of an individual's typing can be transposed into a transcript of what was typed, according to University of California at Berkeley researchers. The technique works because each key makes a distinct sound when hit and users leave enough time between keystrokes for a computer to isolate the individual sounds.

The researchers were able to take several 10-minute sound recordings of users typing at a keyboard, feed the audio into a computer, and use an algorithm to recover up to 96 percent of the characters entered.

While any sort of typed documents could be pilfered through this technique, the study underscores the vulnerability of passwords, said Doug Tygar, a UC Berkeley professor of computer science and information management, and a principal investigator of the study.

The work builds on research conducted by IBM's Dmitri Asonov and Rakesh Agrawal that showed how 80 percent of text typed could be recovered from keyboard recordings. Those experiments, however, were tightly controlled. The results of their findings will be presented Nov. 10 at the Association for Computing Machinery Conference in Alexandria.

Further experiments will take place. The researchers didn't examine what happens when the Shift, Control, Delete or Caps Lock keys are hit. Taking mouse actions into account also raises a major problem.

After reading this story at ZDNet, I was really shocked so I decided to share it with you. I wonder how "secure" our computers will be in future when Hackers and Crackers are growing at such a fast pace that one can't imagine!

Microsoft Office 12 - Good or Worse ?

Microsoft has made steady improvements to Word, Excel and PowerPoint in its new version of Office. But I don't believe people are going to rush out and upgrade as soon as possible because of its high price.

Today, there are plenty of free Office-like application alternatives like Open Office and ThinkFree Office Online. You can get away with using any one of them to create, edit or view these basic formats.
Generally we use only 25% feautures of the Office package. So its up to you only that after its release and after its review by me( which will be soon after its release), you will buy it or not!

Windows Vista - Very expensive ?

Well as there is much hype and buzz over the forthcoming Microsoft's Windows Vista so here is my next post on it.

Windows Vista will cost too much for business to seriously considering upgrading. Most people who are going to utilize Windows Vista's high end features already have the systems capable of doing so, those who have older 1 to 1.x ghz processors will not be able to utilize Windows Vista high end graphics.

There is no cost justification for moving to Windows Vista which is total hogwash. Better security, better productivity, ease of management, ease of use, ease of deployment, better stability and reliability. All of which are paramount.

The only thing Microsoft has to fear is Mac OS X, when it hits the x86 platform, Microsoft will have a real job and will have to modify licensing and pricing.

Roberto says that Anyone who says any Linux distribution that is released today beats Windows Vista and or Mac OS X needs some very serious counseling.

Tell me your comments! Would you upgrade to it?

Nokia's E-Mail service

Nokia on Tuesday introduced a new software platform to support mobile business applications, starting with push e-mail. The company joins a handful of other enterprise e-mail providers and vendors that are trying to penetrate a market dominated Research In Motion (RIM) with its Blackberry devices and software.

To implement the service, an enterprise installs the Nokia Business Center server software. End-users with Java MIDP 2.0-capable phones that are certified by Nokia then download the client, enabling them to receive and send corporate e-mail. MIDP, or Mobile Information Device Protocol, is part of the Java run-time environment for mobile phones.

Initially, the service will be available on a range of Nokia handsets, including the Nokia 9500 Communicator and selected Nokia 6600 phones. The first version of the offering can deliver e-mail from Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, with support for Lotus Notes and Domino to follow.

World’s First Artificial Opposable Thumb

Dr Paul Chappell, a medical physicist from the University of Southampton, UK, has designed a prototype hand that uses 6 sets of motors and gears so that each of the five fingers can move independently, including what he bills as the world’s first artificially made opposable thumb. His hand is able to make movements and grip objects in the same way a real human hand does.

The new hand can be connected to muscles in the arm via a small processing unit and is controlled by small contractions of the muscles which move the wrist.

Well soon Man will be owned by robots and machines!

Yahoo's New E-mail Service - Can it challenge G-Mail?

Yahoo was set to unveil on Wednesday a limited public beta of its new Yahoo Mail service, featuring a new desktop e-mail application-type interface and faster response time.

As first reported in June, the new Yahoo Mail beta features e-mail caching, message preview, drag-and-drop filing, the ability to quickly search e-mail headers, body text and attachments and the ability to view multiple e-mails at the same time in separate windows and scroll through all message headers in a folder rather than one page at a time.

In addition, the new version adds address auto-complete, right-click menus and standard keyboard shortcuts.

The beta will be available to a limited group of Yahoo Mail users in the United States and will be expanded to include users worldwide in coming months, Yahoo said. Users can choose to use the new version, stick with the older version, or switch between the two.

The amount of storage remains at 1 gigabyte for the free service. Let’s see if Yahoo can challenge G-Mail using this new e-mail service!

Google Launches Blog Search

I was just browsing the net (routine work) and then suddenly I stumbled upon a Blog pointing to Google's "Blog Search". I quickly clicked on it (Well any1 will click on something new!) and I was taken to its Homepage located at

http://blogsearch.google.com/

Then I did a search about the various posts of my Blog and I was really amazed to see that all of my posts were indexed while the main Google Search had only indexed my posts till Opera's free serial. I believe this is a great service by Google and it will surely become popular soon. It has a bright future.

You can also search all the great posts of this Blog so go and check it out now!

Problems with Google search

Two problems that have been troubling people with Google searches are:-

1. There are so many mirrors of Wikipedia out there and Google indexes all of them; so when you do a Google search the search results are cluttered up with links to different copies of the same text. Sometimes, half the results in a search are copies off of Wikipedia.

2. Also pages that are on eBay are indexed, and Google keeps these in its index far after the auction it picked up the keywords from has ended. So when you do a search, the search results are cluttered up with links to eBay pages where the auction has expired so has nothing valuable for the searcher.

I hope the people of Google group reads this and find a solution to this problem.

Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 - Rule the Net with it!

Here's what's new in Firefox 1.5 Beta 1:

Automated update- to streamline product upgrades. Notification of an update is more prominent, and updates to Firefox may now be half a megabyte or smaller. Updating extensions has also improved.

Faster browser navigation with improvements to back and forward button performance.

Drag and drop reordering for browser tabs.

Improvements to popup blocking.

Clear Private Data feature provides an easy way to quickly remove personal data through a menu item or keyboard shortcut.

Answers.com is added to the search engine list.

Improvements to product usability including descriptive error pages, redesigned options menu, RSS discovery, and "Safe Mode" experience.

Better accessibility support including DHTML accessibility.

Report a broken Web site wizard to report Web sites that are not working in Firefox.

Better support for Mac OS X (10.2 and greater) including profile migration from Safari and Mac Internet Explorer.
New support for Web Standards including SVG, CSS 2 and CSS 3, and JavaScript 1.6.
Many security enhancements.

Download it here-
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-1.5b1&os=win&lang=en-US

New Cars equipped with I Pods

With its additional partners, Apple estimates that more than 5 million cars will ship with iPod support in the United States in the next year.

"By 2006, 30 percent of all cars will come with an option of connecting to an iPod device," Apple CEO Steve Jobs predicted during the press event where the Rokr phone and iPod Nano were also announced.

I think this is a great news for US people who are looking to buy a new car soon. So my advice, wait some time before these cars equipped with I Pod are out! And yes, when u buy one, don't forget to leave your comments here!

Windows Vista Various Editions

From Windows ITPro

Quote:
"Two days before the start of Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2005, I've received exclusive insider information about the product editions, or SKUs, which Microsoft intends to create for Windows Vista (codenamed Longhorn). While the exact breakdown of the Windows Vista editions has been the subject of much speculation, this list closely matches the editions list I first published on the SuperSite for Windows last year. Here's how the Windows Vista product editions break down.
Unquote

Here is a list of the Editions:
1. Windows Vista Starter Edition

2. Windows Vista Home Basic Edition

3. Windows Vista Home Premium Edition

4. Windows Vista Professional Edition

5. Windows Vista Small Business Edition

6. Windows Vista Enterprise Edition

7. Windows Vista Ultimate Edition

8. Windows Vista Embedded Edition

You can read more about these editions @
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/47665/47665.html?Ad=1

Beware of Yahoo Messenger 7

If you're one of the tens of millions of Yahoo users asked to upgrade your instant-messaging software this week, be on your toes: The update can open the door to unwanted PC houseguests and setting changes--by default.

The newest free version of Yahoo Instant Messenger(YIM) boasts advanced Internet phone calling in a upgrade that comes "highly recommended" by Yahoo. By clicking "yes" to the update, a user can expect to get a slicker YIM interface with buttons to quickly chat, blog, swap photos or call someone online. It even has new smiley icons.

Those changes are what many might expect. What they may not expect are all the other tools they get when not paying attention.

By accepting Yahoo's "typical" installation of YIM, it will also download Yahoo's Search Toolbar with anti-spyware and anti-pop-up, as well as Yahoo Extras, which will insert Yahoo links into the Internet Explorer browser. The IM client also contains "live words," which will automatically show an icon when the user highlights words online and then hyperlink to Yahoo search results, definitions or translation tools. Finally, the installation will alter the users' home page and auto-search functions to point to Yahoo by default.

To avoid these changes, users must actively choose the "custom" installation and uncheck five boxes.

Yahoo would be thinking that most people won't care or notice the changes. But people like me will let you notice these things!

Hitachi shrinks hard drives but expands capacity

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Inc. (HGST) has started shipping a higher capacity version of its Microdrive 1-inch hard-disk drive and has made improvements to its 1.8-inch Travelstar drives, the company said Friday.

The drives are commonly used in portable consumer electronics devices like digital music players and products featuring the drives with increased capacity could be available before the end of the year.

The new 1.8-inch Travelstar drives also incorporate the improved shock-protection technology and have also been made thinner through the use of a smaller read/write head and lower-profile motor. The new 30G-byte drive is 5 millimeters thick versus 7mm for the previous model, while the 60G-byte drive has been slimmed down from 9.5mm to 8mm. HGST will start shipping the former model this month and the latter model sometime in the first quarter of 2006.

Kazza's Violation of Copyright

Well I believe most of you know what Kazza is! For those who do't know, Kazza is a P2P music sharing program.

In a win for the music business, a judge in Australia has ruled that the operators of the Kazaa file-sharing network authorized the widespread violation of copyright works. He ordered that significant changes be made to how the Kazaa service works.

The decision is a blow to Kazaa operator Sharman Networks, which has been battling the closely watched case since early last year. In a brief statement, the company said it was disappointed with the decision and vowed to appeal it vigorously.

Sharman Networks, along with five affiliates named in the case, was ordered to pay 90 percent of the labels' legal costs. Well that's gonna be a big sum but not to worry as a further hearing will take place to determine monetary damages, Justice Wilcox ordered.

The Kazaa network can continue to operate if it meets one of two conditions. One option is to include a "non-optional" key-word filter that excludes from the service all works identified in a list provided by the copyright holders. The filter must be available to all new users of Kazaa and in all future versions. The second option is that Kazaa's TopSearch feature be modified so that it only returns results for works that have been licensed for use on Kazaa.

Recently some versions of Kazza were also found to be containing dangerous spywares.So Bad days are really not ending for Kazza's operators!

McAfee announces products for 'clean' Net

McAfee is preparing security products that service providers can use to offer users an Internet connection that's free of security threats. The company on Tuesday plans to announce a strategy, dubbed "Clean Pipes," under which it is developing the products, said Vatsal Sonecha, vice president of market development and strategic alliances at McAfee in Santa Clara, Calif. One of the products, a carrier-grade server device to offer these services, is due out in the first half of 2006, he said.

McAfee already sells products that service providers can install at the customers' site and manage remotely. The new products will let the service provider offer the same security services, but as a hosted service from their own data centers, Sonecha said. The services include intrusion prevention, secure content management, vulnerability management, virus and spyware protection, and mobile device security, he said. McAfee is working with a number of service providers, including Cable and Wireless, Telefonica, China Netcom and KPN on the products. Let see what they offer!

Get this blog in your inbox

Well for those who read e-mails daily, here is a good news for you. I have added Bloglet, a nifty tool. Just enter your e-mail address and click subscribe and voila! You will receive all my posts in short directly in your inbox without any spam!

Well you won't get the full posts but the 1st 220 chars. but if like a post and you wish to read more then come to the blog straight away! I made this so because I keep track of visitors of my site so you need to check the blog too often!

Convert OGG to MP3 for free

I think that we have enough media file formats out there now. The other day I came across an audio file for a broadcast that I wanted to listen to in a .ogg file format. Not much use for an MP3 player, so I set about finding a solution.

The Ogg Vorbis format is, it turns out, a royalty free audio format that is superior to MP3. It offers better compression and it is supported on all platforms (PC, Mac, etc). However, my MP3 player only supports MP3 and WMA, so how do you go about converting the files?

For a royalty free file format, it's actually quite hard. I expected to be able to find a lot of free converters, but the majority are shareware. In the end I found Media Join. This is a batch conversion utility which is actually designed to join multiple audio files together, but can convert the file format as it does so.

The utility works simply by you selecting the files you want and then selecting an output file and the format for it. When you click on Join, you can also select the encoding level, so you can change the compression used.

The program, from the makers of Blaze Media Pro, worked perfectly, though we found the compression at high levels to be a bit poor quality. It can convert to and from OGG, MP3 and WMA, so it is a perfect solution for those with handheld players.

Chk the homepage your out and download form there
http://www.audiovideosoft.com/

Get Free DVD and Lotz of Books

Well I believe everyone wants things that come up to your free. So that what I did. I ordered a DVD, atleast 10-11 books and 4-5 posts form NATO's (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) website! To my surprise, I received my order just in 11 days.

Previously, I had ordered Win XP SP2 CD from Microsoft’s website but it came in 28 days and NATO'S service seems to be quite good. There were around 4 books and 8-9 newsletters telling the functioning and the achivements made by NATO so far. There were 4 posters. One was of Periodic table of elements, second was of important evets in history of NATO, third was a map containing names of the member countries and fourth was a collection of Venn Diagrams of member countries of important organizations.

Really, this is quite a good source for getting the knowledge about the working of NATO.

Now that I have told u a great secret so plz. promote this blog and try to advertise it wherever applicable. Also, tell about this blog to all ur friends maybe they are missing something very good! Also, do click on the ads and use the Google Search box to search Google and click on sponsored links that appear there!!

Get Opera 8 serial free

Opera - The fastest browser on earth requires you to act fast, really fast.

Opera turns 10 this month. As part of the celebration, the Opera software company is offering no-ad version of Opera browser absolutely free but just for one day.

To get an ad-free version of Opera, just e-mail registerme@opera.com to obtain a registration code. This offer is valid from 12 a.m. Tuesday, August 30 to 12 a.m. Wednesday, August 31 2005 (PDT).

Download Download Opera 8.02  and send an email to opera to get your free Opera Registration Code.
The 10-year online anniversary party will be held at this location on Tuesday August 30th, 3PM CET.

By offering Opera absolutely free, Opera might see a increase in their user base. Let's see how successful this campaign gets.
Opera requires Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP.

Google Desktop Search

Google Inc. said that it plans to release a beta version of Google Desktop 2, the next iteration of its popular desktop search software for Microsoft Windows.
The new software aims to make search a more personalized experience with the inclusion of a Sidebar panel. The Sidebar features several miniapplications that return or retain information based on previous online activities. For example, the News panel displays links to news articles that are similar to ones you've read. The Web Clips panel automatically starts tracking RSS and Atom feeds from the Web pages you visit.
Other Sidebar panels include a Photo slideshow program that presents local and Internet photo sources (such as Flickr.com), an E-mail account monitor that works with Google's Gmail service among others, and a real-time stock price tracker. Additional panel plug-ins should be available over time as developers avail themselves of the Google Desktop APIs.

Google Desktop 2 boasts expanded search capabilities, such as the ability to search network drives and Gmail accounts. It also returns search results from local files as soon as you start typing.
While this feature, called Quick Find, functions similarly to Apple's Spotlight search technology, it's intended to supplant Microsoft software. "Use Quick Find to launch applications without having to deal with the Start menu," the software's reviewer's guide suggests, as if dealing with the Start menu represented a burden.

For those with privacy concerns like me!, Google Desktop 2 offers the option of encrypting its search index, which is generated to speed searches. Doing so, however, will reduce the software's performance. The search software relies on the Windows Encrypted File System.
If you're already afraid you're under surveillance, this may be an issue Google Desktop is available in English for Windows XP and Windows 2000 SP3 and up.

Google Talk

Google late Tuesday released a beta of its highly anticipated Google Talk instant messaging client. Much like the search giant's Web site, the software sports a straightforward no-frills user interface free of the clutter and advertising that bog down other IM clients.

Weighing in at only 900kb, Google Talk is a much smaller download than other popular IM services, including AIM, MSN, and Yahoo. However, for the time being its feature list is quite sparse.

Anyone with a Gmail account can log into the service, and the client will pre-load a user's address book into the contact list. Users have the option of inviting friends not on the Gmail service by clicking the "add friend" link - Google will then send an invitation to open a Gmail account.

Google Talk is based on the Jabber protocol, meaning users will have several other options to access the service including Adium and iChat for OS X, Trillian for Windows, and GAIM and Psi for either platform as well as Linux.

Future additions to Google Talk will include support for the SIP protocol used in VoIP communications, which would allow the client to directly contact phones based on the technology. Google said it was aligning with Earthlink and Sipphone to make these features possible, but provided no timetable for planned availability.

While the client is only available for Windows XP, 2000 and Windows Server 2003 at this time, Google said it would explore providing support for Mac OS X and Linux.

Google Talk is available for download . Do Tell me what you think!

Google's New IM

Google Inc. is set to introduce its own instant messaging system, the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday, marking the expansion by the Web search leader into text and also voice communications.

The Los Angeles Times said that Google's Instant Messaging program would be called Google Talk and could be launched as early as Wednesday. Google Talk goes beyond text-based instant messaging using a computer keyboard to let users hold voice conversations with other computer users, the newspaper quoted a source as saying.

Symantec Acquires Sygate

Symantec, creator of the popular antivirus software Norton, purchased security firm Sygate earlier this week in a deal that will add to the software maker's already impressive line of acquisitions in the past year. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Previous to the Sygate acquisition, Symantec acquired TurnTide, Brightmail, On Technology and SafeWeb, as well as storage-software maker Veritas. Sygate makes software that ensures compliance with security regulations, as well as software to govern access to network devices.

So what do u think on this partenship?? Plz. do comment!

Opera Tips & Tricks

Well I have decided to celebrate this week as the WEEK OF "TIPS AND TRICKS". So here is a list of Opera mouse gestures. Just see the pictures and perform them!
Enjoy and advertise for techack.
Thx!

Google Hacks The best tips and tricks

Ok So my quest to provide u with useful info is on. Ans here goes the Vol-I of some specially collected Googlee Hacks for you!

Touchgraph

If you're the type who appreciates visual displays of information, you're bound to like the TouchGraph Google Browser (http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html). This Java applet allows you to start with the pages that are similar to one URL, and then expand outward to pages that are similar to the first set of pages, on and on, until you have a giant map of URLs on your screen.

Track Stocks

Among the lesser-known Google syntaxes is this one! Searching for stocks:, where symbol represents the stock you're looking for, will redirect you to Yahoo! Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com/) for details. The Yahoo! page is actually framed by Google; off to the top-left is the Google logo, along with links financial sites.

Search Article Archives

Not all sites have their own search engines, and even the ones that do are sometimes difficult to use. The trick is to use a common phrase to find the information you're looking for. Let's use The New York Times as an example. if I wanted to find articles on George Bush, why not use:
"george bush" site:nytimes.com
This will indeed find you all articles mentioning George Bush published on NYTimes.com.

Search for multiple queries

Search Grid (http://blog.outer-court.com/search-grid) lets you explore a wide range of Google search results by automatically searching for the various possible combinations of your keywords.

The version of Search Grid features a grid that you fill with search words that you want to combine. You might, for example, put catsup, mustard, and pickles on the x-axis and relish, onions, and tomatoes on the y-axis,Search Grid combines the results—relish catsup, relish mustard, relish pickles, onions catsup, onions mustard etc. and provides you with the first result of each possible combination

Get info instantly about various years!

Do u want 2 determine the year in which Einstein was born? Then this trick is espically for u! Use FindForward (http://www.findforward.com) for such a query.Let's say, for example, we search for Chernobyl, site of a terrible nuclear power plant accident in April 1986. Enter the search term—in this case, chernobyl—in FindForward's search box and choose a range of years from the pull-down menu to the right and Voila! u get the result u wanted.

Beyond Google's Advanced Search...
Well if you can't remember the various search syntax then Soople www.soople.com is the solution for u. By providing you with prefabricated yet flexible specialized search forms, Soople helps you concentrate on your reference task and not on building syntax.

So you liked these tips n tricks? So u want more....Right? OK Then what u have to do is wait till I prepare the Vol-II of this Google Hacks and plz. do comment on my work.
Thanks!

Get free G-Mail, Yahoo 360 , Wallop invite

So for all of those who either want a G-Mail invite, Wallop invite or Yahoo 360 invite just reply to this post with ur e-mail address and I"ll send yeh the invite very soooon... For security reasons u can tel ur e-mail id like this:-
{username} at {host name} {dot} {com}
Njoy!

Happy Independence Day

Well since I m an Indian so I would definately celebrate India's Independence day but in ... Techack's way

FACTS TO MAKE EVERY INDIAN PROUD


Who is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems?
Vinod Khosla


Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no introduction as 90% of the today’s computers run on it)?
Vinod Dahm

Who is the third richest man on the world?

A. According to the latest report on Fortune Magazine, it is AZIM PREMJI, who is the CEO of Wipro Industries. The Sultan of Brunei is at 6th position now.


Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail?
Sabeer Bhatia

Who is the president of AT & T-Bell Labs (AT & T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, Unix to name a few)?
Arun Netravalli

Who is the GM of Hewlett Packard?
Rajiv Gupta

Who is the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000, responsible to iron out all initial problems?
Sanjay Tejwrika


Who are the Chief Executives of CitiBank, Mckensey & Stanchart?
Victor Menezes, Rajat Gupta, and Rana Talwar.


We Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives. There are 3.22 millions of Indians in USA (1.5% of population). YET,


38% of doctors in USA are Indians.
12% scientists in USA are Indians.
36% of NASA scientists are Indians.
34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.
28% of IBM employees are Indians.
17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.
13% of XEROX employees are Indians.

You may know some of the following facts. These facts were recently published in a German magazine, which deals with WORLD HISTORY FACTS ABOUT INDIA.

01. India never invaded any country in her last 1000 years of history.
02. India invented the Number system. Aryabhatta invented ‘zero.’
03. The world’s first University was established in Takshila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
04. According to the Forbes magazine, Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software.
05. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans.
06. Although western media portray modern images of India as poverty striken and underdeveloped through political corruption, India was once the richest empire on earth.
07. The art of navigation was born in the river Sindh 5000 years ago. The very word “Navigation” is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH.
08. The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is now known as the Pythagorean Theorem. British scholars have last year (1999) officially published that Budhayan’s works dates to the 6th Century, which is long before the European mathematicians.
09. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11th Century; the largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Indians used numbers as big as 1053.
10. According to the Gemmological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source of diamonds to the world.

11. USA based IEEE has proved what has been a century-old suspicion amongst academics that the pioneer of wireless communication was Professor Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.
12. The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.

HOPE U LIKED MY INFO....JAI HIND!

Beat the keylogger

I just found this intersting piece of information so I decided why not share with u??

Purpose of a Keylogger

Main purpose of keylogger is to trap passwords and usernames.
Use your brain and keylogger is fooled that’s another example that proves that man is dominant over machine.

FooliNG a KEYloGGer

I was thinking one day about the keyloggers. Indeed good software to trap passwords. But if it is good
for someone then it is also bad for someone. So if we look towards a looser’s prospective it can bring his life to a stand still. Imagine a guy was typing his credit card number followed by his password
and a keylogger logs it and sends it to wrong hand then that guy will be sure on roads begging..


There are two ways in which you can fool a Keylogger

++++++++++++++++++

TRICK 1 :

Imangine the password is : techackrocks

Ok you have a PC at home right and there is no keylogger installed in it. Type your password at home and save it in a text file and carry that text file in a floppy.

You have to use that password somewhere like you have to check you mail in yahoo.com

open the text file in which you have saved you password then press ctrl+c (remmember that the password should be selected).
What we have done is copy now go the text field and press ctrl+v (paste).

Cool you have fooled the kelogger, the poor key logger would just have logged c and v since it can’t log crtl key.Do remember to clear the clipboard.


++++++++++++++++++

TRICK 2 :


The above trick can be a bit dangerous if someone get’s that floppy with your password.
The second and the last trick is the best and will work on any PC. even if there is a keylogger installed on it. But this a bit time consuming.

Let’s take the password as firE19@

see this password contains a small letters, capital letter, number, and a special chracter.

So what ever your password may be it will have one or more of the following type.

So you have to paste the password firE19@.

so we type a message like this.

Etti was a fat lady
she brought some butter
the butter was bitter
so she brought
some more better butter
to make the
bitter butter bitter.

ok you have typed the above text now we have to copy one character at a time and paste it into the text box got it !! I will tell you how.

Our password is firE19@

1)so our first alphabet if ‘f’ copy the ‘f’ from the word ‘fat’ and paste it into the password box.
and likewise the others


Hope u liked the info! Credit goes to cooljeba for provinding the info!
If u wanna help me then click on.....<{A ds}>

MARS ON AUGUST 27

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August. It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultimate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am IST. It will look like the earth has 2 moons. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Share this with ur friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again.

If u don't believe me then check out this link:-
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/07jul_marshoax.htm

English Premier League fixtures

Saturday (1400 GMT unless stated): Aston Villa v Bolton Wanderers, Everton v Manchester United (1145 GMT), Fulham v Birmingham, Manchester City v West Bromwich Albion, Middlesbrough v Liverpool (1615 GMT), Portsmouth v Tottenham Hotspur, Sunderland v Charlton Athletic, West Ham United v Blackburn Rovers

Sunday: Arsenal v Newcastle United (1230 GMT), Wigan Athletic v Chelsea (1500 GMT)

Njoy the game with Techack!~

English Premier League Starts tomorrow

Manchester United look to put their summer troubles behind them and strike an early blow over champions Chelsea and bitter rivals Arsenal when they kick-off the new Premiership season on Saturday.

Sir Alex Ferguson's team, who attracted headlines for all the wrong reasons in the close season following the controversial Glazer takeover and star defender Rio Ferdinand's stalling over a new contract, face last year's surprise side Everton at Goodison Park.

United warmed up for Saturday's encounter with a 3-0 win against Debrecen in a Champions League qualifier in midweek, while Everton's European dream took a knock after losing 2-1 at home to Villarreal.

With Chelsea and last season's runners-up Arsenal not starting their campaigns until Sunday, United have a golden opportinity to stake out their claim for the title.

Arsenal, who finished second last season, open at home to Newcastle, also on Sunday. The Londoners will take to the field without former captain Patrick Vieira, who has joined Italian giants Juventus for almost 14 million pounds.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has insisted that Spanish teenager Francesc Fabregas can fill the gap left by the French international and has been linked with Newcastle's English midfielder Jermaine Jenas.

The visitors will likely start with new midfield signings Scott Parker, bought from Chelsea, and Turkish international Emre, who swapped Inter Milan for the Magpies.

I m too excited as the action kicks off tomorrow!!

Google Ads and website promotion for free

First of all thanks to those who click on Google ads but as on current
situation u all haven't clicked enough to let me buy a server for
hosting of this Blog! Plz. just click on the ads twice in a day, if u
are a "real" member of this blog. You can also use the bigger search
box on the upper side of the screen to perform Google search and click
on the "sponsered sites" to help this blog!

Secondly, I know many of you have our own websites and u will want
popularity. So if u are interested in link exchange or any other type
of promotion to your site via this blog just reply to this topic. I
will contact you soon!

Thanks!

Search via Graball

GrabAll ( http://graball.com/index.php ) has a very neat and simple UI but it has all the good features for comparing search engine results whether from the web or audio, video or even the News sources like Google and Yahoo!.

You have the freedom to choose which two search engines you would like to have in the comparison. That is the default behaviour. You can personalize this behavior using the GrabAll personalization tool.

With GrabAll, you can do comparison searching for images, maps, reference, audio, and video. I wish the writer gets rid of the frames in the next release. Go and just check ito ut and then drop a comment onto here!
PLZ. DON'T FORGET TO CLCIK ON GOOGLE ADS ON RIGHT SIDE OF THIS PAGE!
THX FOR UR CO-OPERATION@!

Google Instant Messenger

Speculation is that in addition to leveraging its existing assets and expertise in search technologies, IM would allow Google to complete a communication platform that includes Gmail (its Web mail system) and Orkut (its community networking portal). Reports also indicate that Google's IM platform and client would be based on the open source Jabber protocol.

The above screenshot mentions the name of the IM program as "Google instant messenger jabber alpha 0.068". This could be a prank as well.

Outside of speculation, there is a currently little known reality about Google's current IM capabilities. It actually already has an IM tool and it's publically avaialbale — it's not even a Google Beta or a Google Labs project. Google though its acquisition of Blogger last year also acquired a company called Picassa, which also offer an instant messaging service. The IM technology is called Hello and is currently focused on instant messaging between people to share pictures and now to post pictures to a blog. Hello is currently available only for Windows and uses a proprietary protocol.

See a full screen preview of Google Instant Messenger
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3709/485/1600/google-instant-messenger-jabber.jpg

Well for all of those tech geeks out there, I have prepared some useful tips and tricks that will help you shutdown your PC faster. It involves tweaking of registry so be VERY CAREFUL ! Plz. Do post comments on my work and yes just KEEP CLICKING ON GOOGLE ADS ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THIS PAGE!

BASIC REGISTRY RULE: Any changes made to the registry file are crucial to the running of Windows and if damaged or misconfigured, could cause severe problems. Follow Microsoft's recommended instructions to "BackUP" all important data first.

http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?st=b&na=88&View=en-us&qu=backup

Disable Welcome To Windows Splash Screen
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\tips]
"Show"=dword:00000000

Speed Up Shutdown
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"AutoEndTasks"="1"
"HungAppTimeout"="100"
"WaitToKillAppTimeout"="1000"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control]
"WaitToKillServiceTimeout"="1000"

Disable Automatic Restart In The Event Of A BSOD
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl]
"AutoReboot"=dword:00000000

Prefetcher Tweak (Faster Booting)
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters]
"EnablePrefetcher"=dword:00000003

Make The Windows XP Registration With Microsoft Unnecessary
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion]
"RegDone"="1"

Disable Group Policy Duplication
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system]
"SynchronousMachineGroupPolicy"=dword:00000000
"SynchronousUserGroupPolicy"=dword:00000000

Clear The Page File At System Shutdown (Slows Shutdown)
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"ClearPageFileAtShutdown"=dword:00000001

Disable Hibernation
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power]
"Heuristics"=hex:05,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,3f,42,0f,00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Power]
"Heuristics"=hex:05,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,3f,42,0f,00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power]
"Heuristics"=hex:05,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,3f,42,0f,00
Power Computer Off After Shutdown
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"PowerdownAfterShutdown"="1"

Disable MSN From Startup
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
"MsnMsgr"=-

DO REPLY!!

Finally, US website owners have an alternative to Google Adsense.Yahoo! announced the launch of The Yahoo! Publisher Network Self-Serve Beta - an alternative to Google Adsense.

This beta is by invitation only. Participants of the program must be a resident of the U.S., with valid U.S. Social Security number or Tax ID.

Jensense( http://www.jensense.com/ )has some more details on Yahoo! Adsense. They do allow custom tracking channels (similar to AdSense channels) and URL channels. There is a current limit of 50 active tracking channels.

It offers the same ten ad unit sizes that AdSense offers, although some of them offer a different number of ads (such as YPN's large rectangle showing only three ads).

You can also block up to 200 advertisers from showing up by adding their URLs into the ad blocking tab.

Jensense also posted screenshots of the Yahoo ads control panel @ http://www.jensense.com/archives/2005/08/look_inside_my.html . They looks so much inspired from Google Adsense. Let's see that how successful does Yahoo will be with its new service!

Get your free horoscope

Ok! I have come up with a new thing just for a change. Here is the horoscope for all those having birthday this month! Read this and you will find that even this is geeky! Plz. do post your comment on my new work which will show you the lighter side of computing!
Xclusively @Techack

Free 10 GB E-mail account

Well i just figured out another site offering huge space. Now this one offers 10 GB. Its other features are:-
Webmail
POP3/IMAP Access
Calendaring
Address Book
Notes
Tasks
Reminders
Auto Forwarder
Auto Responder
Spam Protection
Challenge Response
Ad-Free!
No Taglines
10mb / message
Import Email from other Accounts via POP3/IMAP
Dual Layer Antivirus Protection

Now if are hungry for big space then you must check out this site:-
http://www.bgxmail.net/
and never ever forget to drop a comment about your experience with the site!

Sri Lanks Wins

ri Lanka cruised to a three-wicket victory against India in the opening match of the Indian Oil Cup at Dambulla today.

Replying to India's 205, Sri Lanka had lost early wickets, but the 37-run partnership between Sanath Jayasuriya and M F Maharoof proved crucial for the Lankan team.

The last wicket to fall was that of Upul Chandana (11) who was caught by Dhoni off Zaheer Khan's bowling.

Earlier, fast bowler Irfan Pathan had struck for the second time today, and bowled Dilhara Lokuhettige at 21, who had played some fine shots.

The two wickets before this ---that of Russell Arnold (22) and Tillekaratne Dilshan (17) were claimed by spinner Harbhajan Singh. India had got the breakthrough early on, with Pathan snaring Lankan opener Kumara Sangakkara lbw on 14.

Skipper Marvan Atapattu was joined by Mahela Jayawardene at the crease, but the hosts suffered another jolt, the result of a brilliant piece of fielding by Mohammad Kaif.

Atapattu (29) was sent back to the pavilion in the 13th over. Jaywardene (15) then took charge, but Zaheer Khan struck, bowling him.

Read the full story in the link given! Really a disappoiting performance by batting order!

India batting 1st

India have won the toss and elected to bat first against Sri Lanka in the opening match of Indian Oil Cup tri-series at Dambulla.
The match marks the beginning of the new cricket season for the Indians. Before the match, India were dealt a major blow with V V S Laxman being ruled out with a back spasm. Laxman's injury meant the team had two debutants in Suresh Raina and Y Venugopala Rao.

Missing stars
The Indians are already without the services of Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar, the latter out of action till September after undergoing a surgery on his left elbow. Ganguly, though, is expected to return to the side for the third match of the series after his ban for slow over rate was reduced from six to four matches two days ago.

Sri Lanka too were hit with injury problems and were without new ball partners Chaminda Vaas and Nuwan Zoysa. All-rounder Dilhara Lokuhettige was handed his maiden international cap.

Teams:
India: Rahul Dravid (captain), Virender Sehwag, Mahender Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Suresh Raina, Y Venugopla Rao, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Irfan Pathan

Sri Lanka: Marvan Atapattu (captain), Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumara Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Tillekaratne Dilshan, Russell Arnold, Upul Chandana, Muthiah Muralitharan, Dilhara Fernando, Fervez Mehroof, Dilhara Lokuhettige

Schedule World Cup 2007

So you are also a cricket fan like me and want the latest 2007 World Cup schedule going to be held in West Indies. Here it goes. India placed in Grup B with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bermuda(Now! new countries again). I think i gonna be far easy for indian team as no heavy competitior there! Get urself the schedule here and don't forget to leave a comment!:-

http://www.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/WORLD_CUPS/WC2007/match_schedule.html

IE7 Beta Breaks Instant Messaging Apps

Really a bad news for Microsft (again). Some Internet Explorer 7 testers who loaded the Beta 1 bits onto their systems have found a nasty surprise BetaNews has learned: their instant messaging software crashes.

Trillian, a popular multi-network IM client, Gaim and IM2 all spit out error messages when loaded alongside IE7, and the only fix is to uninstall Microsoft's new browser. Now let's see what Microsoft does about it!

Microsoft Genuine Validation cracked withing 24 hours

The genuine windows validation launched by Microsoft has been cracked by pro hackers withing 24 hours. Well, Microsoft will definately suffer a setback here. I can't tell u how to bypass the validation but check the forums. Maybe something about it will be posted soon!

Ganguly's Penalty Reduced

In a partial relief to Sourav Ganguly, ICC Disputes Resolution Commissioner Justice Albie Sachs on Thursday reduced his ban from six ODIs to four, raising the possibility of his participation in the tri-series in Sri Lanka. This decision means the Indian captain can now play in the tri-series as he has already sat out two matches and will only have to miss another couple of games. As Indian cricket selectors had chosen Ganguly as a provisional member of the team, he could potentially be back in action in India's third one-day international against Sri Lanka at Dambulla on Wednesday.

Sourav Ganguly will play under Rahul Dravid’s captaincy in the Lanka tri-series.

Chat without an IM

Presenting eMessenger

What is e-Messenger?

e-Messenger is a web application that enables you to chat with your MSN, AOL and Yahoo buddies without having to install any program or Java applet. All you need is a JavaScript enabled browser and you're set to go and use e-Messenger. Even if you're behind a firewall.

This is really great.The entire thing is now possible with the browser.It should be java script enabled.That's all!!!
Go now!
http://www.e-messenger.net

Piracy-check mandatory for Windows add-ons

From now on, customers looking to get the latest add-ons to Windows will have to verify that their copy of the operating system is legit.

Beginning Tuesday, the piracy check will be mandatory for all customers worldwide who want to download add-ons for Windows XP.

The only exception is for security-related patches. Regardless of whether a system passes the test, security updates will be available to all Windows users via either manual download or automatic update. The Microsoft Update and Windows Update utilities, which provide notifications of new patches, will require validation.

It's all part of Windows Genuine Advantage, a stepped-up effort by Microsoft to increase the number of Windows users that are actually paying Microsoft for its software. Currently, the company estimates that roughly a third of Windows copies worldwide are not legitimate.

Microsoft has been testing the Windows Genuine program since last September. At first, the program had neither benefits for those who passed inspection nor any penalty for those who failed or opted not to go through the piracy check. Gradually, though, Microsoft has been adding perks and moving to make the process mandatory.