The Digital Technology Gears..

New Version Microsoft Office "14"

2007-12-21T12:48:00.001+05:30

Recently Microsoft released Office 2003 service pack 3 and also Office 2007 earlier this year. Well, according to sources Microsoft is planning to release the next version of Office in the fall of 2009. It was currently termed as Office 14.

Office 14 ?

14 signifies the version number. During the development of Office 2007 codename was termed Office 12. The next major version 13 has been skipped. The number "13" is known unlucky and ignored due to superstitious reasons. Microsoft is spending a lot on Office 14. The total R&D investment is expected to be around $930 million per year. The Beta 1 version of Office 14 is slated in the first half of 2008.

Key Areas

The current focus points for Office 14 would be:

Enterprise Content Management - Planning to integrate more intelligent management of complex documents and content.
Manageability and Security - Securely manage and deploy by integrating Sharepoint and assist global deployments.
Communication and Collaboration - Keeping communities, co-workers, partners, and customers in sync
Business Process and Business Intelligence - Make the right information available throughout the business process.
Tools - Provide tools for individuals to be productive and effective. Improving the search relevancy and also providing self and community based help options.
Office Business Platform - To make it simple to build client and web-based business applications.

Office 14 is in its initial stages of development and expected to reach the Beta version by 2008.

Microsoft Excel File Password Recovery

2007-08-13T12:39:00.001+05:30

Ever had a file that has a password and unable to open it. I recently faced the similar situation. I was forwarded a mail with a puzzle and the answer of the puzzle itself is the password of the Excel file. I tried to solve the puzzle but couldn't do it. So, I thought of finding password recovery software. I would like to share you about my findings.

Actually Microsft Excel docements utilizes three passwords.

Password to open
Password to modify
Protect workbook or sheet

The first one needs to enter the password to view the document. Once the password is set, Excel encrypts the whole document with RC4 stream cipher. The second one needs to enter the password when we need to modify the file. The Protect sheet or Protect workbook password requires the user to enter a password to unprotect the either the worksheet or the workbook. You can find information on setting the password and other information here.

Recover Microsoft Word / Excel file Passwords

There will be two situations dealing with password encrypted files. The file is

Opened currently and want to know the password
Closed and want to know the password

Situation 1: File Currently opened :

In this situation, you have the file currently opened and want to know the password for accessing the file in future. You can change the password but instead want to know the password that was set already, then you need "Excel Password Remover 2007". This is a Excel add-in that works fine in Excel 5.0 or above (including Excel 2000, XP and 2003). Just open this add-in and enable Macros before opening this. This add-in adds two entries in Tools Menu.

UnProtect Workbook
UnProtect Sheet

These two entries help you in removing the password. You can download this add-in Excel Password Remover 2007. Read this link for more instructions on its usage.

Situation 2: File Currently Closed :

The file is unable to open and is asking for the password. You need to try this Microsoft Word / Excel password recovery software wizard. It's a 300kb zipped file which has the wizard and other readme files. After installing .msi file, you have the wizard and can easily retrieve the password. It has two options. Either you can give the password dictionary or else it has the bruteforce method of finding the password. It is very convenient and simple to use. You can find the software at FreeWordExcelPassword.com. You can download at this site.

I used the bruteforce option for my password retrieval and finally got succeeded.

ASP.NET AJAX ScriptManager in Web Applications

2007-08-10T12:45:00.001+05:30

Today the buzz word is "AJAX". It's a great technique used to create interactive web applications. It makes the web applications responsiveness similar to client-side standalone applications. ASP.NET AJAX was released by Microsoft to easily integrate into web applications. The central component, ScriptManager control is the core of ASP.NET AJAX. Its primary role is the arbitration of all other ASP.NET AJAX controls on the Web Form and the addition of the right scripting libraries to the Web browser so that the client portion of ASP.NET AJAX can function.

Scripting with ScriptManager

ScriptManager reacts to events in the ASP.NET page lifecycle and uses those events to coordinate the activities of all the controls, options, and code employed by ASP.NET AJAX. ScriptManager will hook a particular event, get notified when it occurs, and configure a few settings depending on the environment; this process will repeat itself several times through the rendering cycle of your ASP.NET page.

The steps necessary to create a class based on the ASP.NET AJAX script extensions are:

Register the namespace with ASP.NET AJAX
Create a constructor method
Create a class prototype by filling in the member methods and their functionality
Register the class with ASP.NET AJAX
Notify the client script added by the ScriptManager that you have reached the end of the type definition (the call to Sys.Application.notifyScriptLoaded).

WorkFlow of ScriptManager

The workflow of the scriptmanager is shown in the figure. It gives an idea of how the scriptmanager registers and responds to events. You can find out more information about ScriptManager.

Chat with Google Talk in Eclipse Europa

2007-07-13T18:24:00.001+05:30

Eclipse, a popularly known IDE for Java programmers has recently released its new version called Europa. Europa features 21 Eclipse projects for software developers and is more than double the size of last year’s record-setting release.

ECF is a collection of communication and collaboration tools. One of these is support for talking to any XMPPS (Jabber) server. Given that the popular Google Talk system uses XMPPS, we can easily configure Google Talk to run inside an Eclipse view. If you haven't installed ECF, here are the steps to install ECF.

Goto Help -> Software Updates -> Find and install
Drill into 'Search for new features to install'
Select Europa site(http://download.eclipse.org/releases/europa)
Click Finish
Download Core feature and download examples also if you need
Restart Eclipse once done

Switch to 'Communications' perspective in Eclipse. Clicking on the arrow will show a drop-down menu with IRC, MSN, XMPP, XMPPS and BitTorrent. Select XMPPS (encrypted version of XMPP) and it asks for username and password. Enter the email address as words. For example, eshwar.gupta@gmail.com is to be entered as eshwar dot gupta at gmail dot com. If you find any problems try eshwar dot gupta at talk dot gmail dot com. Once clicking on 'Finish', shows your contacts view. You can also set your status using the drop-down menu. Besides this, ECF also supports IRC. Try it out.

Create tabs for any windows program

2007-07-12T17:29:00.001+05:30

Do you want the easy tab navigation to your windows application similar to Firefox browser?. You are one step away to your needs. Here is a cool windows application called WinTabber, which creates tabs for any windows program. Some of the features include

Tabmanager which adds tab support to any windows program
Provides more space to the windows taskbar
Possible to run multiple instances of WinTabber
Supports many programs popular windows applications

Download WinTabber

Screenshots

Tabbed Explorer Tabbed Shell

Microsoft Robotics Studio Launched

2007-07-10T12:27:00.001+05:30

Microsoft has come up with a new Windows-based environment for academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to easily create robotics applications across a wide variety of hardware. It's named Microsoft Robotics Studio. It is bundled with a lot of samples and tutorials.

The main objective of Robotics Studio is to have a software platform for the robotics community that can be used across a wide variety of hardware, applicable to a wide audience of users, and for development of varied applications. Microsoft Robotics Studio aims three software areas:

A scalable, extensible runtime architecture for wide variety of hardware and devices
A set of tools that make programming and debugging robot applications easier
A set of useful technology libraries and samples to help developers program robot applications better

System Requirements

Microsoft Robotics Studio can be downloaded at Microsoft Robotics Studio official site. The application is about 80 MB in size and can be installed in Windows CE, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows XP. In order to install Robotics Studio, you need to install .NET Framework 2.0 SDK. Download .NET Framework 2.0 SDK. We can use Robotics Studio with Visual Studio 2005. You need to have any of the Visual Studio 2005 editions.

You can find out more information about Microsoft Robotics Studio from

Nero Linux 3 launched by Nero

2007-07-03T19:41:00.001+05:30

Nero, a provider of digital media technology has announced the launch of its latest version of Nero Linux 3. Nero claims that Nero Linux 3 is the only application which offers Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD data burning support. Besides supporting to 32-bit systems, Nero also released 64-bit system support of Nero Linux 3. Nero Linux 3 is fully compatible with numerous Linux distributions including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, SuSE Linux 10.0, Fedora 4, Debian GNU/Linux 3.1, and Ubuntu 5.10.

Nero Linux 3 is available in two versions 32 bit and 64 bit systems. Two packages, RPM for Redhat and DEB for Debian linux. You can find the download at Nero Linux 3 download page.

Nero Linux 3 has a great UI similar to its windows version. It is available in almost 26 languages and also offers unicode support and audio ripping. It costs about $24.99 USD for the serial number. Nero Linux 3 may become a big competitor to k3b, well known CD burning software for linux users. Let's wait and see how many k3b users would shift to Nero Linux 3.

New Science Video search engine

2007-07-02T11:45:00.001+05:30

Another search engine is brought into the internet. This time it's different. This is a unique video search engine, ScienceHack which indexes all the videos related to science. Currently, it indexes the fields of science related to Physics, Chemistry, Space. They are currently working to include Geology, Psychology, Robotics and Computer videos and may be coming soon.

A team of scientists screens the video and approves to be included in their index based on accuracy and quality. Their site is designed using PHP and MySql. This search engine doesn't host videos, they just index the videos from popular video sites like YouTube and MetaCafe. You can also help them by submitting videos to their database. Try it out.

Low cost IQ PC from Microsoft in India

2007-06-28T18:14:00.001+05:30

Microsoft has launched low cost PC in India. It was named IQ PC and having plans to start selling through computer retailers, bookshops in Bangalore and Pune. These systems were aimed at students from kindergarden to 12th grade.

IQ PC was built upon AMD processor and comes preloaded with Microsoft Windows Vista Basic Edition, Office, Encarta, Works and Student 2007 and third party software like exam preparation, English learning programs and other. They are looking at a starting price of around Rs. 21,000 ($513) which may come down in future.

Send Video mails with Azooca

2007-06-28T12:18:00.001+05:30

Want to send video mails to your friends and relatives, then Azooca is for you. Azooca is a new video mail service that has been launched recently. Currently, there are others like Springdoo, EyeJot and Gabmail provide the similar services. All you need to have is a web cam and a Azooca mail account.

Azooca provides 250 Mb of free space for its users. Compared to today's mail providers like Gmail with 3 Gb and Yahoo with unlimited storage, 250 Mb thinks of running out of space for storage. It has a mail composition window where in three controls are provided to record, play and stop the recording. Users can preview the video before sending the mail. You can Import and Export email contacts.

Sign-up for a free Azooca Account

Google Earth Outreach Introduced

2007-06-27T16:52:00.001+05:30

Google has launched Google Earth Outreach, a new program designed to help the nonprofit organizations around the world giving the power of Google Earth to illustrate and explain what they do. As a nonprofit organization or a group, you can use Google Earth to capture the work you are doing, the people you are helping and all visually. Just create your own KML files and submit to Google Earth. Several Tutorials and examples help you to know about KML files and creation of KML files. You can find tutorials and examples at Tutorials Section. Know more about KML and the tags used by accessing the KML reference section.There are many categories where your files get placed like

Social Services
Environment & Science
Public Health
Education & Culture
Global Development
Current Affairs

You can find examples at Google Earth Outreach Showcase. If you want your content to be submitted to Outreach, submit your KML files here.

About Google Earth

Google Earth makes world's geographic information easily accessible and useful by making maps and the power of searching through satellite imagery. Google Earth can be downloaded at http://earth.google.com/

Visual Studio 2005 - Get your Free copy

2007-06-27T11:52:00.001+05:30

You can grab a free copy of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 offered by Microsoft. Visual Studio 2005 has an estimated retail price of $299.00. All you need is just register to Labcast and attend their Labcast series. These series helps you to get in depth knowledge from visual studio experts. Here are some of the labcast subjects

Learn how to

Modernize and simplify installation of Visual Basic 6.0 applications
Add new data-bound forms to Visual Basic 6.0 applications
Introduce simple background threading to Visual Basic 6.0 applications
View and edit SQL Server™ data
Create data-centric Web applications with your Visual Basic desktop development skill
Keep Microsoft Word documents in sync with your database

This offer is for a limited time and attend for any two labcast series and submit the evaluation form for each session, you could win a complementary copy of Visual Studio 2005. Try it out. If you are lucky, you would get the free copy or else you would gain knowledge on Visual Studio 2005. Anyway's, it is beneficial to us.

FireFTP - FTP Extension for Firefox

2007-06-26T15:55:00.001+05:30

FireFTP is a firefox extension for free, secure cross-platform FTP client which provides easy access to FTP servers. It's a easy add-on so that, you can transfer files to and fro without leaving the browser. FireFTP offers many features that a normal FTP client provides. Some of the features are

Quick and efficient
Multiple login accounts
Directory comparison
Synchronizing directories
SSL encryption
File hashing
Resume downloads
Import/Export list of FTP sites
Logging

Install FireFTP extension

After installing this extension you can access FireFTP by clicking on Tools menu and selecting FireFTP. Also, FireFTP toolbar extension is also available and can be installed from mozilla site.

Screenshots of FireFTP

Transferring Data quickly and efficiently

Accessing FTP servers made simple

Managing files makes it easy with FireFTP

New Compatibility Feature in Visual Studio 2008

2007-06-26T12:15:00.001+05:30

Recently, Microsoft has released it's new version of Visual Studio i.e., Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. This new version is named as "Orcas". One of the new feature of Visual Studio 2008 is the ability to target multiple versions of .NET framework with your application. One of the problems with Visual Studio 2005 is that it only allows you to develop applications in .NET framework 2.0. It is not compatible to its earlier version of .NET 1.0.

Here comes the nice feature in Orcas. So, if you have an application which is built on .NET framework 2.0, and if you have installed visual studio 2008, you can continue to work on the application built on .NET 2.0. If you want to upgrade your project from .NET 2.0 to 3.0 and .NET 3.5, you can achieve this by simply changing the target framework version in the project properties. This doesn't mean that there wont be upgrade issues to think about, but at least you don't have to change tools and upgrade your projects to see what happens when you upgrade to the latest framework - which should make the upgrade process significantly easier.

Group Chat in Google Talk

2007-06-25T12:21:00.001+05:30

Google has integrated Group chatting feature in it's IM Google Talk. Already Google Talk popularity is growing. This IM is also integrated in Google IM as a gadget. It enables us to add Google Talk in our personalized home page.

To start using Group Chat, Logon Google Talk with your gmail account. Start your conversation with a contact, then click on the drop down menu at the top and select Group chat. Add as many contacts to you want. You can launch Google Talk Gadget here. This feature is available only with the Google Talk gadget and hope this would be integrated into the desktop client in future.

Source via [LifeHacker]

Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Silverlight

2007-06-22T20:42:00.001+05:30

The current buzz around technology today is Microsoft Silverlight. See my previous article on Moonlight is Linux's Microsoft Silverlight who are unfamiliar with Silverlight. Silverlight has the power of programming animations. Now it goes beyond the simple animations. It has provided to work and integrate with any application and now it has grouped up with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team has developed this application and the demo was presented at TechEd 2007.

What is Microsoft Dynamics CRM?

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management (CRM) solution developed by Microsoft. It is a solution that provides the tools and capabilities needed to create and easily maintain a clear picture of customers, from first contact through to purchase and post-sales. It is a part of the Microsoft Dynamics family of business tools. It offers

Tight integration with Microsoft Office and Outlook
Quick and easy access to Data
Customized workspaces
Powerful reporting and analysis tools
Mobile support

You can know further information at Microsoft Dynamics CRM site.

More about the Demo

The above picture shows the demo application. The authors details and his/her related books, pictures and other information are shown in nice animation. Dragging and dropping the pictures gives you detailed information which makes the application more lively. This information is brought from CRM records. This site has the information on the components used in the demo. The source code is also distributed and can be downloaded. Also has a readme file which describes the installation process and steps to run the demo. Download the Source code.

Microsoft Acropolis online Video Tutorials

2007-06-22T12:46:00.001+05:30

Microsoft Acropolis is a set of components and tools that make it easier for developers to build and manage modular, business focused, client .NET applications. One great thing about Acropolis is that separation of concerns between presentation and business logic. You can look at the Features of Microsoft Acropolis on my recent articles. Here are some of the videos about Acropolis.

Introduction to Acropolis

Using Acropolis PartPanes

Using the Acropolis Designer

Using Transitions in Acropolis

Acropolis was announced publicly at TechEd 2007. Here are some of the videos about Acropolis at TechEd 2007.

David's talk: Introducing the "Acropolis" Client Application Framework

Kathy's talk: Building Rich Client UI with the "Acropolis" Framework

Moonlight is Linux's Microsoft Silverlight

2007-06-20T14:55:00.001+05:30

We know that the Microsoft Silverlight is now the hottest technology in the current market. It is getting more popular nowadays. Currently, Silverlight supports only Microsoft Vista and Windows XP SP2. In order to cater the silverlight features to the common open source user, the open source crowd has plans to come up with what is called "Moonlight". Mono has started building up the Silverlight's version for Linux and open source systems, i.e., Moonlight.

What is Mono?

Mono provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows and Unix. The Mono Open source project is sponsored by Novell. Mono is currently being used by a number of commercial software vendors and corporate enterprises to provide a rich environment for developing cross-platform applications. OTEE Implements Award-Winning 3D Game Development System Using Mono.

Microsoft Silverlight

Microsoft describes Silverlight as “a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications.”

Moonlight

It's simply a Mono based implementation of Silverlight, project temporarily named as Monolight. Moonlight is written with a combination of C++ and C# code. Moonlight uses version 1.1 of Silverlight, a browser plug-in for displaying interactive Web applications, which is due in the fall. Once completed, Moonlight will allow Linux users to see Silverlight content on the Web, such as videos, and run rich Internet applications.

Moonlight Screenshots

Some of the examples of Moonlight can be seen on this site. Some progress has been done on Moonlight and here are some of the screenshots of some of the examples made using Moonlight. Currently, Moonlight is in alpha. To get Moonlight for Linux, access Mono Moonlight site and it has a step by step process to get Moonlight.

Source Via Webware

Download SEO page rank tool

2007-06-19T14:56:00.002+05:30

Looking for a good software to check your page rank in popular search engines like google, Yahoo and Live Search.Â SERPs Finder is a free SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tool which exactly does this for you. It allows you to check your page rank for a given search query. It is very easy to use and its size is around 40Kb.

Download SERPs Finder

It's a simple exe file which has two inputs. One is your site/blog url and the other the search query string. It has the options of querying in different search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Live Search. Once upon clicking OK, it searches for the search string in the search engines and then pops a message box showing your page rank position. It also opens the default web browser andÂ browses the page of the selected search engine and shows where your page positions in the search engine site. I have downloaded and tested the tool. Here are my findings.

This tool is incredibly fast and depends on your network connection. It analyzes the first 1000 pages of the search results and if your page doesn't show within 1000 pages it shows a message that your page is not within that 1000 page result. Overall, it is a good SEO tool to try it out.

Download SERPs Finder

UniveRSS - 3D RSS reader for Windows Vista

2007-06-18T17:29:00.001+05:30

UniveRSS is a 3D RSS reader provided by Microsoft. It currently works only on windows Vista and on Internet Explorer 7.0. It provides a way of visualizing the feeds and their content in 3D. It collects all the subscribed feeds and shows them in a visual attractive manner. The name itself says that this application brings all the feeds from the universe and presents the RSS feeds to the users.

System Requirements

In order to install UniveRSS you need

At least 1 GHz CPU
1 GB of RAM
Support for DirectX 9.0 graphics
.NET Framework 3.0
Internet Explorer 7.0

Download UniveRSS

Features of UniveRSS

UniveRSS uses the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to visualize RSS feeds.WPF comes with .NET Framework 3.0. Animation plays a powerful part in .NET Framework 3.0. Feeds are presented in constantly rotating cubes suspended in a virtual universe. Source code is also available at Microsoft site.

Full screen 3D view of RSS feeds
Shows feeds in spinning cubes in the galaxy
Galaxies represent the folders of the RSS feed directory
Stars represent your feed content information
Size and position of cubes are indicators of number of articles unread
Provided sorting parameters
Typing a letter will select the feed the name of which begins with that letter

Here are some of the screenshots of UniveRSS. One rss feed site is selected from the list. The first screenshot shows the selection of a rss feed. The second shows the list of articles in the selected rss feed. The last one shows the article selected.

Technologies used in UniveRSS

Windows Presentation Foundation
Microsoft's XAML
Internet Explorer 7.0 RSS Platform

Download UniveRSS

Testing AJAX applications with Fiddler

2007-06-14T19:38:00.001+05:30

Testing AJAX web applications is very difficult. Ajax relies mainly on requests to the server ( and responses received from them). We can't test what is sent and received from the server. The way to solve these problems is to use HTTP Proxy.

A HTTP proxy is a small program which intercepts between the client requests and responses to and from the server. The browser sends a request and the HTTP proxy receives the request. It then sends the request to the server and when it is processed, the response is sent back to the HTTP proxy. It is then sent to the browser. In addition to the interception job, it also records the information transfer. Fiddler is one such HTTP proxy tool which is used for testing and debugging Ajax applications.

Fiddler, a free tool is an HTTP proxy for WINInet, which is the Internet Communication library used by many desktop applications, including Internet Explorer. Once installed, Fiddler automatically begins intercepting HTTP traffic to and from your computer.

Download Fiddler

Configuring Fiddler

If you want to get fiddler to listen to the requests too, go to Tools > Options > Connection > Connection Settings and check "Manual Proxy Configuration", "Use the same proxy for all protocols" and enter 127.0.0.1 port 8888 and click OK. Note that this will pose problems if you close Fiddler as your proxy is gone, to solve the problem change back to "direct connection to internet".

Using Fiddler

The Fiddler window has two main regions. The left region shows all the requests that were sent from the machine. Each request is represented in a line. The line includes the response status, the protocol used (usually HTTP), the host name, the URL, the caching type, the length of the response, and the content type.

The right region has three tabs which are Performance Statistics, which displays information relating to data transmission rates, including the number of bytes sent and received as well as the types of data received. The Session Inspector tab provides information about the request and the accompanying response. The Request Builder tab allows you to manually construct a request and observe its response.

Another main feature of Fiddler is it has the ability to set breakpoints for HTTP requests and responses. As the request breakpoint is set, the Session Inspector tab is filled with information about the request. We can change the request before it is sent to server. Similarly, before the response is sent back to browser, we can edit the response.

Ajax debugging with Fiddler

Ensures that correct data is being sent to the server
Ensures that the data is sent in correct format and contains correct data
Checks whether correct response is received from server
Setting breakpoints for the request and response helps in finding out the error easily

Once you've recorded a session in fiddler you can then select the requests you're interested in, right click them and save them as a Visual Studio Web Test. You now have an XML file with the .webtest extension, ready to be imported into Visual Studio. Web Tests are used for testing the applications in Visual Studio 2005. You can know more information from my previous post Web Tests with Visual Studio 2005

You can find the Fiddler demonstration videos at this link

Source Via [Wrox Article]

Web Tests in Visual Studio 2005

2007-06-13T19:11:00.001+05:30

Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0 has a set of tools and functionality that will help the application development needs of today's large scale applications. It introduced a brand new set of tools for web and load testing. A load test of a Web application might span multiple machines and simulate tens of thousands of users, but at its heart it is a collection of Web tests.

Visual Studio 2005 enables web testing and makes it easy for the developer without writing any code. A Web test simulates how an end user might interact with a Web application. Typically, you create Web test by recording HTTP requests using the Web Test Recorder in a browser session, but you can also build Web tests manually using the Web Test Editor.

Recording a Web Test

Create a new Web test in Visual Studio. The Web test launches Internet Explorer, activating the integrated Web Test Recorder. Test recorder is used to record the actions you perform while you browse a Web site. The Web Test Recorder does not capture traffic sent between the client and server. This type of tool is sometimes called proxy recorder.

See for more information on Web Tests

Review of Apple Safari 3 Beta

2007-06-12T19:11:00.001+05:30

Apple Corporation has released a beta version of their web browser Safari 3 Beta for windows machines. It's look and feel is similar to the Apple's trademark. If you use Mac OSX and iTunes, you would feel the similar. Apple corporation included Safari web browser in Mac OS X. Previously, Apple hasn't released any of their safari versions for Microsoft machines.

The Beta release offers three choices for download.

Safari plus Quicktime for Windows XP and Vista
Safari for Windows XP and Vista
Safari for Mac OS X systems

Download Safari for Windows XP and Vista

The setup process has a choice to install Bonjour protocol onto your system. This is unfamiliar to the Microsoft windows users. Apple's Bonjour protocol finds the local IP address of all devices such as your network printer.

Reviews and findings on Safari 3 Beta

Pros:

When compared to other browsers, the application launch time is very less. The moment you double-click the application, it instantly loads.
It loads the pages faster than IE and Opera. It is said that Safari loads 2 times faster than IE 7 and 1.6 times than Firefox 2.
It executes javascript faster than IE 7 and Firefox 2
The UI is similar to Mac style. The animation of the bookmark window is a sample of Apple's trademark style.
Has the features of blocking popups, autofilling forms, Tabbed browsing, bookmarking, Built in RSS and security
Rendering the page is excellent and more clear. You will find the difference when you open the same page in different browsers.

Cons:

Offers very few plug-ins
It takes time to load the previous page when clicked on back button. It's not using cache but instead requesting the page.
Doesn't preview tabs.
Often crashes like when the Autofill function is activated, crashes when one tries to fill the text field
Problems with loading bookmarks
Shows error messages such as: "Safari is missing important resources and should be reinstalled."
Some problems with the fonts not being loaded on the web pages
Problems with installed iTunes software when installed

On a whole, Safari 3 beta is a mixed-bag. There are some good features and many features yet to implement. The current Firefox and IE users will feel disappointed due to the lack of add-ons and plugins. Lets hope Safari 3.0 would resolve all these issues.

Download Safari for Windows XP and Vista

Generate revenue online with Tumri

2007-06-11T20:17:00.001+05:30

Here is another site which offers to make money online. Tumri, a merchandising network offers to generate revenue for our blogs and sites. It is similar to eBay and Chitika, but offers a rich UI to the users. The ads are attractive and gives a different look when compared to other revenue generating sites.

Unlike Google, where it generates contextual ads, the publisher has to select the category which suits his/her blog. Tumri calls the ads as AdPod's. Tumri offers hundreds of product categories containing over 10 million products from 2300 merchants like Walmart, Sears, BOSE, Wine.com etc.,

Sign up for a Tumri Publisher account

One good thing about Tumri is that it offers customization. Let's say if we want to create an AdPod related to Digital Cameras, we can

Select Categories - select differnt products like cameras, flowers, computer perepherals etc.,
Select Merchants - can select and exclude different merchants like Amazon, buy.com etc.,
Select Price Range - can select the price range of the products that our blog ad display
Select with Keywords - can select our ad display products based on the given keywords

Features and Benefits

Has wide network with millions of products from thousands of merchants
Has the freedom to select different product categories that can be added to our blog
Has rich interactive UI that makes click rate better than before
Has good reporting about your ads revenue
Easy to create and deploy into the blogs

See the Tumri AdPod

In few more days i will write more on Tumri as i have started using it now. If you want to join Tumri, Sign up for a Tumri Publisher account and find ways of integrating Tumri AdPod's onto your site. Happy earning...

Features of Microsoft Acropolis

2007-06-10T19:52:00.001+05:30

Microsoft has finally announced publicly during this week's TechEd 2007 about Microsoft Acropolis. Microsoft Acropolis is a set of components and tools that make the developer and client easier to build and manage modular, business focused, client .NET applications. Acropolis is a part of ".NET Client Features". It builds on the rich capabilities of Microsoft Windows and the .NET Framework, including Windows Presentation Framework (WPF), by providing tools and pre-built components that help developers quickly assemble applications from loosely-coupled parts and services.

In order to work on Acropolis, you need Windows Vista or Windows XP SP2 and also the new version of Microsoft Visual Studio named Orcas Beta 1. If you have all these, then download Acropolis from
Download Acropolis from Microsoft Site

Get a Video on Introduction to Acropolis from Microsoft Site

Features of Acropolis

Acropolis overturns the way organizations design, develop, configure, deploy and manage their application solutions.

Acropolis brings Windows Forms closer to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Its a user interface API which brings all the ingredients required for business enterprise applications. Acropolis makes it more easy and gives a way to incorporate these parts into their new applications
We can easily create complex, business concentrated applications with ease and can also build reusable and connectable client application modules
Integration with other applications like Microsoft office and stand alone client interfaces
Using XAML, the User interface of the application can be easily enhanced by the built-in themes and designs.
Also includes some of the features with fewer lines of code like the navigation workflow and custom views.
Maintaining the applications would be easier and the tasks of updating and deploying the applications can be done speedily.

Download Acropolis from Microsoft Site

AOL's AIM mail with Unlimited Storage

2007-06-09T18:58:00.001+05:30

It's America Online who has announced it's AIM mail with unlimited storage to the users of their email service. Rediff and Yahoo! were the forerunners who announced umlimited storage. The "AIM" in the name stands for AOL Instant Messenger, AOL's instant messaging program.

Currently offering 2 GB of online mail storage. AIM Mail has a good stellar spam protection with solid security features. It has a rich interface which makes AIM mail very easy to use and also integrated with calendar and chat.

Sign up with AIM mail with Unlimited Storage

AOL mail users are almost 53 million worldwide and are growing. It is the third most popular U.S. email service which is behind Yahoo! and Hotmail, according to ComScore. Lastly, AOL has integrated a Vista widget that displays e-mail and instant messages from your friend contacts.

What are you waiting for...Sign-up for an AIM mail account if you haven't one and enjoy Unlimited storage. Happy mailing.

Source via BetaNews

HTTP Testing Tool - WBox

2007-06-08T19:42:00.001+05:30

WBox is a simple HTTP Testing Tool written in ANSI C which works on a POSIX system like Linux. Windows systems are not supported and compiles on a MacOS X system. It is a 20 Kb zip file which has code written in ANSI C. We can use it to perform many different tasks which include

Benchmarking how much time it takes to generate content for your web application.
Web server and web application stressing.
Testing virtual domains configuration without the need to alter your local resolver.
Check if your redirects are working correctly emitting the right HTTP code.
Test if the HTTP compression is working and if it is actually serving pages faster.
Use it as a configuration-less HTTP server to share files! (see the server mode documentation at the end of the Wbox tutorial in this page, but it's as simple as % wbox servermode webroot /tmp)

Download WBox version 2

There are two modes of usage, one is HTTP Client mode and the other is Server mode.

HTTP Client Mode

The way to use WBox is through command line. For example, an url

% wbox www.technogears.blogspot.com

works simply as a ping utility. We can limit the number of ping like requests by adding the number of requests as one parameter.

Timesplit Option

We can get the time information for different parts of the document using the Timesplit option.

Eg: %wbox www.digg.com timesplit 1

WBOX digg.com (64.191.203.30) port 80
0. 200 OK    44134 bytes    1326 ms 
       [0] 0-4095 -> 728 ms
       [1] 4096-8191 -> 254 ms
       [2] 8192-12287 -> 16 ms
       [3] 12288-16383 -> 17 ms
       [4] 16384-20479 -> 225 ms
       [5] 20480-24575 -> 12 ms
       [6] 24576-28671 -> 16 ms
       [7] 28672-32767 -> 18 ms
       [8] 32768-36863 -> 16 ms
       [9] 36864-40959 -> 16 ms
       [10] 40960-44133 -> 8 ms

Stressing servers and apps

We can make concurrent multiple requests using the clients number option parameter. Wbox will spawn the required number of processes, and every process will perform a query every second.

% wbox http://localhost clients 4
WBOX localhost (127.0.0.1) port 80
0. 200 OK    9939 bytes    14 ms
0. 200 OK    9939 bytes    22 ms
0. 200 OK    9939 bytes    26 ms
0. 200 OK    9939 bytes    31 ms
1. 200 OK    9939 bytes    4 ms
1. 200 OK    9939 bytes    7 ms
1. 200 OK    9939 bytes    7 ms
1. 200 OK    9939 bytes    4 ms
2. 200 OK    9939 bytes    4 ms
2. 200 OK    9939 bytes    6 ms
2. 200 OK    9939 bytes    10 ms
2. 200 OK    9939 bytes    3 ms
user terminated

Testing HTTP Compression

We can test a web server which acceps HTTP compression requests with the compr option. WBox includes the header to accept the gzip/deflate data encoding. It will be useful to compare the performance with and without compression.

HTTP Server Mode

WBox adds a feature of running a simple configuraitonless HTTP server. This is very useful in LAN or a network so that files can be easily shared. To start in server mode, you need to run

% wbox servermode webroot /tmp/shared

Try connecting http://localhost:8081. WBox uses 8081 port by default and can be changed using serverport portno option

Feel free to try this simple testing tool. It has the disadvantage of not being compatible with windows OS as many users use windows os's.

Download WBox version 2

3D web browser experience with SpaceTime

2007-06-07T18:56:00.000+05:30

SpaceTime, an innovator of 3D Technology has announced its flagship application which is now available in Beta. SpaceTime is a free consumer PC software application that enables searching, browsing and shopping in an unlimited 3D environment. It makes web surfing a 3D look with visually rich experience. This allows the users to make their best search engines like Google, Yahoo! and eBay look and search in a 3D environment.

Watch an exclusive stunning video....Please wait while the video loads....

SpaceTime revolutionizes the process of web searching with three key functionalities: 3D search, 3D eBay Search and 3D Tabbed browsing.

Download SpaceTime 3D Web Browser Beta .9

Sysem Requirements:

OS : Microsoft Windows XP Professional version 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)

CPU     : (586/15/401)
Computer    : HYRDWS0217
Memory    :      114 free MB/    1014 total MB physical memory
3D Device    : Intel(R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family - ialmrnt5.dll - \\.\DISPLAY1
Video Memory    :      128 MB
Free Texture Mem    :       60 MB

Features of SpaceTime 3D Browser

1. 3D Search

Take the case of an ordinary search, which returns a list of links that one have to read the description and click each one at a time. Whereas SpaceTime simultaneously loads 10 results at a time, each in its own window. Using mouse and keyboard, users can quickly and easily filp through the results, re-arrange the pages or manipulate them as desired. This seach supports Google, Yahoo, Google Images, Yahoo!, Yahoo! images, Filckr, eBay and others.

2. 3D eBay Search

SpaceTime has developed a way to make browsing eBay listings more like flipping through an electronic catalog of full-sized images. Users can also explore other retail sites in its 3D space for ease of
comparison shopping.

Ebay Search Options in 3D Browser

Place Bid
Star Item
View Page
More Images
Compare
Remove

3. 3D TABBED BROWSING

Each time you create a new tab, the new page replaces the previous page and the browser creates a tab to keep track of the new page. Clicking these tabs allows you to shuffle among the pages in your browser. In addition, for each URL you enter in the address line, SpaceTime catalogues this by creating an icon on the Timeline which is located at the bottom of the application. Once you have several web pages within SpaceTime, you can shuffle between these pages by clicking the icons on the Timeline.

You can shift between 2D and 3D view of the search results. When in 3D mode, double clicking on the page renders the page to 2D view. Clicking on Back at the right top corner renders to 3D view.

4. 3D Desktop
One of SpaceTime's most fascinating features is the ability to use your unlimitted 3D Space presented to you as beautiful blue skys as a floating 3D desktop. In other words, you can drag or move any item you would like to any position you choose.
Ctrl-Click-Drag - Just choose an image or web page, press the Ctrl key and then click-drag the item you would like to reposition along the X and y axis (up down, left right).
Ctrl-Shift-Click Drag - Just choose an image or web page, press the Ctrl-Shift key and then click drag the item you would like to reposition along the +z and -Z axis (into the background or into the foreground).
Please not that to reposition web pages, you must Ctrl-Click the Menu bar of the 3D web page to initiate teh Ctrl-Click-Drag.

NAVIGATION

Once you have a 3D Visual Stack in front of you, you have several options which are presented to you to move around. They are:
(1) next - advance forward to the next item in the visual stack
(2) previous - go back to the previous item in the visual stack
(3) next 10 - add the next 10 items to the current visual stack
(4) previous 10 - go back 10 pages at a time in the visual stack
(5) Scroll Wheel - You may also use the scrool wheel of your mouse as an alternative to the "next" and "previous" buttons.

Fly around with Keyboard - You can also fly around in SpaceTime (which is really thrilling) and assume any viewpoint you can think of. To Fly, use the up, down, left and right keys. In addition, you can change the style of your up, down, left and right key navigation by choosing the right-click menu > movements > to walk, slide, examine and pan style movements. This is really one of the greatest features of SpaceTime as you have total freedom to move about your space.

SpaceTime Jargon

TIMELINE
When you conduct searches, SpaceTime creates one icon for this new search on the Timeline . Clicking among the icons on the Timeline will allow you to shuffle between your searches.
HISTORY
Most of the functionality in SpaceTime is visible to you as you mouse-over the icons on the screen. By clicking the triangle, it will open the History which reveales three tabs representing three categories (web pages, searches, and pictures). All of the searches you create in SpaceTime are indexed in the Searches Tab.
Right Click Menu
If you are in SpaceTime, in 3D (not in 2D mode) and you click the right button on your mouse, you'll a bunch of commands available to you. One of the menu items on the right-click menu is options which features a list of very useful commands. Let's go over them.
Delete Item - Let's you delete a single item that your mouse's cursor is positioned at. Simply mouse over the item you would like to delete, right-click, choose options and delete item.
Delete Stack - This is similar to delete item, but instead of deleting one image or one web page, delete stack allow you to delete an entire 3D Visual Stack. In addition, if you mouse-over the active icon on the timeline, you'll see a small "x box" in the upper right hand corner of the timeline icon which clicking allows you to accomplish the same Delete Stack command.
Reset Scene - Resets your entire 3D Scene and frees up all you memory. It is equivalent to running the program for the first time.
Refresh Item - Reloads a web page
Save Item As - Saves either your (1) image or (2) web page to your computer's local file system. This is very usefull for 3D Image searches where you are able to save the images that you find right from within SpaceTime.

What about Security Issues?

SpaceTime guys have produced a solid and navigable environment. It carries your browser security settings over to its program. So, it is as secure as your browser (IE7, firefox). It was announced that the security settings within SpaceTime would be in their upcoming release.

Shortcuts Using SpaceTime

Feature Shortcut Key

Walk                           Ctrl+shift+W
Slide                           Ctrl+shift+S
Examine                         Ctrl+shift+E
Fly                              Ctrl+shift+F
Pan                             Ctrl+shift+W
Jump                                    F3
Straighten                  UpCtrl+shift+U
Collision                       Ctrl+shift+C
Gravity                        Ctrl+shift+G
Force Movement          Ctrl+shift+R
Preference Control               F9
Save Screenshot                  F11

My Experience with SpaceTime

I have selected eBay search option from the drop-down menu in SpaceTime, the search result offers you more options compared to other searches with a 3D visual experience. Along with these options, you can manipulate the view page, Place Bid, Star Item, the comparision and look for more images. You need to click these hyperlinks and initiate actions to use these features.

What are looking for...? Just Download the SpaceTime Beta version and enjoy the 3D experience of searching and shopping right in your desktop.

Download SpaceTime 3D Web Browser Beta .9

Adsense policies Updated to include more link units

2007-06-06T16:20:00.001+05:30

Google Adsense has updated their policies yesterday. You have to adhere to their policies as binding and accepting their policy change is also a policy that you agreed upon.

Google Adsense has widened their webmaster guidelines. The publishers must bind and confirm to the technical guidelines and as well as the quality guidelines. The good thing in this policy update is that you can include Three Link Units in a page.

Link units are a great way to provide relevant, user-friendly ads in hard-to-fit locations on your site. Previously, only one link unit can be added on to a page. This update allows the publishers to include to almost three link units. So, it is up to the publisher to choose their link unit positions. We have the options of including it in the footer, header and sidebar each. I hope you will find great ways of incorporating these link units making your site more enhanced to look at.

Get paid for blogging through Smorty

2007-06-05T23:22:00.000+05:30

Write your opinion about peoples products, services and websites on your blog. Get paid weekly through Smorty. It's absolutely free to set up and maintain an account with Smorty. You can earn as much as you like. Your earnings are directly related to the number of valid opinions you post. Each post will bring you a minimum of US$6 and the Pagerank of your blog along with a high SMorty smart score determines whether you receive higher paid ad campaigns, bringing you up to even $100 per post.

Signup for a Smorty account and write posts based on your categories of interest. You will be assigned topics for each campaign write your opinion about in your blog. Within your entry you must include anchor text links to the campaigns website URL in your blog. You do not have to necessarily endorse the advertiser's website products or services, just mention them in your blog.

Best Web based Instant Messengers to choose - A Review

2007-06-04T21:13:00.001+05:30

Instant Messaging allows people to exchange text as well as voice messages in real-time. Previously, there were about two to three Instant messengers to install and download with few kilobytes of memory. But later as the technology emerged, more features and plug-ins were added and the installation rose upto 20Mb or so.

IM is vividly becoming an essential workplace tool in lieu of the inefficiencies of email and its lack of real-time communication. Survey found that 76% of organizations have not deployed a formal IM solution, and however willing; because of the numerous security problems, many corporations say no to IM use.

Nowadays, many companies and offices are not allowing the use of IM's. This has led to the growth of web based Instant messengers. The pure web base delivery using hypertext mode is well recognized as the most secured in preventing virus, spy ware and malicious content. There are many web based IM's in the current market and thought of giving you a review of them. Choose your IM ....

Yahoo! Web Messenger

Yahoo! web Messenger is one of the popular instant messaging client. You can logon using your Yahoo! ID and can use it without any cost. One more feature added is that you can chat with friends on MSN. You can just type http://web.im instead of the long url. You can find the Smileys at http://www.wackyb.co.nz/Yahoo!_Web_Messenger_Smileys/. It has a brief collection of Smileys and emotions. A good site to look at.

Link: http://webmessenger.yahoo.com

MSN Web Messenger

It's the web based version of MSN Messenger. It is a nice IM to stay in touch with all your buddies. You need to have an Microsoft® .NET Passport (if you have a Hotmail account you have a "Passport" so this isn't required in addition to), don't have a passport? head to https://accountservices.passport.net/ppnetworkhome.srf It does not allow file sharing and video calls. You can only chat with the ones who are in the same network.

Link: http://webmessenger.msn.com

Meebo

A good example of Web 2.0. Meebo is an Ajax based, cross-platform, multi-protocol IM. You can logon to Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, AOL IM, Google Talk, Jebber and ICQ. It runs inside one browser window with multiple DIV based conversation windows. Passwords are encrypted before sending them to the servers for logging in.

Link: http://www.meebo.com

Google Talk Gadget

Google Talk Gadget is a web-based module that you can add to your Google Personalized Homepage, letting you see your friends and chat with them -- all on your homepage. You don't have to download and install software to use it. Just visit google personalized home page. Logon your gmail account and add the Google Talk Gadget to your homepage. Your web based IM is ready to use.

Link: http://www.google.com/ig

IMhaha

IMhaha is a multi-network Web based messenger that supports four of the top instant messaging services including MSN, Yahoo!, AIM and QQ (China’s leading IM with over 200 million active users). You can login multiple IM accounts at the same time and chat simultaneously with as many friends as you like. It uses https protocol so that all your IM account information and messages are encrypted and protected the way your online banking transactions are protected.

Link: http://www.imhaha.com/webmsg/

IMunitive

IMUnitive is a web based IM service allows connect to MSN, Yahoo and AOL. It supports SSL and also transferring of files can be easily done. Also conference feature of IMUnitive allows you to chat with your MSN, AIM and Yahoo buddies in the same conference even those buddies don't know each others.

Link: http://www.imunitive.com

Yafumato Web Messenger

A web-based instant messenger client allowing users to connect to supported messengers (AIM, Yahoo) via HTTP (or HTTPS). The Yafumato server connects to the messengers by proxy and provides a web interface to the user, allowing IM access from anywhere.

Link:http://sourceforge.net/projects/yafumato

Radius IM

It's a social IM and is the only website which shows you where your friends are hanging out and lets you surf for other people based on location. Supports all the major IMs. Log in to radiusIM and choose your location. Your friends will show up in the Friends List to the right and as pictures inside the map. The pictures around the map are other people located somewhere within the map view, but you don’t know exactly where. You can drag or zoom the map to a new place to see new people from that area.

Link: http://www.radiusim.com

I LoveIM

ILoveIM.com provides friendly, light and very easy to use web-based interface with almost all core features from the original Instant Messenger. It's a web messenger application that allows you to stay connected with your favorite Instant Messenger almost anywhere.The best part is that you don't need to install any Java plug-ins to use.

Link: http://www.iloveim.com

Kool IM

It is similar to Meebo handling multiple messengers on one page. Supports Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Jabber, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger. You can use these features without registration also. But you have some additional features of managing your accounts once you signup for an accout.

Link: http://www.koolim.com

eBuddy

eMesseenger or eBuddy was one of the first web-based IM. It's a web application to chat with Yahoo!, MSN and ICQ IMs. One advantage is that it works even if firewall is installed in your network. It has a mobile version too.

Link: http://www.ebuddy.com

Easy Messenger

It also runs entirely on the web browser. Supports all the major known IM's. It has a built-in RSS reader so that you can always be updated on your messages.

Link: http://www.mijnmessenger.nl

Messenger FX

It allows to chat with MSN buddies. The service is extermely good and provides the basic features of any chat and also supports smilies. The service is developed by Yusuf, a talented developer and he has developed the service using ASP.NET and has MS-SQL as the backbone. We can use this when popular sites like Meebo has been blocked and wants to chat with MSN messenger.

Link: http://www10.messengerfx.com

Snimmer

S.N.I.M.M.R. stands for Single Network Instant Messaging Mediation and Relay. SNIMMER can talk to any IM network and can relay instant messages from one IM network to another. Currently one cannot use AOL messenger to chat with users on MSN, Yahoo! or GTalk and vice versa. SNIMMER overcomes instant messenger non-interoperability. SNIMMER has been designed primarily to help webmasters to chat with web visitors on any IM network using any instant messenger.

Link: http://www.snimmer.com

Mabber

It's a mobile application that lets you chat and send messages wherever you are. Required is a recent mobile phone equipped with Java and some sort of data-plan. You can use Mabber either on the web or download the mobile client for your Java-enabled phone. With Mabber you can send messages with low cost, as it is cheaper than using SMS text messaging (1 kb of data allows for about 7 messages). Free to use.

Link: http://www.mabber.com

Robin Good, in his review has brilliently made a google spreadsheet which shows a comparison and list of all the features of these web based IM's. The spreadsheet is best viewed in IE. Please add any more web based IM's that you know which i have not included in this list.

Source [Robin Good's Review]

Mahalo - A human search engine

2007-06-03T21:53:00.000+05:30

One more search engine has been added to scan the web. A "human powered" search engine Mahalo has been launched recently. Entrepreneur Jason Calacanis launched the alpha version of Mahalo. The ultimate goal is to provide the search results close to human relevance. Mahalo in Hawaiian means "Thank you". Currently, about 40 Mahalo employees track the best results of the web's most repeated and searched terms. Calacanis claimed the results would be 10 times better than google and yahoo.

When a user searches for a term, the Top 7 links would be at the top of the search result. It is followed by the top news related to the search term. The related articles and background information is added. Photos and videos of the search term takes the next place and then the reviews and the information on message boards and blogs. Related searches are added. You can look at the results by searching for Microsoft Surface

One thing to note at the end of the search result is the human that had written the search result. Clicking on the link, brings up the information about the person and the future search terms he is going to write. We can recommend the links to Mahalo. In future, the search engine might become ad-supported and would see the ads on search results similar to google. It also has a list of the Today's Top 20 searches and know what people are currently thinking of.

My First Gear

2007-06-02T00:48:00.000+05:30

Google is yet again geared with a new launch "Google Gears". It is currently in BETA. It is actually an open source web browser extension that adds the offline features for the web applications. We know that the browsers have a "work offline" feature where in we access web pages without internet connection. The similar concept is extended by Google as Gears. It has the capability of storing and serving the working web applications locally. Also has a relational database to store data. Uses javascript effectively for lightening responsiveness.

Download Google Gears (BETA) for Windows, Mac and Linux. If you are interested looking at the source code and really wants to contribute you can have a look at Google Gears Contribution Site.