Re-Strike

Many of you might have not downloaded the Mozilla Firefox version 3 on the Download Day. Firefox 3 was downloaded by 8 million people on June 17th 2008. Firefox celebrated this victory with certificates that carried a Guinness World Records logo.


Well, for all those who have missed the certificate - here is the chance to get it now. Click here for the link and create your certificate now.

Internet telephony

If you have an Internet connection, you can download a messenger service and speak to anyone connected by Net. Of course, there are the Internet usage charges. This uses a technology called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and is essentially a PC to PC calling solution.

However, service providers have schemes where you can make calls from your PC to landline or mobile at nominal rates. For this you need to download the software and pay your bills via credit card. You would also need a computer with adequate system requirements and a good (preferably broadband) Internet connection.

Skype

The leader in this space has many dedicated users. "It's been a great help in connecting to friends and colleagues abroad," says Saptarshi Roy Chaudhury, a search engine optimisation consultant who uses Skype almost everyday to call professional contacts abroad.

"The higher your Internet speed, the better is the call quality. If you are on a slow connection, the time lag between words will be high and the calls might drop as well," he adds. Skype allows users to make unlimited (10,000 minutes) calls to 34 countries worldwide at euro 10.29 (Rs 657)/month

In the last few years the amount of spam mail has risen extraordinarily. Today the majority of mail messages that are tried to be delivered is spam. Nevertheless the amount of spam that is seen by end users is lower than some time ago because spam filters have evolved and improved their quality. Of course spam filters have disadvantages also. There is always a small risk that you lose messages that are not spam (false positives) and spam filters can be a considerable resource drag.

Tips to Avoid Spam

• Hide your email address
  
  
• Make it hard to guess your email address
  
  
• Use a contact form on your web site
  
  
• If you have to publish your email address make it hard to read for machines
  
  
• Don't put a bunch of addresses in the Cc field
  
  
• Use a different email address for newsletters, shopping sites etc
  
  
• Last but not least - Never buy anything from a spammer
  

It is very common to hear people complaining about their blog not getting indexed or take too long time to get indexed by Google. At the same time, there are also people who claimed to get indexed within hours or days by Google. So, why is it that some blog are able to get indexed fast, while the others can’t? The reason behind it is actually very simple: it depends on whether you take the necessary action to let Google know that your blog exist.

If all you did is create a blog, start posting on it and expect Google to find and crawl you, you will be disappointed. They won’t know it and even if they did stumble into your blog one day, it might be months or years later.

So, the important point to get your blog index is to let Google know your blog exist.

How?

The easiest method to do so is to put your blog link out there for Google and there are many ways to do so. You can start to comment on popular blog, forum or use social bookmarking site like Digg, Stumbleupon or Technorati to bookmark your blog content.

The logic behind this method is simple; Google like new contents and so, they frequently crawl these sites. When new content or articles appeared on these sites, most of the times, it gets indexed within minutes. So, when you make comments or bookmarking on these sites; and in the process, leaving your blog URL behind, you are actually leaving a trail for Google to find and reach your blog. When it come to these sites, it will eventually find your blog link and follow through to your blog. Hence, your blog will get indexed subsequently.

There are some people who think that making comments on blogs will not get indexed by Google. They feel that Google will not index your blog because nowadays, most of the blogs are nofollow, so your comment will have no impact at all. Actually, this is a wrong concept. What nofollow does is simply notify Google not to pass on page rank or link juice to the linked site, but, it won’t stop the search engine from following through the link to your blog.

Of course, besides this method, there are many other ways that can help your blog to get indexed by Google fast, but, this is by far the most effective way that I have come across. Using this method, all my other sites get indexed within a week, the faster being a day and the longest takes about 5 days.

Try this method out to see if it is effective for your blog.

Viruses on Instant Messengers are very common these days. Being the most popular communication too on the internet, only rivaled by the email itself, it is only natural that spammers and hackers target this medium. But it is easy to keep yourself save from these type of attacks by following small simple rules while chatting. No, I am not going to stop you from chatting with strangers ;)

MSN is the most popular instant messaging client with the teenagers today. Hence MSN messengers are widely targeted by virus and trojan writers.Most msn virus are usually not very harmful, but annoying definitly they are. All of them spread via the list of contacts on your messenger. Once affected, they replicate by sending messages to you friends including a link to a harmless image file.

This is something you should be careful about while chatting. Fortunately MSN Virus removal tools are easily available on the net including manual removal and removal with the help of anti-virus and spyware removal tools.

Mozilla's record-breaking attempt to massively release Firefox3.0, the latest version of the only Web Browser to compete with Microsoft's Internet Explorer, unfortunately broke some of its servers as well.

Mozilla said, it aimed to set a world record with the official release out of beta Tuesday. The latest version offers additional features, faster speeds, and enhanced security.

Mozilla encouraged users to host download parties, so it could set a Guinness World Record for the number of downloads in one day. Currently, Guinness does not hold recorded information on the number of downloads in a single day.

Nevertheless, Mozilla has generated plenty of excitement about the launch, with nearly 2 million people saying they would download the latest version. In fact, so many people tried to access the site that the servers appeared to crash. Attempts to reach the site for the latest version of Firefox unsuccessful at least 20 minutes after the 1 p.m. Eastern time zone launch. Mozilla hopes to successfully complete 5 million downloads of the browser in 24 hours.

Mozilla promises speeds that are twice as fast for Web applications like Gmail and Zoho Office, as well as more efficient memory use. Finally, user bookmarks, histories, cookies and preferences are backed up on a secure database prevent loss due to system crashes.

Firefox 3.0 reportedly has thousands of improvements, including an Awesome Bar, which can locate Web sites with regular words, rather than a URL. The bar locates sites based on recent visit and user browsing patterns. The bar can be disabled. The latest version, under development for nearly three years, also warns users when sites they are about to visit have malware. Users can see who owns a Web site with one click and check to make sure their connections are protected from eavesdropping. Firefox automatically checks add-ons and plug-in versions, disabling older and insecure versions.

The browsing experience will be more personal, with search results based on individual patterns, and Web-based protocol handlers allow users to access webmail more easily than from desktop applications.

For developers, the enhanced platform improves color management, graphics and fonts, and offline support, Mozilla said. Source [IWEEK]

Cisco has just issued a report that backs up claims by many Internet service providers that video viewing over the Web is gobbling up huge quantities of network capacity and the problem is only going to get worse. The Cisco Visual Networking Index that IP traffic will nearly double every two years to 2012. Released Monday, the 2007-2012 forecasr that IP traffic will grow at a combined annual rate of 46%.
The growth is creating a new vocabulary of IP metrics of exabytes and zettabytes. One exabyte equals 1 billion GB, or 250 million DVDs. A zettabyte equals 1 trillion GB, or 1,000 exabytes or 250 billion DVDs.

"The broad and increasing adoption of visual networking is having a significant impact on IP traffic growth for both consumer and business services markets worldwide," said Suraj Shetty, Cisco's VP of service provider marketing, in a statement. "Until just a few years ago, 'exabyte' was an unheard-of term. However, because of the massive growth we're seeing, by 2012 we will have to reorient our vocabulary once again, as the metric that we need then will be the zettabyte."

Cisco didn't say so in its discussion of the report, but the explosive growth is likely to cause Internet service providers to push for Internet metering in an attempt to limit use of the Web by businesses and consumers who tend to be heavy video users. ISPs like Comcast and AOL Time Warner are experimenting with attempts to limit usage or to charge higher prices for some users who download quantities of video.

Noting that its Visual Networking Index is part of its ongoing effort to forecast the growth of Web traffic, Cisco said the growth surge will be a result of video communications, entertainment, and social networking. The networking company said it expects Internet video traffic to grow to 400 times the amount of video traffic that was carried on the U.S. Internet backbone in 2000.

Cisco said nearly 90% of all consumer IP traffic is expected to consist of video on demand, IP P2P, and Internet video in 2012.

While most business IP traffic through 2012 will be concentrated in North America, the fastest growing Internet traffic region will be in Latin America, which is expected to have the highest growth rate through 2012, according to the report.
Source : [IWEEK]

Well, the Internet was fun while it lasted, but now three of the nation's largest service providers are going to shut it down and throw us all back to the dark ages of telephones and postage stamps. "Some people use the Internet simply to check e-mail and look up phone numbers. Others are online all day, downloading big video and music files. For years, both kinds of Web surfers have paid the same price for access. But now three of the country’s largest Internet service providers are threatening to clamp down on their most active subscribers by placing monthly limits on their online activity."

"One of them, Time Warner Cable, began a trial of 'Internet metering' in one Texas city early this month, asking customers to select a monthly plan and pay surcharges when they exceed their bandwidth limit. The idea is that people who use the network more heavily should pay more, the way they do for water, electricity, or, in many cases, cellphone minutes.

"That same week, Comcast said that it would expand on a strategy it uses to manage Internet traffic: slowing down the connections of the heaviest users, so-called bandwidth hogs, at peak times.

"AT&T also said Thursday that limits on heavy use were inevitable and that it was considering pricing based on data volume. 'Based on current trends, total bandwidth in the AT&T network will increase by four times over the next three years,' the company said in a statement.

"All three companies say that placing caps on broadband use will ensure fair access for all users. Internet metering is a throwback to the days of dial-up service, but at a time when video and interactive games are becoming popular, the experiments could have huge implications for the future of the Web [...]

“'As soon as you put serious uncertainty as to cost on the table, people’s feeling of freedom to predict cost dries up and so does innovation and trying new applications,' Vint Cerf, the chief Internet evangelist for Google who is often called the 'father of the Internet,' said in an e-mail message.

"But the companies imposing the caps say that their actions are only fair. People who use more network capacity should pay more, Time Warner argues. And Comcast says that people who use too much—like those who engage in file-sharing—should be forced to slow down."

Source - [NYT]

Yahoo has pissed off shareholders and a looming meeting - they can't ignore reality much longer. And reality says Yahoo's future is bleak. They continue to lose market share, they have serious brain drain and morale has never been lower.

The Microsoft search deal seals their fate permanently, and I can understand why they didn't want to do it. This Google deal is their only alternative at this point. They can get out of it at any time, simply by not serving Google's ads. But as long as it's live they'll see their advertisers flow to Google instead of their own search platform, and they have to pay a hefty fine if they end up selling themselves to a third party.

Microsoft may yet get their hands on Yahoo, or at least the parts of Yahoo they want, simply by default as shareholders continue their revolt and/or the government puts a stop to the madness. Or not, and Google gets a long term pass to transition Yahoo's remaining advertisers over to their own platform plus a hefty termination fee if Yahoo gets sold off at some point.

Either way, Google wins. Or Microsoft wins.

But Yahoo has lost.

According to Wikipedia, this sleazy practice is described as 'mobile spamming, SMS spam or SpaSMS, but is most frequently referred to as m-spam.

"It's actually far worse than regular e-mail spam, for three reasons. First, you generally can't delete it without opening it first".

"Second, you have to pay for it. (And, of course, the senders pay nothing, since they can send text messages from a computer's e-mail program for nothing)".

"Third, there's no way to stop it. You can't install an anti-SMS spam program on your cellphone".

AT&T recently revealed the presence of an astonishing little-known cellular feature: you can block cellular spam. AT&T customers can get onto AT&T Web site and set their handset so that it receives no messages from the Internet, the origin of the vast majority of wireless spam. The beauty of this feature, of course, is that it blocks ONLY text messages from the Internet. Your friends, using cellphones, can still text you.

As it turns out, Verizon Wireless offers these features, too. Sprint and T-Mobile don't go quite as far, but they do offer some text-spam filtering options. Here's how you find the controls for each company:

AT&T: Log in at mymessages.wireless.att.com. Under Preferences, you'll see the text-blocking and alias options. Here's also where you can block messages from specific e-mail addresses or Web sites.

Verizon Wireless: Log in at vtext.com. Under Text Messaging, click Preferences. Click Text Blocking. You're offered choices to block text messages from e-mail or from the Web. Here again, you can block specific addresses or Web sites. (Here's where you set up your aliases, too.)

Sprint: No auto-blocking is available at all, but you can block specific phone numbers and addresses. To get started, log in at www.sprint.com. On the top navigation bar, click My Online Tools. Under Communication Tools, click Text Messaging. On the Compose a Text Message page, under Text Messaging Options, click Settings & Preferences. In the text box, you can enter a phone number, email address or domain (such as Comcast.net) that you want to block.

T-Mobile: T-Mobile doesn't yet offer a "block text messages from the Internet" option. You can block all messages sent by e-mail, though, or permit only messages sent to your phone's e-mail address or alias, or create filters that block text messages containing certain phrases. It's all waiting when you log into www.t-mobile.com and click Communication Tools.

Hope this Helps a Lot. Source : NYT Circuits

What's the point of online 'friends'? Web buddies are useful for feel-good social recreation but their ultimate function is underdeveloped. If the core purpose of social networking is sociality, why do we continue to interact solely behind our computer screens and not in person? Perhaps it is the convenience of communal, yet independent, correspondence. That is, we like our ability to meet new and interesting people while still feeling safe. While this approach does work for information and trend discovery, the current, web-only technique could be improved for live social discovery.

SOLUTION: Mobilize new and existing social networks so that they may develop real-world relationships in the real world. How and why? The 'how' is easy: start-ups such as www.whrrl.com and www.loopt.com have already taken the first step. They are promoting technologies that can connect 'real' and new friends to one another via cell phones and other portable devices. Simply according to your physical location, personal network, and (common) interests, their software computes hot spots to visit, events to see, meetings to be had, etc. Not only does it ease the task of coordination amongst your existing friends but it provides the ability to meet your virtual or third party friends, as well.

Why is this critical to social networking's development? Currently social networking is just an online experience and can only reach as far as the virtual world extends. By imparting its usefulness unto the real world, social progress will blossom. And with the advent of globalization, social progress is a necessary step toward global maintenance. All in all, this new technology has mighty potential; I suggest giving it a look.

The Final version of Firefox 3 will be released on June 17th. The Firefox committee have also made June 17th its "Download Day," in an attempt to set the Guinness World Record of most downloads of a single application in a span of 24 hours. Even more good news to the Firefox committee as it has been previously announced that the award winning browser will also be available to mobile users, with the announcement of its Mobile Edition.

Users may find more details in spreadfirefox.com, the website lets users pledge their participation during the Firefox Download Day, a map is provided to enumerate how many users from each country have pledged their participation. Even countries as isolated as Myanmar and North Korea have users who pledged their participation. This serves as an indication of how diverse and far reaching Firefox has become on the virtual world.

Firefox 3, the revision of Firefox 2, the award winning browser, will soon be available to over 180 million users of its previous versions. Firefox is just one of the many browser applications that have set out to improve the performance, aesthetics and overall usage of their browsers. Internet Explorer 8 is now on its beta phase, several users have been reported to be pleased with its performance. Safari 3 has released a public beta, though it apparantly still has many bugs to work out. Opera, another one of the browsers to have joined the releasing fray has released its latest version, version 9.5, on June 12, 2008.

Millions upon millions of users worldwide eagerly await the new version of Firefox to grace their computers as to what they expect to be the Gran Paradiso that the community envisions. Will they break the world record? Will it once again be the best browser of the pack? We can only wait and see what lies ahead.

Yahoo has hired Google to sell some online ads in hopes of boosting its profit. The Sunnyvale-based company announced the plans late Thursday after its stock plunged 10 percent on news that its efforts to revive takeover talks with Microsoft had hit a dead end.

Yahoo Inc. is now counting on Google Inc.'s superior moneymaking system to appease its angry shareholders. By using Google's superior advertising technology, Yahoo believes it can boost its annual cash flow by $250 million to $450 million in the first year of the deal.

The partnership could last up to 10 years if it can win antitrust approval.

Everybody is busy searching the internet for the latest cricket update of India Vs Pakistan Vs Bangladesh series. Struck with a cool cricket update widget. Thought of sharing it with some cricket lovers. You can copy the widget code from here and paste it on to your blog or website. The widget refreshes quickly and certainly proves better than the rediff or yahoo cricket score updates.

Enjoy the Game.

The new iphone is about to release in a few weeks from now and everybody is excited to know about the new features included.

I iphone 2.0 was unveiled today. The major surprise was that the new iphone 2.0 will cost less when compared (estimated $199). The iphone is thinner and runs on a faster network. The 3G iphone was referred as a great web-surfing device in an open Wifi. This version of iphone will run only on AT&T's network. The AT&T's 3G network is amazingly fast when equated with EDGE.


The new 3G iphone comes with a built in GPS and amazingly long battery life. When watched on to its battery life -: five hours of talking, six hours of Web browsing, seven hours of video-watching or 24 hours of audio-listening!!!! Astonishing rt??

Can't wait for its release...

Apple prefaced their much awaited internet strategy "MobileMe" today. This web service is capable of synchronizing your contacts, mails, appointments, pictures and much more. Apple is now adding on services that can connect multiple device through the medium.

MobileMe is an innovative concept for Apple. MobileMe will run you $99 a year for 20 GB which is quite a good deal. As a promotional offer, there will be a 60-day free trial launched alongside iPhone OS 2.0. MobileMe will connect all of your devices - push and pull information keeping everything up to date. More info

The word spam is hated by billions of E mailers. It had created big issues in different stages of the internets life and still continues to do so. Here are 7 tips to block a major share of spam in your Mail Box.

Tip 1: Manage Junk emails with Outlook 2003

By default, the Junk E-mail Filter in Outlook is set to a low setting that is designed to catch the most obvious junk e-mail. Any message that is caught by the filter is moved to a special Junk E-mail folder, where you can retrieve or review it at a later time.

Tip 2: Never reply to a Spam

Never reply and type REMOVE in the subject line, this is a great way to let spammers know that yes, your e-mail address is up, running, and being used right now.

Tip 3: Use a different Email while you post content

You might post your e-mail address sometimes to a newsgroup, chat room, or bulletin board. But you don't have to post it correctly. You can use symbols like @,#,^ while posting them.

Tip 4: Never use your primary Mail ID

Create a "disposable" Web e-mail address that you can give when registering for free software or shareware, or even when ordering from a company online.

Tip 5: Never post your Mail Id on your website

Here you can again use the symbols if you wish to. Using symbols makes the spammer evade.

Tip 6: Never Forward a chain E mail.

Forwarding hoax mails are the most common mistakes made by E mailers. This has to be avoided regardless of any expense.

Tip 7: Use the Laws against spam

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 was approved by the Senate in November 2003 and by the House of Representatives in December 2003, and was signed into law by President Bush on December 16, 2003. Read More on the Laws.

It is believed that Apple's next generation iphone has a lot to offer. The phone could end up being the next huge "platform" for the computer users. The platform where the third party applications function. Though there are about 30+ "platforms:" in the international mobile phone venture, This might emerge to be the biggest of them.


It had been an incredible growth for Apple in the recent years. They have dominated the portable mp3 player market with their stylish ipods and irings. Its also believed that apple will now have its go on the World Wide Web.

Take a look at my newly designed theme for Gmail by Gdesigns. Shoot me a comment incase anyone of you require this tweak. Click on the image for a larger image. I think it looks good. Some might agree to this. The start up screen also looks cool.