A peep into Windows 8!

A lot of technology news has been piping out of the All Things Digital D9 conference in California recently and today is no exception. First, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo confirmed photo-sharing coming to Twitter. Now, we are all getting the very first glimpse of Windows 8. The photo above is the brand new Start menu in the next iteration of Windows. As you can see, it is completely different from ever before — yet it somehow looks familiar. It is heavily inspired by Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s latest smart phone operating system. The mobile OS is notable for its unique live tiles UI, which updates with content from the internet personalized by the user

Windows 8 features those same live tiles in the Start menu. It even starts with a lock screen and the ability to quickly glance at notifications. By the way, see that Store tile? Consider the Windows app store confirmed. Never before has the operating system been integrated with the web in such a way. Plus, the screenshot makes clear that they each tile is very large. Could Microsoft be making a major switch to touch control in Windows 8 as opposed to a mouse or track pad?

There'll be two kinds of applications for Windows 8, one that runs in a traditional desktop, and the other pseudo-mobile apps based on HTML5 and Javascript, but both environments -- rather, the entire OS -- have been designed from the ground up for touchscreen use. Keyboard and mouse will still be options for both sets of programs, but there are multiple virtual sets of keys for different form factors, including a split keyboard for vertical slate use. Multitasking is simply a matter of swiping running apps into the center of the screen, and you can pull windows partway to "snap" them in place alongside other windows -- even mixing and matching traditional desktop programs with web apps simultaneously (like Twitter alongside your spreadsheet). There's a new version of Internet Explorer 10 (which runs Silverlight) and an app store built into the touchscreen interface, along with integrated services like Office 365. Microsoft says the new OS will run on laptops, tablets and desktops when it appears -- whenever that might be.

All Things D didn't have any details on when we'll get pricing or availability, We should note that "Windows 8" is just a codename for what we're seeing here -- "we'll figure out the real name in due time," Sinofsky told the crowd -- but we don't see much harm in calling it Windows 8 for now.

Google Chromebooks: The Chrome OS!!

The first laptops running on a Google-designed software system will go on sale in the US and six other countries next month.

The June 15 release date announced Wednesday means the lightweight laptops will hit the market nearly two years after Google Inc. began working on an operating system based on its Chrome Web browser.

Since then, Apple Inc.'s iPad and other tablet computers have become hot sellers. The growing popularity of tablets has raised questions about how interested consumers will be interested in buying Google-powered laptops specifically tailored for Web surfing.

Samsung Electronics Co. and Acer Inc. are making the first Chromebooks. They will sell for $349 to $499 at Best Buy and Amazon.com Inc. in the US. The cheapest IPad sells for $499.

Acer's Chromebook, at $349, will have an 11.6-inch screen display and up to six hours of battery life. Samsung's version, selling for $429 to $499, will have a 12.1-inch screen and up to 8.5 hours of battery life. Both models will have keyboards, but no hard drives for storage. The machines will be like computer terminals dependent on a connection to the Internet. The laptops come with 16 gigabytes of flash memory - the kind found in smartphones, tablet computers and some iPods. They have slots to plug in other storages device you buy separately.

The Chromebooks also will be sold in Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Spain.

In an effort to get people to use Chromebooks, Google is offering three-year subscription plans to businesses and schools similar to how the mobile phone industry subsidizes devices up front and make the money back over the life of a service contract. For a monthly cost of $28 per user in businesses and government agencies and $20 per user in schools, Google provides the laptop, tech support and a warranty for the duration. Google will replace the Chromebooks at the end of the three years.

Chromebook's long-awaited debut will intensify Google's competition with Microsoft Corp., whose Windows operating system remains the foundation of most personal computers.

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have long felt that Windows computers took too long to power up and were too clunky to operate. They believed that Windows' drawbacks were discouraging people from spending even more time online, where they could click on ads sold by Google.

To address the perceived problem, Google announced its plans in July 2009 for a Chrome-based operating system that would enable computers to turn on in a matter of seconds and encourage more Web surfing.

"The complexity of managing computers is really frustrating for users out there," Brin told reporters Wednesday at Google's conference for software developers. "It's a flawed model."

Brin, who began focusing on special projects earlier this year, said he didn't have enough information to comment on a Justice Department investigation into the online ad system that generates most of Google's revenue. The company disclosed Tuesday that it has set aside $500 million to settle the probe. It provided few details.

Besides attacking Microsoft's Windows franchise, Google's Chromebook also will represent another challenge to Apple, which makes Mac computers as well as iPads. Google and Apple have been engaged in a fierce competition in the smartphone market for the past two years.

Google itself has joined the tablet computer craze by creating a special version of its Android software for mobile devices. Apple sold nearly 20 million iPads during the tablet's first year on the market. and analysts expect people to buy tens of millions more tablets from Apple and other manufacturers during the next few years.

Pakistan Army Site was Hacked By Indian Hacker!!!

The official website of the Central Bureau of Investigation was hacked late on Friday, on December 4th, by a group calling itself the 'Pakistani cyber army'.

The home page of India's premier investigating agency's website had a message from the 'Pakistani cyber army' warning the 'Indian cyber army' not to attack Pakistani websites.

In response to this embarrassing incident, An Indian hacker named, tango_charlie, hacked the pakistan army official website within no time of the later cyber attack. 

A side note: An advise to all the system admins, pls monitor your websites regularly and check for vulnerability.

How to Stop Bom Sabado Worm? Here is the way!

Everyone whose orkut account has been affected with the Sabado Worm, can use this simple trick to get out of this issue. People whose account is not yet affected, please follow the below steps to keep this worm away from your accounts.

The worm injects a hidden iframe containing a malicious javascript [do not click this] http: //tptools. org/ worm . js [do not click this], which steals the user cookie which contains the password in an encoded form. Even though the attacker does not get to know your password, they can login to your account using your credentials by impersonating the cookie to fool the identification system. 

So a trivial solution is to diable javascript, another solution is to disable iframes or u can take an advanced measure by blocking the domain http : // tptools . org / by editing your hosts file and redirecting it to a safe address, say 127.0.0.1 go to C:>windows>system32>driversetc There is a file named %u2018hosts%u2019. It is a read-only file. Go to it's properties and un-check the read-only option and edit it with you favourite editor. add this line at the end of it 127.0.0.1 tptools.org save it. and then restart your network interface. ( in simple words, just reconnect your internet connection ). Bingo!! the worm%u2019ll became useless!!!! 

YouTube tests new live streaming platform!

The world largest video sharing service, YouTube is testing a new live streaming platform. The trial would continue for two days - September 13-14. The new service begins as a limited trail with four participating partners.

YouTube had previously hosted live streaming of events such as the U2 concert at Rose Bowl and season three of the Indian Premier League (IPL). YouTube will evaluate the results of the test before planning a roll-out for its partners worldwide.

The new YouTube platform integrates with the existing YouTube channels and broadcasters need only a webcam or an external camera to use the feature, when it is made available.

With the new service YouTube adds to the competition of websites such as, ustream.tv, livestream.com and justin.tv.

YouTube's IPL live streaming had exceeded the website's expectations. The official IPL channel on YouTube racked up nearly 55 million views, against YouTube expectations of around 10 million streams.

Does that mean a free Television Era's begining??

Here you have' e-mail worm hits corporate world!!

A new virus based in e-mails with the subject line "Here You have" began running rampant Thursday, hitting corporate America hard.

So far, the virus has already been sighted at ABC/Disney, Google, Coca Cola and NASA, several individuals with knowledge of the situation told. Comcast was forced to shut down its e-mail servers entirely after being hit, a spokesperson said on Twitter.

E-mails that carry the virus contain a link that encourages readers to click on a PDF document file. But rather than a PDF, the file  contains a Windows script that transmits a virus and spams the entire contact list of the person who opened the file.

The worm is similar to the ILoveYou and Anna Kournikova worms, which spread in 2000 and 2001, and is a type of malware that has not been a major problem since around 2002, according to David Cowings, a senior manager with Symantec Security Response. "It looks like we've had a resurgence of mass-mailing worms," he said.

This latest worm seems to do nothing more than send itself out, using the victim's contact list. Cowings said "It appears to be mailing itself to all of the mailing lists that are in someone's contacts. It may also go to individuals," he said. The worm appeared to be affecting Outlook e-mail users, but it's not clear if it is also affecting users of other mail programs.

The body of the e-mail typically says something like, "Hello... this is the document I told you about, you can find it here." Because the worm is spreading via contact lists, the e-mail often comes from someone the victim knows.

A note posted on the McAfee site Thursday afternoon said: "It looks like multiple variants may be spreading and may take some time to work through them all to paint a clearer picture."

Google Instant: A new faster search system in real time!!

Internet giant Google today introduced "Google Instant", an enhanced version of its search engine that locates the content defendants as the user enters the terms to search. Google adds innovation and speed thanks to its new search function has been presented Wednesday at a news conference.

With this new feature, the user will not have to complete the search, because the results will appear as you type the text, which saves 2 to 5 seconds per search, and "more than 3,500 million seconds a day and a eleven hours every second "globally, the company said.

This breakthrough was described by the Vice President of Search Products at Google, Marissa Mayer, as a "fundamental change" in how to locate content on the Internet.

The new search system will be available in the U.S. throughout the day today for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer 8 and next week will start in domains related to six other countries: Spain, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Russia. The company goal is to offer in the coming months this instant service to a greater number of languages and countries.

In addition to automatically predicting the content that appears on the screen without pressing the button "enter", "Google Instant" includes a system of "auto" of terms to help guide users to refine your search.

Google is betting that in a world of nearly instant communication that search is going to have produce an answer just as fast as updates are spat out from Twitter or other real-time Web services. It's a bit chaotic at first and will certainly throw a few searchers off their game as well as make those in the search-engine optimization game a little anxious.

Should it prove popular with users, however, Google Instant is also the type of search innovation that might be difficult for competitors to duplicate in a matter of weeks or even months, giving Google a distinct advantage heading into a new era of Internet search.

HTML 5: A way to revolution!

The HTML5, the next version of the language used to create web pages, has drawn attention for its ability to display video within a web browser without plug-ins like Adobe Flash. However, ultimately a series of lesser-known features may have a far greater impact on how users experience the Internet.

Experts say that HTML5 does behind the scenes-such as network communications and storage features of browser-can make pages load faster (especially on mobile devices slow), make web applications work much better, and even allow browsers to read older websites more easily.

Many websites today act like desktop applications, for example, the office productivity suites and internet-based photo editing tools. However, many of the sophisticated features of these sites rely on developers to build connections between different web technologies such as HTML, JavaScript and style sheets (CSS), a connection that does not always work perfectly. As a result, Web sites can become slow, work differently in different browsers, and be vulnerable to security holes.

Bruce Lawson, who preaches about open Web standards Opera Software says that for Web sites running Internet functions for which it was originally designed, developers must perform complex coding tasks easily, can end up making mistakes and introducing applications to fail.

The group working on HTML5, says Lawson, was assigned the difficult task of making the specification was more tolerant than their predecessors, so that the oldest web sites or miscoded work better in browsers authorized to implement HTML5. They also wanted to extend the specifications and to support modern trends, such as rich internet applications. "The foundation of HTML5 is relentlessly pragmatic," he says. "It is designed to reflect what people are really doing."

Experts point out a feature called Web Sockets as an example of the improvements that the HTML5 can provide. Sockets provides a Web site an application programming interface (API) that opens a permanent connection between a page and a server, so that information can pass between them in real time. Normally, the browser must make a request each time you want an update.

The effect is like going from having a conversation via email to switch to using instant messages, said Ben Galbraith, who co-founded the web development site Ajaxian.com, and is the director of relations with Palm developers. With email, each message is sent as a single event, while instant messaging allows conversation flowing and is establishing permanent connection.

In the past, Web developers have managed to develop different ways to keep browsers and servers in constant communication, although Galbraith describes the techniques as "clever hacks" that are complicated to implement and do not scale well. Web Sockets, he says, promises an easy way for developers to create web pages that change in real time, something increasingly important with the proliferation of more data sources in real time, such as instant status updates from users social networks. Users would benefit from web applications with real-time feeds and a run smoother and with fewer errors.

The HTML5 could also help make web applications work better when the devices are disconnected from the Internet or intermittently connected, as is usual with smart phones, said Alon Salant, co-owner of Carbon Five, a company based in San Francisco that specializes in creating web applications. A feature called Web Storage allows applications to store more data in web browser, recover smarter, and control how browsers have certain parts of pages to speed loading.

Galbraith is also excited about several features of the new version of CSS, designed to work with HTML5. These features make Web pages more responsive to user input and allow high-quality graphics-areas in which web pages are usually not good. The HTML5 allows developers to integrate animation window on a page, but Galbraith said that the new CSS functionality would have a better performance.

Lawson points out that users will also see an improvement in performance with other features of HTML5. For example, a number of improvements in the way the browsers handle forms will reduce the amount of JavaScript necessary and accelerate page loading, especially on mobile devices.

Chris Blizzard, Mozilla evangelism director, points out the importance of the parser of HTML5. The parser reads a browser trademarks used to build a page and look for ways to show it on screen. Blizzard says this is one of the most important parts of the specification. His intention is to make the browser more interoperable, particularly in the way they handle poorly written code. Instead of letting each browser maker decides how to handle imperfect code, the parser specifies what should be the responses to the errors. This should give users a more consistent experience, regardless of the browser you are using, he says.

While the HTML5 seems to present a long list of big changes, says Lawson, the main objective is to provide a simpler way of doing so developers are already doing today, making it less likely to make mistakes. Lawson said: "The greater simplicity, greater robustness and therefore the greater the end-user experience-that's how I see it."

Apple and Google are preparing to bring the Internet to television

After years of timid attempts, technology companies have decided to bet heavily on the integration of the Internet on television with the launch this fall in the U.S. of novel devices to interact with the "idiot box."

The updated Apple TV, which was filed this week, we must add the anticipated sale of products Revue Google adapter-TV- or its competitor Boxee Box, expected a market still looking for an efficient way to spread the liability viewer restless spirit of the Internet.

To date, those wishing to enjoy Web content while watching TV they have done acquiring some of the faces flat screens with Internet applications or purchasing devices that are a bridge between the two universes as XR Roku, Tivo or Apple TV. However, none of these devices can freely surf the Internet and are limited to providing access to a number of content such as YouTube, Flickr, Facebook or channels rental of films and series such as Netflix and Amazon VoD.

Aims to fill a void that Google with its Google TV service will be available built into Sony TVs or via modem Reveu box manufactured by Logitech, whose estimated price could be around $ 200.

Google TV platform, and includes the above applications, is designed to surf the Web from your TV using Google Chrome as if they used a computer, follow the same philosophy as creators of Boxee, a software to watch series and movies Internet, which developed the Boxee Box. That device, valued at $ 199 and is slated for release in November, which will be announced as the largest set of applications for viewing content available on the Internet, also serve to surf the Internet.

The new Apple TV filed Wednesday by the company CEO, Steve Jobs, will seek another approach is less ambitious in terms of interaction, but more simple and economic management, $ 99. The device will hit U.S. stores in October with the idea of becoming a home video store with competitive rates and access to some Internet applications, an offer similar to that currently includes Roku XR, which moves in the same strip of price.

A matter of time to know what vision ends up convincing the viewer, the most interactive Google or Apple the most practical of a commercial pulse is called upon to modify more or less the way television is consumed. Amazon also announced its jump to this growing sector.

Key players in this technology race are content providers, mainly the large television networks and Hollywood studios, which since the advent of the Internet have seen a loss of income, especially in DVD sales, a business area would suffer even more.

Gmail's Priority Inbox Auto-Filter importent E-Mails!

Google Inc. can sift through more than a trillion Web links in a matter of seconds, but can the Internet search leader help people wade through their overflowing e-mailboxes?

That's the challenge Google will try to tackle Tuesday with the introduction of a tool called "Priority Inbox" in its Gmail service.

The feature relies on formulas devised by Google engineers to automatically figure out and highlight which incoming messages are likely to be the most important to each Gmail user.

Users who opt to turn on the Priority Inbox will see their messages separated into three categories. "Important and unread" e-mails will be at the top followed by messages that have been previously stamped with a star by an accountholder. Everything else appears at the bottom.

Switching back to the standard view of the inbox can be done with a click on a link along the left side of the Web page.

Google's e-mail analysis is based on a variety of factors, including a person's most frequent contacts and how many other people are getting the same message. The content of the e-mail also is factored into the equation.

Although it might unnerve some people, the notion of Google's computers scanning through the content of individual e-mails isn't new. Google has been doing it for years to determine what kinds of ads to show to the right of e-mails and to block junk e-mail commonly known as "spam."

With more than 100 daily e-mails pouring into some inboxes now, people now need help to identify "the bacon and baloney" along with the spam, said Keith Coleman, Gmail's product director.

Google helped create the information clutter six years ago when it introduced its free Gmail service with a then-unheard of 1 gigabyte of storage per account. Other e-mail services quickly expanded their capacity limits to remain competitive, and now most inboxes can store multiple gigabytes of information.

Top 10 Mistakes You MUST Avoid in Blogging!

What are the top Mistakes to avoid while setting up your blog? Internet gurus can debate all day about what makes a blog so successful. Indeed, many strategies are subjective. There are, however, certain mistakes that we all agree MUST BE AVOIDED!

Instead of banging on all the time about the keys to success! I’m going to tell you how NOT to fail!

Here are the top 10 mistakes that you must avoid at all costs:

1. Having a slow-loading website

A web page shouldn’t take anymore than a few seconds to load. If people have to wait for our content to load, they will get aggravated. You definitely don’t want anyone’s first impression of your site to be agitation. Avoid this by ensuring all your images are below 100KB. (Ideally all images totalled should be under 100kb).

Sign up to Amazon S3 and get your videos hosted under cloudfront, after you’ve converted them from large file sizes down to the smallest you can manage without affecting the quality. DO NOT have a website full of flash! It’s not flashy if all your audience sees is a buffering circle – 3 seconds and they’re gone……

2. Having a sloppy, haphazard website

Everything should be organized neatly. Your layout should have easy navigation. All of your pages should be interlinked. If somebody wants to find something on your site, they should be able to do so.

Consider creating a sitemap, not only will it help your ranking in the search engines, it will guide people around your website. Ensure you have a search function and make sure there are clear calls to action, where you want people to go, how they contact you, how they get more information etc.

Sometimes when it comes to design – less is more!

3. Don’t forget to submit your site to search engines

This one seems like a no-brainer, yet a surprisingly large number of webmasters neglect doing this. Take the time to manually submit your website to Google, Yahoo, Bing, MSN, Lycos, etc. (I didn’t do this for months – simply because I didn’t know I had to!)

Get your site out there! It’s no good happily filling it with content if no-one’s going to read it!

4. Failing to update your site or blog every single day

At the very least, you should update three or four times a week. The more original content your website has, the better its chances of ranking high in search engines. Plus, consistent updates show dedication, which will give visitors a reason to return in the future.

Look, people want some real bang for their buck these days. The key word here is VALUE! You need to constantly be giving new, up to date, fresh content to your readers. Remember the web is incredibly competitive these days and if you’ve been really canny they’ve subscribed to your RSS and have a reader of up to date content hitting their screens daily.

Now if Mr Jones is posting new interesting stuff daily and you only come up with something new once a month, it won’t be long before your feed is canned, at the very least completely ignored! This takes work!

5. Not giving Social Networking a try

For so long I tried to ignore Facebook. I didn’t understand it and I thought it was a waste of time! Did you know that facebook has over 500 million customers and over 50% of them are active on a daily basis – that’s 250,000,000 people you could be getting your message in front of! That’s phenomenal! You Tube has 2 BILLION views a day – 24 hrs worth of video is uploaded every minute.

I mean you’d be crazy not to include these in your marketing strategies! Be as creative as possible when making videos, images, content, software, etc. Create great relationships with people and have friends and fans link your content through their accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and other social bookmarking sites.

Put your videos up on YouTube and have friends give them two thumbs up! Also create a facebook fan page, it’s essential 

6. Spamming

There is no need to spam your site all over the internet. If it’s good, and you promote it properly, people will visit. Traffic will come inevitably if you know what you’re doing. Spamming your site and adding your URL in linkfarms could cause your site to be reported to your ISP and banned by all search engines!

If you think that popping onto high ranking blogs and adding a vague comment about nothing and including your link is good marketing, think again. The internet as I said in point 4, is all about value and content. You need to build trust and relationships to be truly successful.

7. Not building a list

Ok, so I’m back again to value and content, building relationships. Are you getting a common theme here? Your list is your business. It’s as simple as that. Without customers there is no business, so you MUST collect email addresses and build a list!

Having a list of customers is the key to success on the internet! You will be able to send out regular updates, newsletters, links to your blog, new videos you do, new information and….once they trust you and know that your main intention is to provide value and things that will help them, you can start to send promotional emails with your products or products you believe in, or create a membership site or run events, there are so many ways you can then go on to make money. But the key is the quality of your relationships with a customer database, in other words your list.

8. Choosing the wrong products to promote

This is very simple – DO NOT SELL RUBBISH PRODUCTS! Just because commission rates are high, or the graphics are fancy, if you start farming out complete tosh to your trusted list, you will soon lose all credibility and no-one will buy from you anymore.

Be selective and become known to only ever recommend products that you have used and proven their worth.

9. Not targeting your ads to the right demographics

I think maybe the title of this one should read, not knowing anything about your customers, because it’s not just about targetting your ads, it’s about targetting all of your marketing efforts, free or paid. Clearly not everybody is going to need what you’re promoting.

So make sure you’ve drilled down exactly who your customers are, sex, age, location, interests, desires, buying patterns, keywords etc. Then you can focus on ensuring you get your message directly under the right noses.

10. Failing to interact and network with others

This is HUGE! No man is an island. The power of collaboration is without doubt one of the most effective marketing strategies you can have. So, you must ACTIVELY promote your company. You need to post on forums, join social media communities, comment on blogs, send out press releases, and so forth.

Get to know consumers and other entrepreneurs. Treat consumers as individuals rather than just potential customers. Join in conversations and share tips with others. Join hands and do some marketing projects with other entrepreneurs in the same niche – 2 heads are always better than 1!

Avoid making these ten mistakes and I’m sure you will ultimately succeed at creating a fantastic blogs online!

Facebook reaches saturation point in Britain!

Social networking website Facebook is nearing its saturation point in Britain and its growth in the country has gone down over the past six months.

Britain, however, has the second-largest membership of Facebook in the world, at 25 million. The list is led by the US, while Indonesia and Turkey follow Britain.

Despite Facebook getting its 500 millionth user in July, the average amount of time spent on the social networking website by a Briton has decreased from 30 minutes in December 2009, to 27.36 minutes in July 2010, a study by web-analytics firm Hitwise said.

Facebook is, however, still the second most visited site in Britain, after Google, and it accounts for one in every six webpages accessed in the country.

Robin Goad, Hitwise's research director, says the figures show that Facebook is nearing its saturation point.

"Facebook's market share of page views has trebled over the last five years, but growth (in Britain) has slowed significantly over the last six months. Last month, there was a slight decline in share, but this may well be down to seasonality - the August to September back-to-school/college/university period is significant for Facebook," he said.

Oracle sues Google over Android!

Oracle Corp sued Google Inc, alleging patent and copyright infringement in the development of the popular Android smartphone software.

The suit, filed on Thursday in California federal court, claims that Google "knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property" in developing Android, Oracle spokeswoman Karen Tillman said in a statement. "This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies."

Oracle acquired Java through its $ 5.6 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems earlier this year. Analysts said the suit against Google could signal that Oracle intends to be more aggressive in seeking licensees for Java, a technology that is used in many types of Internet-based products.

Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison has said he views the Java software as a key asset, pointing to its use in a variety of electronic devices, from PCs to DVD players.

"Sun's corporate philosophy was obviously very different from Oracle's in terms of enforcing the Java patents," said Edward Reines, an IP litigator at Weil Gotshall who is involved in separate patent litigation against Oracle.

A Google spokesman said he could not comment on the lawsuit as the company had not had a chance to review it yet.

Analysts say Google's Android operating system uses portions of Java technology.

About 200,000 smartphones and other devices based on the Android operating system are sold each day, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said at an August 4 conference.

The case is Oracle of America Inc v Google Inc, in US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Orkut changes it's appearance!

Since past couple of weeks Orkut is undergoing minor changes whcih people didn't much notice. But, finally they made it visible to all the users. The Orkut face has changed! They have introduced new appearance to Orkut. They changed the layout to an extend and added an easy access for your favorite application. 

Now you can choose to send a private scrap to a friend. On the new orkut, before posting a scrap, just change its visibility to "private", and that scrap will remain visible only to you and the person receiving the scrap, so it stays completely secret. 

Orkut has made it absolutely clear who else can see the content you’re looking at on orkut. Every scrap (as well as photos, videos, etc) will now have a privacy label, so you can easily tell who else can see it. These are exactly the same as the privacy levels that we already had on photos: private, friends and public. 

Orkut has become a secure place than before. Here you can have a private conversation with your friend via scrap and noone is gonna peep into that. 

I am relaxed now as I don't worry about my private scraps being expossed to whole the world!

Gmail makes changes to it account!

Google has made some updates to the Gmail experience with a heavy focus on contacts. The company says that out of all of the feedback it gets about Gmail, most of it is about improving the contacts experience. 


New contacts features include:


Keyboard shortcuts (go to Contacts and hit "?" for the full list)
Sort by last name (look under "More actions")
Custom labels for phone numbers and other fields
The ability to undo changes you've just made
Automatic saving
Structured name fields, so you can adjust titles, suffixes, and other name components
A bigger, more prominent notes field
In addition to these, Google has slightly altered the look of Gmail. Mail, Contacts, and Tasks links have been moved to the top left. Compose Mail is now a button rather than a link. A smaller header area puts the first message in your inbox higher on the screen. Finally, the select all, none, read, unread, and starred links that used to be above messages are now in a drop-down menu, next to the archive button. 


The features has been rolled out in everyone's account. The company also says that Google Apps users will have to wait because they're working on making domain-specific features work well with the new interface. The company seems to be paying more attention to the security piece as well. The users are asked to verify their alternate email account and the phone number to overcome several attempts to hack the Google account across the globe.


I am excited to see the new changes. It looks like my favorite Gmail would become my favorite email account for ever! :)

Facebook Bug: Decreases the Fan Counts!

Over the past few days many Facebook Page administrators have noticed their fan counts decreasing. If you’ve seen this happen, you are not alone. Facebook does not response on the issue, which means there is probably a bug which needs to be fixed. Unfortunately there hasn’t been any clarifications from Facebook, but don’t worry as many other people have noticed similar issues.

We watched our Facebook Page increasing in popularity earlier this week, however starting three days ago, the number of fans we have has decreased by over 400. Initially I thought that there had been a temporary surge in fans which was followed by a random mass “unfanning”, something that has never happen before. Even the top Facebook Pages, like Michael Jackson, have seen their fans decreasing.

So what on earth is going on? We have no idea to be honest but rather than not posting about the issue, we’ve decided to make it known that this issue appears to be happening to the vast majority of Facebook Pages. Don’t worry though, your fans should all be intact. We’ll definitely be sure to update this Page once we receive any information from Facebook, who has so far been quiet about the problem.

Facebook addresses this issue with the following statement: “There was a bug that caused an accounting error for the number of people who like a Page. We are working hard to fix this bug and restore the counts as quickly as possible. No fans or data was lost, and news feed distribution has not been affected.”

Google Wave: A sad end!

Google’s Wave was never very popular among its users – we have friends that have used it only a couple of times since they got the invitation. There was a time that the invitations of the Google Wave service were sold on eBay.


For those who have been left puzzled by above discussion of the Wave, Google Wave is an online software application formerly developed by Google. It was described as “a new web application for real-time communication and collaboration”


It is a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking. It has a strong collaborative and real-time focus supported by extensions that can provide, for example, spelling/grammar checking, automated translation among 40 languages, and numerous other extensions (Google invested quite a lot on this one!). Initially released only to developers, a preview release of Google Wave was extended to 100,000 users in September 2009, each allowed to invite additional users. Google accepted most requests submitted starting the 29th of November 2009. On May 19, 2010, Google Wave was released to the general public to engage and enjoy.


There was huge internal excitement about the possibilities that the platform had to offer (well has to be only for them), but because of the lack of response from the users the company has decided to stop the service. Although Google would continue to support the product until at least the end of this year, and would enable the technology that underpinned Wave to be used in other Google projects, and by third-party developers but beyond that there is hardly anything that the company has to say about the future of the platform. Google has said that it would develop a tool to help existing Wave users to “liberate” any content they had archived in Wave so it could be saved elsewhere. Although many in the technology industry had long believed Google Wave was underperforming, the news that Google was ending support for one of its most innovative new products came as a surprise to most.


Exactly what made the Google Wave a pain in the neck rather than a comforting tool for its users? Why did such a huge Google venture not earn rewards? Well we’ll have to say it was the lack of means of monitoring waves. This was Google Wave’s biggest weakness.  I don’t get an email, Gtalk alert, or any other notification in the communication systems I already use today when there is new activity in a wave.  I’d love an RSS feed of the waves I want to keep an eye on. Unfortunately, this was never an option.If the Wave could have allowed it's users to send mails to other email addresses, it could have been a success and a tough competition in the current email market.


Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, played down the significance of the Wave announcement. “Our policy is, we try things,We celebrate our failures. This is a company where it is absolutely OK to try something that is very hard, have it not be successful, take the learning and apply it to something new.”


Well, Mr. Eric Schmidt had one thing deeply mistaken and that was the pain that he puts his users in while creating all that mess. Why create something that won’t work when you have so many people dependent on you for their work, huh?


But I personally believe that Google Wave can come up again. The idea behind the Wave is amazing. It's definetly a future technology that you all gonna see! :)

Microsoft to Fix 34 Vulnerabilities in Windows, Office and IE

Microsoft plans  to plug no less than 34 security holes in Windows, office and Internet Explorer come June 8th, 2010. The move is part of the company’s monthly patch cycle scheduled for release on patch-Tuesday, the second Tuesday of every month. There will be a total of 10 security bulletins as a part of the June update release, three of which carry the maximum severity rating of Critical, meaning that they are designed to patch vulnerabilities, which, in the eventuality of a successful exploit could allow attackers to perform remote code execution on a vulnerable system.

“Six of the bulletins affect Windows; of those, two carry a Critical severity rating and four are rated Important. Two bulletins, both with a severity rating of Important, affect Microsoft Office. One bulletin, again with a severity rating of Important, affects both Windows and Office. One bulletin, with a severity rating of Critical, affects Internet Explorer,” revealed Jerry Bryant, group manager, Response Communications.

According to information offered by Microsoft, Windows 7 users will need to deploy no less than seven security bulletins, three of which critical, if the IE patches are also taken into consideration. However, the Redmond will not be providing any patches for Office 2010. Released to manufacturing in April 2010, Office 2010 is not affected by any of the vulnerabilities resolved with the June security bulletin release, otherwise, the software giant would have also released updates for Office 2007’s successor.

“As ever, we recommend that customers prepare for the testing and deployment of these bulletins as soon as possible. We will also be acting on two Security Advisories this month. We are closing Security Advisory 983438 (Vulnerability in Microsoft SharePoint Could Allow Elevation of Privilege) with the June bulletins. We are also addressing Security Advisory 980088 (Vulnerability in Internet Explorer Could Allow Information Disclosure),” Bryant added.

Electronic Clearing System of the Income Tax Department, India hacked: Hacker Diverted around Rs 15 crore

The Electronic Clearing System (ECS) of the Income Tax (I-T) Department has been hacked into, jeopardising the functioning of department across Mumbai. On Wednesday, three days after the incident, the I-T department handed over the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Sources revealed that the ECS of the I-T department, which facilitates tax refunds of Mumbaikars has been hacked into. It is believed, the hacker also managed to divert crores of rupees from the system. Following this incident, the entire system that processes income tax payment has been shut down since Monday. To prevent further damage, the department has now changed the passwords of all the senior officers with access to the ECS.

Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, R K Singh confirmed the report, stating, “The matter has been transferred to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).”

According to I-T sources, the incident came to light last week when an additional commissioner level officer discovered unauthorised remittance made from his section. The officer informed his seniors about it and investigations revealed the ECS had been hacked into.

“It seems that more than Rs 15 crore has been siphoned off from the ECS. Investigations are on to ascertain the total amount,” an officer from the I-T Department said requesting anonymity.

ECS system of the I-T was launched recently to clear the refunds of taxpayers in bulk and cut down the tedious paperwork. Sources said that the department has cleared the refunds of one lakh more assesses in a short span of a month through ECS.

“The remittance was made by computers. Now, to check the source and officer who has cleared the refunds, one has to manually go through the entire process which will take a really long time,” said an assessing officer from the I-T department.

In a parallel inquiry, the investigation wing of the I-T is also on a trail of bogus PAN cardholders. Sources said a businessman from suburban Mumbai had filed an income tax return with the help of bogus PAN card. The I-T official got suspicious and found that the card was made in the name of two boys. I-T officials interrogated the boys who revealed that they never applied for any PAN card.

Further inquiries revealed that their father’s employers had managed the fake PAN cards in the name of boys. The I-T officials then approached the local police, but police refused to register the offence. Inquiries are still on in the matter.

I-T payment system has been shut down since Monday following the incident

China tried to hack India's computers: NSA

Chinese hackers have tried to penetrate computers in the offices of National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, a British paper on Monday quoted him as saying.

Narayanan said his office and other Government departments were targeted on December 15, the same date that US defence, finance and technology companies, including Google, reported cyber attacks from China.

"This was not the first instance of an attempt to hack into our computers," Narayanan told The Times in an interview, adding the would-be hackers sent an e-mail with a PDF attachment containing a Trojan virus.

The virus, which allows hackers to download or delete files, was detected and officials were told not to log on until it was eliminated, Narayanan said.

"People seem to be fairly sure it was the Chinese. It is difficult to find the exact source but this is the main suspicion. It seems well founded," he told The Times, adding that India was cooperating with the US and Britain to bolster its cyber defences.

The Chinese government has denied any role in the attacks, with a foreign ministry spokeswoman saying: "Hacking in whatever form is prohibited by law in China."

Narayanan said that while he expected China to be an increasingly high security priority for India, the main threat still came from militants based in Pakistan.

He said Islamabad had done nothing to dismantle militant groups since the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, and criticised Britain for accepting its excuse that such groups were beyond its control.

"The British are still blinkered on this. We believe Pakistan's policy of using terror as a policy weapon remains," Narayanan said, adding India is anxious to prevent an attack from Pakistan during the Commonwealth Games in October.

"From Pakistan's point of view, it's important to disrupt the Games so you can claim that India is not a safe place," Narayanan said