Techno-Freek

Name:
Location: Hyderabad, India

1/25/2005

Google Video

Google's new Video search released today is in beta. Google says their mission is to " organize the world's information, and that includes the thousands of programs that play on our TVs every day and enables to search a growing archive of televised content – everything from sports to dinosaur documentaries to news shows." Right now Google searches following channels. ABC(KGO) * KRON* PBS KQED* NBC(KNTV)* FOX NEWS C-SPAN2 C-SPAN2 * San francisco Bay Area Stations. Moreover we can upload our own videos. I think video upload feature can be used to advertise stuff. Check google video search here. This is a expected step to counter Yahoo's Video search. Let us see what micrsoft does now.

1/23/2005

Microsoft Anti-Spyware?

Microsoft has entered the anti-spyware business with the launch of a free beta version of Microsoft AntiSpyware. The beta software is now available and covers all the basics a PC user needs when it comes to spyware and adware detection and removal. Part of me wants to applaud Microsoft and say that this is a very good thing for their customers, a move that is long overdue. The other part of me says that this is a band-aid approach and a funny way for them to admit defeat -- because it's holes in Microsoft's operating system that built the entire spyware industry to begin with.

In fact, Microsoft AntiSpyware, really is a collection of security and privacy tools that bundles a host of features.The package is simply a branded version of Giant Company Software's AntiSpyware program, which has been on the market for some time. Microsoft purchased Giant last year. The 6.4MB program works with Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003.

But the cynic in me also looks at this as a rather ridiculous response to the problem -- or a set of problems that they are simply unable to fix: massive holes in their browser and fundamental flaws in their operating system that they cannot stay on top of. They might as well start building more standalone applications on top of all the holes, if that's the only way to fix them.

It's like selling people a toaster that could catch fire at any time, but then offering a free fire extinguisher to put out those fires as required. Is this the best they can do?

1/16/2005

Extensions Enhance Firefox

Firefox is taking the world by storm. And it even begun (albeit in a small way) to have an impact on the market share of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Firefox is clearly off to a great start and it certainly should be—it's a great browser. As with all things, Firefox could be improved. Firefox, by default, is designed to be a lightweight browser. That means that it doesn't ship with tons of extras. If you want additional features, you'll need to go out and get them yourself. Fortunately, it's easy to upgrade Firefox by installing "extensions." An extension is simply an add-on that extends Firefox's functionality. You can get lots of different extensions on the Firefox extensions site. Since there are nearly two hundred different extensions currently available, it can take some time to sift through them all on the Firefox site. Below are few of my favourite extensions: FoxyTunes 1.0 Listening to tunes on a computer is something most of us do these days in one form or another. FoxyTunes simplifies your listening experience by building audio controls directly into the bottom of your browser. You can Play, Pause, skip tracks, choose your player, show/hide the player, and do all the usual stuff. If screen space is at a premium on your desktop, or if you just hate switching back and forth between your browser and audio player like me , then FoxyTunes is worth checking out. Gmail Notifier Gmail has become my default web mail service. I make no bones about the fact that i am a email addict. We do so much communicating via email these days that we pretty much can't live without and we always want to know when we have new email.

The Gmail Notifier extension makes this simply by installing a small menu that pops up when you have new messages in your Gmail inbox. You can customize Gmail Notifier by choosing how often it checks for new email and you can choose to have it open your mail in the current tab, a new tab, or in a new window.

1/11/2005

Yahoo! Video Search

Yahoo's new Video search is in beta. We can search for lectures , fighter pilot videos and much more. Format of the video and type of domains to search for can be specified. We can enable safe search to exclude the explicit content. Moreover we can upload our own videos. I think video upload feature can be used to advertise stuff. Let us see what will Google and Msn do to counter Yahoo's Personalized search and Yahoo! video search.

1/09/2005

Extremely Critical

Vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6.0 With XP Security Pack 2 Demonstrated. For users running Internet Explorer 6 with Windows XP SP2 installed, the Danish-based security firm Secunia published a demonstration of the vulnerability on January 7, 2005. The vulnerabilities can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system, conduct cross-site/zone scripting and bypass a security feature in Microsoft Windows XP SP2. It rates the problem "extremely critical." Secunia's proposed solution is uncompromising: "Use another browser". Alternative workarounds, it adds, include disabling the "Drag and drop or copy and paste files" option and setting the security level to high for the "Internet" zone. The demonstration is here for the users to check their systems .

1/07/2005

11 Signs of Spyware

1. You find a new finger-size hardware device connected between your keyboard cable's plug and the corresponding socket on the back of your computer. Or maybe someone recently offered you "a better keyboard."

2. Your phone bill includes expensive calls to 900 numbers that you never made—probably at an outrageous per-minute rate.

3. You enter a search term in Internet Explorer's address bar and press Enter to start the search. Instead of your usual search site, an unfamiliar site handles the search.

4. Your antispyware program or another protective program stops working correctly. It may warn you that certain necessary support files are missing, but if you restore the files they go missing again. It may appear to launch normally and then spontaneously shut down, or it may simply crash whenever you try to run it.

5. A new item appears in your Favorites list without your putting it there. No matter how many times you delete it, the item always reappears later.

6. Your system runs noticeably slower than it did before. If you're a Windows 2000/XP user, launching the Task Manager and clicking the Processes tab reveals that an unfamiliar process is using nearly 100 percent of available CPU cycles.

7. At a time when you're not doing anything online, the send or receive lights on your dial-up or broadband modem blink just as wildly as when you're downloading a file or surfing the Web. Or the network/modem icon in your system tray flashes rapidly even when you're not using the connection.

8. A search toolbar or other browser toolbar appears even though you didn't request or install it. Your attempts to remove it fail, or it comes back after removal.

9. You get pop-up advertisements when your browser is not running or when your system is not even connected to the Internet, or you get pop-up ads that address you by name.

10. When you start your browser, the home page has changed to something undesirable. You change it back manually, but before long you find that it has changed back again.

11. And the final sign is: Everything appears to be normal. The most devious spyware doesn't leave traces you'd notice, so scan your system anyway.

1/02/2005

Happy New Year

May the year 2005 give you -
Independence of Java, Power of Unix,
Popularity of Windows, Extensibility of J2EE, Luxury of .Net,
Efficiency of C, Ease of VB, Robustness of Oracle,
Vision of UML, Simplicity of HTML, Style of Mac,
Dexterity of Photoshop, Enormity of 3D Max,
Vastness of Internet, Compactness of JPG,
Richness of BMP, Coverage as Yahoo, Reach of Google,
Prudence of Froogle, Security of Norton & McAfee,
Intelligence of Unreal, Realism of Max Payne, Speed of NFS,
Fun of RoadRash, Intelligence of Chessmaster,
Impression of Quake3........