Ozz.net is a gift of God

An Internet available for space

2008-11-22T08:34:00.001-08:00

NASA has successfully conducted the first deep-space test of a communication protocol that could serve as the foundation of an interplanetary Internet.

Today, NASA's information superhighway to outer space flows through one major gateway - the Deep Space Network - to a host of space probes, scattered all the way out from Earth orbit to the edge of the solar system. As those probes proliferate, the Deep Space Network has to keep up with an increasingly complex communications schedule.

Hooke's team has been developing new networking tools to cope with the increasing load and the usual glitches and time delays that space missions have to weather. Those tools include a communication protocol known as DTN (which stands for Delay-Tolerant Networking or, more recently, Disruption-Tolerant Networking).

The four-decade-old protocols that rule the Internet, known as the TCP/IP communications suite, are designed to work over a continuous end-to-end connection between the various parts of the network. That isn't well-suited for Earth-to-Mars communications, where the delay between sending a message and having it received can run as long as 20 minutes. And that's assuming that the antennas on both sides of the signal are working.

DTN is designed to accommodate a store-and-forward system, with built-in smarts. If one link in a communication chain is broken, a robot on Mars could decide for itself the next-best way to get its data back to Earth.

"By making the best use of the contacts you've got, you can smooth out the load on the network, and avoid having the network just loitering on one spacecraft," said Hooke, who is manager of space-networking architecture, technology and standards at NASA Headquarters.
For years, engineers on Hooke's team have been working with other network experts to wring the bugs out of DTN, through a series of earthly pilot projects. Hooke said the protocol has been used by Laplanders herding reindeer on snowmobiles, as well as cell-phone users on the bleeding edges of their coverage areas. It's even being deployed by the Pentagon for battlefield communications.

Last summer, the UK-DMC satellite used the protocol to send sensor data down from Earth orbit to a British ground station and onward to NASA's Glenn Research Center in Ohio. That set the stage for October's monthlong deep-space test, involving NASA's Epoxi spacecraft.

The next step would be to install the software on the international space station, creating a permanent DTN node in Earth orbit. "These flight demonstrations are really important, because they show the thing working in a real mission environment," Hooke said.

It's hard to predict exactly when DTN will be needed for deep-space communications. Over the past decade, the "mission density" hasn't been heavy enough to require networks built to tolerate significant disruptions, Hooke said. But that time will come someday. Hooke just hopes that DTN will be fully tested and standardized by the time NASA starts building up networks of landers, orbiters and sensors, all talking amongst themselves.

"With Mars, we've already seen point-to-point-to-point archtecture," he noted, referring to the use of NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as relay satellites for Phoenix Mars Lander.

BIOS WARs

2008-11-22T08:17:00.000-08:00

With the announcement of the first Intel based Macs a few days ago, many users have rejoiced in being able to dual-boot both Mac OS X and Windows. Unfortunately, this is not the case; due to Apple's use of the extensible firmware interface (EFI) rather than BIOS, current Windows releases will not run on the systems.

With the switch to Intel processors, Apple also moved from Open Firmware to EFI, which is an updated BIOS specification developed by Intel. Advanced features include the ability to boot into an EFI shell and run diagnostics and power up the CPU into a fully functional state immediately.

EFI also separates the control of devices from the operating system, meaning it can initialize hardware before loading the OS. This feature would allow for a system to connect to the Internet and download updated drivers before booting up.

Intel initially deployed EFI as part of its Itanium architecture. As such, Microsoft only included support for the BIOS replacement in its IA64 and later x64 operating systems. While Microsoft plans to add EFI support in 32-bit versions of Windows Vista, a final release isn't due until the end of the year.

Microsoft's 64-bit versions of Windows will also not work despite supporting EFI, because Apple's Intel platform is strictly 32-bit at the moment.

For its part, Microsoft encouraged Apple to build hardware compatible with Windows.
"We have an open specification and a process for certifying the hardware. We welcome all efforts in this area and we'd support Apple the same way we support every other PC manufacturer," a company spokesperson told BetaNews. "Anyone, including Apple, can purchase and re-sell Windows for use on their industry-standard hardware."

Recently, Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller said the company would not specifically block the use of Windows on Mac hardware. Instead, limitations in Windows itself will prevent its use on the new MacBook Pro laptop and iMac.

What is EFI BIOS???

The Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) is a specification developed by Intel for the software that is run first when a computer is powered up. It replaces the earlier BIOS technology. EFI allows vendors to create operating-system-independent device drivers that are stored within the hardware itself. In that sense, it is similar to Open Firmware, the hardware-independent firmware used in PowerPC-based Apple Macintosh computers, Sun Microsystems SPARC computers, and others. EFI also allows the operating system to run in a sandbox, delegating networking and memory management issues to the firmware instead of the OS. Attempts by the OS to access the hardware are converted to calls to the EFI drivers. The EFI BIOS is also used to select and load the operating system, replacing the need for a boot loader. EFI is one of the pieces of the framework necessary to implement Trusted Computing.

Basically, EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) is a system in which device drivers and such are in firmware on the hardware itself, instead of in software in the OS. Basically, it makes all device drivers OS-independant. For example, there's no longer any need to find Netgear wireless drivers for Linux, as all wireless cards will talk to the OS in precisely the same way.
Benefit of EFI BIOS• Supports graphical menus and features• Supports mouse-controlled interface• Supports pre-OS applications, file oriented(ex: System recovery, games, media player, Internet browser, etc.)• Supports LAN activating environment• Supports multi-language• UEFI support for x64 versions of Windows Vista are included in a Service Pack 1

MSI’s early anticipation …

Note: MSI P35 Neo3-EFINITY is the first notebook of MSI which was used in EFI Mainboard.

EFI BIOS Support

"MSI will start to phase EFI into its next generation mainboard platform, and will allow much easier accessibility of mainboard BIOS systems. The ability to use a GUI and mouse can only encourage users to attempt to unlock the full potential of today's modern mainboards. Even at this early beta stage we have seen excellent OC potential using current generation of MSI mainboards..About MSI
MSI is proud of its 20 years experience in designing and manufacturing high performance IT products. The product lines of MSI are mainboards, graphic cards, notebooks, consumer electronics, barebones, networking and server products, and fully integrated add-on peripherals. With its ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 qualified facilities, MSI products provide the ultimate performance, reliability and value-increasing productivity. We distribute our products through offices located in Taiwan, United States, Germany, Japan, France, China, Korea, Australia, United Kingdom, Poland, Russia, and The Netherlands.

MSI begins trials for 1st EFI BIOS based Mainboard!

Taipei, Taiwan – Micro-Star International (MSI), one of the leaders in mainboard technology, has just launched its first EFI BIOS based mainboard "EFINITY". EFI, Extensible Firmware Interface, is intended to replace the legacy BIOS firmware interface used by modern PCs. It offers a new and more flexible interface that supports colorful graphical interfaces, multiple languages and has mouse support. New Type of Graphics BIOS SettingsMSI has started to phase-in EFI into its next generation mainboard platform. The ability to use a GUI and mouse encourage users to unlock the full potential of MSI mainboards. EFI also supports LAN, pre-OS applications such as live update, games, instant messenger, media player and a browser. Microsoft will add EFI support to the x64 versions of Windows Vista with Service Pack 1.

Improve Your Web Site's Response Time

2008-11-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

Use Combined files

Combined files reduce the number of HTTP requests by combining all scripts into a single script, and all CSS into a single stylesheet which improves response times because .css files are normally cached by browsers.

Use CSS Sprites

CSS Sprites are the preferred method for reducing the number of image requests. Combine your background images into a single image and use the CSS background-image and background-position properties to display the desired image segment.

Use Image Maps

Image maps are used for combining multiple images into a single image so that it reduces the number of HTTP requests.

Use HTTP Compression

HTTP Compression can result in great performance gains. Gzip and deflate compression mechanisms can reduce the size of the payload by about 50%.

Minify CSS and JavaScript

CSS files (.css) and JavaScript files (.js) can be minified, as normally .css and .js files contain unnecessary spaces, comments, unnecessary code and such other things. You can use some utilities to minify your files.

You can use JSMin to minify .js files and use YUI Compressor to minify both .js and .css files

Put StyleSheets into the Header

When putting the StyleSheets between the HEAD tags of a web page, the browsers loads the web page progressively.

Put Scripts at the end of the Page

Scripts block parallel downloads. While a script is downloading, however, the browser won't start any other downloads, even on different hostnames. So putting scripts to the end of the document reduces pages response time in total.

Apple Stock: Earnings & Trends

2008-10-28T09:27:00.000-07:00

It’s Apple Stock earnings season. Most of the S&P 500 will be reporting in the next 2-3 weeks, including Apple. Monday night Bank of America (BAC) reported a 68% drop in net profits and announced it will cut dividends by half!

Apple Inc on Tuesday reported a fiscal fourth-quarter profit of 1.14 billion dollars, or 1.26 dollars a share, up 24 per cent from a profit of 904 billion dollars in the same quarter last year, dpa reported

The company is seeing a resurgence in sales of its computers at the same time sales of its iPhone and other portable devices are also rising strongly.
Apple said its revenue reached 7.9 billion dollars, up from 6.22 billion dollars in sales in the same period a year ago.

The company shipped 2,611,000 Macintosh computers during the quarter, representing 21 per cent unit growth and 17 per cent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. It sold 11,052,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 8 per cent unit growth and 3 per cent revenue growth. Quarterly iPhone units sold were 6,892,000 compared to 1,119,000 in the year-ago-quarter.

"Apple just reported one of the best quarters in its history, with a spectacular performance by the iPhone," said chief executive Steve Jobs. "We don't yet know how this economic downturn will affect Apple. But we're armed with the strongest product line in our history, the most talented employees and the best customers in our industry. And 25 billion dollars of cash safely in the bank with zero debt."

Alcoa (AA) reported a 52% drop in third quarter profits, and that it is suspending its stock buyback program and all non-critical capital projects. Today we have Costco (COST) next up on the chopping block.
These coming weeks will be the time to separate the dregs from the strong. A cleaning out process that we must endure for the betterment of the economy. There will be many companies that will fail in this process, as there have already been. And very few will come through unscathed.

This parade of despair will be entangled with continuing deterioration of economic indicators. I’m sorry for painting such a bleak picture, but it is the reality.
When it’s Apple’s (AAPL) turn, it will undoubtedly report outstanding numbers, blowing away all analysts estimates. I’m sure of this, through anecdotal observation: every time I visit my local Apple Store it’s packed with people and product is flying out the door.
The company is sure to announce that it trounced the its goal of 10 million iPhones shipped in 2008. Then it’ll follow that up with the introduction of new products, probably just ahead of earnings, that will once again prove that Apple is the de facto leader of tech.
But after all that, it’ll have to provide forward looking guidance. And I can tell you right now that won’t be pretty. And Apple stock price will plummet, despite its outstanding fundamentals.

You might think that the market has already priced in the bad news, especially when you consider that the stock has dropped 50% in the last month. How could it possibly drop any further? There is price support for Apple around $86 and then strong support around $74, so it appears what will happen is that Apple will drop within that range and trade there until it reports earnings.

What are the consensus targets of the analysts that cover Apple? According to Business Week, their survey of 32 Apple analysts shows the range for Apple Q4 earnings is from $0.95 to $1.36, with the average coming in at $1.12 on $8.1 billion in revenue.

The forward guidance is expected to have Q1 earnings of $1.74 on revenues of $11.0 billion. If Apple’s CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, reports anything south of these numbers, expect a big selloff.
Actually, expect a big selloff no matter what he reports. Perhaps Apple’s earnings call will be the the catalyst for market capitulation?

Positives

Apple posted EPS of $1.26 versus expectations of $1.11. EPS was 24.8% above last year.
Norfolk Southern posted EPS of $1.37 versus an expected $1.21. Profits were 34.3% above last year.
Schering Plough posted EPS of $0.39 versus an expected $0.31. Earnings were 39.3% above last year.

Negatives

Yahoo posted EPS of $0.04 versus expectations of $0.09. Profits were down 63.6% from a year ago.

National City posted a loss of $0.85 per share versus an expected loss of $0.47. NCC was profitable a year ago.

Share repurchases were still very significant in the fourth quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year (the data is not out yet for the second quarter) and the reduction in share count also boosts EPS growth.

Currency translation gains will be less of a factor this quarter due to the rebound in the dollar. However, the strong overseas demand that the previously very weak dollar stimulated will still prove to be a boost to the earnings of many firms. The delay is because in the third quarter, they will be shipping goods ordered previously.

Given both the rebound in the dollar and the very significant economic slowdown abroad, look for the export boom to fade in the fourth quarter and into 2009.

Entertainment made easy

2008-10-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

As soon as you touch iPhone, you have a great chance to enter a great world that provides Sync ringtones, music, video, photos, contacts, calendars, and more could be find.

From my point of view , iTunes is iPhone’ s most challenging facility which makes the life easier and entertaining. iTunes puts your entire music and video collection a mere mouse click away, giving you an all-access pass to thousands of hours of digital entertainment. You can Browse and Organize And also play. All from your Mac or PC.

With using iTunes you can easily buy more than 8 million songs for 99¢ each. Furthermore you can rent movies from $2.99. or buy from $9.99. And also you can find More than 1,000 TV shows, 100,000 free podcasts, More than 35,000 titles iPod Click Wheel Games for $4.99 each Free lectures from top institutions , lots of applications, gift cards, certificates, and more.
Apple is one of the special electronic company which behaves like building next centuries’ technology. With Improving in electronical, graphical and musical instruments and also fashion design of new age products Apple gets its own place at the top of the technology mountain.
Apple’s last great success is The iPhone which makes mobile phone industry try to work and develop new products as quick as possible. So the phone industry gets new position not to lower their sales.

The genesis of the iPhone began with Apple CEO Steve Jobs' direction that Apple engineers investigate touchscreens. Apple created the device during a secretive and unprecedented collaboration with AT&T Mobility—Cingular Wireless at the time of the phone's inception—at a development cost of US$150 million by one estimate. During development, the iPhone was codenamed "Purple 2". The company rejected an early "design by committee" built with Motorola in favor of engineering a custom operating system and interface and building custom hardware.

The iPhone went on sale in the United States on June 29, 2007. Apple closed its stores at 2:00 pm local time to prepare for the 6:00 pm iPhone launch, while hundreds of customers lined up at stores nationwide.[2] Apple sold 270,000 iPhones in the first 30 hours on launch weekend.[78] The original iPhone was subsequently made available in five other countries: Ireland, the UK, France, Germany, and Austria.

Apple has begun quietly demonstrating an internally developed iPhone GPS Navigator program that includes turn-by-turn, 3d views etc. Visually, it is very similar to Tom-Tom, but with the expected Apple eye candy. They were sketchy about the details, but it seem that this will not be part of the core software (I.E. they intend to charge for it). It was also unclear whether they were using cellular-based data to share traffic information, but some of the screens seemed to indicate that it would.

http://www.slideshare.net/iphone3glover/new-apple-iphone-3g-new-3g-apple-iphone
http://www.slideshare.net/gankyun/how-you-can-manage-your-life-through-iphone-and-mac-in-general
http://www.slideshare.net/christmasgiftguru/cheap-iphone

Specifications:
Size comparison, from top to bottom, between:-a first generation iPod nano-a first generation iPhone-a fourth generation iPod
*****
Features common to both versions
Screen size: 3.5 in (89 mm)
Screen resolution: 480×320 pixels at 163 ppi, with 3:2 aspect ratio
Input devices: Multi-touch screen interface plus a "Home" button
Built-in rechargeable, non-removable battery
2 megapixel camera
Location finding by detection of cell towers and Wi-Fi networks
Samsung S5L8900 (412 MHz[5] ARM 1176 processor, PowerVR MBX 3D graphics co-processor)
Memory: 128 MB DRAM [8]
Storage: 8 GB or 16 GB flash memory
Operating System: iPhone OS
Quad band GSM / GPRS / EDGE: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)
Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR
******

Original model
4 GB model (discontinued after two months) or 8 GB model
Size: 4.5 inches (115 mm) (h) × 2.4 inches (61 mm) (w) × 0.46 inch (11.6 mm) (d)
Weight: 135 g (4.8 oz)
Battery has up to 8 hours of talk, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback, and up to 24 hours of audio playback, lasting over 250 hours on standby.
Headphone jack (recessed)
Digital SAR of 0.974 W/kg

*****

3G model
Color: Black (8 GB or 16 GB) or white (16 GB)
Size: 4.5 inches (115.5 mm) (h) × 2.4 inches (62.1 mm) (w) × 0.48 inch (12.3 mm) (d)
Weight: 133 g (4.7 oz)
Headphone jack (non-recessed)
Battery has up to 10 hours of 2G talk, 5 hours of 3G talk, 5 (3G) or 6 (Wi-Fi) hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback, and up to 24 hours of audio playback, lasting over 300 hours on standby.
Tri band UMTS / HSDPA: UMTS 850 / 1900 / 2100
Assisted GPS, with preference to location based on Wi-Fi or cell towers
Digital SAR Rating: 1.38 W/kg

Patents, copyrights, and trademarks:
Apple has filed more than 300 patents related to the technology behind the iPhone.
LG Electronics claimed the iPhone's design was copied from the LG Prada. Woo-Young Kwak, head of LG Mobile Handset R&D Center, said at a press conference, “We consider that Apple copied Prada phone after the design was unveiled when it was presented in the iF Design Award and won the prize in September 2006.”

On September 3, 1993, Infogear filed for the U.S. trademark "I PHONE" and on March 20, 1996 applied for the trademark "IPhone". "I Phone" was registered in March 1998, and "IPhone" was registered in 1999. Since then, the I PHONE mark had been abandoned. Infogear's trademarks cover "communications terminals comprising computer hardware and software providing integrated telephone, data communications and personal computer functions" (1993 filing), and "computer hardware and software for providing integrated telephone communication with computerized global information networks" (1996 filing). Infogear released a telephone with an integrated web browser under the name iPhone in 1998. In 2000, Infogear won an infringement claim against the owners of the iphones.com domain name.In June 2000, Cisco Systems acquired Infogear, including the iPhone trademark. On December 18, 2006 they released a range of re-branded Voice over IP (VoIP) sets under the name iPhone.

In October 2002, Apple applied for the "iPhone" trademark in the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, and the European Union. A Canadian application followed in October 2004 and a New Zealand application in September 2006. As of October 2006 only the Singapore and Australian applications had been granted. In September 2006, a company called Ocean Telecom Services applied for an "iPhone" trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and Hong Kong, following a filing in Trinidad and Tobago. As the Ocean Telecom trademark applications use exactly the same wording as Apple's New Zealand application, it is assumed that Ocean Telecom is applying on behalf of Apple. The Canadian application was opposed in August 2005 by a Canadian company called Comwave who themselves applied for the trademark three months later. Comwave have been selling VoIP devices called iPhone since 2004.

Shortly after Steve Jobs' January 9, 2007 announcement that Apple would be selling a product called iPhone in June 2007, Cisco issued a statement that it had been negotiating trademark licensing with Apple and expected Apple to agree to the final documents that had been submitted the night before. On January 10, 2007 Cisco announced it had filed a lawsuit against Apple over the infringement of the trademark iPhone, seeking an injunction in federal court to prohibit Apple from using the name. More recently, Cisco claimed that the trademark lawsuit was a "minor skirmish" that was not about money, but about interoperability.

On February 2, 2007, Apple and Cisco announced that they had agreed to temporarily suspend litigation while they hold settlement talks, and subsequently announced on February 20, 2007 that they had reached an agreement. Both companies will be allowed to use the "iPhone" name in exchange for "exploring interoperability" between their security, consumer, and business communications products.

AT&T launched the new Samsung Epix i907

2008-10-22T01:37:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, AT&T Inc. and Samsung Mobile announced its latest smartphone, called The Samsung Epix, featuring a touchscreen, a QWERTY keyboard, an optical mouse technology and Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system.

One of the interesting features of the Epix is the optical mouse feature. The optical mouse allows for quick and easy navigation by simply sweeping a finger over it. Users can move their finger over the mouse in order to navigate through the menus of the phone or surf the Web. To make a selection, a single click will bring users to their desired location.

Bluetooth technology that allows the phone to be paired with headsets or stereos is also built-in. Windows Media Player 10 Mobile is also standard. A microSD memory card slot allows users to expand the phone's memory up to 32GB.

Samsung Epix runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition and offers numerous e-mail solutions, including Microsoft Direct Push, AT&T Xpress Mail, and Good Mobile Messaging. It also offers over-the-air synchronization of contacts, calendars and task lists with Microsoft Exchange Server or Xpress Mail and support for Good Mobile Messaging.

In addition, the Samsung Epix has other features, which includes:

Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) : to connect with home or campus networks or access more than 17,000 AT&T hot spots nationwide, including at thousands of participating Starbucks locations.

Built-in aGPS : for use with AT&T Navigator, AT&T Navigator Global Edition and other GPS-based applications for personal and business use.

AT&T Video Share : the service in the U.S. that allows users to share live video over wireless devices while participating in a voice call, so they can share family moments, monitor progress on a job site or review the day’s work without having to leave the office.

Global Capabilities when abroad, people can use the Epix to make or receive a phone call in more than 200 countries and check e-mail, browse the Web or perform other data functions in more than 150 countries, including in more than 60 that have deployed 3G networks.

2.0 Megapixel Camera :with video-capture capabilities.

Slim, Light Form Factor : Equipped with a full QWERTY keyboard, the Samsung Epix measures 4.6 inches x 2.4 inches x 0.5 inches, weighs just 4.4 ounces and includes a large 2.5-inch TFT color display.

References : www.samsungmobilenews.com

Notepad++ : Free Source Code Editor

2008-10-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

Notepad++ is a free source editor that supports several languages (C, C++, HTML, ASP, Java, Pascal, CSS and more) with the syntax highlighting and syntax folding, running in the MS Windows environment. It is written in C++ and uses pure Win32 API and is under the GPL Licence. It's based on Scintilla, which is a component for source code editing.

Notepad++ is portable and it supports tabs, syntax highlighting, drag and drop, macro recording, regular expression search and replace, and auto-completion. It allows users to edit 2 different documents at the same time, and even to edit the same document in 2 different views when you are in clone mode. It also gives the extra functionality to define a user's own language for the syntax folding and syntax highlighting.

Plugins are also supported by Notepad++. Some of the most used plugins are; Light Explorer that adds a small file browser pane, FTP Synchronize automatically sends updates to server with changes saved to a local copy, Quick Text which is a snippet management tool, and Secure Pad that adds encryption and decryption functionalities.

All of the explained and nonexplained features for Notepad++ are:

Auto-completion
Multi-Document
WYSIWYG
User Defined Syntax Highlighting
Bookmark
Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting
Multi-View
Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
Macro recording and playback
Regular Expression Search/Replace
File Status Auto-detection
Zoom in and zoom out
Full Drag & Drop supported
Dynamic position of Views
Multi-Language environment

Download Link:

Check out the latest version and download Notepad++.

OpenOffice.org 3.0.0 Final

2008-10-11T04:20:00.000-07:00

OpenOffice.org 3.0.0 is now available for download. Open Office is the best free and open source alternative to the Microsoft Office application suite and contains many drop in replacement programs to Microsoft Office’s popular Word, Excel and PowerPoint programs.

OpenOffice.org 3.0.0 is an open source office productivity software suite includes a Word Processor (Writer), a Spread Sheet (Calc), a Presentation program (Impress), a Database program, (Base) a Graphics Editor program (Draw) and a tool for creating and editing mathematical formulas with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites.

It is available in many languages (over 45 languages) and supports multiple platforms such as Windows, Linux, MacOS X and Solaris. It supports both Microsoft Office file formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt, etc.) and the latest Microsoft Office 2007/2008 file formats (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.). Open Office also allows users to save working files to PDF format.

It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. Open Office and its series of releases have been great and a great way to save money. Written in C++ and with documented APIs licensed under the LGPL and SISSL Open Source licenses, OpenOffice.org allows any knowledgeable developer to benefit from the source. And, because the file format for OpenOffice.org is XML, interoperability is easy, making future development and adoption more certain.

Lets take a look at Open Office suite's productivity applications:

OpenOffice Writer:

Writer has everything you would expect from a modern, fully equipped word processor or desktop publisher: powerful features like AutoCorrect, AutoComplete, AutoFormat, Styles and Formatting, Text Frames and Linking, Tables of Contents, Indexing, Bibliographical References, Illustrations, Tables, and other objects.

Writer is simple enough for a quick memo, powerful and stable enough to create complete books with lots of graphics, headings etc.

OpenOffice Calc:

Calc is the spreadsheet you've always wanted. Newcomers find it intuitive and easy to learn; professional data miners and number crunchers will appreciate the comprehensive range of powerful features including Advanced DataPilot technology, Natural language formulas, an Intelligent Sum Button, a comprehensive range of advanced spreadsheet functions, Styles and Formatting, and a Scenario Manager for "what ifs".

OpenOffice Impress:

Impress is a truly outstanding tool for creating effective multimedia presentations. Your presentations will stand out with 2D and 3D clip art, fontworks, special effects, animation, and high-impact drawing tools. A multi-pane view puts all the tools at your fingertips, and you can 'park' your most commonly used drawing tools around your screen ready for single-click access. Share your work in many ways: not only pdf, but also html and Flash.

OpenOffice Draw:

Draw anything from a quick sketch to a complex plan. Draw gives you the tools to communicate with graphics and diagrams. Manipulate objects, rotate in two or three dimensions; use sophisticated rendering to create photorealistic images. Smart connectors make short work of flowcharts, organisation charts, network diagrams, etc. Styles - a common OpenOffice.org feature - help you control your work easily and precisely in Draw.

OpenOffice Base:

Base enables you to manipulate database data seamlessly within OpenOffice.org 3. Create and modify tables, forms, queries, and reports, either using your own database or Base's own built-in HSQL database engine. Base offers a choice of using Wizards, Design Views, or SQL Views for beginners, intermediate, and advanced users.

Google Chrome : A fresh take on the browser

2008-10-09T04:51:00.000-07:00

Google released the first beta version of Google Chrome Web browser on 2 September 2008 in 43 languages. Only the Microsoft Windows ( XP or later ) version has been released. Mac and Linux releases will soon follow.

Google Chrome is a free and open-source web browser and is based on WebKit which is an open-source web browser engine presently used by Safari. So what renders properly in Safari should render properly in Chrome. The other power under Chrome is V8 JavaScript engine which is developed by Google. Tests by Google showed that V8 was about twice as fast as Firefox 3 and the Safari 4 beta.

The most interesting feature is the support of multiple processes, where each tab will operate in its own memory space with its own virtual machine for code execution. Thereby you can go into the Windows Task Manager and shut down one of them if it’s locked up. It also means that a bad process in one tab won’t kill your whole browser session. Also plugins are removed from the rendering process and placed in a separate process. The other features are listed below;

1. Task manager

Chrome has its own Task Manager that shows you how much memory and CPU usage each tab and plug-in is using. You can open it by clicking Shift-Esc from within Chrome. You can get more details by clicking the “Stats for nerds” link on the Task Manager and it will open a page with a full breakdown of memory and CPU usage for each process within the browser.

2. One box for search, address, and history

Instead of having separate input boxes for the search bar and the address bar, Google has united the two in Chrome. Google also added history to the equation. So you can type something like “techrepublic” in the box and it will suggest the techrepublic.com home page as well as other recently visited TechRepublic pages. This is similar to the new “Awesome bar” in Firefox 3 but Google’s “One box” includes search as well. If you type “techrepublic” in the box and hit return then it will simply open it in Google.com (or your default search engine).

3. Upgraded tabs

The Chrome development team views tabs as one of the best new innovations to Web browsing in recent years and so they wanted to expand the functionality of tabs since users . In Chrome you can drag a tab into its own window, and drag it back to the main window. This is called “Dynamic Tabs.” Also, by default, the “New Tab” page in Chrome features a page that shows thumbnails of your most visited Web sites, a list of your recent bookmarks, and a search box that allows you to search your history.

First class tabs. Unlike Firefox or IE7, Chrome puts the tabs on top of the browser window above the address bar that shows the page URL. In fact some apps may not need an address bar. Tim Burners Lee always envisioned the URL as something that would be hidden from the user, so I think we’ll see more of that. As part of this behavior, you’ll be able to drag a tab out of one window and into another. I’ve been looking forward to that feature for a long time, as I tend to open up so many tabs I can’t read their titles any more.

4. New support for Web applications

Naturally, Google believes in Web-based applications and is invested in a future that includes applications running from the cloud and running in a Web browser. Current Web applications include Google Docs, Salesforce.com, and Outlook Web Access. Chrome makes it easier to make those applications feel more like desktop apps.

From the start page of your Web application you simply click the Chrome controls icon and then click “Create applications shortcuts” and you can create Desktop, Start Menu, and/or Quick Launch icons. Then when you launch those apps they open in a streamlined window without the address bar and separate from the Chrome Web browser window. If the apps integrate with Google Gears then you can even open them when you’re offline.

5. Incognito browsing

Chrome includes an Incognito mode in which users can go to sites but nothing from that session — history, form fields, or cookies — will be saved in Chrome. This can be useful on shared computers and when viewing sensitive data through the Web browser. The beta version of Internet Explorer 8 includes a similar feature.