If what bloggers heard from Maemo marketing team at yesterday’s N900 meet-up at London is true, we’ll see Linux-based Maemo replace Symbian as the operating system by 2012. Why not? S60 is growing old, Nokia is losing its ground for iPhone and Android powered phones in US and Europe. Symbian is falling short of “goodies” to fight its competition.

Nokia’s official response to this leak was “Any speculation on what our 2012 roadmap, including operating systems and product branding, are completely premature”. Considering the fact that Nokia spent $410 million to buy the remaining share of Symbian and loaned out another $630 million to improve the operating system, such a statement was greatly anticipated, keeping share-holder’s sentiments in mind.

Nokia seems to be impressed with the response their latest Maemo powered N900 is receiving from consumers and bloggers. It makes perfect sense for them to play around and try new opportunities. NSeries looks like an ideal test ground for Nokia to experiment Maemo OS and try winning the market share back from iPhone and other bling-bling Android phones.

Nonetheless, I don’t see Symbian dying anytime sooner or later. Not at least with such a large footprint of consumers, developers and applications. ESeries and XSeries will continue to breed using Symbian and Nokia will support both operating systems with Ovi Store and Maemo Select. Positively speaking, by 2012, if the world doesn’t end, we’ll see Maemo marketplace filled with applications to make it a mainstream success.

© thilak for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Maemo, mobile, Nokia, OS, Symbian

Browser extensions are to some extent the reason why I’m glued to Firefox. I’m so habituated to several extensions that I can’t fully switch to Chrome, even though I love Chrome. But that’s going to change and change real soon! Lee Mathews observed a small change in the latest build of Google Chrome. The lower right edge of the homepage, which has a small graphic linked to the Theme Gallery has now been replaced with a Puzzle image which links to https://chrome.google.com/extensions:

“According to a recent posting on Google Groups by Chrome team member Neil Baum, extensions are set to hit Chrome’s beta channel in early December. The plan may well be to launch both the updated beta and extension gallery at the same time” – Download Quad

The extensions link which previously redirected to Google Search, now greets you with “coming soon” message, which leads me to believe that extension gallery is just around the corner. Once extensions arrive in the stable builds on Google Chrome, I think Firefox developers will start porting their extension to Chrome. Once that materializes, Firefox will get some much-needed competition.

I’m looking forward to try extensions on Google Chrome. Firefox consumes way too much resources and I find it sluggish compared to Chrome these days.

© thilak for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Browser, Google, Google Chrome, Internet

Kaspersky has launched their version of antivirus for Macs. Kaspersky’s latest product Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Mac will now protect the Mac OS against malware, viruses, trojans, worms and similar problems existing on operating systems such as Windows and Linux.

The malware attacks on Macs have begun, although they are nowhere as dangerous as their Windows counterparts. It is only a matter of time, that the frequency of these attacks increase to that against Windows.

"Since 2005, there has been a marked increase in the number of vulnerabilities in the Mac OS which can be used to conduct an attack via the Internet," said Gun Suk Ling, managing director for Kaspersky Lab, Southeast Asia

"Just because they have not been infected in the past does not mean they are safe now," Gun said. "For example, a Mac machine may be compromised by Trojans or key loggers without the user being alerted to the presence of the threat."

Features:

• A global anti-virus database of over 20 million malicious programs for a range of platforms.

• Hourly updates to ensure that users protected against these malicious programs which appear on a day to day basis.

• Kaspersky anti-virus engine makes use of dual and quad core processors to dramatically increase scanning speed.

• It enables better use of system resources by increasing the performance of user applications when the priority of the anti-virus decreases.

• It has an automatic mode where it wont bother the user with unnecessary requests, enabling the anti-virus program to take decisions automatically.

• Fast and non-intrusive with only 1% CPU impact on your Mac performance

• It’s user-friendly interface is easy to understand for both novice and advanced users. Familiar Mac-style appearance and operation

• Kaspersky anti-virus is compatible from Mac OS version 10.4.11.

It seems like the the days of the popular opinion that Macs are safe from virus and Trojan attacks are getting over. Even otherwise that would be wrong to assume that any operating system is ideally safe from attacks from malicious programs. Macs have good security features to prevent malicious code from damaging the OS but even Macs are not bulletproof.

Macs are gaining popularity and with the user base increasing they will certainly be more prone to attacks in the near future. Therefore it would be wise to keep your operating systems safe from any possible threat.

[Via:Kaspersky]

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Post tags: Kaspersky, Mac OS X

Google has been on a developing spree ever since the launch of its Chrome Browser. Now the latest news is that their Google Chrome OS, first announced in July will be available for download as early as within the next week.

It raises a few questions in my mind: How different will it be from their Android OS for Mobile and what distinct features it might have. Since it is in its early stages of development and is said to be based on Linux.

• What could be the possible limitations of this OS.

• Will it run third-party applications from the hardware or simply connect to applications in the internet cloud.

• Google claims it will end security related issues. Will the new OS be ‘really free’ from viruses, trojans and malware.

• Will it be limited to the applications hosted by Google.

Google Chrome OS is claimed to be lightweight and targeted at the entry level notebook users. Google intends its Chrome OS to be lightweight and connect its users quickly to its Cloud applications, which it hopes will consume very less system resources.

But do we have any use for the Chrome OS on a desktop? Atleast not right away! On a notebook it might provide some functionality. But on a desktop pc it might just serve as a gateway to connect to the internet while completely relying on the internet to get any work done.

Although in terms of performance; an OS such as this one with minimalist functionality could outpace the current crop of operating systems. It may free these notebook devices with limited functionality from running memory hogging operating systems such as the Windows and Windows Applications.

But from a practical point of view for many computer users notebooks are ‘practically’ useless for any real work.

Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Cinema 4D or even PC Games or any other heavy duty stuff would be possible in the cloud? I don’t think it would be possible, at least not at the moment. So for some of these reasons it may not hold much value for developers and power users alike.

It would be naive to say that all the pc users account for the aforementioned, but the trade-off here is that for those who use computers for ‘data entry’ this would provide a more ‘cost effective’ option as opposed to running a Windows OS. The Google Chrome OS is free and open-source and subject to future development and upgrades from vast number of developers.

The trade-offs here need to be considered. These days with the many manufacturers and wireless carriers selling notebooks as another piece of communication hardware, and not a full blown computer; an operating system such as the Google Chrome OS might actually be worthwhile on a notebook.

With most of us looking for an working operating system that pretty much does what we would like to get done; Windows, Mac and even Linux seem to fit the bill very well, therefore leaving very little space for Chrome OS to occupy.

If you wish to read more about the Google Chrome OS, read all about it at The Official Google Blog and Google Chrome Blog.

© Meghan for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Google Chrome OS

You can now download the full offline standalone version of the popular Yahoo! Messenger 10 now. Yahoo! officially released the latest version of their Yahoo! Messenger. Yahoo! Messenger is out of beta and the version 10 is finally out.

Now download the full installer, instead of the small web installer, which normally launches a wizard to download full installation files. It is for users who prefer the full version standalone offline setup installer for Yahoo! Messenger.

Download Yahoo! Messenger 10 Final Build using the following direct download links:

Windows Users: It is compatible with Windows 7. You can download Yahoo! Messenger from the following links.

US English: ymsgr1000_1102_us.exe

America
Argentina: ymsgr1000_1102_ar.exe
Brazil: ymsgr1000_1102_br.exe
Canada: ymsgr1000_1102_ca.exe
Canada (Quebec French): ymsgr1000_1102_cf.exe
Chile: ymsgr1000_1102_cl.exe
Columbia: ymsgr1000_1102_co.exe
Mexico: ymsgr1000_1102_mx.exe
Peru: ymsgr1000_1102_pe.exe
Venezuela: ymsgr1000_1102_ve.exe
Yahoo! Telemundo (Latin America Spanish): ymsgr1000_1102_e1.exe

Europe
France: ymsgr1000_1102_fr.exe
Germany: ymsgr1000_1102_de.exe
Italy: ymsgr1000_1102_it.exe
Spain: ymsgr1000_1102_es.exe
UK & Ireland: ymsgr1000_1102_uk.exe

Oceanic
Australia & New Zealand: ymsgr1000_1102_au.exe

Asia

India (English): ymsgr1000_1102_in.exe
Indonesia: ymsgr1000_1102_id.exe
Hong Kong (Chinese): ymsgr1000_1102_hk.exe
Korea: ymsgr1000_1102_kr.exe
Malaysia: ymsgr1000_1102_my.exe
Philippines: ymsgr1000_1102_ph.exe
Singapore: ymsgr1000_1102_sg.exe
Taiwan (Traditional Chinese): ymsgr1000_1102_tw.exe
Thailand: ymsgr1000_1102_th.exe
Vietnam: ymsgr1000_1102_vn.exe

Mac Users:

Download Full Version Here!

Additonally:

Mobile Users download Yahoo! Messenger 10 here!

iPhone Users download Yahoo! Messenger 10 here!

© Meghan for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Yahoo Messenger

Yes it is finally out of Beta. Yahoo! has officially released Yahoo! Messenger 10 final version, with build version 10.0.0.1102. The final build is now incorporated with many bug fixes, improved overall stability and some video call issues also have been fixed.

According to the Yahoo! Messenger Blog, Yahoo! Messenger 10 includes the following features:

High-quality video calls
We’ve completely redesigned our 1:1 webcam feature (under the hood too). Now you can make a high-quality video call to a friend with synched audio, right in the IM window. Features include the ability to swap video windows, position the video windows side-by-side, mute the call or place it on hold. You can even go full-screen with your video call. To get started, click the new “Video Call” button in the IM window (your friend also needs to be on Yahoo! Messenger 10). Tips for making video calls | Having fun with video effects

New “Y! Updates” view of your contact list
People are busy these days, doing all sorts of interesting things online. To help you keep up with your friends, we added an alternate view of your contact list that shows a real-time stream of their updates, including Messenger status message changes. If they’ve opted-in to share their updates via Yahoo!, you’ll be able to see what they’re saying on Twitter, reading on Yahoo! Buzz, listening to on last.fm, and more.

We also added additional features for how and when you see your friends’ updates. When a new update comes in, a “toast” alert will pop up in the lower right corner of your screen. If you want to disable these, go to Messenger > Preferences > Yahoo! Updates. You can turn alerts on and off and even update preferences by contact or by type of update.

Find more to chat about
Within the new “Yahoo! Updates” view, you’re sure to find more to talk about with your friends. To make it easy, we added a hover menu that lets you quickly IM a friend about their update. When you do, the update appears inline in the conversation window, so when you start your IM with “I can’t believe you like this song!”, your friend will know what you’re talking about. Note that your friend needs to also be on Yahoo! Messenger 10 to see the update inline.

Change your language easily
If you use the U.S. version but wish it could be in your local language, you’re in luck. When you start up Yahoo! Messenger 10, you’ll notice a new language menu on the sign-in screen. Choose from 16 different languages and the buttons, menus and various parts of the interface will change to that language. If you’re already signed in, you can also change your language under Messenger > Preferences > Language (you’ll have to restart Yahoo! Messenger for it to take effect).

The Changelog Includes:

• Enhanced video calling – feel like you’re there with high-quality, full screen video and voice calling.

• Keep up with what your friends are doing – see your friend’s latest updates from Yahoo!, Flickr, Twitter and more with the new “Updates” view.

• Improved language support – change your preferred language in Yahoo! Messenger with just a few clicks High-quality video calls.

• Instant Messaging – send text messages in real-time to your friends on Yahoo! Messenger.

• Chat Rooms – Join a chat room to meet new friends while you discuss your favorite topics.

• Photo Sharing – share photos from your desktop or Flickr, then discuss them over IM while you and a friend view them together.

• PC-to-PC Calls – make a voice call to another Yahoo! Messenger user for free (microphone and speakers/headset required).

• Phone Out (PC-to-Phone Calls) – Call friends on their regular or mobile phones from Messenger for as low as 1¢ a minute (Phone Out account required).

• Phone In (Get a Phone Number for Messenger) – get a new phone number that allows you to receive calls in Yahoo! Messenger (Phone In account required).

• SMS (Text Messaging) – send text messages from Messenger to your friends mobile phones for free.

• Webcam- plug in your webcam to share live video with your friends on Yahoo! Messenger.

• IM Conferencing- instant message with many friends at once in a conference room (includes voice capabilities, where available).

• IM with Friends on Other Networks – IM with friends who use Windows Live™ Messenger, Reuters Messaging, and Lotus Same time — right from Yahoo! Messenger.

• File Transfer – send files instantly to a friend while you IM (2 GB limit).

Windows 7 users please note: It is fully compatible with all iterations of Windows 7.

You can proceed to download the Windows, Mac, Mobile and iPhone versions of Yahoo! Messenger 10 Final Version below:

Download Yahoo! Messenger 10 Final Full Standalone Version For Windows and Mac

Download Yahoo! Messenger 10 Final Full Standalone Version For Mobile

Download Yahoo! Messenger 10 Final Full Standalone Version For iPhone

© Meghan for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Yahoo Messenger

Microsoft Office 2010’s public beta just leaked on peer-to-peer file sharing. Prior to installing the latest beta, you must uninstall the previous version of Office 2010. If you try uninstalling it, you’ll be greeted with this error message:

“This product installation has been corrupted.  Please reinstall from original CD or source.”

According to Vikas Narula from Technet, the problem is cause by a missing file from the installation folder of Office 2010:

“To uninstall Office 2010 14.0.4302.1000 if you have an uninstall error message "This product installation has been corrupted". The Problem is a missing file in the installation folder of office 2010. Office 2010 as a Setup Controller directory and uses the directory to check the installed components. Please check he directory  "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE14\Office Setup Controller\Groove.en-us\". if you have no "Setup.xml" file there please copy the file from the "Groove.en-us" directory of the source files to this directory and test the uninstallation again”

To fix this issue, right click and save setup.xml to your computer and copy it to this folder:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE14\Office Setup Controller\Groove.en-us\

Now try uninstalling Office 2010 Technical Preview.

© thilak for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: How to, Microsoft, Office, Office 2010, Tutorial

Microsoft is expected to release the public beta of Office 2010 in the next few weeks, but you won’t have to wait any longer to try it out. Just like last time’s technical preview, Office 2010’s public beta has leaked on file-sharing torrent network.

A quick search on Mininova will reveal both 64-bit and 32-bit versions of Office 2010. Both x64 and x86 versions of Office 2010 have healthy seeders, and have been download 4,960 and 2,523 times respectively at the time of writing this post.

This is actually the first time Microsoft is releasing Office in both x86 and x64 flavors. This build of Office 2010 is numbered 14.0.4514.1009 and asks for activation key, as per Neowin. Check out some of the screenshots posted by CravingTech.com:

If you have tried the previous technical preview of Office 2010, you’ll immediately notice that the UI has been tuned a little. The icons for programs like Word, Excel and Powerpoint have also been facelifted.

Some users on Mininova commented that Office 2010 requires activation key to be used for more than 30 days, but other users have been able to find the workaround and activate it without any glitches. Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) will be held at Los Angeles tomorrow, and I expect them to use this opportunity to release the beta to public and distribute free activation keys for the same, just like they did for Windows 7. Did you try Office 2010 beta? Tell us what you think…

© thilak for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: BitTorrent, Microsoft, Office, Office 2010

Puru Pratap Singh, a 9 year old, Class IV student from Gurgaon, India, has won the Doodle 4 Google Contest

The theme of the year for the Google 4 Doodle Contest was “My India”.

Puru will receive a laptop for winning the Doodle 4 Google contest and his school will receive a technology grant of INR 1,00,000 or approx. USD $2,165 from Google India.

You can check out his Doodle on the Google homepage and at Google Logos

Some of the other interesting Doodles which made it to the contest:

 

Puru, a student of Amity International, Gurgaon, said, "My doodle is based on the theme ‘My India Full of Life’. The ‘G’ (in Google) explains India is a land of diversity and a country which has a blend of traditions and religions. The peacock in my artwork describes the vibrant Indian culture. With ‘O’ I have tried to represent the country’s success in discovering water on Moon."
"In the other ‘G’ I have depicted Kashmir, the crown of India. ‘L’ shows the Amar Jawan Jyoti that reminds us of the sacrifices made by Indian soldiers. And we cannot think of India without Mahatma Gandhi so I have dedicated ‘E’ to him," Puru said.
Puru gives the credit of his win to his mother Arti. "We are proud his creation has been selected and will be on Google’s homepage for a day," said Puru’s parents Navin Pratap Singh and Arti. Puru has also been awarded a laptop, a t-shirt with his doodle and Rs 1,00,000 as technology grant for his school.

This announcement was made by Shailesh Rao, Managing Director, Google India and Dennis Hwang at a celebration today in New Delhi for the 46 semi–finalists and their families. Each Doodle submitted represented the immense creative talent and richness of ideas of students across the country. The champion doodler has been drawing since he could hold a crayon. In addition, all finalists will be given a Doodle4Google certificate along with a Google goody bag.

"At Google we like to play! "Doodle4Google symbolizes that playful spirit of Google and is a celebration of creativity and in this case, of India. We are excited to present the results of India’s first edition of this contest and laud the young Indian doodlers who have showcased their wonderful creativity in the form of inspiring doodles that represent the various facets of India," remarks Shailesh Rao, Managing Director, Google India.

Adds Dennis Hwang, the Master Doodler "India is a land of creative minds. For centuries, Indian art has continued to fascinate people from across the globe. It was amazing to see how young kids could come out with highly creative Doodles that truly define the culture and tradition of this incredible country. Choosing the successful entry was not easy as every Doodle depicts India in a unique manner."

Dennis Hwang was present for the awards function and gave Puru, his award for winning the Doodle 4 Google Contest.

Here’s a Time Lapse video of Dennis Hwang drawing a Google Doodle from start to finish.

[Via:Google]

© Meghan for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Doodle 4 Google

Motorola Droid has been selling for well over one week now, but Android 2.0 OS which powers the Droid was never truly released by Google. Handset manufactures, apart from Motorola and HTC, couldn’t play with Android 2.0 until yesterday, but now they can! Google just raised the curtains over Android 2.0’s source code.

As I’m writing this post, Android developers are working on porting Android 2.0 to older Android devices. Hours after the source was uploaded, developers have already ported it to the first-born Android handset, HTC G1. Cyanogen posted a tweet, which says “It runs really well, fast and smooth. Audio and video not working yet though” on G1. Hopefully, they’ll get the audio and video to work as soon as possible. Here’s a screenshot of Android 2.0 running on G1:

However, the official build of Android 2.0 won’t be available for older devices until manufactures decide to do so. It would be safe to assume that update won’t be coming from the manufacture in the next month or two. That being said, I expect hackers to release tutorials to hack your device and upgrade it to the latest Android 2.0 in the next few days.

© thilak for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Android, G1, Google, mobile

WordPress 2.8.6 was just released. It’s a security update which fixes two major bugs which can exploited by registered, logged in users who have posting rights. Here’s an excerpt from WordPress Blog:

The first problem is an XSS vulnerability in Press This discovered by Benjamin Flesch.  The second problem, discovered by Dawid Golunski, is an issue with sanitizing uploaded file names that can be exploited in certain Apache configurations. Thanks to Benjamin and Dawid for finding and reporting these.

If merely you have the posting privileges on your blog, there is no reason to be worried. But still it’s strongly recommended to upgrade your WordPress blog whenever an update is released. You can upgrade either by downloading WP 2.8.6 and then uploading it to your server (read how-to), or using one-click upgrade from WordPress Dashboard.

It’s always a healthy practice to back-up your MySQL database before running the update.

© thilak for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Blogging, Update, Wordpress

Leaked shots of Facebook on PS3 made it online. Looks like there will be a mystery update integrating the hugely popular Facebook with one of the best consoles; Sony PlayStation 3. The features seems to include ability to change the color of your gamercard and a photo browser.

Even if you consider this a rumor for the time being, the shots look pretty legit.

Check it out at ScrawlFX

Facebook, Twitter comes to Xbox 360

If you didnt know Facebook, Twitter Integration for the Xbox 360 was also announced at E3

Check out more information and all the pictures at Kotaku

Meanwhile, what do you console users and fans have to say about this?

© Meghan for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Facebook, PlayStation 3, Twitter, Xbox 360

Google Latitude has released a new feature; Location History. It now allows for detailed self-tracking. The mobile application lets you broadcast your location to your friends.

This new feature in Google Latitude records your location as you travel around whenever Google Latitude is turned on, and you can go back to see where you’ve been before.

It allows only you to see where you’ve been, but not your friends but allows you to see where your latitude friends are so you can meet up with them.

Google Location History
Whether you’re taking a road trip across the country, backpacking across Europe, or just going out for a night on the town, it’s fascinating to look back at where you went, and for how long you stayed. Enable Google Location History to store, view, and manage your past Latitude locations. You can visualize your history on Google Maps and Earth or play back a recent trip in order. Of course, you can always delete selected history or your entire location history at any time. While working on Location History, I found myself going back in time to discover things that would have otherwise been impossible. For example, I stopped at an awesome BBQ place on my way back from Lake Tahoe this summer, but I couldn’t remember the name when my friend was asking about it a few months later. I pulled up my location history for that weekend, found where I was stationary on the drive home, and the restaurant name showed up in Google Maps: Drooling Dog Bar BQ. Check it out below:

I would love to test this out on my next road trip, and see where i have been and how long i was there. I’m sure in the future Google can also tell me what i might have been doing.

Meanwhile, please be sure to read all about the new features in Google Latitude here!

© Meghan for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Google

Some good news for O2 iPhone customers in UK! O2 has just announced a new scheme called “Total Connectivity for iPhone” which lets both new and current customers to purchase 3GB tethering bolt-on for their iPhone and get O2 Home Broadband package for free.

The iPhone tethering bolt-on costs £9.79 a month for 3GB of data, and you can use your iPhone’s mobile broadband to browse the web on your laptop as well. Those who sign up for this deal before 31st December are eligible for O2’s Standard home broadband package at zero cost. This essentially means, for £9.79 you’ll stay connected wherever you go and I think it’s quite appealing.

On the other hand, if you already subscribe to O2’s faster broadband packages like Premium or Pro, you are qualified for a discount of £7.34 per month.

Update: O2 Standard broadband provides transfer speeds of 8Mbps with unlimited downloads. Premium and Pro O2 Broadband packages send speeds up to 16Mbps and 20Mbps respectively.

For pay as you go mobile broadband price comparison, try http://www.broadband-expert.co.uk/.

© thilak for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Broadband, iPhone, mobile, O2, UK

Mozilla Firefox just turned 5 years old. On November 9th 2004, Firefox 1.0 was released. It sprung as a lightweight alternative to Mozilla Suite’s browser using the same underlying technology. In 5 years, the browser has jumped two versions and today’s latest version stands at 3.5.5. It was Firefox which revolutionized the concept of extensions – small add-ons which can be installed to extend the browser’s functionality.

“Five years ago today, Mozilla launched Firefox 1.0 with belief that, as the most significant social and technological development of our time, the Internet is a public resource that must remain open and accessible to all. Within the first four days of launch, more than 1 million people had downloaded a brand new browsing experience.

In just five years, that number has swelled to over 330 million users worldwide; almost a quarter of Internet users worldwide choose Firefox. Today, Firefox ships in more than 70 languages and offers users more than 7,000 add-ons to help customize their browsing experience.” – The Mozilla Blog

Firefox fans are hosting parties and celebrating FF’s 5th birthday by uploading images to Flickr. If you want to chip in or need ideas, please head over to this link (Spread Firefox)

© thilak for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Browser, Firefox, Internet

Verizon has launched three new Christmas themed advertisements that mock AT&T’s poor 3G coverage. Looks like AT&T’s lawsuit against Verizon Wireless for defaming AT&T’s wireless network didn’t actually shock Verizon.

In the above advertisement, Apple’s iPhone is sent to the land of misfit toys due to lack of 3G coverage in AT&T’s network. Closing looking at the ad, we get a feeling that Verizon is pointing AT&T rather than iPhone itself because other toys speak about iPhone’s good feature when it spits out the 3G coverage map.

I think they are great humorous commercials. It’s not all that destructive, doesn’t express negatives about the iPhone, but just targets AT&T’s softness – lack of 3G coverage. That being said, the red heat-map of Verizon’s coverage shown in the commercial looks over exaggerated. Doesn’t look 5X, but looks more like 10x more coverage, which again would be misleading in AT&T’s point of view. What do you think?

© thilak for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 3G, Ad, AT&T, mobile, Verizon

iPhone users in Australia are hit by a new worm which changes their wallpaper to an image of 1980s pop-star Rick Astley. The worm affects only jailbroken iPhones, if their default password after install SSH has not been changed.

According to security expert, Graham Cluley, the worm has been coded by a hacker calling himself “ikee”. It changed the background wallpaper to Rick Astley’s image along with a message “ikee is never going to give you up”. Changing the wallpaper through settings won’t work.

If you have a jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch with SSH installed, it’s wise to change the default root password of your device with something other than ‘alpine’ or by disabling SSH. iPhones have same default root password ‘alpine’ and many overlook the need to change that password, which renders their phone defenseless to intrusion and hacking. A detailed guide on how to secure your iPhone can be found here. (Image source: forums.whirlpool.net.au)

© thilak for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: iPhone, Malware, mobile, Security, Worm

Google provides innumerable products and services nowadays. If you are somebody like me, you might have tried nearly all Google products. Managing such a long list of products and services was an agony for the user as well as Google. Keeping that in mind, Google has launched a “new product” which manages all other products. They call it Google Dashboard, and it does one simple thing – show you all the Google products and services you currently use in one unified page and allow you to change their settings and preferences. Here’s what Google Official Blog writes about Dashboard:

“In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we’ve built the Google Dashboard. Designed to be simple and useful, the Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings. Today, the Dashboard covers more than 20 products and services, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts, Latitude and many more”

I like the idea of everything being organized into one single page. Logging into different services to change their “settings” is no longer needed. I can do those entirely from Google Dashboard, which is nifty.

I use 17 out of 20 products currently visible on Google Dashboard. Ironically, exactly 17 other Google Products I use, such as Google Wave and FeedBurner are not yet available in the dashboard. I’d love to see them within the dashboard as well.

© thilak for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Dashboard, Google, Products, Services

Google has just unveiled their new Commerce Search tool for retailers. It’s an enterprise tool for retail shopping sites aimed to make shopping experience more worthwhile as the holiday season is approaching.

“Search quality is a big factor in changing visitors to buyers online, and in making customers happy too. Visitors spend an average of just eight seconds before deciding whether or not to remain on a website, so having a good search tool is important for turning visitors into buyers. Google Commerce Search is hosted by and uses Google search technology to make online retail searching both fast and customizable” –Google Blog

Basically, it’s targeted to make the search experience on an e-commerce site more precise. It’s hosted on Google’s cloud servers which make it more scalable and deliver results faster than standard search results on shopping sites. Stemming, Synonyms and Spell Check makes sure that online shoppers gets exactly what they are looking for, even if he or she doesn’t exactly know the product name.

For retailers, Commerce Search is integrated with other Google tools such as Google Checkout for payment handling and Google Analytics for tracking your visitor’s behavior and other metrics on the shopping site. Check out the introductory video of Google Commerce Search:

Shaun Ryan did some research on Google’s Demo shopping site, which is powered by the same tool and he thinks that the product is not ready for prime time yet. He tried searching for “tshirt” and it delivered no results, whereas searching for “t-shirt” delivered 42 results, which is quite disappointing. The price of this product is based on number of products and search queries, but starts at $50,000 per year which is quite “high” in my opinion.

© thilak for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Commerce, Enterprise, Google, Search, Tools

More or less every Tom, Dick, and Harry hates Internet Explorer, but still we continue to use it occasionally. Reason – It comes pre-installed with our dearly loved Windows operating system and operating system prior to Windows 7 can’t uninstall it. This graph from TheNextWeb.com got me laughing:

I would also like to add “Checking Your New Website’s design” to the above graph. I keep using IE over and over again to check how my web designs look like in Internet Explorer.

© thilak for TechBuzz, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Funny, Humor, IE, Internet