Tech Mantras

Co-Blogger Needed

2010-01-04T14:57:00.001+05:30

As the regular readers of this blog might have noticed, the frequency of posts in my blogs “The Truth is Always Insane” and “Tech-Mantras” has been decreased exponentially since last year’s May. I have been facing some troubles in my life which is making unable to concentrate so as to think and express my humble opinion on various topics of interest. And it is after much thinking that I have come to the conclusion, that I am unable to handle my blogs to its best on my own.

And so, it is with great expectations that I now announce opening of ONE more slot each in my blogs “The Truth is Always Insane” and “Tech Mantras”, for a Co-Blogger. I would love to partner with someone sharing my interests in various fields of the world and/or Information Technology and feeling free to express his/her opinions for the world to read and ponder upon.

Anybody, be it a budding newbie blogger or a seasoned one, interested to share his/her words with the world through my blogs are invited and implored to contact me with their details, and a sample of their work for assessment. A person can apply for becoming co-author of either one/both of the blogs, not compulsory that he/she will have to author both.

Those interested are requested to send their Name, email ID, Blogger Profile’s http link along with the text/link to one of their posts, to my email ID pjeet.bindaas@gmail.com. Hoping a good response.

An obituary to Windows Vista

2009-11-17T12:26:00.001+05:30

Windows 7 has launched, and has been way too popular than what perhaps even Microsoft could have thought of. Its reviews are sky rocketing with praises on its new GUI, ability to be used with touch-screen devices and something which I love to say as “User Account Control 2.0”. Thanks to Microsoft’s latest attempt to build the perfect OS in form of Windows 7, people will soon forget the Vista menace which made us scorn and curse the poor Redmond folks as if they were sandbags.

But lets be practical here, look at a Windows Vista computer and then a Windows XP one and you will realize that maybe Windows Vista wasn’t so bad after all. Previously the Operating System was believed to be something on which beautiful applications with glossy interfaces ran. Windows Vista proved that an Operating System can also be “sexy” in itself and can give a competition to all those beautiful apps it ran on it. The operating system can also be interactive and user-friendly (although Vista never was so).

Since Windows Vista is going to be buried sooner than later in the graveyard of Microsoft’s Blunders, I think this is the perfect time to give it a befitting Eulogy and remember what revolutions it caused in the way users see the Operating System.

The Aero Interface:

The first thing we all loved about Windows Vista was its Aero Interface, that sexy looking GUI which made us look at it with awe the first time we saw it after installing Windows Vista in our PCs. Transparent windows sliding into place with animations, useful gadgets on the right side of the screen, and the colors, subtler than in previous versions of Windows. Overall, it was less cartoonish and more Mac-like than Windows XP. At the heart of the new interface is Windows Aero, which features windows with glassy,translucent edges, and whose colors, level of transparency, and saturation can be customized. The Alt-Tab switching between open windows has been drastically improved with Windows Flip and Windows Flip 3D. With Windows Flip (Alt-Tab), you see thumbnails of all your windows as you rotate through them. Windows Flip 3D stacks all of your windows in three dimensions; you can flip through them like cards. (To run it, click the Windows Flip 3D button in Quick Launch, or press the Windows Key-Tab combination.)

Two elements of the new user interface were particularly notable: the gadgets on the Sidebar, and Live Thumbnails. Hovering our mouse over a window on the Taskbar, and a thumbnail of that window pops up, including the program and document name or website just above it. These thumbnails are "live"; if there's video playing in the windows, we'll are able to see the video playing in the thumbnail.

Windows 7 did improvise on the Aero Interface but Ladies and Gentlemen lets not forget, it was Windows Vista who gave it to us.

Network and Sharing Center:

Networking was never made easier and simple to handle before Windows Vista. I still remember how confusing it was to create an Ad-hoc Network or setup an internet connection (PPPOE) in XP. Windows Vista is the first version of Windows built in a world where networking has become nearly ubiquitous, and it shows. Microsoft has finally gotten networking right; for the first time, the network seems a natural extension of the PC.

Network and Sharing Center is Windows Vista’s Networking Command Center, which easily configured a network and all its features, including sharing files and folders, connecting to and managing multiple networks, and accessing all of a network's resources. All vital networking tools and information are right at hand, from file sharing to changing a network name, connecting to a network, managing network connections, repairing broken connections, and more.

When we clicked "View Full Map," Vista shows a complete map of all of the PCs and devices on the network, including switches and gateways. Clicking a device or hovering over it showed more details like shared network files and folders, IP address and MAC address etc., depending on the device in question.

Wireless Networking Made Easy

Windows Vista made connecting and managing wireless networking easy for those who frequently accessed Wireless Networks for Internet and sharing purposes (count me in). Clicking the network icon in the System Tray and then clicking “Connect or Disconnect” gave a list of wireless networking which are available. Hovering mouse over any network shows the details about it, including the network type (802.11b, 802.11g, etc.), whether security is being used, and if so, what kind.

Also the features which make it worth mentioning here are that Windows Vista also made us easily manage multiple networks and connections. For example, if you use a wireless network at home, one at work, and several at hot spots, you can name and save each connection and tell Vista to automatically connect to each when you're in range. That way, you won't have to fumble with making manual connections. It also lets us configure our wireless connections so that if we're in range of more than one network, we can set which one takes precedence over the others. There's nice built-in security as well.

Windows Vista also introduced classifying networks as Private and Public (Home, Office or School, Public). It allowed sharing in Home Networks and not in other ones.

Enhanced Desktop Search

If you're like me, you'd too had a love/hate relationship with the new Search. On the one hand, it's exceedingly fast, made it a breeze to find any file, and let us save searches for future reference. On the other hand, we had to perform a few workarounds to get it to work right. Search is built into every level of Windows Vista; it's on the Start menu, it's on the upper right hand side of Windows Explorer, and it can be accessed via Start-->Search. It uses indexing to perform your searches, and because of that, it displays results lightning-fast. It searches the index as we typed, so results appear as we typed the first letter, and narrowed as you keep typing. It found documents, emails, applications, and even websites we'd visited. In addition, there was a very powerful advanced search tool that let us narrow our search by date, file size, author, tags, and location. It even accepted Boolean searching. It also searched other computers on the network, which had the rights to read from the other PCs.

Security

It's no secret that previous versions of Windows have been chock-full of security holes. Microsoft aimed to plug them in Windows Vista, and it did quite a nice job. The Windows firewall was improved; it now blocks dangerous outbound connections as well as inbound ones. (In Windows XP, it only blocked inbound connections.) This adds an extra level of security against Trojans and bots.

Vista also came with Windows Defender, anti-spyware software with some particularly notable features, especially the Software Explorer, which showed programs that run at startup and currently running programs, and provides details about each, including whether it's classified as malware, and also gave an option of removing them or disabling them if required.

Some of the biggest security improvements were under the hood. Network Access Protection, designed for enterprise-level networks, let network administrators set up requirements that any PC must meet before it can connect to the network, such as having up-to-date antivirus signatures.

BitLocker Drive Encryption, available only on the Enterprise and Ultimate versions, provided a hardware-based way of locking down an entire PC and all its data.

Internet security also was improved. Internet Explorer 7 included a very good antiphishing filter. In addition, any IE window, including pop ups, now included an Address Bar with a URL. In previous versions of the browser, pop ups didn't include URLs, so you couldn't know whether they originated from a legitimate site or a spyware purveyor.

The User Account Control

Don’t boo me yet. I admit that UAC 1.0 (that’s what I call Vista’s UAC) was, at the least to say, horrible, but it did pave the path for the new and improved UAC 2.0 which Windows 7 uses. Previously in the legacy versions of Windows, there was no control over what a program does when its launched, there was no way the user could know or control whether the setup he/she’s running is editing the registry, replacing a system file with an infected one or simply accessing the hard disk for information. With UAC 1.0, the User got the control of what a program can do. Whenever a program accessed the registry or ran in the memory, the user would be given a “UAC Prompt” asking whether it should be allowed to do so or not. If the user selected “Continue” it was given a go for the same, otherwise it was stopped.

Although its continual nagging during installation of any software, or during formatting a drive or deleting a file made most of us completely turn if off leaving the computer at risk, the whole idea of UAC is worth applauding, and the way UAC 2.0 is working (I have kept it ON even now), I think Windows Vista should get the credit for showing us UAC in the first place.

Other Interface Improvements

Dragging files and folders was improved in Windows Vista. When we selected multiple objects and dragged them around, a small box near the cursor appeared which displayed how many objects had been selected..

Voice recognition was also a new feature in Vista which although was in earlier stages of its evolution, still helped us in many ways to access the programs we required.

The Volume Control was improved too. “Sounds” crazy, but this is a feature everybody wished they had. Volume levels for various programs could be set independently now - without touching the default system volume.

Horizontal scrollbars are the bane of my existence. They’ve eliminated them partially from the Windows Explorer. When you navigate the Folders pane, it will auto-scroll for you - never displaying a horizontal scrollbar. Intuitive.

Parting Words

Dear Windows Vista, we will not miss you because of what you were, but we will definitely remember you for what you gave to us by coming into existence. The annoyance you gave us gave birth to Windows 7, which perhaps is the best OS ever made by Microsoft. Still then, you will always be remembered in History as a revolutionary Operating System, something which changed the way we saw and perceived it.

As we gradually bury you into the graveyard of Microsoft’s Blunders, we pray that through this article people at least recall your name when the roll call of Windows versions is made, and you don’t meet with the same fate as your ancestors, Windows NT and ME.

May your Kernel rest in peace. The OS world wouldn’t have been the same without you. Amen.

Why doesn’t Google Chrome OS excite me so much?

2009-07-15T12:29:00.003+05:30

The cartoon you can see on the left was made in 2008 for a magazine just after Google Chrome was announced predicting Google’s assault on Microsoft. We have to wait and watch how far this cartoon proves itself. Don’t get me wrong, I am indeed thrilled about this whole Google OS vs Microsoft OS thing. But I will indeed agree with think-tanks around the world who are saying that Google Chrome OS isn’t going to be a much threat to the Microsoft.

Here’s why I am rethinking twice before getting excited for Google Chrome:

4) Google Chrome OS is going to be based on Linux:
This is one reason where I am not totally agreeing with other IT pros. Some are saying that just because Linux wasn’t able to capture even a considerable share of market even after being free to use, open-source etc.; and Google Chrome OS is being built on a Linux kernel, it doesn't show much ray of hope about the challenges that the Mountain View giant, Google can pose to the Redmond giant, Microsoft. The general market has, with all due respect, rejected the Linux kernel. Excepting a few loyal group of highly technical users, it is rarely used by anybody as a base OS. And unless Google is ready to rewrite Linux drivers for all devices, printers, keyboards and mice I cannot hope things to change to much.

3) Google Chrome OS is too late:
The very time Google is saying to be needed to build the OS shows that Google has lost an big opportunity to challenge Microsoft. Had this been the situation 2 years earlier when Windows Vista was a proved failure and Windows 7 was no where to be noticed, Google would have sat on a much better level of acceptance than what might be now. That was the only time when Microsoft was really venerable and Apple Mac OS X took a fair amount of benefits from the situation and improved the presence of the Leopard OS in the market. But with Microsoft launching Windows 7 on Oct. 22nd and Apple will be unleashing its faster Snow Leopard OS sometime around now, I don’t think GCOS will have any breathing space, not atleast in the consumer market.

Also right now the OS itself is no more getting importance in Computing World. And because GCOS will begin with a lot of device driver incompatibilities, I don’t even think of it making even a small dent on the market share of MS and Apple.

2) Android shows Google can’t build an OS:
Android OS made for iphone and Palm Pre has been subjected to a lot of criticism from both public and the pros. Although I haven’t personally interacted with the OS but from what I am seeing on other websites and magazines, I don’t think Android was the right choice to make. Android was also touted to be used in Netbooks. But with Google announcing GCOS, perhaps the search-engine giant has realized that the Java software sitting on top of a Linux codebase, which is the case in Android, would have severe performance limitations on a PC.

1) What if users went offline?
Google in their official blog stated that Google Chrome OS is based on the concept of renewed status of Operating System as mere tool to get online. But what if we cannot be online? Will Google Docs run like Gmail does offline with Google Gears? What if I want to play my favourite games offline and not wish to play Age of Conan anymore? Will Google Chrome OS be all about booting a whole OS from Chrome browser or doest it allow me to install OpenOffice to make presentation and Nero to burn DVD’s? This is the main question Google has not given satisfactory answers on.

Bonus: Even Google doesn’t know what to do with Chrome OS:
Check this page and see what concerns does Google have on releasing its own browser! You will be amazed how pointless Google is with its GCOS. Neither its knows what pricing will be nor even the main question: What will happen if we are offline!!

Using textpad to write, compile and run Java programs

2009-07-14T10:23:00.002+05:30

What is textpad?
If you are tired of typing your java programs in a notepad or notepad++ and then compiling them using the MS-DOS window by typing in commands, and are looking for a GUI based editor or compiler, textpad is the one for you. Its freely available to download from here. It’s a free software but a nagware, i.e., it will prompt you to register and buy the full version every time you open the software. The software is fully compatible with Windows XP, Vista and even Windows 7 RC.

Now I will give details of how you can write, compile and run a java program using the software.

Installation and setup:
Installing the software is the same as installing any other software you normally do so I won’t go to the details.

Note: You should first install the java compiler (JDK) before you install textpad so that textpad automatically sets itself up for using java (click here to know how to set up the java compiler).

If you wish to use textpad solely for the purpose of writing java programs like me, then you should better make the default extension as .java so that you don’t need to specify the extension while saving the programs.

On the toolbar at the top go to configure---> preferences, or press ctrl+q and then press p, it will open the Preferences window.

Click on the File section and in the field of “Default File Extension” type java instead of the txt and click apply.

Then go to the bottom-most submenu “Tools” and click on the “+” button to expand it. Click on Run Java Application sub-menu. Then check the option “Prompt for parameters” and for you own safety in case you forget to save your programs before compiling them also check the option “Save all documents first”. Click OK to close the window.

Now your textpad is up and running for being a full-fledged java compiler.

Writing, compiling and running java programs:
You can use textpad to write java programs normally as you did in notepad. As a general rule in java programming you should save the program with the name you have given to the class in which the main function resides.

After saving the file. Press ctrl+1 to compile the java program. You will be able to find messages and errors on the bottom “Tool Output” section (see previous picture for the location). Pressing the ctrl+2 will run the program in a DOS window.

Earlier, in order to run programs requiring run-time parameters we had checked the “Ask for Parameters” option. Thus whether or not you have written a program asking for run-time parameter, it will ask for parameters when you press ctrl+2.

Below you can see it is asking for parameter even for the Hello World program.

In case your programs doesn’t ask for parameters, you can simply click OK and the program will run normally.

However if you program has some parameters then you will have to input then after the $BaseName attribute in the window as shown below. Click OK and the program will run accepting your parameters.

I hope you have a nice time compiling java programs through textpad. Happy Computing!!!

In case of issues please feel free to contact me using the options given in the sidebar.

The Best Trailer I have ever seen!!!

2009-07-10T22:23:00.000+05:30

I saw this ad video of Microsoft Office 2010 accidentally on a ZDNet blog and I must admit that I was really impressed with it. Truly saying I was in for a treat! It beat the likes of many Hollywood trailers, National Treasure— Book of Secrets and Eagle Eye being worthwhile examples to compare. This was one 2 minutes of treat which I enjoyed to my heart’s content.

One thing I could sense from the trailer was that Microsoft is showing us that something really big is going to happen with Office-14 (or Office 2010, call it whatever you want). Things which I could decipher was that it has something to do with a new font placed ironically “between Arial and Windings” (lol), and clippy, the interactive help assistant in earlier versions of Office which, according to the movie, apparently “passed away” in 2004. From where I stand, I sense MS-Office 2010 is going to be introduced with a new font, and perhaps…… perhaps clippy is coming back to the UI too! And although no introduction of any new components can be guessed from it at the moment, I sense Microsoft is trying to tell us that its rejuvenating the old war-horses of Office; Word, and PowerPoint along with renovating Visio and OneNote.

I just can’t help but hope that Microsoft’s marketing section has learnt it lessons as its earlier big blast over Windows Vista, which was perhaps shown as the most anticipated, resulted in a hopelessly failed Operating System. Perhaps it should well be concerned with the fact that users should get what they are being shown to be getting.

But as of now, sit back and enjoy or download, a well made 2 minutes trailer.

Google’s Red Letter Day!

2009-07-07T22:09:00.001+05:30

It must be a big day for Google as this is the first time since I started writing my blog that I had to stop in the middle of a post in order to update it because of two big news arriving one after another. Today Google’s official Blog gave the world two big shocks. I say the news as a shock because today Google announced two things which a majority of us didn’t expect to happen in the near future.

1. Google Apps is stripped out of beta tag:

Unbelievable but true!! Finally after years of making its apps languish in public betas, Google has finally decided to remove the beta tag from Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk — both enterprise and consumer versions.

The Official Google Blog posted:

Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk — both enterprise and consumer versions — are now out of beta. "Beta" will be removed from the product logos today, but we'll continue to innovate and improve upon the applications whether or not there's a small "beta" beneath the logo.

Personally speaking I was really frustrated to use Gmail and Google Talk because of their beta tags, it made me feel as if I am a beta-tester who is being used for free. But now that Google has finally decided to strip its major apps from beta, I would feel more relaxed while using them, don’t ask why!!

For all those of you who are ignorant of the implications; Beta sends a meaning that a product is unfinished or still under development which should not to be the case with Gmail, Google is always trying to boost Gmail with new features that are very useful to Gmail users if you have not downloaded Gmail tips guide Download Gmail Tips Guide.

Increasingly, Gmail has fallen behind in offering better ways to organize the information in the inbox. As services like Xobni and Xoopit and CC Betty and Gist and yes, even Microsoft, have tried to help users organize the mountain of information streaming into the inbox, Gmail's "innovation" has been limited to gimmicks like skins and other bloatware. I mean, do I really need to play Snake in my inbox? (Yes, for those of you who haven't seen noticed, there is a option in Gmail Labs that allows you to play the old cell phone time waster game Snake inside Gmail.)

At a time when email needs to once again be reinvented, when email should be rapidly evolving and is clearly insufficient in its current form, now is a mighty curious time to take off the Beta label.

2. Google announces launch of Google Chrome OS in mid-2010:

If the previous news didn't stir you nerves then read this.

After routing Microsoft’s Windows Live (now Bing) search market with its search engine, and then plummeting the market share of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer with its Chrome browser, Google has now decided on having a complete tri-cornered fight with Microsoft after stating its plans of launching the open-source Google Chrome OS.

The blog reports:

We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

This small piece of the original report totally states the intention of Google. Google is going all out on its war on Microsoft. Google states GC OS to be a open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks.

The report further states:

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google has decided to open-source its code by end of this year and has already been in talks with OEMs to pre-load it with netbooks. Its also working on a online community. “The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel”, says Google.

I am only awestruck by what Google said today it its mouthpiece. If thing’s go Google’s ways, I believe Steve Ballmer will have more than one reason to be worried about the resurgent Google.

Bing vs. Google

2009-07-03T11:50:00.001+05:30

After remaining a dormant player in the Search Engine market, Microsoft latest push “Bing” has raised many a eyebrows and many are concerned that this SE might be a tough one to compete for Google.

In a story headlined "Fear grips Google," the New York Post reports that Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin is so rattled by the launch of Microsoft's rival search engine that he has assembled a team of top engineers to work on urgent upgrades to his Web service and, in fact, is himself leading the team of search-engine specialists in an effort to determine how Bing's crucial search algorithm differs from that used by the company he founded in 1998 with Stanford University classmate Larry Page.

"New search engines have come and gone in the past 10 years, but Bing seems to be of particular interest to Sergey," an anonymous source described as an "insider" told the newspaper.

Microsoft, which launched Bing earlier this month as an upgrade to its Live Search, is reportedly spending $80 million to $100 million in an ad blitz to tout its latest search effort. Google, meanwhile, spent just $25 million in total on advertising last year, according to an AdAge report.

Bing's launch rocketed Microsoft's search share up to 11.1 percent last week from 9.1 percent in the previous week, according to numbers released by market researcher ComScore. This must have unsettled some nerves in Mountain View.

Although Microsoft has a long way to go before it makes a dent in Google's business, Bing may end up being the only true alternative to Google in a few years if Yahoo! decides to stop competing in the search market.

But ask me, I am not particularly impressed with Bing as of now, one reason being it still hasn't listed my blog in its search page, lol!!

While Google shows my listings for half-a-page in Page 1 in my search

Maybe Bing is ignoring Google’s services or hopefully I will see my blog at the top in a few days.

An Open Letter to all the newbies in Computing World

2009-06-27T10:24:00.001+05:30

Dear newbie,
First of all let me clear off the context in which I am using the word newbie. It is not referring to people who have just started using computers and internet and stuff. It is referring to those people who have not achieved a significant stage in their experience in computing. And by this definition of mine I don’t step back in calling myself as a newbie too.

As a newbie in the computing world you might be curious about anything and everything which comes in front of you, be it the free MP3 download websites or those “sweet sites” (pun intended) which apparently people use to relieve their “tensions”. Or maybe bringing movies and music from your neighbour beyond your backyard not knowing what awaits you when you insert his Flash Drive.

Whatever be the case YOU my friend are the most vulnerable targets of some of the most fiercest viruses and drive-by downloads. These malicious programs can do anything, starting from giving pop-ups like “Your Computer might be infected, would you like to do a free online scan?” or “Hey there would you like to have a hot chat with <any name you love to hear>?” (irony is even if you click no to those pop-ups they still will take you to those malicious websites and cause further mayhem) to completely giving control of your PC to users who can then steal your bank accounts or passwords and then…… well atleast to say “make you pissed off”.

So here is a sort of a warning and a check list to make your computer an Area-51 to viruses and malware.

Installing second grade anti-virus:
The first mistake a newbie makes is by installing second grade antivirus in his/her PC. The market is overflowing with anti-virus softwares both free and paid. But many Internet Service Providers (read ISPs) give their own free anti-virus softwares which in my opinion should be thrown away from your computer like an over-used toilet paper. Some suggestions will be AVG, Kaspersky, NOD32 or Avast. By far I have been using AVG and now I am testing Kaspersky and I am pretty satisfied with their performances.
Not Installing Anti-Spyware protection:
Many computer users mistakenly believe that a single antivirus program with integrated spyware protection provides sufficient safeguards from adware and spyware. Others think free anti-spyware applications, combined with an antivirus utility, deliver capable protection from the skyrocketing number of spyware threats.

Unfortunately, that's just not the case. Most free anti-spyware programs do not provide real-time, or active, protection from adware, Trojan, and other spyware infections. While many free programs can detect spyware threats once they've infected a system, typically professional (or fully paid and licensed) anti-spyware programs are required to prevent infections and fully remove those infections already present.
Accessing the Internet without a Firewall:
A reliable firewall is indispensable, as it protects computers from a wide variety of exploits, malicious network traffic, viruses, worms, and other vulnerabilities.

A firewall is a software which controls, tracks and filters the systems with which you PC interacts while you are accessing the internet. It blocks IP addresses of suspicious websites from either getting into or getting out of your PC so that it remains safe.

Comodo Firewall Pro is a very good software Firewall which is available for free (download). I have been using it since the past 2 years and I recommend it to all the Windows users.
Not updating the anti-virus and anti-malware and not doing daily scans:
Antivirus and anti-spyware programs require regular signature and database updates. Without these critical updates, anti-malware programs are unable to protect PCs from the latest threats.

You must keep your antivirus and anti-spyware applications up to date. All Windows users must take measures to prevent license expiration, thereby ensuring that your anti-malware programs stay current and continue providing protection against the most recent threats. Those threats now spread with alarming speed, thanks to the popularity of such social media sites as Twitter, Facebook, and Orkut.

Occasionally, virus and spyware threats escape a system's active protective engines and infect a system. The sheer number and volume of potential and new threats make it inevitable that particularly inventive infections will outsmart security software. In other cases, you may inadvertently instruct anti-malware software to allow a virus or spyware program to run.

Regardless of the infection source, enabling complete, daily scans of a system's entire hard drive adds another layer of protection. These daily scans can be invaluable in detecting, isolating, and removing infections that initially escape security software's attention.
Clicking on anything and everything:
It's a mantra most every Windows user has heard repeatedly: Don't click on email links or attachments. Yet users frequently fail to heed the warning.

Whether distracted, trustful of friends or colleagues you know, or simply fooled by a crafty email message, you forget to be wary of links and attachments included within email messages, regardless of the source. Simply clicking on an email link or attachment can, within minutes, corrupt Windows, infect other machines, and destroy critical data.

Many business-class anti-malware applications include browser plug-ins that help protect against drive-by infections, phishing attacks (in which pages purport to serve one function when in fact they try to steal personal, financial, or other sensitive information), and similar exploits. Still others provide "link protection," in which Web links are checked against databases of known-bad pages.

Whenever possible, these preventive features should be deployed and enabled. Unless the plug-ins interfere with normal Web browsing, you should leave them enabled. The same is true for automatic pop-up blockers, such as are included in Internet Explorer 8, Google's toolbar, and other popular browser toolbars.

You should never click on email attachments without at least first scanning them for viruses using a business-class anti-malware application. As for clicking on links, users should access Web sites by opening a browser and manually navigating to the sites in question.

You should be very careful on anything and everything you access while being online or offline. There are more than a million ways crackers can infect you PC. A small file in a friend’s favourite movie folder which he brought to you via a Flash Drive can make your Area-51 more porous than even your farm house.

So always keep a “never trust anything without confirmation” status while you use your PC, but that doesn’t mean you should become overly conscious and stop even switching on your PC fearing a virus.

Happy Computing!!

P.S.: If you have any concerns regarding this please feel free to contact me by clicking on the “contact me” button below my profile in the sidebar.

How Mozilla Thunderbird nearly gave me a heart-attack?

2009-06-10T17:43:00.001+05:30

If you are planning on installing a desktop e-mail client and you decide on using Mozilla Thunderbird, then do read this post till the last word.

I installed MT few hours ago, to test it and compare it with my current e-mail client “Windows Live Mail”. I configured my Yahoo! Mail account and downloaded all my e-mails from the POP3 server.

Everything seemed well and fine till I sent a test email from my Windows Live Mail and logged on to my Yahoo! inbox in my browser to check it. I was in for a shock.

And whoosh!! All my mail was gone from my inbox!! Everything was deleted and it was not even present in the Trash folder. Apparently my first impression was that MT downloaded all the files from the Yahoo! POP3 server and deleted the copies present there. When I went into the account properties of the mail I found my assumption true.

Thunderbird by default leaves the “Leave messages on server” unchecked. This means that all my mails from the Yahoo! POP3 server will be deleted once MT downloads them. I cannot understand why Thunderbird did such a stupid thing, maybe to prevent dissatisfied users to dispose the client off.

Quickly out of immense tension (since I am using Windows 7 Beta which I will soon format off to install the RC) I googled up on how to undo this situation. Luckily I got my answer here.

It tells the complete tale of my woe and provides with the solution. An add-on Mail Redirect (download) can be used to redirect the mails back to the mail server without changing its headers.

I used the add-on and bingo!! My mails are back in my Yahoo!, some in inbox some in spam but all are back. Not even one missing.

Thanks Mozilla Thunderbird. You nearly gave me a heart attack.

I would admit that I love Windows Live Mail, simply because its so easy to use and takes care while setting its default options.

Browser Review— Apple Safari 4.0

2009-06-10T11:47:00.001+05:30

Its been a while since I got obsessed with the features which Google Chrome was provided with. I expected other browsers to come out with their Chromium features pretty soon to prevent their market shares being gobbled up this resurgent browser.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. With Mozilla Firefox still hanging over its 3.5 betas and Opera not showing much improvement in its 10 beta, Internet Explorer 8 was by far the browser which provided any small challenge to this Giant-in-the-making.

However, today was not the same. When I woke up and checked my e-mail, I saw Safari 4.0 final version being released. Seeing the snapshots in their download page I thought of giving it a shot. Thankfully I was in for a treat.

Installation:
By far the installation of Safari and other browsers are not much needed to be discussed and so I am not providing any screenshots. However the thing that I noticed is that it didn’t import any bookmarks or settings from any other browser I use (i.e. Firefox, Chrome, IE, Flock and Opera).

Initial Reaction:
The Safari browser has infact tried to woo Google Chrome users like me by trying to enhance the look of the browser with hiding the menu bar and status bar, by default and even the tab bar (which by the way is usual in Mozilla browsers). Safari now looks much more like Google Chrome, although the tabs are placed below the navigation bar, not above it. You can make toolbar changes and customizations by clicking on the gear icon-- another similarity to Chrome.

Features:
As far my knowledge goes, Safari has tried to improvise on few features. One which really turned my eye was the “Top Sites” features, very similar to the “Most Visited” feature of the Chrome browser.

Click on the pictures below to see the GUIs of both the browsers in detail:

But the improvisation that Safari has done to this feature is that it has allowed the user full control over which web pages should be assigned for display in the Top Sites tab. In Google Chrome the browser puts the most frequently accessed sites into the tab, out of which there might be some which we don’t want to show. Also the Top Sites tab updates the thumbnails of the websites automatically without being required to access it manually as in Chrome, in order to update the thumbnail.

Another similarity between Chrome and Safari is that both have features of dragging their tabs around to make it a new window or adding it to another window.

Features unique to Safari 4 include Cover Flow, for visually searching your history and bookmarks, and Top Sites. This presents a "speed dial"-style list of favorites on blank tabs, melded with the visual flair of Cover Flow. There's a decent built-in roboform, too. Overall, this Safari is the best one yet, and graduates from mere Windows-based developers' tool to a reasonable choice for average users.

Built on the open-source Webkit rendering engine, it uses a different JavaScript engine to Chrome. Safari's Nitro is definitely fast, although Apple's claims that it's the fastest browser on the market might depend more on your hardware than anything else. It ran a bit slowly after heavy tab and video playback, and still consumed more RAM in general than Firefox. You can also opt out of automatic updates when you install Safari (which I would recommend you to do).

Cons:
Although I am fairly impressed with the browser in my initial usage, but I found that there have been few problems in it (Please note that I tested this browser in Windows 7 7068 Beta).

Comparing to Chrome, the browser takes more time to load the WebPages. I found that there is a 5 second time gap between the loading of my Orkut home page in Chrome and Safari with both having cookies turned on.

Also that during video streaming I was able to experience a bit of glitch while scrolling in the page and also while switching between tabs.

I also found in various forums, users using XP complaining of heavy memory usage.

Final Comments:
Although I would recommend users keeping Apple’s Safari 4.0 as a third browser to Firefox and Chrome, personally I would still await for it to be evolved further. As of now, I am in a bit of a pleasant fix on which browser out of Chrome and Safari should I use more. I would certainly expect this feeling to stay.

I give 4 out of 5 and a thumbs up to this browser. This is certainly a browser I would like to see evolving as a stiff competitor to the leading ones.

Google adds unknown contacts into Gmail Address Book

2009-06-06T19:39:00.001+05:30

Yesterday I decided to invite my friends to join twitter where I had been involved in micro-blogging to a small extent. I imported my gmail address book where I saw tens of e-mail addresses with their names whom I never knew. I deleted most of them but left a few in a category “Unknown Contacts” to distill them from my usual “contacts”. Here is the screenshot (click on it to open in a new tab for full view).

As far I can see it, Google adds contacts from my Orkut account and my gtalk, categorizing them vaguely into “Most Contacted” and “My Contacts”, yet to figured by me how. But I had never ever emailed or scrapped them in Orkut nor had I chatted with them in gtalk ever. Perhaps this engine of Google needs little bit more of tuning.

Microsoft’s problem with Windows XP

2009-06-06T10:22:00.001+05:30

Windows 7 is all set to release. The date has been declared and the price is being nearly accurately speculated in any blog or website you visit which discusses on Windows. Now a question comes. Will XP users ditch their age old OS and buy Windows 7?

Windows XP went RTM August 24, 2001, and users had to wait nearly three years for SP2, which was released on August 6, 2004. Retail users then had to wait for nearly two and a half years until January 30, 2007 for Vista to make an appearance, whose disastrous condition made them stick to their XP.

That means that XP was around and unchallenged for nearly five and a half years. That’s a long time. In fact, there are a huge number of PC users out there who have only used XP and that includes my home PC which my family uses. In all these years we have purchased games and wares and have set up our own ecological environment around XP. And with backward compatibility a real headache for XP users from Vista onwards, our investments on XP seems to be a little more dearer, not to mention the hardware upgrades that is required.

Windows 7 is trying to woo XP users by its XP mode, which infact till how hasn’t received much criticism. This shows that MS is infact receptive to the situation of the XP users which even now occupies 60% of the Windows OS market share. Another option which some are seen gossiping about is dual booting Windows 7 from a Windows XP Virtual Hard Drive. Probably this way we can still use our sweetheart XP and our wares and also use this new OS from Windows.

Still then I believe even after Windows XP’s extended support end in 2014, even then Windows XP will be having almost 10% of the Windows market share.

Add any application to the Desktop Right-Click Menu in Windows XP/Vista/7 in four steps

2009-06-04T12:19:00.001+05:30

This is a cool way of accessing your frequently used apps directly from the desktop without having to reach out its shortcut sitting somewhere in the corner of the start menu or inside your partitions.

Here I will show how to add notepad to the menu but you can add any application shortcut. At the end of this tutorial your desktop right-click menu should look somewhat like this:

STEP 1: Go the following registry key.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell

STEP 2: Create the menu item key name.

Since we are going to assign a key for Notepad we will name it as such.

STEP 3: Create the command key.

To create the command key that will actually hold the command used to launch the application, Right-click on the new Notepad key, and then choose New \ Key from the menu.

STEP 4: Enter the full path of the application executable.

Copy the full path of the executable file which you want to use.

Select the command key then double click the default key in the right pane to open up the value window. Paste the path as shown.

Windows 7 to take off on October 22!!!

2009-06-03T08:09:00.001+05:30

Its official. Microsoft confirmed on Tuesday that it is planning for Windows 7 to hit retail shelves and start showing up on new PCs on October 22.

Microsoft made the near-final release candidate version available last month. Shortly after its release, Microsoft finally confirmed that it was aiming Windows 7 for a “holiday 2009” release, something that was widely anticipated, but not confirmed by those inside the Redmond Giant.

The software maker also confirmed, without giving details, that it plans to offer some sort of "technology guarantee" giving those who buy Vista machines close to the Windows 7 launch a free or discounted copy of the new operating system.

As with past similar programs, details on pricing will be up to individual computer makers, although Microsoft did say the upgrade program will apply to Vista Home Premium and higher-priced editions (meaning not Windows Vista Basic, sadly for me).

Microsoft has said that Windows 7 will come in five different editions in most markets-- Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. A "Windows 7 Basic" will also be sold in emerging markets, Microsoft said.

The software maker has yet to announce pricing for the product.

An Evolved Backup & Restore in Windows 7

2009-06-02T19:43:00.001+05:30

Not may of us have actually felt the requirement of having to use the Windows Backup and Restore feature in Windows Vista but dose of us who have actually used it, it was, with all due respect, annoying.

It was one of those healthy addition in Windows Vista which was made out of confusing programming and lack of vision. Instead of allowing to select particular folders to backup, it showed us………. this

Backup Files option in Vista doesn’t allow you to specifically select the files and folders that you want to back up. Instead, it provides you with only a set of file categories to choose from.

Obviously it received a lot a spanking from everyone (same as everything else in Vista). Windows finally showed some meaning of this feature by refining it in Windows 7 Beta releases.

Lets see what Microsoft has in-store for us as far as the Backup and Restore feature is concerned in Windows 7.

Launching Backup and Restore:
----------------------------------------------

To launch Backup and Restore, access the Control Panel and select Back Up Your Computer under the System and Security category. You can also launch Backup and Restore by typing backup in the Start menu’s search box. When the Backup and Restore interface appears, as shown below:

You’ll notice that like Vista, Backup and Restore also provides you with a hard disk imaging utility that can create an image file that contains the complete contents and structure of a hard disk.

Another new feature in Backup and Restore allows you to quickly and easily create a system repair disk. I have discussed it already in this blog here.

Backing Up Your Files:
---------------------------------

Click the Set Up Backup button. Backup and Restore will search your system for available backup devices and then display the first window in the Set Up Backup wizard, as shown below:

Select the Let Me Choose option. By default, the Let Windows Choose option is selected and will automatically back up all files in Windows 7’s libraries: Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos as well as the folders: AppData, Contacts, Desktop, Downloads, Favorites, Links, Saved Games, and Searches.

If you have selected the Let Me Choose option brings up the entire hard drive hierarchy of the computer so that you can select whichever folder you would like to backup.

On clicking Next, you’ll be prompted to review your backup settings as well as change the backup schedule, as shown below. To begin the backup of your selected files and folders, click the Save Settings and Exit button.

The Backup and Restore window appears, as shown below, and you will see a progress monitor that lets you know that the backup is running.

I would personally say that this is a much welcomed improvement of a component of the estranged OS of Vista in Windows 7.

P.S.: Keep in mind that this is a Release Candidate version and that the look and features of Windows 7 that is discussed here may very well change between now and the time the operating system is actually released.

Google Wave— Preview

2009-05-31T18:38:00.001+05:30

Google Wave is a new communication service previewed by Google on May 28, 2009 at Google I/O. The service seems to combine Gmail and Google Docs into an interesting free-form workspace that could be used to write documents collaboratively, plan events, play games or discuss a recent news. It's powered by OpenSocial, XMPP/Jabber and Google App Engine.

Google Wave is a new model for communication and collaboration on the web, coming later this year.

According to Google, “A wave is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.”

What is it all about?
----------------------------

In Google Wave we can create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on our wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly.

It's concurrent rich-text editing, where we see on our screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in our wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content -- it allows for both collaboration and communication. We can also use "playback" to rewind the wave to see how it evolved.

Advantages over Facebook:
---------------------------------------

The problem with Facebook is that most of the things we share through it in our wall goes to everybody we have befriended, whether they be relatives, friends, colleagues or some high authority. But few people want to share everything with everyone they know. The stereotypical example, of course, is posting pictures of us enjoying vacation bunking classes and having our concerned teacher see them!!

But it's not just a matter of being unintentionally embarrassed. Sometimes we want to share a picture of us with our beau and we know our friends will love it, but our mom and dad just won't take it. Or we want to share a work-related link with professional colleagues, but know that our friends needn’t be concerned with it.

It seems to me that each Wave is like a new Facebook page created on the fly to share a specific piece of content with a select group of friends. And that's the kind of social network that many of us really like to use. In their presentation, Google showed apps which can live in Wave, just like in Facebook.

It’s the kind of social network that I'd really like, one where I can exactly target the people with whom I want to share a comment, a photo, or a video.

Sneak Peek:
-----------------

The service's basic element is called a Wave, which can be a simple text message, a collection of photos, a video or other content. Just as in e-mail, we can choose exactly which of our contacts we want to share the Wave with. Those contacts can make comments or ask questions that are seen by the whole group. we can see the new comments in real time or, if we haven't been paying attention for a while, we can hit rewind and see chronologically how the Wave developed.

Below we can see how people are sending tweets and making even-planning.

Here we can also play games like chess!!!

Wave would be useful in professional circumstances, like collaborating on a group project. But to me, it looks most like an evolutionary stage of social networks. And that's an area that desperately needs to evolve.

You can check all the screenshots and the video Google presented on Wave here.

5 reasons Linux will not take over Windows

2009-05-26T07:13:00.001+05:30

Previously I posted an article “5 reasons Linux will take over Windows”. This article is the other side of the coin.

While Linux is infact poised to overtake Windows since the very inception of the latter, still even after 2 decades Linux has failed to even give itself a reasonable share of the OS market.

So here are some reasons why Linux has been an underperformer in the OS market over the years.

1. Windows is easy to use, even for novice users:

Let’s face it: Whatever else you might say about Windows, it is easier to use. We love our Start menu and our Task Manager and our system tray. Windows has an amazing familiarity integrated into its GUI which makes it more comfortable to use than Linux.

When I first used Windows Vista (the worst OS I had ever seen!!!) 1 and 1/2 years ago, it took me only one day to be familiarized with all its basic features and the next day I was very comfortable installing softwares and listening songs and stuff like that. We are no longer required to use the MS-DOS command-line interface of Windows which makes things much easier.

Don’t get me wrong -- Linux has come a long way. But remember how far back it has had to come from -- where just managing to install the operating system for a non-expert (and sometimes experts too) was considered a major triumph (I am obviously referring to the UNIX OS). There are still too many things in the Linux world that are expected to be done manually, like program installation.

I installed Ubuntu Linux about 6 months ago, and despite it being a GNOME OS I had a pretty hard time using it, and even now I can’t say that I have become comfortable using it. And when it comes to installing programs by command-line, “No, thank you sir.”

2. Third-party vendors prefer Windows to Linux:

Here’s another one that gives a pretty clear edge to Windows. Because of its ease of use Windows has gained a lot of market. And Third-party software vendors have always manufacturing apps for windows rather than Linux (Please remember that according to Microsoft, we the users are the first party, Microsoft is the second party and all other software vendors are the third party).

Simply because Windows is the dominant operating system, there is much more (and usually higher quality) software available for it than for Linux. Much of it comes from Microsoft itself.

Consider Open-office 3.0 and MS Office 2007 SP2. When I am given a choice I will never use OO. It’s almost certainly adequate for a light user or a student typing up a couple of essays. When it comes to features like SmartArt, quick table generation, editing and review functions, and inserting basically any kind of object into a document, there is no comparison. When you go beyond the word processor to the presentation software or spreadsheets, the gap grows even wider.

Now of course much of our favourite Windows software can be run using an emulator such as Wine, or on a virtual machine running Windows. But if I have to use windows softwares like this, why not use them in Windows itself?

3. Windows Vista is just a bump in the road:

Vista has become the red-headed stepchild of the OS world -- everybody loves to beat on it, and not completely without reason. Vista demands resources like no OS before, and initially, at least, there were plenty of issues with both software and hardware compatibility. Without going too far in singing the virtues of Windows 7, however, I think it is reasonable to say that there is no reason to expect Vista’s shortcomings to be repeated in the next generation.

Windows Vista was like the puberty experienced by a teenager when he starts to, well, grow. Too many things were happening at once, and there was bound to be some pain involved. We experienced security changes such as UAC and how applications were handled fundamentally by the operating system with lots of heavy but resourceful gadgets but we got a sluggish OS where things don't always work quite right.

However, Windows 7 is faster. Software vendors and Microsoft have had time to update their code, so now applications are compatible. Before much longer, Vista will be behind us and Microsoft will be back on track.

4. Advancement in Hardware:

Now, while Windows 7 is significantly faster than Vista, I won’t claim that it will be as friendly to the lowest end hardware as Linux. Fortunately, time marches on -- and hardware improves. We can now get a quad-core processor and 8 gigs of RAM in our laptops. Intel has a dual-core Atom processor out, and even if it is made for nettops rather than netbooks, it's a safe bet that a dual-core Atom with netbook-friendly power consumption levels is right around the corner. In any case, as hardware continues to advance, that aspect of the Linux argument will become more and more irrelevant.

Also, while we’re on the topic of netbooks, let’s not forget that while these may seemingly be the perfect candidate for conversion from Windows to Linux, when users start playing around with Linux and start realizing that it’s not what they are used to, they don’t want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store. The return rate is at least four times higher for Linux netbooks than Windows XP netbooks.

5. Linux isn’t the smarter choice in the corporate sector:

This may sound awkward but its true. Using Linux Server isn’t much of a cost effective measure as compared to using Windows Server.

In the server space especially, we should try comparing Windows Server to paid Linux. By far the most dominant flavour is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (read RHEL), with about a two-thirds share of the paid enterprise Linux market, so this seems the most logical comparison.While there are plenty of free options out there, such as CentOS, for a business running mission-critical workloads, an unsupported operating system is a hard pill to swallow.

RHEL is a subscription-based license, meaning that rather than pay for the software itself, you pay for support. This doesn’t mean just phone tech support or troubleshooting (although that is included too, whether you want it or not) but also includes standard patches and bug fixes. Standard support for RHEL 5 Advanced Platform is $1,499 per year per server, or $4,047 for three years whereas Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition it costs $3,999 with free patching and bug fixes and tech-support.

As seen from my two posts both OSes have their own positive and negative aspects. It all depends on the user which one is best for him. I personally feel Linux has a lot of better qualities than Windows and I am patiently waiting for the day Linux will overtake Windows.

P.S.: Now I have presented before you two different aspects regarding the usage of the two major Operating Systems in the present scenario. Some of you might argue that Apple’s Mac OS is also a contender but frankly speaking I haven’t even seen the Apple GUI and neither do I have any significant knowledge about it and hence saying anything about it will be like shooting at an apple on a person’s head being blind-folded.

Setup java compiler in Windows 7 in ten steps

2009-05-25T14:28:00.002+05:30

The post has been moved to it original location. Please view it by clicking here

BSNL DataOne— Password problem

2009-05-24T11:50:00.000+05:30

Few days back I tried to login to my DataOne service by entering my username and password.

Everything went normal till here.

In the picture below you can see that it has refused to accept my username and password stating that the combination is wrong. It seems to have forgotten its own username and password. Kinda like short-term memory loss.

So this seems to be another one of the bizarre problems I have been facing with my BSNL DataOne Broadband connection at my home lately.

I then called the SDO of DataOne and I don’t know how but he corrected the error, after 5 days.

Previously I had written about how my username and password was flagged as wrong when I tried to login to continue my internet after my free download was over. After that I had to face grave problems because the modem was showing problems in connecting. Irony is that when I took it to their pseudo “customer care cell” it worked fine!!

System repair disc back into Windows 7

2009-05-22T17:12:00.001+05:30

Ever faced a problem when your Windows 7 just doesn't boot and like me you are using it as your primary OS (even though it is in RC) and the secondary OS is Windows Vista??? Well if you have then you should prevent it from happening using the Windows System Repair Disc.

The Vista Service Pack 1 betas included a new feature that let you easily create a system repair disc with a friendly graphical interface, but it was removed in the final release of SP1. Windows 7 restores this functionality. Just click Start and type System Repair in the Search box. Click on Create A System Repair Disc. This opens the dialog box shown below:

To use the disc, put it in your drive and reboot the computer from the disc. (You may have to set the CD/DVD drive as the primary boot device in your BIOS.) Then, you’ll get a list of system recovery options, which include:

System Repair
System Restore
System Image Recovery
Windows Memory Diagnostics
Command Prompt

Its a cool tool and it feels nice to see it back in Windows 7.

8 Reasons Vista Haters will love Windows 7

2009-05-10T19:49:00.001+05:30

Many of my friends adamantly refused to make the switch to Windows Vista when it came out. Some who bought new machines with Vista installed immediately “downgraded” the OS to Win XP. But many of them are impressed with what they’ve seen in the Windows 7 beta.

While some techies are saying 7 isn’t really all that different from Vista — and indeed, one of the attractions for Vista users is that 7 can generally uses the same drivers and runs the same apps as Vista — the consensus among anti-Vista folks I know who’ve tried the 7 beta seems to be that the new operating system is “Vista - A lot better."

Here’s why I think you’ll see many of the XP diehards happily embracing Windows 7 when it’s released.

1. Improved UAC:

User Account Control in Vista is like living with an overprotective mother — when you’re 30. It’s constantly popping up to warn you of impending danger, even when you’re just trying to take a look at Device Manager or perform some other innocent task. It hovers over you and nags you constantly: “Are you sure you want to do that?” Like Mom, UAC has our best interests in mind, but it can drive you nuts in the name of “security”.

Windows 7 doesn’t do away with UAC, but it does give users options regarding its behavior. By reducing the number of unnecessary and redundant UAC prompts, making them more informative, and providing users with more control over UAC, Windows 7 maintains many of the benefits of the feature without intruding on users’ computing lives so much that they turn the whole thing off in frustration.

2. Improved Windows Explorer pane:

In a misguided attempt to alleviate the need for horizontal scrolling, Vista made the left navigation pane in Windows Explorer a constantly moving target. As you move your mouse, it will automatically scroll back and forth. You can avoid the auto-scrolling by dragging the pane to make it wide enough to accommodate the entire tree, but that isn’t a good option on a small screen.

In Windows 7, the navigation pane stays still, so you no longer risk getting sick from all the swaying back and forth.

3. Clutter and bloat are reduced:

Vista was perhaps the culmination of Microsoft’s efforts to give all things to all users. Along with the built-in applications we got with XP, Vista added a contacts program, a calendaring program, a photo editing program, and so forth.

While some users appreciate all these free applications, many others have been annoyed by the “extras” they don’t need or use. If you’re planning to install Office with Outlook, there’s no need for Contacts and Calendar. And if you have your own favorite and more powerful graphics applications, such as PhotoShop, there’s no need for Photo Gallery. The extras just clutter up your Programs menu and take up space on the hard disk.

With Windows 7, Microsoft has removed a number of the extra programs and now offers them as free downloads from the Windows Live Web site. This way, those who want them can have them, and those who don’t won’t have to deal with removing them.

4. Better boot performance:

Another common complaint about Vista has been the amount of time it can take to boot up. This might not be an issue for those who leave their systems on all the time, but if you turn off your computer every night, waiting around forever for it to get started in the morning can turn into a major annoyance.

A Microsoft spokesperson indicated that the company’s goal for Windows 7 is a 15-second boot time. Although the beta of Win7 may not have achieved that 15-second mark yet for most users, the majority of beta testers say it’s substantially quicker than Vista on the same hardware. That’s been my personal experience, as well. Since it is still a beta, it’s not unrealistic to hope that continued tweaking will get that time down further before the final release.

5: Side-by-side windows auto-size:

Most of the monitors sold today come in a wide aspect ratio that’s better for watching movies, which is also handy for displaying two documents side by side on the screen. With Vista, though, you have to manually size those docs. Windows 7 has a cool new feature by which you can drag windows to each side of the screen and they will automatically size themselves to each take up half the screen when you let go of the cursor.

Even better, if you drag the window back away from the edge, it goes back to the size it was before. How cool is that?

6: Home networking gets simple:

For home users without a lot technical know-how, networking has been made simpler in Windows 7. A new feature called HomeGroup allows all Windows 7 computers on a network to share files, printers, and other resources more easily.

Thanks to Libraries (collections of certain types of files, such as music, photos, or documents), you can access files anywhere on the HomeGroup network as if they were stored locally, and you can search across the whole HomeGroup.

Windows Media Player in Windows 7 can stream the music and videos on one PC in the network to another, and even play back songs from iTunes libraries on other computers.

Connecting to a wireless network is also easier; now you can click the wi-fi icon in the system tray and select a network from the list, instead of opening up a separate dialog box to make the connection.

7: Notifications can be fine-tuned:

In XP and Vista, you can disable the balloon notifications in the system tray, but what if you’d like to continue to get notifications from some applications but not from others? Windows 7 allows you to customize the behavior by simply clicking the little arrow next to the tray and selecting Customize. In the dialog box, choose which icons you want to appear in the tray. For each application, you can select whether you want to display notifications or hide them, as shown below

8. Taskbar preview is better:

In Vista, you can hover over a taskbar button — for Internet Explorer, for example — and see that three instances of IE are open. You see the open pages stacked as shown below, but they’re so small that it’s difficult to really tell which page is what.

In Windows 7, the preview feature has been enhanced so that it becomes an extremely useful function. Now when you hover over a taskbar icon, you get actual previews that are placed side by side and are large enough for you to identify

And this is when its still in Beta, a lot better is expected when it comes out in full release.

BSNL DataOne—Worst Hai Mere Liye

2009-05-05T14:24:00.000+05:30

Its not a new thing with BSNL, customers complaining about problems and BSNL Dataone never responding in time. But with me something “out of the box” happened which even the DataOne folks are ignorant of.

I use at my home BSNL DataOne’s Rs. 250/- plan, which has a free download/upload limit of 1GB per month. Since I am a heavy user 1GB is expected to be my daily download. On 2nd of may when I logged into my BSNL and tried to browse, the webpage redirected to some BSNL webpage which stated that I have crossed my download limit of 1GB and hence I am redirected to the page so that after logging in with my username and password I will be able to continue further browsing.

The following is the browser image:

When I used my modem login ID and password it told me that my ID and password is wrong and showed me an error “reference code: 1000”.

It seems I will be unable to access the internet as long as I don’t input the “correct” username and password. But the funniest part is that I was able to download files present in my queue without any hitch.

Even after two days of trying I couldn’t login because of the error so I approached BSNL authorities stating my problem.

They said that there doesn’t exist any “reference code: 1000” error in their database!! I was startled because they said maybe my modem is not in proper condition and advised me to replace it even after saying that I am able to login to my modem but I am unable to do browsing. I am amazed because he was an officer of the Broadband section. Such trained fellows manage the services of BSNL. These idiots even don’t know about the errors in their system. Finally I got the number of their SDO and after 2 days of ordeal finally we got through it.

Such brilliant is the service provided by BSNL, quite contrary to its tag-line “BSNL-Best Hai Mere Liye”.

5 reasons Linux will take over Windows

2009-05-01T19:51:00.001+05:30

The error of Microsoft's ways is finally catching up and will cause the once-invincible juggernaut of Operating Systems to kneel before its rivals. Microsoft's small faults and nags which crept into its OSs starting from Windows ME is continually increasing. There have been ups and downs along the way (XP being an up, for sure). But for the most part, the court of public opinion has steady lost faith in what once was considered the heart of personal computing and most users are now searching for a suitable alternative which many Technocrats like me believe to be Linux.

If you don’t believe me then keep reading on.

1. Inconsistent Windows Releases, Consistent Linux Releases:

When Microsoft released a OS like Windows Vista after a release like Windows XP, it showed how inconsistent is its planning and execution of new Operating Systems.

Lets take a look at individual releases:

Windows 95: Revolutionized personal computing.
Windows 98: Attempted to improve on Windows 95; failed miserably.
Windows Me: A joke, plain and simple.
Windows NT: Attempted to bring enterprise-level seriousness to the operating system; would have succeeded had it not taken Steven Hawking-like intelligence to get it working!!!
Windows XP: Brought life back to the failing Windows operating system. It hadn't been since Windows 95 that the operating system was this simple.
Windows Vista: Same as Windows Me.

With this in mind, what do we expect from Windows 7? Myself, not much.

Converse to it, you have the far more consistent releases of the various Linux distributions. Yes, there have been a few dips along the way (Fedora 9 being one of them). But for the most part, the climb for Linux has been steadily upward.

Nearly every Linux distribution has improved with age. And this improvement isn't limited to the kernel.

Look at how desktops, end-user software, servers, security, admin tools, etc., have all improved over time. Once could easily argue that KDE 4 is an example of a sharp decrease in improvement. However, if you look at how quickly KDE 4 has improved from 4.0 to 4.3 you can see nothing but gains. This holds true with applications and systems across the board with Linux.

2. Continuing Windows price hikes, Stable “Prices” of Linux:

Microsoft changed its licensing for Exchange to a per-user seat. Now anyone who logs on to an Exchange server must have a license. You have 100 employees (including administrators) who need to log on to Exchange? Pony up! This gets serious when your company starts having to cough up the money for 500+ Exchange licenses. The very idea that Microsoft would make such a bold change to licenses is made even more ridiculous considering the current state of the economy. Companies worldwide are having to scale back.

Conversely, the prices of open source software licenses have remained the same -- $0.00. There is no limit to the amount of users that can be set up. One user, 1,000 users -- it's all good with open source software.

3. Hardware Compatibility:

Microsoft Vista was a nightmare when it came to hardware compatibility. Not only was Vista incompatible with numerous peripherals, it took supercomputer-level iron to run the operating system! Sure this was a boon to Intel, which stood to make a pretty shiny penny. Intel knew a good amount of the public would be shelling out for new hardware, and the new hardware would cost more because it had to be faster to run Vista in all its Aero glory. But even hardware that would run nearly any other OS with lightening-fast speed was brought to a slow, grinding halt with Vista.

On the other hand, Linux continues to advance in the category of hardware compatibility. Take Xorg, for example. Recent developments with the star of Linux' graphical desktops have the X Windows server running sans xorg.conf. This was done primarily because the system had grown so good at detecting hardware. And so long as there wasn't a cheap KVM between your monitor and your PC, Xorg would easily find the mode for your display and run X properly. With new distributions (such as Fedora 10), X configuration is becoming a thing of the past. Most other pieces of hardware are finding the same level of recognition.

4. Windows fails to fulfill its promises, Linux doesn't:

I wanted to save this for last, but seeing as how it is number 4... We've all heard the pundits proclaiming Windows 7 will be the resurrection of the Microsoft operating system. But I recall this same proclamation with nearly every release.

Windows Vista was going to revolutionize the way the user interfaced with the computer. Vista was going to be the operating system you would never notice. Instead, Vista refused to NOT let you notice.

And Windows Me was going to take Windows 98 and make it far more simple for the average user. What did it really do? Remove nearly every actual functioning system in the operating system, leaving little more than a browser and an e-mail client.

Everyone is always fond of saying the next Windows release will redefine the personal computer. But the public has finally reached such a point of apathy for Microsoft's up and coming, the majority doesn't even realize something new is coming out. The media can continue to push Windows 7, but the public will continue using XP until Microsoft pries it from its cold, dead fingers. And of course no one really knows when Windows 7 will land.

How many dates Microsoft announces vs. how many dates change will probably be a 1:1 ratio.

And not surprisingly, the next release of any Linux distribution is never shrouded in mystery. Because of the nature of open source, the release candidates are always available to the public (and not on a limited basis), and the timeline is always made available. Any user can know exactly when a feature-freeze happens for a release of any distribution. And all Linux distributions work under the “full disclosure” model. Because of this, there is little false advertising going on with Linux.

And unlike with Microsoft, you will never hear of a distribution claiming that its next release will revolutionize computing. If you go to the Fedora Project Wiki, you can view all the proposed and accepted features that will be included in the next release. You can also view the completed release schedule, where you will see that Fedora 11 has set an alpha release of 02/03/09, a beta release of 03/24/09, and a final release of 05/26/09. These dates are fairly firm and almost always on target.

5. Feature Comparison:

Finally lets compare Windows 7 to Fedora 11.

Windows 7:
---------------
OS X-like Doc, Multi-touch screen, mapping application similar to Google Earth, Hyper-Visor virtualization, location-aware apps, User Access Control improvements, Sidebar removal.
Fedora 11:
--------------
20-second boot time, btrfs file system, Better C++ support, Cups PolicyKit integration, DNS Security (DNS SECurity), ext4 default file system, Fingerprint reader integration, IBUS input method replaces SCIM (to overcome limitations), GNOME 2.26, KDE 4.2, Windows cross-compiler inclusion.

If you look at those features in and of themselves, you could easily argue that either one could be the more impressive list (depends upon your bias).

But understand that the Fedora 11 features are added on an already outstanding operating system, whereas the Windows 7 features are being added to a lesser operating system.

And what Microsoft is proclaiming to be the biggest improvement (multi-touch) doesn't actually improve the operating system and also requires, surprise, new hardware!

To get the most out of Fedora 11, you'll be good to go with what you already have.

And we should not forget that out of the mouths of Microsoft comes the proclamation that Windows 7 will run on any hardware that would run Vista and even slightly less powerful hardware. Slightly less powerful? What exactly does that mean?

Well for one, Windows 7 will have no luck in the netbook market. And since XP is dying, the netbook market will be owned by Linux. Netbooks are not gaining enough power to run anything from Windows but the watered-down version of XP. Netbooks are not going anywhere, and consumers (both home and corporate) have their limits on how many hardware upgrades they will make to fulfill an operating systems' needs.

As of Fedora 10, the minimum system requirements look like something out of the mid '90s.

The future is the day of Linux and I personally await for that day.

P.S.: I will be shortly posting a reverse article “5 (or maybe more) reasons Linux will not take over Windows”

Windows 7 RC download page leaked....

2009-04-07T12:02:00.001+05:30

It looks like someone flipped the switch a little early. The Windows 7 Release Candidate download page on TechNet has made a premature appearance, much like the beta download page did before the beta was released to the public. The public RC will apparently be coming in May 2009, and not in April as previously rumored. The Windows team has been doing its best not to talk specific dates in advance of delivering any of its milestone builds. No published dates means no one can ever say you’re late.

The RC testing program will be available at least through June 2009, and the actual build will expire June 1, 2010. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions will be available in English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish. This is different from the beta, which was available in English (32-bit and 64-bit), German (32-bit and 64-bit), Japanese (32-bit and 64-bit), Arabic (32-bit and 64-bit), and Hindi (32-bit).

A quick glance at the hardware requirements shows no changes between Beta and RC requirements. The page has now been removed but I was able get a copy of it:

The picture is not clear here but if you click on it you will get the full view. This page has now been deleted from Microsoft TechNet's website and now it takes to the Beta download page instead. But the following system requirements were retrieved from the website:

1. Internet access (to download Windows 7 RC and get updates)

2. A PC with these minimum recommended specifications:

3. 1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor or higher

4. 1 GB of system memory or more

5. 16 GB of available disk space

6. Support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128 MB memory (to enable the Aero theme)

7. DVD-R/W Drive

It also says that the 32-bit version of Windows 7 RC will be available in English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish. (Note: The RC version will not be available in Hindi or Arabic.)

And it says that the support for Windows 7 RC will end in June 2010.

It looks like we're waiting till May for the only Release Candidate version of Windows Seven, though testers should get a new build sometime next month.

Should Microsoft Provide Windows Update to Non-Genuine Users?

2009-04-03T21:49:00.001+05:30

Brian Livingston writing for Windows Secrets had the following to say:

“It’s ridiculous to say that Microsoft provides all security updates to Windows users, whether or not they pass Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation. No, Microsoft doesn’t.

First of all, a system that fails WGA is restricted in using Microsoft’s update and download sites.

WGA has a reputation for rating some PCs as unlicensed when in fact they’re completely legitimate. For this reason, many people exit Windows Update at this point and turn off Automatic Updates (if it was enabled) rather than risk disabling their expensive computers.”

Currently, when a system is flagged by Microsoft as not-being genuine, then it is limited to receiving only those updates that are labelled as “Critical”. While this still gives users access to the most important updates, but they miss out on updates classified as “Important” or “Moderate”.

To make matters worse, back in 2006 Microsoft decided to push an update for the WGA mechanism (KB905474) through the Windows Update mechanism and marking it as a “Critical” update. This mixing of genuine security updates and marketing propaganda was an enormous abuse of trust on Microsoft’s part.

I believe its time Microsoft loosens its grip over providing Windows Update to non-genuine Windows users. After the outbreak of the conficker worm which threatened to destabilise millions of PC out of which many would be running genuine windows which are flagged as fake by WGA. Those users had their system exposed to a security risk without any fault of theirs.

The current situation doesn’t make good sense. Its OK if Microsoft demands that users wanting additional content (games, new apps, templates and so on) should go through a validation process, but ALL updates should be available to ALL users, irrespective of whether users are running a genuine copy of Windows or not. Users who have unwittingly been sold a counterfeit copy of Windows shouldn’t be penalized and have their security compromised. In fact, when it comes to security updates, even those who know they are running a pirated copy of Windows should get access to all updates. It’s in everyone’s best interests that as many machines as possible are patched.