Sadly neither Firefox nor Google Chrome comes close to the Popularity of Internet Explorer. Since January 2011 Google’s browser has grown from 10.7% in January to almost 17% (16.90%) of the market in the 11-month span it is by far the fastest-growing browser, with market share being taken away from..Yep, IE Explorer, down by that same 7 point gain. Now Since Google and Mozilla are battling it out, Google may be asking itself why feed the enemy.

Here comes the surprise back in October prior to the expiration of the Google Deal a Firefox with Bing “enhanced version” was announced along with a new downloaded site firefoxwithbing.com that includes default search settings for Bing, “Now Firefox users who are Bing enthusiasts can use Firefox with Bing to use the Web the way they want without having to take extra steps to navigate or customize their settings to Bing,” the blog announcement states.

The new Firefox with Bing offers a query bar for both Web queries and straight addresses (much like Chrome). If you already have the latest version of Firefox, then just download the Bing Search for Firefox Add-on to set the same preferences.

Officially, Firefox doesn’t say much on any new Google deal: “Our search relationship with Google remains positive for both of us. We are in active negotiations and have nothing further to announce at this time. We have every confidence that search partnerships will continue to be a strong and growing generator of revenue for the foreseeable future”.

Reporting By Poonam Rodrigues Dec 08, 2011

Bing saves the day as Google leaves Firefox is a post from Tech Knots

LinkedIn, the professional networking site, has announced that it has crossed 11 million users in India, thus adding 1 million users in a matter of 57 days.

The company which had initiated its APAC operations in Mumbai during November 2009, before launching an office in Australia and Singapore in the past few years, had reached the 10 million user milestone in June earlier this year.

Back then, Hari V. Krishnan, country manager of LinkedIn India had said that they have been focusing their efforts on creating a great user experience for LinkedIn users and educating members to leverage LinkedIn for career development. The company had even established a local leadership team to drive the company’s Marketing Solutions and Corporate Solutions businesses.

In the meantime, the company has introduced many new features such as “Apply with LinkedIn” embeddable button which allows users to submit their LinkedIn profile for any job application on the web with a single click, new profile sections to allow students showcase their college accomplishments, introduced LinkedIn Groups API and unveiled personalized ads based on user data, to which it received a huge backlash, since the company reportedly added names and photos of LinkedIn users in ads without intimating the users. LinkedIn then clarified the issue in a blogpost on the company blog, stating that it had modified the look of these social ads to remove user photos.

[Image Credit]

LinkedIn now has 11 million users in India, adds 1 million users in 60 days is a post from Tech Knots

MacBook Air Refresh:

Apple has refreshed its lineup of MacBook Air with next-gen processors, higher storage capacity and Thunderbolt I/O.  Also the back-lit keyboard, which had gone missing in the last MacBook Air refresh, has now made a comeback into the lineup.

Available in 11.6″ and 13.3″ models, these notebooks now use Intel Core i5 and Core i7 dual-core processors, dumping the previous Core2Duo processors and comes pre-loaded with OS X Lion.

The 11.6″ base model features a 1.6GHz , 2GB of RAM and 64GB of flash storage and is priced at Rs 56,900 ($999) with a higher model featuring 4GB of memory and 128GB flash storage priced at Rs 67,900 ($1199).

The 13.3″ base model features a 1.7 GHz processor, 4GB RAM and 128GB of flash storage with a price tag of Rs 73,900($1299) with a higher model featuring 4GB of memory and 256GB flash storage at Rs 89,900 ($1599).

You can also opt for an 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 chip with 4MB L3 cache upgrade on the both machines i.e. 11″ and the 13″ models, although its Indian pricing hasn’t been disclosed as yet. In the US, you can upgrade for an extra $100.

Unfortunately, Apple has also killed the entry-level MacBook, one of its oldest model which was previously retailing at $999, going in favor of the new MacBook Air range.

New Mac Mini:

Pre-loaded with Lion, the new Mac Mini maintains its compact aluminum design with dimensions of 7.7-inches square and 1.4-inches thin. It comes in three different configurations: a dual-core Intel Core i5 or Intel Core i7 processor with AMD Radeon HD 6630M discrete graphics, or a quad-core Intel Core i7 powered server configuration. It can include up to 8 GB memory, 7200 RPM hard drive, a 256GB solid state drive with no optical drive and Thunderbolt I/O technology for expansion possibilities which weren’t possible before.

The prices start at Rs 33,900 for a 2.3 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 Mac mini with 2GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive, going up to Rs 44,900 for 2.5 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 Mac mini with 4GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive.

The server configuration is priced at Rs 54,900, featuring a 2.0 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 Mac mini with Lion Server, 4GB of memory and dual 500GB hard drive.

OSX Lion:

Priced at $29.99 on the Mac App Store, this is a major update to Mac OS X which was unveiled in WWDC with more than 250 new features. Some of the major changes include the new Multi-Touch gesture controls, support for full screen apps, tighter integration of Mac App Store, Mission Control and LaunchPad.

Mission Control is a new way to get an overview into everything running on your Mac at any given point of time, be it open windows, full-screen apps, spaces or the Dashboard. While the dashboard, desktop spaces, and your full-screen apps will appear on the top of the screen, all the open windows will be displayed on the bottom of the screen so that you can easily switch into anything you prefer.

LaunchPad is essentially like the iOS homescreens where it houses all the Mac apps in pages and offers you a quick way to access it. All the new apps downloaded from the Mac App Store automatically appear in Launchpad and you can delete unnecessary apps by holding down an app icon and clicking on the delete button, which will remove the app from your computer completely.

Additionally it also allows you to create iOS style folders where you can group similar apps as per category or any other way you prefer. Each folder can contain 32 apps and you can move around between Launchpad pages with a two-finger swipe.

Other features include a revamped apps including mail, iCal, photobooth and preview app, better accessibility features, Airdrop which automatically creates peer-to-peer wireless connection to transfer files between Macs, Autosave which saves your documents as you work automatically and keep it updated continuously, Versions which maintains previous version of your documents as you create it and allows you to revert back to previous versions, Resume, which remembers the current state of your app and brings it back after restarting your mac or relaunching it.

Among the pre-requisites Lion would require is an Intel-based Mac with a Core 2 Duo, i3, i5, i7 or Xeon processor and 2GB of RAM and users can download it from Mac App store for $29.99 either at their home or at Apple retail stores. It will also be available on a USB drive through the Apple Store for $69 from August 2011.

The new lineup of Macbook Air will come pre-installed with Lion and users who have bought a new qualifying Mac on or after June 6, 2011 are also eligible for a new Lion upgrade.

New Thunderbolt Display:

Finally, last but not the least, Apple unveiled the new Apple Thunderbolt Display, dubbed to be world’s first Thunderbolt display which uses Thunderbolt I/O technology.

Spec-wise, it sports a 27″ screen size with 16:9 edge-to-edge glass design and uses IPS techonology with a 178 degree ultra-wide viewing angle.

Primarily designed for Thunderbolt Macs, it also includes a built-in HD video camera for video conferencing and Facetime purposes, a 2.1 speaker system for high quality audio, an integrated MagSafe charger to keep Mac notebooks charged, three USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, one Gigabit Ethernet port, a Thunderbolt port for daisy chaining up to five additional Thunderbolt devices and an ambient light sensor which automatically adjusts the display brightness based on external lighting conditions.

It is priced at Rs 56,900 and will be available from the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers within the next 60 days.

Apple Launches OS X Lion and New Macbook Air, kills entry-level MacBook is a post from Tech Knots

Now we finally can. According to the official Gmail blog, you can now create your own theme using the themes tab in Settings. You could either upload photos from your computer or choose any photos from your Picasa Albums.

Gmail gets Custom Background Image Themes is a post from Tech Knots

Google has today announced the worldwide availability of Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office.

For the people who aren’t aware of it, Google Cloud Connect enables 2 or more people collaborate together on the same file at the same time on Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 or 2010 on Windows PCs.

To celebrate this launch, Google has launched a 90-Day Appsperience program to give a quick preview to enterprises on how web-powered tools can help their teams collaborate and work more effectively at a nominal fee.

This plugin is available for everyone who possesses a Google Account and can be downloaded from here. Check out the video below to see how Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office works:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=H12teRzulW0

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office now available worldwide is a post from Tech Knots

Apple yesterday revamped its entire lineup of MacBook Family bringing in the next gen Intel SandyBridge based Core i5 and i7 processors along with Thunderbolt I/O technology. Other additions include ATI Radeon HD 6000M graphics card and a new FaceTime® HD camera.

The 13″ and the 15″ version will come in 2 different variants whereas the 17″ version has a single variant.

13″ Macbook Pro: Unlike the last time, the 13″ Macbook pro has got couple of big changes this time. Apple has ditched the Core 2 Duo processors and have upgraded it to SandyBridge based Core i5 and i7 Processors. The base model comes with a 2.3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5, 4GB RAM and 320GB hard drive and is priced at Rs 69,900. Else you can go for a 2.7 GHz Core i5 Model which comes with 4GB RAM and 500GB hard disk which will set you back by Rs 84,900.

15″ MacBook Pro: Both the variants of the 15″ MacBook Pro has been bumped up to Core i7 Processors and AMD’s ATI Radeon HD 6000M graphics. The Base model comes with a 2.0 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor, AMD Radeon HD 6490M with 1GB Video Memory, 500GB hard drive and is priced at Rs 104,900. Else you can go for a 2.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB Memory and 750GB hard drive which costs you Rs 124,900.

17″ MacBook Pro: And finally, the 17″ MBP comes with the same Core i7 Processor, AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB Memory and 750GB hard drive and is priced at Rs 142,900.

Apple revamps its MacBook Family with SandyBridge and Thunderbolt is a post from Tech Knots

Being primarily a Firefox/Chrome user, I was terribly disappointed in IE8 because it neither had the huge extension support as in Firefox nor was it faster in loading pages in Chrome.

Therefore, I was inquisitive as to what Microsoft has in store with the next version of their internet browser, IE9.

This being a developer event, the discussions were primarily focussed on the performance enhancements of IE9 along with support for Integrated SVG, WOFF and the enhanced support of HTML5.

IE9 comes with a new Javascript Engine codenamed “Chakra” which was developed by Microsoft, due to which IE9 has got a major boost in Javascript performance when compared to IE8, which was pretty bad.

IE9 also comes with support for Hardware Acceleration which offers consistent, fully hardware-accelerated text, graphics, and media files including audio files and video files.

Apart from that, IE9 also comes with enhanced integration to SVG through which developers can create several visually appealing experiences on their websites, without worrying much about the specs of the computer it is being viewed on or whether a particular font is present in the machine or not.

The First Beta Version of IE9 is expected on 15^th September 2010, with the final launch expected somewhere in the initial months of 2011.

So if you haven’t checked out IE9 Platform 4, do check it out at http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/. Do note that IE9 Requires either an Windows 7 machine or an Vista SP2 machine to work.

Snippets from the Q&A Session:

1. Any Cross Platform developments plans for IE9?

Ans.  There are currently no plans to port IE9 to either Linux or Mac yet.

1. How will various Processes be handled in IE9 handled?

Ans. There was no specific answer since the browser is just a frame right now, but it will be more robust than IE8.

1. Any Plans of IE9 getting a Download Manager?

Ans. Since this was a dev event, there was no specific information on that but I guess, it will be known when IE9 debuts.

1. Will IE9 finally get Extensions support like all other popular browsers viz Firefox, Chrome etc?

Ans. Microsoft people acknowledged the fact that IE has been missing on the extension front, though there were many attempts like Webslices etc on that front. However they promised that the situation should improve with IE9.

Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview 4 is a post from Tech Knots

Initially launched to Blogger in Draft 2 months back, this stats service lets you track your blog stats like visitors, pageviews etc in beautiful, easy-to-read graphs and charts real-time.

Here are some feature highlights:

• Real-time tracking: You can track the changes in your blog stats almost immediately
• Insights about your audience: You can learn the top search keywords, top visiting countries, browsers etc.
• Great user interface: Visualize your stats in beautiful, easy-to-read graphs and charts.
• Self-view exclusion: You can exclude your own pageviews which excludes all the traffic coming from Blogger admin or Preview pages, thus providing more accurate pageview data.
• Internationalization: Support for more than 40 languages.
• Better bot traffic filtering.
• Rate-limiting visit counts from the same user.

Google releases Blogger Stats is a post from Tech Knots

If you facing email overload in your daily life, then I would seriously recommend you check out Gmail’s new Priority Inbox.

Google has rolled out a new Gmail feature called “Priority Inbox” which claims to solve the email overload problem by sorting the mails which are important and present them first, followed by mail which aren’t so important.

What I found appealing in this new feature was usual simplicity of Priority Inbox that Gmail is known for. It works out of the box i.e. you don’t have to set the rules for it or tell Gmail who is important. You can also mark any mail as important/not important with a single click.

Priority Inbox splits your inbox into 3 different sections namely “Important and unread,” “Starred” and “Everything else” taking into account several criterions for classifying the emails like the emails you read most, the people to whom you reply most, whether the email is addressed to you to you or sent to a mailing list etc.

If a mail crops up in the important section, you can make it unimportant with a single arrow click and vice versa. Over time, Gmail will become smarter by learning these actions and work better.

Watch the video below to get a better idea of how Priority Inbox works.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nt3gE9dGHQ

Gmail Priority Inbox: Finally a solution for the email overload problem is a post from Tech Knots

Google Wave, once termed as the next generation in collaborative communcation, has now been discontinued.

In a blogpost, Google said that they no longer intend to develop Google Wave as a single product.

Google Wave which was previewed at last year’s Google I/O was a rage from the moment it was announced. There was even a massive fight among netizens for a coveted invite to the service. The scarcity of invites went to such an extent that the invites were sold on eBay for a pretty good prices as well.

However, after the initial fizz, the interest among the people died down and there was not much talk about the platform, let alone adoption which made Google release the platform for public.

But still the adoption rate were pretty low. Probably because many people found it very complex and struggled to get the ropes of it.

And with today’s announcement, Wave became just another product in Google’s failed attempt at social stuff.

Google Wave Now Dead is a post from Tech Knots

Highlights of the new Flickr Interface:

1. Bigger Photos: The default size of Photos has been increased by 28%. Also a new Lightbox effect has now been added through which you can click on any photo or use the magnifying glass icon to browse through large photos on a dark background.
2. Navigation:Navigating from one photo to another is much easier now.
3. New Map Feature: If you have uploaded any photos which have been geotagged, the map on the right hand side of the photo now shows the location where the photo has been taken. Else, you can also add the location manually.
4. Improved Comments Stream: The Comments has been revamped. It now includes notifications if someone “favorites” the photo and the comments appear in the stream real time.

[Flickr Blog]

New Flickr Photo Pages rolled out to all is a post from Tech Knots

If you hover your mouse over over any attachment’s Download link or its file icon, a popup appears which says: “Click to view OR drag to your desktop to save”. Simply click and hold and then drag your cursor to anywhere you want to save the file and release the mouse button. Voila! the attachment is now saved.

I actually tried it out just now and it really is as simple as it sounds.

However, note that this new feature currently works only on Google Chrome.

Gmail now allows you to save Attachments via Drag and Drop is a post from Tech Knots

Microsoft yesterday announced that the rollout of the new hotmail is now complete and they have now rolled out the new hotmail to more than 350 million people in 220 countries.

The upgrade which started about 2 months back on 15th June, was rolled out in a slow and steady manner with Microsoft upgrading server clusters, building the new indexes for conversation threading, and making tweaks to our site metrics and deployment software in the meantime.

The New Hotmail sports many new features like Conversation View, One Click Sweep, Once Click Filters, Active views, Powerful new spam filters and Microsoft SmartScreen etc.

Microsoft said that they would now divert their attention to prepare Exchange ActiveSync for Hotmail, which will allow you to sync your email, calendar, and contacts with your mobile phone, which is due to be out later summer.

[Windows Live Blog]

New Hotmail now rolled out to everyone is a post from Tech Knots

Google has finally started rolling out Multiple sign in feature. With Multiple Sign in, you can log in to two or more Google accounts without having to sign out from your current signed in account. This makes things a lot easier. All you have to do is, visit here and change the default Multiple sign in from Off to On.

After you click ‘Change’, Google will ask you to confirm few check boxes and you can turn on Multiple account sign in only if you check all checkboxes.

Google Starts Rolling Multiple Sign in Feature is a post from Tech Knots

After a short preview few days back, Microsoft has announced that its office suite for Mac will be out in October.

The office suite will retail in 2 different versions namely: Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 and Office for Mac Home and Business 2011.

Also, similiar to its windows counterpart, if you buy Office 2008 for Mac starting today, you will be able to upgrade to Office 2011 absolutely free of cost, when it is available, through the Microsoft Office for Mac Technology Guarantee Program.

Microsoft also unveiled their upgrade pricing structure for Microsoft Office for Mac 2011:

• Office for Mac Home & Student Edition 2011: Single License: $119.00, Family Pack(3 Licenses): $149.00. The package will contain Word for Mac, PowerPoint for Mac, Excel for Mac and Messenger for Mac 8.
• Office for Mac Home & Business Edition 2011: Single License: $199.00, Multi-Pack (2 Licenses): $279.00. The package will contain Word for Mac, PowerPoint for Mac, Excel for Mac, Outlook for Mac and Messenger for Mac 8.
• Office for Mac Academic Edition 2011: $99.00 for a suite which consists of Word for Mac, PowerPoint for Mac, Excel for Mac, Outlook for Mac and Messenger for Mac for higher education students, its staff and faculty.

[Office for Mac Team Blog]

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 to roll out in October. Pricing unveiled is a post from Tech Knots

Youtube has relaxed its upload limit from its earlier 10 mins to 15 Mins.

So why did Youtube relax the limit to 15 mins? According to Youtube, They have spent quite an amount of resources on creating and improving their Content ID system and many other powerful tools for copyright owners which gives them more control over their content on YouTube. Therefore they can afford to relax the upload limits now.

To commemorate this occasion, Youtube has kicked off a new video campaign called “15 Minutes of Fame” wherein in Youtube users can upload their 15 min videos with a tag “yt15minutes” by August 4, and Youtube will select a handful of videos to feature it on their homepage.

Do you think this will have any effect on the future videos that will be created? Let us know your comments and views below.

[Youtube Blog]

Youtube increases its upload limit to 15 Minutes is a post from Tech Knots

Along with Google Search, Google is also stating that all its services like Google Images, Google News, Google Docs have either been partially blocked or completely blocked.

Gmail, Google’s Email service seems to be the only service which is yet unaffected by blockage.

Google stated that this status is assessed by geographically diverse servers that are used to monitor connection capability and may not reflect small-scale blocking that frequently occurs or individual experiences with issues such as keyword blocking that may affect access to services temporarily.

The complete service availability dashboard of Google services in Mainland China is as below:

Google Search was similarly blocked when Google refused to serve censored results, which was brought back about a month ago after several negotiations between Google and the Chinese Government.

[RWW]

Update: Many twitter users have reported that Google is not blocked for them at all and it might be just a false alarm from the Google side. Chad Catacchio from the Next Web stated that this might have occured due to a server crash somewhere and the chart might be reflecting that.

Google Search Blocked in China again is a post from Tech Knots

WordPress Team has released a minor release to its blogging software WordPress, bumping up the version to v3.0.1.

However, this seems to be just a maintenance release with around 50+ bugfixes and no new features.

You can update your blog/website to v3.0.1 directly from the WordPress Dashboard or else download WordPress 3.0.1 and upgrade wordpress.

Did you install WordPress 3.0.1? Noticed anything new that we missed? Do let us know via comments below.

WordPress 3.0.1 released. Fixes about 50 Bugs is a post from Tech Knots

Microsoft has released a video teaser into whats in store for Microsoft Office for Mac 2011.

Along with the inclusion of Outlook, Office for Mac 2011 will also include the Office 2007 ribbon interface, the new template gallery and Outlook Conversation view etc. The new file based database system of Outlook along with Spotlight Integration makes it much faster to use and has support for  Time Machine as well.

Microsoft Office for Mac is expected to arrive in Q4 2010.

What’s in store in Microsoft Office for Mac 2011? [Video] is a post from Tech Knots

The official extensions gallery include extensions created by Amazon, Twitter, eBay,Bing, New York Times etc.

To access this extension gallery, just head over to Safari Settings->Safari Extensions Gallery or visit extensions.apple.com. And to install any new extension, just hit the “Install now” button which has been provided under the description info of the extension, without any browser restart required unlike Firefox.

Extensions which are based on HTML, Javascript and CSS, can be managed and updated within the browser and users can either enable or disable specific extensions, or disable all extensions in a single click.

Did you try Safari Extensions? Which are your current favorites? Do let us know via comments below.

Safari 5.0.1 Arrives. Gets official Extensions Support is a post from Tech Knots

Facebook Questions which has been a rumour from a long time, has officially rolled out its “Yahoo Answers” competitor called “Facebook Questions“.

Facebook Questions allow its users ask questions and get answers to their queries from the entire Facebook community, just by clicking the “Ask Question” button on their Profile Homepage. Question options are also available on your friends profiles and various Facebook Pages as well.

Upon entering the Facebook Questions Portal, you will see the most recent questions that are being asked by Facebook users along with a text box to ask your own questions.

You can also mark any answer as helpful or unhelpful through which the best answers will rise to the top and will be seen prominently by most people.

In the Sidebar, you can view the suggested topics, which is auto generated by the questions you ask and answer and the trending topics which shows you the topics that are getting the highest number of questions currently.

It is yet to be seen whether this new feature from Facebook is going to be a hit or not as compared to its competitors like Yahoo Answers, Twitter and Quora etc. However they do have a big edge i.e. 500 million+ userbase.

What do you think? Has Facebook churned up another winner? Do let us know your views below.

Facebook Questions Launched officially is a post from Tech Knots

Mozilla has released a new beta for Firefox 4 for testing.

This new beta (Beta 2) now has support for 23 different languages and also an ability of turning tabs into App Tabs. The Tabs on top feature has now been extended to Mac OSX users as well.

Some of the Feature Highlights of Firefox 4 Beta 2 are:

• Tabs on Top is now available for both Windows and Mac users.
• For Windows Vista/7 users, the Menu bar has replaced with a single Firefox button, so that users get to the most used options with just a single click.
• Support for App Tabs which offer a better way to manage your frequently used tabs thus saving space on the tab bar. (Video Demo).
• CSS3 Transitions: Firefox 4 Beta now has support for new CSS3 features like Transitions and Transformations etc. (Video Demo)
• Retained Layers for for super-fast scrolling on complex websites.
• Changes to XPCOM Framework to improve the start up time of Firefox.

For a detailed changelog, check out the release notes.

Download Firefox 4 Beta 2.

[Firefox Blog]

Firefox 4 Beta 2 released. Gets App Tabs and support for 23 languages is a post from Tech Knots

Indian Ocean, the popular Indian band has released their latest album 16/330 Khajoor Road free of cost.

Poking fun at the record labels, Indian Ocean stated on their website:

A lot of people are curious as to why we want to give away the music free. Firstly, this greatly reduces the distance between the band and its listeners. A lot of people (specially younger people!) do not buy music any more but rip or download from the web, so we want to make their lives a little guilt-free! In addition, this means no more negotiating contracts with record companies and fighting over copyright issues, no worries about bad distribution, albums not being available at different places and so on. Also, very frankly, no Indian artist survives on royalty. We make almost all our income playing live shows and composing music for films etc, so it is no great hardship for us to give up this amount. We also hope that this becomes a means for other artists in India to reach out to their listening public.

Starting from 25th of this month, the band would be releasing all the 7 songs over the next 7 months for free with one free song every month.

This seems to be an interesting approach from the band to break free of all the restrictions and copyright issues that record labels comes with. It also kills any piracy concerns that the band might have to deal with and will instead give free viral marketing for the band which might help the band in the long run.

What do you think? Should more musicians adopt this method and release their album for free? Do share your views below.

Indian Ocean release their Album for Free. Pokes Fun at Record Labels is a post from Tech Knots

Until now, you could install wordpress plugins by 2 means, either by the Plugins->Add New or searching for appropriate plugins on the Plugin Directory and uploading that plugins to /wp-content/plugins subdirectory on your server.

However, Mark Jaquith, one of the lead developers of WordPress, seems to have developed a new way to install wordpress plugins.

Using this new Plugin Installer Tool, users who have no FTP knowledge or frustrated with wrong plugin selections on admin panel search, can now easily install plugins via a web-based interface out of their WordPress blog.

Mark Jaquith also stated that this method which currently has a bookmarklet, would been soon integrated into the WordPress plugin directory as well.

To get a better idea into how the Plugin Installer tool works, do check out the screencast below:

[Weblog Tools Collection]

WordPress to get a new Plugin Installer is a post from Tech Knots

Considering the fact that Reddit is going Freemium and Digg v4  to be out soon, it would be interesting to see, how this comparison will change in few months.

[RateRush]

Digg v/s Reddit [Infographic] is a post from Tech Knots

Previously all you could do was “deactivate” your account. Facebook would still keep all your information in their database. Like “All your data belonged to us”. Now Facebook has added an option to delete the account. Unlike deactivate, delete account removes all your information from the site and hopefully from their database.

Thenextweb has reportedly confirmed that this new feature has been rolled out to a small group of users.

Now you can delete your Facebook account is a post from Tech Knots

Using the gadget functionality, you can now simply authorize Disqus, add a Gadget with your site’s Disqus code, and that’s all, you’re good to go.

According to the Disqus Team, this method improves the time of Disqus integration, and you no longer have to insert the code into your blogger template.

Did you try this new method of integrating Disqus into your blogger blog? Do you feel this way is more easier than the previous method? Do Share your views below.

[DISQUS]

Disqus gets an enhanced Blogger Integration is a post from Tech Knots

There seems to be a new setting called “Tweet Media” which is being tested by Twitter.

So what does this “Tweet Media” setting do?  Well, using this setting , Twitter users can now see images and videos shared by everyone on twitter although by default, you can see only the images/videos shared by people following you in their timeline.

The official explanation of Tweet Media according to Twitter is as below:

“By default, you’ll only see images and videos shared by people you’re following, and reveal those by people you’re not. Check this box to see media from everyone on Twitter.”

However it was soon pulled out from all accounts and Twitter also issued a statement to Mashable:

“We’re constantly exploring features and settings. What you saw was a small test of a potential consumption setting for inline media. We show inline media on our own iPhone and Android apps.”

Now this setting, if rolled out, could change the whole experience of people who are still using Twitter web, instead of any third party clients lik Brizzly, Seesmic, Tweetdeck etc.

What do you think? Should Twitter roll out such a feature? Do share your views below.

[Mashable]

Twitter to show all the photos and videos inline in its stream? is a post from Tech Knots

Robin Sage

What if I say this is just a fake profile? Nothing new, there are many in social networking sites. However, it is not just a fake profile but a profile created by Tom Ryan, a cyber security expert to find out how social networking sites could be used to covertly gather intelligence. Interesting, eh!

Robin was invited by her affluent and influential contacts to conferences and review documents. She was even offered jobs in big companies including Google and Lockheed Martin. Perhaps, her personality as an attractive chick, somewhat flirty cybergeek, and with a posh degree from MIT may have lured men and women from the U.S. military, intelligence agencies, information security companies and government contractors into befriending her.

Ryan said, “There is a lot of information leaked people don’t know about.” Tom Ryan says people unknowingly revealed sensitive information to “Robin” through what they thought were harmless acts like posting photos. Ryan points out “If you use an iPhone, it will give the exact location where you are, the name of the person who owns it and the version of the software, different information like that.”

Tom Ryan is going to present his findings tittled as “Getting in Bed with Robin Sage” at the Black Hat Technical Security Conference in Las Vegas. Tom says : “I had access to email and bank accounts. I saw patterns in the kind of friends they had. The LinkedIn profiles would show patterns of new business relationships.”

This is a lesson for people (especially “men” who were 82% of Sage’s friends) who befriend people without knowing them personally. Internet is no longer as harmless as it used to be a decade ago.

Robin Sage: A Social Networking Spy! is a post from Tech Knots

We all know that Microsoft  really hit the jackpot with Windows 7 much to everyone’s surprise after the Windows Vista debacle. 

Well Microsoft’s Windows 7 is not only surprisingly packed with good looking UI but also has good sales figure. Today is one-year anniversary of Windows 7′s RTM and Zdnet Microsoft blogger  said that MS said that today it has now sold 175 million Win 7 licenses.

Awesome!

Microsoft Sold 175 Million Windows 7 copies is a post from Tech Knots

Professional Online job hunting is relatively an old phenomenon. The prospective employer now is more smart than you and he would quickly do a Google search and dig out information about you which can either make or break your chances to get hired.

Social networking is not over hyped; you need to sensibly use the internet. Creating profiles in 10 social networking sites and just using a couple of them might give a wrong picture about your professional attitude. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are just more than enough.

The status updates, photographs uploaded, and the comments posted by you are all watched by the world; don’t think privacy features would hide your sins. “All it takes is one person sharing information you might not want shared, forwarding a post, or otherwise breaching a trust for the illusion of privacy in a closed network to be eliminated,” says Ms. Salpeter, an Atlanta-based job search and social media coach.

According to my personal experience, twitter is the best social networking site to meet prospective employers. I know quite a few people who have utilized the power of “@-conversations” and “Direct messages” to get placed. Another less used site is LinkedIn. “Members with complete profiles are 40 times more likely to receive opportunities through LinkedIn, ” says Krista Canfield, a LinkedIn spokesperson.

One mistake and you can miss the train. So,

1. Rush to your social networking profiles delete the unnecessary information and bio/profiles.
2. Update your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles regularly and sensibly; be discreet.

You should always expect the unexpected, even presence in a social networking website can give you the chance to work with a dynamic enterprise in an exciting job profile.

Best of Luck!

Employment through Social Networking sites is a post from Tech Knots

Facebook, the popular social network has now crossed 500 million users.

In a blogpost, Facebook today stated that it now has a 500 million active users with 100 billion hits per day and 50 billion photos. The company also caches around 2 trillion objects, with hundreds of millions of requests per second and 130TB of logs every day.

To celebrate this important milestone, Facebook has launched a new application called at Facebook Stories,where in users can share their own facebook story or read hundreds of other interesting stories which has been categorized by themes and locations around the world.

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerber said in a blogpost:

“I could have never imagined all of the ways people would use Facebook when we were getting started 6 years ago. I want to thank you for being part of making Facebook what it is today and for spreading it around the world.”

Now the big question is how bigger can Facebook get? Can it reach the illustrious 1 Billion users mark?

Considering the exponential rise in the users daily and Facebook Like and Open graph going mobile pretty soon, it certainly cant be ruled out. What do you think?

Facebook crosses 500 Million users is a post from Tech Knots

Missed out on a good .com domain? Then try getting the .co variety now.

Godaddy and many other registrars have started selling .co domains now. These domains are of public nature i.e. you will get domains on First Come First Serve basis.

One of the earliest adopters of .co domain is Twitter, which is using t.co as their URL shortener.

So, are you planning to buy a .co domain?

[Mashable]

.CO Domains are available for registration now is a post from Tech Knots

Google acquisitions of ITA software and Metaweb have been expectantly less in popular tech talks. These are moves which would have long term implications and put more sense to the search query results.

Metaweb has a concept called entity for referring to people, places and things which is cool.
(Check out Video to know more)

While Metaweb’s alliance with Google is not one of those game changer deals, ITA escorted Google to Vertical Search. Vertical Search gives Google a chance to search specific relevant pages rather than generic search.
As Sramana Mitra says

“

Imagine you are looking for a hotel near Piazza Espagna in Rome in the price range of $250 to $500. Try formulating the query in Google. You will get a lot of results, but the Hassler Villa Medici – voted Rome’s No. 1 luxury hotel by readers of Travel+Leisure – wouldn’t even be among the top ones.
Now try the same exercise in a vertical search engine called Kayak.com. The Hassler is right there.
Kayak.com can deliver more precise results because it is customized to search for hotels. Such customization is only possible when the user’s context is already known by the search engine.

”

ITA-powered flight search would enable Google to provide us more specific information, such as airlines, schedules, fares — and the Websites that sell the tickets. This may look quite trivial to a few but this vertical search industry is going to be the next focus of all the search giants.

Google Search with M&A is a post from Tech Knots

An Indian company by the name Foradian Technologies as well as a blogger by the name Soumyadip, have created two cool new fonts that will allow you to use the INR’s new symbol, a combination of the Roman letter ‘R’ and the ‘Ra’ from the Devanagiri script, in select word editors. All you need to do is follow the following steps:

• Download either one of these fonts –  Rupee One (Rupee Foradian); Rupee Two.
• The advantage with Rupee One is that you can also use it for regular text since the Rupee symbol is assigned to one particular key (more on this later). Rupee Two on the other hand, will only allow you to type the Rupee symbol and nothing else.
• Paste one of the two fonts in the Fonts folder if you’re using Windows. (This is usually found in C:\Windows\Fonts)
• Open up a text editor that allows you to select different fonts, for instance Notepad or Microsoft Office.
• Select the Rupee font from the drop down.
• For Rupee One font, press the ` key. It’s the one next to the number ’1′ on the top left of your keyboard. That will insert the new symbol into the document. For Rupee Two, you can press any key.

Currently, there are quite a few limitations of this. For instance, the requirement of the font to be installed in every computer in order for it to be viewed and used.

In case you didn’t quite follow the instructions, here is a video.

Want to use the Indian Rupee Symbol right away? Here’s how! is a post from Tech Knots

Gmail which has been rolling out lots of HTML 5 features for both Firefox and Chrome in recent time, has announced the support of the same in Safari 5 as well.

Therefore, you can now drag in attachments and drag drop images directly onto your compose window on Safari 5.You can also make use of the new Gmail’s Fast Popup Windows to just keep tabs of Google Tasks or chat in separate windows etc.

[Gmail Blog]

Safari 5 too gets Gmail HTML 5 features is a post from Tech Knots

Google has announced its earnings of the second quarter of 2010.

The main notable thing is the 24% rise in the income year over year to $6.82 Billion as compared to its last year’s income of $5.52 billion.

Some of the financial highlights of Google’s Q2 earnings are:

• Google-owned sites i.e. sites like Google.com, Gmail, Youtube etc generated revenues of $4.50 billion whereas Google’s partner sites generated revenues of $2.06 billion through AdSense programs, in the second quarter of 2010.
• Aggregate paid clicks, which includes ad clicks on Google owned sites and their AdSense partners, increased approximately 15% over Q2 2009, however it decreased by around 3% over the Q1 2010 whereas the Average cost-per-click, which includes ad clicks on Google owned sites and their AdSense partners, increased by 4% over the Q2 2009 and 2% over the Q1 of 2010.
• Google paid its partners about $1.73 billion in this quarter, a marginal increase over $1.45 billion given in Q2 2009. The majority share of this money went to the Adsense Publishers ($1.46 Billion) and then to certain distribution partners and others ($269 Million).
• The Operating Expenses were about $1.99 billion this quarter as compared to $1.54 billion in Q2 2009 and the Operating Income was $2.37 billion as compared to $1.87 billion in Q2 2009.
• Google has around $30.1 billion of cash as compared to $26.5 Billion in Q2 2009. This despite of its various acquisitions like Admob, Picnik etc.

For full details on Google’s Q2 2010 results, head over to Google Investor Relations article here.

Google’s Revenue Rise by 24% in Q2 2010 is a post from Tech Knots

The design made by a IIT post-graduate was today approved by the 5-member panel.

One of the panelists said in a statement “Kumar’s symbol is an amalgam of the Devanagari ‘Ra’ and the Roman capital ‘R’ without the stem, very much in line with what Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had envisioned. Earlier in the year, Indian finance minister, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee had said in his budget speech “We intend to formalise a symbol for the Indian rupee which reflects and captures Indian ethos and culture”.

With the release of this new symbol, India has joined the group of privileged few countries which sport an unique symbol like USA (Dollar), Europe (Euro), Great Britain (Pound), Japan (Yen) etc.

So whats your take on the new symbol? Did you like it or completely hated it? Do let us know your views below.

New Rupee Symbol is finally out is a post from Tech Knots

Google has rolled out a new comments and likes tab to the Buzz interface. Using this tab, you can show all the posts that you have commented on or liked before.

This tab can either be made public so that everyone can see your comments and likes or made private so that you can see them via Buzz Settings. You can also change it either of the options in future by heading over to Buzz Settings and modifying as per your preference.

Google Buzz gets a new comments and likes tabs is a post from Tech Knots

Therefore, when you select “Edit” inside the web albums, you will now see an option of using picnik to edit the photo.

The integration seems to be very seamless, although Picnik will retain its original branding i.e. the site has been not modified in any manner to look like Picasa web albums or any other Google Website.

Picasa will also automatically detect if the user has a Free Picnik account or a Premium Picnik account ($24.95/year) and provide editing tools accordingly.

And when you are done editing your photo, you can save the edited photo back to your Picasa Web Albums by either replacing the old image or saving a new copy of the photo.

This integration is currently available only on Picasa Web Albums and is not yet available on the desktop version of Picasa. But I guess that will be rolled out pretty soon. What do you think?

Do you use Picasa Web Albums? Which is your favourite photo sharing site? Do let us know via comments below.

[Picnik]

Picnik Gets Integrated to Picasa Web Albums is a post from Tech Knots

Reddit which had called for financial help, a few days back today announced that they have been successful in getting the much needed cash inflow.

Many people had considered this to be a very odd request, considering Reddit belongs to the billion dollar strong company Conde Nast and if they wanted, they could hire a lot of engineers. However, Reddit had explained that huge companies like Conde Nast had dedicated separate budgets for each business line, and allocate resources proportionate to revenue. And since Reddit’s revenue wasn’t great, they were in a lurch and couldn’t get a chance to release new features anymore with the fixed budget they had.

Considering this, Reddit had floated the idea of “Reddit Gold” where in they called for financial help from their avid users. And 3 days later, Reddit said that “Reddit Gold” has been a huge success with 6000+ users donating to the cause.

Seeing the huge success of their pilot plan, Reddit announced that they would soon be adopting the freemium model and all the Gold subscribers would be getting special features along with a badge on their page which could finally become a subscription service like Ars Technica etc.

What do you think about this new plan by Reddit? I personally would be interested to see what features Reddit Gold would be getting.

Also it proves the point that, being in a huge corporation doesn’t always mean financial stability and a dedicated userbase will always help out the service they are addicted to.

Reddit goes the Freemium way is a post from Tech Knots

Tumblr has announced support for oAuth in its API.

In a blogpost, Tumblr staff said they have started early testing of OAuth in its API, for increased security and more powerful 3rd party applications.

The implementation is similiar to Twitter’s OAuth i.e. supporting OAuth 1.0a with optional xAuth, upon request. However, unlike Twitter, Tumblr will still retain the existing authentication methods in the API.

For more details on getting started with Tumblr’s OAuth, head over to Tumblr staff blog.

Tumblr Goes OAuth is a post from Tech Knots

Youtube seems to be on a roll!

After completely redesigning their mobile site and introducing “Youtube Leanback“, Youtube has gone ahead and announced support for videos with 4k resolution i.e. 4 times the size of 1080p. The ideal screen size for such kind of videos would be around 25 feet.

However, such kind of formats does come with their own share of problems. Firstly, the equipment required to shoot such kind of videos would be damn expensive (Starting from around 1.5 lakhs to anywhere around Rs 4.5 lakhs), and secondly the bandwidth speed required to stream that video would be extremely high which is currently not available in most of the places and finally your desktop/laptop would probably not have enough power to play that video as well.

This version was probably envisioned to aid Youtube’s Leanback service where in it is competing with traditional TV and would probably need such kind of videos so that people could watch it over their home theatres connected to the internet or the upcoming Google TV.

Apart from this, Youtube also announced their “Partner Grant Program” where in they would be invest $5 million across a select new and emerging YouTube partners.

Youtube would identify select eligible partners based on various factors such as video views, subscribers, growth rate, audience engagement and production expertise and invite them to submit a Grant proposal which they would further evaluate on various parameters such as projected performance, distribution plan, marketing plan, cost requirements and appeal to advertisers and either approve/disapprove the proposal. If the proposal is approved, then funds are transferred to Partner’s Bank account which the partner could further invest in better cameras, achieve higher production quality, expand their marketing efforts, expand their staff, by hiring more talent etc.

Youtube noted that funds from YouTube Partner Grants will serve only as an advance against the partner’s future YouTube revenue share.

Youtube Gets 4K Video Support and announces “Partner Grant Program” is a post from Tech Knots

Although Twitter hasn’t officially announced it yet, Twitter is apparently working on a realtime analytics product where in they would be using Cassandra, the open source distributed Apache database.

In a blog post, Twitter told that they would no longer be using Cassandra database to store tweets, instead they are changing their strategy and would be continuing to use their existing Mysql-based storage itself since they believe that this isn’t the right time to make large scale migration to a new technology, considering the frequent downtimes that it has been facing from a while.

Twitter also stated that their analytics, operations and infrastructure teams are currently working out a system for a large-scale real time analytics which could be used both internally and externally that uses Cassandra.

Twitter Confirms a Realtime Analytics product. Changes its Storage Strategy is a post from Tech Knots

Youtube recently introduced a new beta feature called “Youtube Leanback“.

Youtube Leanback is a basically a stripped down and simplified version of Youtube with very minimal control and you can play videos continuously without any distractions.

The video playlist consists of a selection of videos based on your YouTube settings and preferences which includes your subscriptions, friend recommendentations, suggested videos based on your previously viewed videos etc.

The controls are brought to a bare minimum with only the 4 arrow keys playing a part. You could use the up/down arrows to search, access player controls, and browse channels and videos, right arrow key to skip any particular video and so on.

Although the premise looks awesome, I doubt its success in India atleast in India, considering the broadband penetration and the speeds we have around here. And also, considering that it is competing with regular television, would users choose Leanback over the traditional TV? I highly doubt that.

However, I am not entirely trashing the idea. As I said earlier, the premise looks damn awesome and video adoption is also slowly growing across the world. And with Youtube aiming BIG on Rentals and the impending Google TV launch, who knows, you could be sitting on your couch watching your favourite shows on Youtube, a year from now.

What do you think? Would Youtube Leanback be the next BIG thing or just another failed product? Do express your views below.

Meanwhile do check out the video below to get a better idea what Youtube Leanback is.

Youtube launches Youtube Leanback. But will you use it? is a post from Tech Knots

After having an popular e-commmerce portal, an E-book reader, Self Branded Mobile Phones and Android/Windows Tablets, Infibeam has now launched a marketplace for used books and rare books.

This marketplace platform will allow users to buy books from a wide range of books at the lowest prices. Also, any individual can now register themselves as a seller on Infibeam.com and list their book for sale in the used books category. However, Infibeam noted that quality and pricing will be the best as usual.

And from an buyer point of view, users will now find used books by different sellers right in the respective books page which you can then directly buy from the seller.

According to Infibeam, the marketplace already boasts of 70 lac titles and is bound to cross 100 lac titles very soon.

Mr. Vishal Mehta, CEO, Infibeam.com, speaking at the launch said:

“The New, Rare and Used books marketplace creates genuine value for customers by bringing enhanced choice and selection at affordable prices”. He added, “Avid readers are always on the look out for wide selection and best deals. In an attempt to bring a wider catalog and enticing offers, we have embarked on the used books selection. We are partnering with vendors from all over, to avail a variegated selection. Buyers may now choose the title and buy Books at incredibly low prices”.

Do you buy a lot of books online? Which are your favourite online book stores? Do Let us know below.

[Infibeam]

Infibeam Gets into Used and Rare Books Market is a post from Tech Knots

However, you no longer have to do that because Google has just released Rich Text Signatures for Gmail.

To enable rich text signatures, just head over to your Gmail Settings where you will find a shiny rich text editor in the signature section where you can customize your signature by adding pretty formatting, links, and images etc.

You can also have multiple unique signatures for different mailing addresses linked to your account.

All I can say is, it was about goddamn time, Google!

Gmail Gets Rich Text Signatures. Finally! is a post from Tech Knots

Remember those little nifty gifts, birthday cards, cakes etc on Facebook? Well, those would soon become collector’s items.

Facebook has announced that its Gift Shop will cease to exist from Aug 1, after 3 years of operations. However, don’t fret! the gifts you have received will be visible on your Wall, and you still will able to view your sent and received gifts on your gifts page.

Explaining the reason of shutting the gift shop, Jared Morgenstern said that they want to focus their product development efforts on improving other products like the News Feed, Photos, Inbox, Games, Comments, the “Like” button and the Wall etc.

Facebook Gifts was launched in 2007 as a result of a Hackathon project. The concept become very popular soon and led to “Gift Credits” where people would spend real money to buy virtual gifts and then went on to evolve as “Facebook Credits” which is currently used to buy addons/premium items across several games and applications on Facebook.

However now that Facebook priorites have diverted towards more real time solutions and information sharing, it makes sense to trim products which adds an overhead to the product.

Did you use Facebook Gifts? Do let us your views and comments below.

Facebook Shuts down its Gift Shop is a post from Tech Knots

Twitter has been experimentating with various monetization plans, right from Promoted Tweets to Promoted Trending Topics and opening up its data firehose to search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft etc.

And now it looks like Twitter has one more plan up its sleeve: EarlyBird.

What is EarlyBird? @EarlyBird is a twitter account through which Twitter will send out special time-bound deals, sneak-peeks, and events partnering with various advertisers who will determine the terms of the offer, including availability, amount, and price.

How do you get access to this special deals? Simple, you will have to just follow @EarlyBird Twitter account. You might also see them if anyone among the people you follow retweets it.

According to Twitter, the offers will be initially US-only but once earlybird grows beyond this early phase, it plans to roll this out for International Users as well.

Considering the viral nature of tweets, I would say Twitter might have a very good prospects of making money here. The account has got around 1,700 followers already and it is yet to be seen how many additional followers this account will amass over the next couple of days.

What do you think of Twitter’s newest Monetization plans? Do you think Twitter will succeed with this plan? Do let us know via comments.

EarlyBird: Twitter’s Newest Monetization feature? is a post from Tech Knots

The first beta version of Firefox 4 has finally arrived!

This version is a major upgrade from its previous versions with an interface redesign, new tab location, new Addons Manager, enhanced HTML5 support, support for WebM format, Better privacy etc.

Some of the major features of Firefox 4.0 are:

1. New Tab Location: Tabs are now located on the Top. Also You can now switch to different tabs using the Awesome Bar.
2. New Addons Manager: Firefox Addon Manager has been improved and it is now easier to find Addons of your interest.
3. Support for WebM Format: Firefox 4 now supports WebM format, so that you can easily watch open HD quality video.
4. Enhanced Privacy: Firefox 4 now provides enhanced privacy with many bug fixes and fixed web standard flaws.
5. WebSockets: Developers can now build real-time online interactions like gaming and chatting.
6. Enhanced support for HTML5 and CSS3.
7. Jetpack SDK: Add-ons can now be installed without restarting the browser and can be developed easily using the new JetPack SDK and js-ctypes.
8. Crash Protection: Firefox will not crash even if there is a crash in the Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins.
9. WebConsole and Indexed Database.

There are still lot more features which can be read at Mozilla Firefox website.

Download Firefox 4.0 Beta 1

Note: This version is still an early beta and many features are not included/polished yet. Also you could face lots of browser crashes.

Firefox 4 Beta 1 Gets Released is a post from Tech Knots

Google wave no doubt has failed but to my opinion buzz will survive the fierce competition and would lure tweeps and Facebook users. Google wave was a disaster because it was full of features but lacked the basic USP of Google products: Fast, Sleek and simple-to-use user interface. Google tried to incorporate every aspect of usual online activity into one application, which was untimely and lacked vision.

Buzz is altogether a different case. It doesn’t impose a restriction of 140 characters, you can upload images and videos with your post, and you can also check your important e-mails while socializing in the same tab. The first impression would be it makes Twitter and Facebook redundant, though this line of thought is quite naïve.

Despite some initial privacy concerns, buzz is being gradually accepted by netizens. The common complaints are buzz clutters the mail-box, affects your e-mail experience, and the rhetoric, “Why do I need buzz if I have Facebook and Twitter?”

I second few complaints about buzz but it can co-exist with Facebook and Twitter, although skeptics may not agree. Facebook and twitter are completely different niche products. There is no threat to twitter from Facebook and Facebook users will continue using it because of its attractive and unique user interface. Twitter is a microblogging platform, Facebook is a social networking site and Google Buzz is amalgamation of Social networking and microblogging in an e-mail platform. All have their own target customers; twitter is used for reaching out to mass and meeting new random like-minded friends, getting fast firsthand accounts of recent happenings, urgent viral messaging, etc. , whereas Facebook is a closed network of friends and for sharing more personal information. Google Buzz is something between Facebook and Twitter.

Twitter may have to define its revenue earning model very soon, though it has many options for that. Facebook has already done a good work for its bread and butter while backed by smart Google professionals Google Buzz will survive and co-exist with Twitter and Facebook.

Google Buzz will Survive, Facebook and Twitter will co-exist is a post from Tech Knots

The WePad – designed in Germany is the latest generation of tablets. It offers users fast Internet connectivity, a complete world of ready-to-use applications and easy access to books and photos, as well as magazines and newspapers from various publishers via the WeMagazine ePublishing Eco System.

WePad can give some serious competition to the Apple’s iPad. WePad offers  user a comfortable reading experience on an 11.6-inch display with 1366 x 768 pixels whereas, the iPad has a 9.7-inch display with 1024 x 768 pixels. Check out the comparison chart.

More than that, WePad ain’t bad looking either. What do you think about the WePad? The cost of the device is yet unknown.

WePad – Tablet PC is a post from Tech Knots

Apple has finally rolled out an update for its Operating System Snow Leopard [10.6.3], which has been in beta since December. Apparently, Apple has fixed more than 79 security fixes. You can find the full list here.

To update the OS with the latest security fixes, all you have to do is simply choose “Software Update” from the Apple menu, and install the upgrade from there. Or else, you can also chose to download the update from Apple.com

Apple Rolls Out Snow Leopard Update is a post from Tech Knots

Using this extension, you can Stumble, Rate/Review a Webpage and also Share it with your friends on Facebook/Twitter.Also, you now get notification whenever your friends share with you, directly in the chromebar.

So if you are a stumbleupon addict, do give it a try and let us know how it is.

Stumbleupon Chrome Extension

Stumbleupon Extension for Chrome Now available is a post from Tech Knots

Now if you own a Blackberry, Android or a Nokia Phone you can now track your projects, tasks and messages from the comfort of your phone. All you need to do is open your phones browser and point it to your DeskAway account address.

Supported Features:

• Track global and project activity.
• Add task lists, tasks and task comments.
• Send messages and comments.
• Update your status.

Deskaway Goes Mobile is a post from Tech Knots