Category Archives: Technology

General, Internet, Technology

Microsoft issues Word patch

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Microsoft issued a patch for its Word software to comply with a court ruling that it infringed on patents relating to the use of XML or extensible markup language in its flagship word processing software.

 

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had ordered Microsoft to stop selling Word programmes containing the infringing code from Jan 11, 2010. It also upheld jury-imposed damages of $290 million.

The ruling came in an appeal by Microsoft against a Texas jury verdict last August that found Microsoft had violated patents owned by Canadian software company i4i Inc.

“A small company was practicing its patent, only to suffer a loss of market share, brand recognition and customer goodwill as the result of the defendant’s infringing acts,” the three-judge panel said in court documents.

“The district court found that Microsoft captured 80 percent of the custom XML market with its infringing Word products, forcing i4i to change its business strategy.”

The patch was made available to computer makers to install on new machines preloaded with the Word software and strips Word and other Office programs of custom XML editing capabilities which is used by companies to link their data to Word documents.

Microsoft Office, which includes Word, PowerPoint, and Excel is used by millions of businesses and consumers and accounted for more than $3 billion in worldwide sales in Microsoft’s most recent fiscal year.

Internet, Technology

VLC to release free video editing package for MAC and PC

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If you are looking for a decent and free video editing package for your PC or Mac, then you will be glad to hear that the team behind the best free media player out there right now is working on a video editing package. The developers behind the VLC Media Player are working on their video editing software at the moment, which should arrive early in 2010.

Free video editing The official announcement page describes VideoLAN Movie Creator (VLMC) as “a free video editing software, offering features to realize semi-professional quality movies, but with the aim to stays simple and user-friendly.” VLMC is being developed “with the support of the VideoLAN organization,” so it is not yet clear if the software is a direct product of the VLC team. The site promises a pre-release alpha for Windows, Mac, and Linux “very soon.”

Internet, Technology

Me & My Cell phone

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My cell phone .. .dropped into water man …  And I stood there watching… like a meak spectator … as if I am watching my near and dear one killed in front of me.. I looked at it again .. my mind filled with thousands thoughts entering …

How can I save my phone .. no I don’t want it to die … thinking about saving hundreds of people, businesses ….

I picked it up from water immediately .. opened it.. separating the battery and the parts..  quick and Swinged it fast , so that the water can move out … from each pore.. of my phone .. Water that  was smelling like it’s touched each part of my phone , each circuits of my phone ..  Each one touched by water, No not touched but wounded…

I patted it with a towel and with teary eyes .. I was thinking and trying to figure out .. is it alive..  Thinking that do I have to arrange a demise ceremony for my phone.. or an obituary. …. I dried it as much as I cud …myself…. But I cud realize water called much  harm…

Without losing time ..I rushed to a hair dryer .. holding it in my hand for atleast 30 min or more .. and thinking this would work miracle … prayers coming out of my mind ..more and more .. God save my phone ..  

With crossed my fingers … and switched it on .. Nopes.. did not work… L

I Rushed to  my car and drove as fast as I cud …  went to one of the renowned shop and gave it to them … immediate measures were taken in front of me .. and I was a one percent relxed .. just 1 %. . I went home as they said it would take 2 days ..

I was back home and feeling low…

At times I feel Technology is too much … I Want to get disconnected from facebook , twitter, orkut , gtalk , hotmail, yahoo . ..( thought this is just a momentary feeling).

At times when my cell phone rings all day and I feel like .. Man .. gimme some peace man!!!. 

But today I had No phone. Just been an hour and I cud see the feeling ..  But losing contact with technology is like losing contact with a best friend…. One day when my cell phone NokiaE63 , had to go for a repair . I lost touch with my friends. I was feeling soo imcomplete whole day… I had lost contact with 450 people.  In few seconds , I felt like earthquake and my life going topsy turvy. I was feeling as if I was in  a middle of a presentation and the battery of my laptop has discharged.

My mind thinking abt my phone .. my beautiful phone … My most lovely possession .. my people , my contact list , my sms!!!! My online twitter , skype … I started missing everything soo much .. I was unable to live without my cell phone… M I really soo addicted..  my fingers feel like .. I need to text .. type… my fingers felt like typing and I wanted my phone.. in my palm…

I can hear the ringtone of my phone… even if it was not ringing…

What have we done to ourself … Technology has made us soo crippled.. Can’t we stay without a phone for few hours??? …… Yes I have to say .. we have became dependent too much .. on technology .. Cant remember birthday’s , we feed in, alarm , sms , photo , navigation ,songs , video ,bill payment, everything  we can think of under the Sun.

Can I feel complete ever without my Cell phone??? As if m dying and my soul is coming out from my body.. trying to unleash .. and fly…

I was turning low and sinking into it .. and getting desperate about my phone .. when would I get it back . I was right there standing at the same place where my phone fell . The water … was same… ad there I could see my own reflection.. the effects were all on my face…

As if I my dear one has gone into Coma!, and doctor says the recovery might be possible. Might , this again struck my brain cells with millions and nano questions.. We get soo attached to objects so much!. An object merely dead!, a non living thing, and I got soo fond of it ..

I was staying in a fear, I might get my prized possession back or not…

With this feeling I opened my diary to check what contacts and other details I have saved… and realized it’s not updated from an year…

I lost it .. again from scratch ..

I got a lesson of my life.. Technology is good, but keep backups ( mayb2) , technology made me feel crippled..  But yes.. I got my lesson …

This time if my phone comes back , I would try to remember b’day of my friends myself , few important numbers as well. Not just blindly depend on technology…

I tried to smile again .. and felt how would I keep my phone away from me…

I knew I would try .. this time .. dunnoo it would be fruitful or not.. But I will give it a shot…

   

Reviews, Technology

Technology and its limits

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Yesterday for the first time I was roaming alone in Mumbai. Had to meet a friend in Andheri and I was staying in Airoli sector 6. I was not sure which bus goes where and thus all was to be asked from friends and fellow travellers.

The starting bus was told to me by my friend. Just to make sure that I was going where I wanted to go I tried to map the route on my E63. The connectivity was not an issue where ever I went.

The bus took me from Airoli sector 6 to SEEPZ in 20 minutes in 30 bucks that too in AC. (yea its true). I got down at SEEPZ. So far so good. Had my friend sms me her office address. Looked up the building name in map search and there it was on the map. I decided to walk upto her office. I reached there and waited for her to come. Did I tell you that all this while I was chatting to 3 of my friends who were on Gtalk and Facebook via Nimbuzz. I also Tweeted some bytes via Snaptu and updated my Facebook status through it too.

So far so good.

Now what bothered me was the resolution of my location shown to me on my phone which is within 500 to 700 meters depending upon the triangulation and terrain. We decided to go to Dominos and I assured them that we can reach on our own and lets try. At most we would have to ask some one.

Searched for Dominos on map located a store and as it was not that close we decide to get an auto rickshaw. The map showed me that we were going off route so we took a U turn… may be the driver was taking us on the right road… but who knows. We got down at a place somewhere near dominoes. In between Google failed to triangulate my location and ended up showing me somewhere in the mountains.

We looked for Dominos and following the map we reached the place marked dominoes. Now I don’t know whether it was the resolution issue or some bugger had marked dominoes on the wrong place. I guess the probability of it being marked wrongly on map is more. We had to ask a cool guy on a bus stop who told us the way to Dominos which was almost a kilo meter away from the marked spot. I also had called up the same outlet twice to confirm the location on the number that I got on the map. [number was correct spot was wrong or may be it was the triangulation algorithm… we would not be able to know]. Finally we reached Dominos. Had hell of a party. India had won the match too…

Lesson learn: Trust the technology but it has its limits and asking a human doest hurt at all (if confused ask more then one)

Technology can be trusted but people can not as we see that the person who marked Dominos on map was surely a human.

I know both statements above contradict but so is life… contradictory and confusing…

BTW I love my E63

My Hacks

How to dry wet mobile

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Yesterday my cell phone .. got drenched in water … almost got itself killed… I tried soo many tricks to save its life.. D moisture almost took my baby’s life… I saved it .. with rice … U can too …

It could be anything .. sink, toilet or rainstorm, anything …
Posting it so that it might help you… Don’t try to turn your ph on!.
1. Remove the battery immediately , patt it dry with a towel
2. If sun is high .. put them out ..
3. Try using a hair dryer
4. Put into a container of dry raw rice for a day ( maybe for 2 -3)
5. put phone in a plastic bag with a few silica packets.
6. Hearing aid dryer for several hours.
7. Place it in an oven with just the oven light on for a few days(the light on is enough to dry out the air and increase the temperature just a little).
8. Rub alcohol to avoid corrosion due to the water but don’t use it on the screen

Google

Goo.Gl Google’s own url shortner

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goo.glGoogle has launched its own URL shortening tool, as the company continues to expand into new services.

While not quite as earth shattering as the launch of its own operating system, the unveiling of Goo.gl is an interesting move for the search giant.

Link shorteners, such as TinyURL and Bit.ly, allow people to reduce long URLs into a short jumble of letters and digits. These tools have become increasingly high-profile thanks to services such as Twitter – which limits tweets to 140 characters.

Unlike those previously mentioned services, Goo.gl will not be offered as a standalone link shrinker. Instead it will initially be built into Google’s products, beginning with the company’s browser toolbar and its Feedburner RSS service.

“Google URL shortener is not a stand-alone service; you can’t use it to shorten links directly,” says Muthu Muthusrinivasan, a Google software engineer on the company’s blog.

“If the service proves useful, we may eventually make it available for a wider audience in the future,” he concludes.

According to Google, URLs shortened through Goo.gl will be automatically checked against a list of malicious sites, allowing the company to warn users about dodgy links.

Hacking

How to avoid scams – by Google

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http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/scam23.jpgSpammers attempt to reach users by generating hundreds of webpages and sending out a flood of spam emails, sometimes even buying advertisements on reputable websites. Their sites also target other popular Internet companies. They may include family photos pilfered from another site or a picture of a check they supposedly received. Spammers use a wide range of techniques that try to slip past automatic filters to get to you. Following is a guide that aims at helping avoid getting into scams.

How to identify scams and other schemes

In general, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Here are some pointers on what to look out for:

  • Before you fill out a form or give someone a credit card, do a web search to see what other people are saying about the company and its practices.
  • Be wary of companies that ask for upfront charges for services that Google actually offers for free. Check out our business solutions page before writing a check.
  • Always read the fine print. Watch out for get-rich-quick schemes that charge a very low initial fee before sneaking in large reoccurring charges on your credit card or bank account.
  • Google never guarantees top placement in search results or AdWords — beware of companies that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a special relationship with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or through the Sitemaps program — you can do these tasks yourself at no cost whatsoever.
  • Be wary of anything resembling a pyramid scheme, where you make commissions by recruiting more participants.
  • Some sales pitches use the word “Google” or other trademarks right in their name with targeted phrases like “cash,” “pay day,” “money,” “secrets,” “home business,” etc. If you can’t find it on our list of Google products or on the business solutions page, don’t trust it.
  • Look for third party verification. Scammers can easily cut-and-paste images to plaster a site with “as seen on TV,” “five-star reviews” and the logos of well-known news channels. Products that have really been recommended by experts and fellow users typically contain links from legitimate news sites and multiple user review sites.
  • Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about making money with Google AdWords as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators. In general, be wary of offers from firms that email you out of the blue. Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:

“I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”

  • Google is not running a lottery, and we have not picked your email address to win millions of dollars. Don’t give out your bank account details via email in anticipation of a big jackpot.

What you can do

  • If you come across many sites with duplicate content or common templates intended to direct users to the same product or scheme, please let us know with a spam report.
  • If you’ve been contacted to place suspicious links on your site for money, let us know with the paid link report form. If you have your own website or are in charge of advertising on a site, think carefully before accepting ads or entering into affiliate programs that will lead your users to schemes like those mentioned above.
  • If your site’s forums or comment sections have been spammed with fake offers of fabulous financial gain, you may need to take steps to fight comment spam. Spammers will take advantage of any user-generated content sections of your site, and will even generate thousands of fake user profiles to try to slip under the radar.
News, Technology

Intel moves towards laptop grphics

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Intel's next-generation graphics technology due for introduction at the Consumer Electronics Show.Intel will focus on next-generation laptop technology that combines graphics functions with the main processor, in the wake of the cancellation of its initial “Larrabee” graphics processor.

Despite the market-rattling news from Intel late on Friday–which pushed rival Nvidia’s stock up more than 12 percent on Monday–Intel still remains the leader in the high-volume “integrated” graphics market.

And the world’s largest chipmaker is about to up the ante in this market for low-cost graphics technology, which many consumers opt for instead of high-performance chips from Nvidia or Advanced Micro Devices’s ATI unit.

Later this month, Intel will unveil the first product, codenamed “Pine Trail”, that puts the graphics function directly onto the same piece of silicon as the main “CPU” processor, a major departure from current technology which puts the graphics in a separate piece of ancillary silicon called the chipset.

This will be followed quickly by a CPU-graphics combination chip for laptops dubbed “Arrandale.”

Integrating the graphics function onto the CPU is a feat that AMD–despite its purchase of graphics chip giant ATI in 2006–has yet to achieve.

“This is the next logical step in further integration brought to us by Moore’s Law,” said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, which tracks the graphics chip market.

“This is where the volume of sales are,” said Peddie, referring to the segment of the market that the processor targets. Arrandale is expected to be rolled out at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

As a new feature, the chip will be able to accelerate so-called “drag-and-drop transcoding” in Windows 7. Transcoding converts, for instance, a movie on a PC to a format that makes it viewable on an iPhone or iPod. This won’t be available immediately, however, Intel said Monday. It will come soon after the introduction of the processor as a “driver update.”

The Arrandale chip will not support Microsoft’s DirectX-11 mutlimedia acceleration technology for Windows 7. At least not right away. “It’s on the roadmap,” according to Intel. But this technology is not widely supported across product lines by any graphics chip supplier currently.

Intel also said Monday that it will continue development work on future standalone graphics products. “We haven’t stopped investing in many-core graphics architectures,” an Intel spokesperson said.

Google

“GBOARD” The Gmail keyboard

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Gmail has long had keyboard shortcuts, though learning them can be difficult. Enter the Gboard, a specialized mini-keyboard for Google’s e-mail service. It debuts this Friday at an asking price of $19.99.

The Gboard consists of 19 colored keys set in a standard size numpad-only keyboard. Clicking on any one of these performs that particular keyboard shortcut. Included are Gmail-specific features such as starring messages, starting a search, and jumping between message threads. Outside of Gmail they simply act as normal keyboard buttons, and will type in whatever letter or number corresponds with that shortcut.

The device is powered by USB and requires no special software or drivers, however users need to first enable keyboard shortcuts within Gmail’s settings before using it. Also worth noting is that it was created not by Google, but by Charlie Mason, a film producer from Venice, Calif. This is his first foray into the computer hardware business.

The Gboard consists of 19 keys, all of which act as shortcuts within Google’s Gmail Web mail service.

This really is a product that users will either love or hate. Those who have mastered Gmail’s shortcuts will see little need to buy special hardware and find a spare USB port to plug it into. Meanwhile, newbie users may be unwilling to take the plunge on such a specific peripheral for a program that works only within another program (the browser). The Gboard runs the risk of being an unappealing prospect to both parties.

It’s also not the first attempt at easing the process of learning and remembering shortcuts. This time last year Google offered users a free pack of color-coded shortcut stickers that could be tacked onto any keyboard. There have also long been specialized keyboards for video and audio editing as well as graphical design–all of which provide similar, color-coded keys. Users who don’t want to commit, or tack stickers on their keyboard, also have the option of buying a silicone keyboard mat, though no such thing has been created for Gmail.

Considering there are a total of 69 Gmail shortcuts (with more on the way if Google graduates some of its experimental features from its labs section) the Gboard could just be the first step toward creating a full-size (100 plus key) version. In the meantime, its early December release and low price tag make for a good stocking stuffer if you’ve got a Gmail lover in your family.

The good:
• No setup required
• Color coding is logical and makes it easy to learn the keys
• Good build quality and feel; keys are flat like on a laptop
• At $19.99 it’s not that expensive. Most numeric-only keyboards cost about the same.

The bad:
• Does not come close to including all of Gmail’s shortcuts
• Could be rendered less useful if Gmail’s shortcuts change
• Only comes in one color (black)

via CNET

Google

Google adds streaming news to Google Finance

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Google Finance now offers streaming news related to the stock market.

(Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)

Google has added a few new features in hopes of attracting more users to Google Finance, blending financial stories from Google News right into the mix.

Yahoo owns the online financial information market with Yahoo Finance (rated first in its category by ComScore with 22 million unique visitors in September), but Google is trying to carve out a niche for itself by adding a so-called “real time” stream of news to Google Finance pages. On the main Google Finance page, users can now click on a news tab that brings up what appears to be a constantly updated Google News-powered stream of news stories related to the general market or specific portfolios set up as part of a profile.

The stories seem to update every minute or so, but Google will only turn on the streaming service between 8 a.m. ET and 5:30 p.m. ET, 90 minutes before and after the U.S. stock market trading hours. Google also said it has added a list of the recent quotes users look up on the service, as well as real-time streaming of stock prices on pages dedicated to individual stocks–all services currently available on Yahoo Finance.