2009 December – Page 8 - - Technically Personal!

Archive for December, 2009

Bing Up, Bing Down, Bing Up

04 Dec, 2009 by Raju PP

Last night, Microsoft's servers ~~Binged~~ crashed and many tweeple thought that it's a nice opportunity to make fun of the latest Google competitor.

Visitors to Bing.com were getting a browser error message rather than a search bar. Service was down for at least 45 minutes before being restored around 7:10 p.m. PST.

The outage comes after a big week in which Microsoft announced new search abilities for Bing as well as improved mapping.

Why I think this Bing Crash is a marketing ploy?

Yes, you read it right. I believe this is nothing but a marketing ploy of Microsoft - a beg and seek attention PR work which has started last week after they announced the new search abilities of Bing. First of these sick gimmicks came day before when they released a series of videos claiming that “15 Google Users Tried Bing for a Week and 10 of them Switched”. The so called research was conducted by a qualitative research firm who were hired by Microsoft themselves and concluded that BING beats Google hands down! Hilarious! Conducting the survey to know their personal strengths and limitations is surely good, but releasing the so-called secret survey...

6 Comments Read More

Have You Checked out the Google Dictionary?

by Raju PP

News, Tiny Tip

Most probably you haven't. Atleast I hadn't, till today. Not sure from when they have it, but the dictionary app from Google is crisp, fast and accurate. Google Dictionary provides definitions and synonyms in almost thirty different languages, pulled from a scope of different sources and impressively fast.

In addition to Google's own database of definitions, looking up a word on the Dictionary website provides a list of definitions pulled from a variety of academically authoritative sources. You can mark words with the star button and come back to them later, see a list of recent searches and switch to translator resources or dictionaries for other languages.

It also has "Related phrases" feature which is useful to know the related phrases of the word.

Check out Google Dictionary [ 6 Comments Read More

TechPP Mega Christmas Giveaway : Lockngo 4.0

03 Dec, 2009 by Raju PP

Downloads, Featured, Giveaway

Wow! We are already onto the second week of TechPP Mega Christmas Giveaway and the response has been enormous, with each day, hundreds of comments/entries being made and so many free licenses being given away. Today we have a very useful utility to review and giveaway - Lockngo 4.0 from Keynesis, an ultimate portable media protection software. Lockngo enables you to protect the information stored on USB drives, removable hard drives, SmartMedia cards etc. It is fast, smart and very easy to use. Today, we have 100 Free licenses of Lockngo Standard edition to be given away. Unlike the previous giveaways we had, this will be on 'First come first serve' basis. So, be amongst the first 100 commenters requesting for the free license and take away a free license of Lockngo Standard edition, each license is worth $19.95! We also have 15 Free licenses of Lockngo Professional edition which will given to random winners. More details after the brief overview of the product.

Keynesis Lockngo 4.0 - A brief review

Lockngo is regarded as the perfect USB drive security solution. You don't even need to install it to use...

227 Comments Read More

How to Embed Google Wave in Your Blog/Website?

by Raju PP

Tutorial, Wordpress

Continuing our tutorial series on Google Wave, here is the next one which will help you to embed Google Wave on your blog or website. I personally don't find a reason yet to add Google Wave on TechPP, but then some of you might have a better idea and like to see it on your website. This tutorial will help you do that. In case you are new to Google Wave, you might also be interested in these articles:

How to Embed Google Wave on Your Wordpress Blog?

Mark Essel has written a nice article on how to embed Google Wave on a Wordpress blog. Follow the simple steps below: 1. Install the wavr plugin and activate it. 2. Once you have activated the plugin, you would need the WAVE ID to embed the wave. [wave id="WAVE_ID"] 3. In order to find the Wave ID, check out the wave URL. If Google Wave URL is https://wave.google.com/wave/#restored:wave:googlewave.com!w%252BSsJfE3HIC the wave ID will be googlewave.com!w%252BSsJfE3HIC 4. Using Wavr plugin, you will have other parameters...

18 Comments Read More

Google Homepage Can’t Get Simpler Than This!

by Raju PP

News

Spot the difference! Google has shed some more weight off its homepage. A brand new minimalistic design has been released for Google search. It removes many of the main page elements, bringing them to you once you wave your mouse over the page. Many of you might have observed this over the past few weeks, but the feature is now available for the masses. The site does look a lot cleaner on first load, with just the logo and the search field, but I'm sure a lot of users won't notice the change, hence this post! Google agrees that this new change involving fade-in does slow the users down, but over a period of time, it increases their efficiency at using the homepage. Google has occasionally used the homepage to promote a few Google related products, most notably Chrome and the Droid. For now, it seems to want to draw all focus to search. What do you think of the new home...

14 Comments Read More

Share, View and Edit Google Docs in Google Wave

02 Dec, 2009 by Raju PP

Tiny Tip

There are still some people who haven't understood what's special in Google Wave and some doesn't even know what Google Wave is! We know that

Google Wave is a personal real-time collaboration and communication platform which allows several users to work on the same tasks together concurrently.

Some might ask me, "Isn't it same as Google docs?" Well, it is similar, but unlike docs, it is not restricted to documents alone. Unfortunately, in Google Wave, a user cannot create, edit or share documents, spreadsheets or presentations. Although it is possible to upload a Word or Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint to Google Wave, the uploaded file becomes an attachment to the wave message, and do not support editing. For those users who actually wants to collaborate and co-edit a document, spreadsheet or presentation via Google Wave simultaneously at real time, here’s a workaround to allow integration of Google Wave and Google Docs.

Integrate Google Docs with Google Wave

1. Create a new wave or open an existing wave that users want to incorporate a Google Docs document. 2. Click on Add Gadget by URL icon, which is a green color icon in the shape of a puzzle. 3. Add the below Google wave gadget into your...

6 Comments Read More

Twitter on BillBoard = #FAIL

by Raju PP

Social Media, TimePass

The general manager and news director of an Alabama TV station were suspended for a week after their project to Tweet their news items directly to a roadside billboard resulted in the below image.

They sure look guilty to me. [ 0 Comments Read More

Free Windows 7 Firewall – ZoneAlarm 9.1

by Raju PP

Downloads, Windows 7

I don't need to stress upon the importance of having a firewall for your PC, irrespective of which operating system you are running. And whenever we talk about Firewall software, ZoneAlarm comes up in the list each time. Surprisingly enough, even though ZoneAlarm 9.1 Free version was released early last week, it was not publicized anywhere except the ZoneAlarm forums. Major changes in Zonealarm 9.1 include full Windows 7 compatibility and a new browser security toolbar that detects spy sites, offers website safety checks and ratings as well as a signature and heuristic phishing detection.

Features of ZoneAlarm 9.1

* Windows 7 compatibility * Provides basic 2-way firewall protection * Blocks inbound and outbound traffic threats * Makes you invisible to hackers * Website safety check and rating

Download ZoneAlarm 9.1.007.002 for Windows 7

[ 2 Comments Read More

Archive for December, 2009

Bing Up, Bing Down, Bing Up

Why I think this Bing Crash is a marketing ploy?

Have You Checked out the Google Dictionary?