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Personalized Home for Mobiles by Google

Google has announced about a . The homepage displays everything from your Gmail inbox to news headlines,weather, stock quotes, and feeds.

The interface is optimized for small screens, says Abhijit Kalamkar, one of Google’s Software Engineer, on his post.

You can read the whole post here


Cleaning your Registry

Many people are not aware of the Windows Registry and why it is important to regularly clean it.

The Registry is Windows internal database which records an entry for every software you install and use. It even stores information of each user’s profile and hardware devices which is continuously reffered to by Windows.

If you are like me you will have a lot of unwanted entries in your registry by regularly installing and uninstalling different applications, which will affect the functioning of your PC.

There are many softwares that help you to keep your registry clean by removing these unwanted entries.

RegCleaner 4.3 is one such software that helps you with the task of cleaning your registry. You can download it from here.
Continue reading ‘Cleaning your Registry’


Google Desktop Rulez!

Google Desktop 2 is one of my favorite Google products. Google Desktop indexes my Gmail messages which helps me when I want to read my mail when I am offline.

Google Talk if installed will integrate with Google Desktop and inform me whenever I receive a mail in real time.

Web Clips is a panel in GD2 which is very useful when you want to be informed about the latest updates in your favorite blogs.

Other GD2 panels which interest me are Scratch Pad, News and What’s Hot.

Ofcourse there are other panels like Photos, Quick View, Stocks and Weather.


Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress

I just installed Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress 2.0 . It’s really awesome, you can get Googlebot to visit your site in under 60 seconds!

At first though I got an error while creating sitemap.xml, the error was because the script needed write access to my blog directory.

After a lot of searching I found how to do it. This is how I did it step by step:

  • create two blank files in notepad - sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz
  • upload them to your host
  • CHMOD them to 666, which makes them writable
  • generate the sitemap from your wordpress by going to options>sitemap

Now go to Google Sitemap and add your sitemap. Verify your site to see detailed statistics and errors for it.

If you still cannot get the sitemap generator to work then go here for a free step by step Google Sitemaps Video Tutorial.


BlackBerry to get Google Local & Google Talk

Expect Google to get into anything that has to do with the Internet! And if the Internet gets onto the Mobile, Google would follow suit and develop applications for your cell phone.

Google has announced that it is expanding its services to the BlackBerry platform. Available immediately, can be downloaded for free, and will provide BlackBerry users with maps and satellite imagery as well as the ability to receive driving directions and locate addresses.

Due this spring, Google Talk will also be provided for free, and will enable BlackBerry users to chat and keep up with their contacts via the Google Talk instant messaging system. Google Talk requires a free .

Of course both applications require that you have a data service subscription on your BlackBerry device, for which most providers charge.


What is Phishing?

Phishing attacks have increased a lot these days. Infact hackers are now using a more sophisticated method called Pharming. So what is this so called Phishing and Pharming? Keep reading to find out…

Phishing, also called as spoofing, is the act of attempting to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business with a real need for such information in a seemingly official electronic notification or message. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where there are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers that the legitimate organisation already has.

The term ‘Phishing’ comes from the fact that these Internet scammers use sophisticated lures as they ‘fish’ for user’s financial information and password data.

Phishing is spelt with a ‘Ph’ because hackers commonly replace the letter ‘f’ with ‘Ph’.

In Pharming, the DNS server software is exploited and the hacker acquires the domain name of a site and redirects traffic from that site to another Web site. This site is then used to steal or “phish” a visitor’s account details, or even the payment information.

Ok, now you know what Phishing and Pharming is. Now how do you avoid such attacks?

Well, the easiest way to avoid being a victim of such attacks is to be cautious as to where you give out your personal details such as credit card numbers, passwords and other payment or billing information such as bank account numbers or credit card details.

You can also use a good anti-phishing software. These programs are often integrated with Web browsers and e-mail clients as a toolbar that dispalys the real domain name for the visiting Web site. This prevents the most common form of Phishing attack called spoofing.

Browsers such as Internet Explorer 7 have in-built Phishing filters that automatically checks the visited web site against a list of reported phishing websites.


Google Earth for Mac

Google Earth came out of its Beta tag for Windows version and along with that Google also launched version for Mac OS X.

Following is part of the annoucement made on Google’s official blog:

We feel like proud parents around here. Our eldest, Google Earth for the PC, is officially leaving beta status today, and we couldn’t be more pleased. For those of you who downloaded early, upgrade to the latest and discover Google Earth all over again.

And we have a brand new member of the family — Google Earth for Macintosh. We’re happy to finally have some good news for the, ahem, vocal Mac enthusiasts we’ve been hearing from. Let’s just say that we have gotten more than a few “requests” for a Mac version of Google Earth.

You can read the whole post here

Google earth for PC and Mac can be downloaded from

Also more info on Google Earth can be found


Intel to launch low cost PCs

I just read on TechBulletin that Intel is working on introducing low cost PCs that will be priced around INR 10,000 (approx $225). The information was officially confirmed at the launch of Intel’s new processor range “Centrino Duo”.

Anand Chandrasekhar, senior vice-president (global sales & marketing), said at a press conference here, “We are working on a low-priced computer with the Indian government and may launch it sometime in the middle of 2006.” IT & telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran, who was present at the conference, said this will be the “rural PC” that the government has been working on.

The low cost PCs will be specially meant for rural market of India.

More information can be found here


Self Destructing SMSes

Staellium UK has developed StealthText, an SMS delivery system that allows the sender to send messages that will be deleted from the receiver’s phone 40 seconds after it has been read.

The catch here is that both the sender and the receiver need to have WAP access and WAP-enabled phones. However, only the sender of such messages needs to download a StealthText applet.

When a StealthText SMS is sent, the receiver gets a notification type of message that displays the sender’s name and a link to the actual message.

Now, if the receiver goes to that link, via WAP, the message is flagged as read and it simply cannot be accessed from the server 40 seconds later.

Although the SMS is no longer viewable by the receiver after 40 seconds, it is archieved on the server.

Staellium claims that this service will be a boon for celebrities who are afraid of being blackmailed later, or businessmen who urgently need to send confidential information to colleagues.

The comapany also plans to introduce the same technology for email, voice, picture and MMS messages.

Perhaps now we can prevent MMS scandal from taking place.


Britney Spears is #1

Britney Spears has many times been the most searched for person on major Search Engines.

But then it was because of her albums.

Now Britney seems to be on top of searches because she had a baby!

She didn’t release an album of new material in 2005, but the new mother was #1 on Yahoo!’s annual list of the most searched for. She’s topped the list for three of the past four years, having lost out to “American Idol” in 2004.



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