Ensure the emails you send, don't get junked

Spam filters are quite intelligent today, but there are times when they end up blocking legitimate messages because they contain keywords that may have been used by the recipient of the mail to set up the rules for her spam filter. Here are few ways to ensure your emails lands in the inbox and not the junk folder.

Mind your language:
Since most spam filters depend heavily in keywords, the language you use in your email is of great importance.Using all capitals or too many emoticons are definitely email stoppers. Avoid superlatives in the subject line - like 'best' and 'superb' or even phrases like 'just the one you want'. These usually rank high on the block list of the spam filters.

Stay away from fancy HTML and attachments:
If you are sending a message to someone you don't know, consider sending the email as plain text, rather than as fancy HTML web page. Web pages are more likely to get blocked since hackers often use HTML code to hide malicious codes. The same goes for attachments. So, if someone isn't expecting your CV, put your cover letter as well as the CV in the body of your email.

Skip the pictures:
Unfortunately, spam filters seem to have certain angst against email dressed up with pretty pictures and graphics. Because spammers like to use graphics, which means all emails with graphics suffer by association. So avoid those pre-format emails with a logo and letterhead over them.

Use blind carbon copy (BCC):
Spam filters monitor the number of recipients closely - they are set to block emails with more that a certain number of recipients. So if you need to deliver an important message to a large group, use the BCC function. With this mail gets sent out to each recipient individually and the only email address that will appear in the recipient's mailbox is their own.

Get white-listed:
The opposite of a blacklist, or a list of known spammers, a white-list is a list of 'safe' senders. Most internet service providers (ISPs) have such white-lists. To get on a white-list, write down to postmaster@the_domain and request to be put on the white-list. Similarly, individual recipients are able to maintain a white-list too, so mail them a request to add your address in their address book, white-list.

Taste some brilliant HD videos

If you want to taste some brilliant HD videos visit the video gallery at www.nasa.gov

Currently, there are a few movies on HD DVD, including BBC's mind blowing 'Planet Earth' series. You can also find movie trailers and other promotional videos online on various websites.

But, if you are a space fan, visit the video-gallery. Here, you will find the most spectacular videos posted by Nasa. These videos are heavy if you consider the file size, but for broadband users that should not be a problem.

Where's the 'Run' command in Vista

In Windows Vista, you wont find the 'Run' button in the Start menu by default.

For those who found it convenient to use the 'run' commands can invoke it by pressing 'Windows + r' key combination.

To bring it back to the Start menu, simply right click the 'Start menu' and select 'properties' now navigate to 'customize' and check the box where it says 'Run Command'.

Thats it!!

The power of a PC on your phone

A new service lets you access files on the computer from your ordinary GPRS phone

Thanks to the march of technology, that small gadgets in your pocket – the one you call phone – is capable of lot more than just making calls and sending SMSs. Many of the new models - the smart phones – come packed with the power of mini PC. They let you read/ write mails, surf the internet, work on office files, even book tickets. However, the most of the critical information that you need access to will usually be stored in your PC. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could access on your phone documents and mails stored in your PC? Well, if that one functionality you have been missing in your phone, we have just the service for you – soonR (www.soonr.com). The nice thing about it is that with this software, any phone with data access capabilities becomes a smart phone.

Trawling your PC:
SoonR is a tiny piece of software that sits on your PC and lets you search your files and folders for a mobile phone. You can view or share any of the results that you discover right from your phone. Its made up of three main components: SoonR desktop to search and access documents and images, SoonR Organiser for email, scheduling and contacts and SoonR Talk for mobile VoIP.

To use SoonR, you don’t need to install any software on your phone – all you need is a GPRS connection to get started. However, on your PC you would need to install a PC software client, and tell the client what part of your PC you need access to. For instance, say you select outlook. SoonR will send a web link to your phone – just click on it and you can view all outlook email (including subfolders), as well as contacts and calendar, from any phone.

Viewing photos or files from the phone is a snap too. You could just google any image you have it on your PC or navigate it to the file and select it. SoonR will take the image you have on your PC and compress it to a small thumbnail of around 75 KB (upto 3 MP) to fit your phone’s small screen. The result it decent, however patience is the key, especially with the kind of GPRS network speed you get in India – the image can take a long time to load. With edge phones the experience is slightly better though.

Wasted talk:
The most disappointing component of SoonR is the Talk component. This one is supposed to let you connect with skype service (voip) on your PC and allow you to make free calls from your phone. But what it actually does (at least right now) is, it calls your phone, the one where you are right now using SoonR. Once you take the call it will connect your skype contact through you PC and transmit the resulting audio conversation to your phone. This means you still end up using your cell phones talk time, which is a useless service as you don’t save any money.

Other features include ability to access more than one PC with soonr account and integration of desktop search (google desktop search and such like)

As for the money bit, SoonR is currently available for free. However, the company has plans to offer premium services in the future for encrypted backups and such.

Overall, Skype aside, soonR is a great way to access files on the go. So if you wish to have access to your computer all the time, soonR is certainly worth a try.

Microsoft Surface

Soon you could be sitting in a restaurant and checking out the menu by looking at the table top and ordering food by simply touching the surface of your table. This is not some science fiction. It is a reality that will soon be made possible by Surface Touch technology from Microsoft.

According to Microsoft, by end 2007 surface technology will be out for users to experience it. Currently, surface screens manufactured in a table like form factor. The technology would allow users to interact with photos, digital music and other forms of digital content using just their hands, with gestures and by putting real world objects on the surface. All you would need is your fingers to literally 'grab' visual information.


Surface computers make use of cameras to detect responses made by user. The information is then computed and the result is then displayed on the Surface screen using rear projection. On the inside, Surface technology runs on Windows Vista operating system and supports both wired and Wi-Fi and bluetooth connectivity. The table-like form factor is important, as it enables potential users to interact easily in our day-to-day environment. For example, the surface screen can be a part of a bar in a pub or blend into your wooden table at home.

Think of it as something like the gaming kiokis that you see at game parlours minus controller sticks and buttons. Here, you directly interact with the screen using your fingers as the medium of interaction. What this means for places like shopping malls, coffee shops, restaurants and movie halls is that, you can have a completly interactive experience when you visit one. Imagine visiting a movie hall, check all the listing on the surface screen and book your tickets.

The Surface display is capable of multi-touch interaction. It can simultaneously track multiple responses which include fingers, hands, gestures and objects placed on the surface. The technology can even detect barcode information and identification tags encoded on to membership cards. Since, the interaction via surface technology would be direct, it would make the whole process much more fun than say using buttons or mice or keyboards to order things. Not just that, using this technology, a number of people can use surface computers at the same time. This means more than two people can play games on such a screen at the same time.

Surface also supports object recognition. This means you can even place physical objects on the surface to set off a preferred response. Like, in a restaurant if you want a glass of water, place an empty glass on the surface screen area marked to order water. Anyone who would be interested in using Surface Technology would be given a complete list of basic applications that include photos, games, music and so on. This is done to help buyers customize the technology according to their needs.

Do visit: www.microsoft.com/surface

Upgrade to Vista; yes or no, decide urself

Should

1 Security: One of primary design focuses for Vista was to create the most secure environment possible. Many basic aspects of Windows (such as running as an Administrator) have been changed to help produce this environment. Not only that, Internet Explorer 7 has many new features designed to help protect you while you are online.

2 Enhanced networking: Microsoft has rewritten its TCP/IP network stack for Vista to provide better performance. In addition, Vista has dramatically changed how users interact with the network devices in their PC and on their network. Now users can take advantage of the new built-in tools to help diagnose network problems. This will cut down on help desk calls and in some cases, speed up support. The help desk can use the information provided by the diagnostic tools to help in their troubleshooting.

3 Aero Glass user interface:The Aero Glass interface in Windows Vista is a major step forward for Windows in GUI design. Your Windows desktop has never looked better than it will under a Vista version supporting Aero Glass. Not only do things look better, but the whole layout of the GUI has been changed to make everything easier to find and more intuitive to use.

4 Integrated Sidebar and Search: Most of us have already installed a third-party search application, RSS reader, and sidebar or gadget dock in Windows XP. These features have been integrated into the OS itself and look fabulous under Aero Glass. You’ll no longer need to open a browser to see your stocks or check on the weather. They will be constantly displayed (and updated) from the Windows Sidebar. Searching for your documents has never been easier, either, now that the integrated search function in Windows supports the indexing features of many newer search applications.

5 Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor: IT professionals are already familiar with Performance Monitor, but now the power of this utility has been brought to the masses. The new Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor can easily be set by a user to automatically take a baseline performance reading of their new PC. And when performance begins to suffer, this tool will help then diagnose what is causing the problem.

6 500 new GPO objects: Many companies rely on Active Directory and its Group Policy capabilities to enforce standards on their desktops. Windows Vista makes this even better by including more than 500 new Group Policy Objects.

7 BitLocker: As we’ve seen over the past few years, laptops are one of the biggest security holes for IT departments. The new BitLocker technology in Windows Vista can help mitigate this risk by encrypting data and making the computer unusable to anyone not in possession of the startup key (which can be typed in or stored on a USB key).

8 Continual support: Being the newest OS from Microsoft, Vista will be eligible for support longer than any other Windows OS available. Along with support from Microsoft, there will be support from the Internet at large, as people will be using Windows Vista for quite awhile into the foreseeable future. This offers some peace of mind, knowing that you can get help should you
run into any issues.

9 ReadyBoost (USB drive as memory): Microsoft has a new way to help you boost performance on your OS without requiring you to buy a lot of new expensive hardware. You can now plug in removable memory (USB key, compact flash, SD card, etc.) and assign all or part of it to use ReadyBoost. This means that the memory will be used as a prefetch section between your RAM and hard drive. In testing, this has shown that it can offer a great speed boost to many systems, especially those with limited RAM.

10 DirectX 10: DirectX 10 will be available only on Windows Vista. DirectX is useful for a variety of graphics and video functions, including business applications such as video conferencing. And if you must have the latest and greatest in games, the upgrade to Windows Vista is a no-brainer, as this is the only way you can get it. DirectX 10 also claims to fix the small batch problem from previous versions. It has claimed that this could lead to DirectX 10 games that can perform six times better than the same game running in DirectX 9 on Windows XP.

Should’nt

1 Stiff hardware requirements: Vista has the harshest hardware requirements of any Microsoft operating system to date. To use all of the features of Windows Vista, you need a 1 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, and a DirectX 9-capable video card. Although this will allow you to run everything, you’ll get better performance with a faster processor and more RAM. Since the Aero Glass interface requires a DirectX 9-capable GPU, a lot of older desktops and laptops won’t be able to use Aero Glass, even if they meet the other requirements.

2 Learning curve: Vista is a different animal from previous Windows operating systems. Many of the tools are the same or similar, but there is still a lot to learn. If your IT department is already stretched thin, taking the time to learn and implement Windows Vista may not be worth it right now.

3 No loss of WinXP support: Vista will be supported longer than XP, but XP still has two years of mainstream support from Microsoft. And a wealth of information on WinXP (and other operating systems) is already available on the internet. If you and your staff are comfortable with XP, there’s little reason to upgrade to Vista for continued support at the moment

4 Application incompatibility: Many popular applications do not work on Vista. Applications like ITunes and Nero have issues running on Vista. In fact, nearly every program involved in ripping or recoding media have issues with Vista. If these majorapplications are having compatibility issues, how many more small applications–those you may use everyday– will have problems, too?

5 DRM issues: Peter Gutmann from the UK’s The Register has called Window Vista’s new DRM the “longest suicide note in history.” Even though great strides have been made for PCs in the living room as an entertainment device, Vista has put crippling DRM into place when playing next generation (HD-DVD and BluRay) content. When playing this content, the component output and S/PDIF output is disabled, effectively crippling Windows Vista as an entertainment system.

6 Notebook battery drain: Windows Vista requires more hardware power to run–and notebook battery life goes down the more you require of your PC’s hardware. Even just running the Aero Glass interface will drain your battery faster, due to the additional GPU processing. Any dedicated road warrior should consider this before upgrading.

7 Not so innovative: You can download many advanced search applications for free. Even Microsoft has released one. Google has a nice sidebar with a built-in RSS reader available for free. Yahoo widgets (formally Konfabulator) allow you to change your desktop into a virtual workspace with all manner of data and tools available at your fingertips. Apple’s OS X is by far the leader in modern desktops. Even Aero Glass cannot compare to the smoothness of OS X (which is more than five years old). Sun’s Project Looking Glass can provide a minimal 3d desktop for XP for free.

8 Cost: Vista is expensive. There’s no way around this. Microsoft has tried to mitigate this by releasing different versions of Vista with different price points. Unfortunately, many of these are feature crippled and cause more confusion than necessary. If you want Vista, expect to pay up to $400 for one of the top versions.

9 A new video card for DirectX 10: DirectX 10 being Vista-only means that many gamers are waiting patiently on the newest OS. Unfortunately, not only will they have to pay for the OS, but they will also have to buy a new video card that supports DirectX 10. Currently, only NVIDIAs 8800 chipset is DirectX 10 compatible, with the lowest model (the GTS) having a retail price of Rs.19000/-.

10 Slower game performance: Aero Glass is one of the cornerstones of Windows Vista, but it puts a load on your video card that will affect game performance. There are several reports of Microsoft telling developers that current games will run 10 percent to 15 percent slower on Vista than on Windows XP as a result. It remains to be seen whether this performance hit will continue to be an issue on games designed specifically for Vista.

OpenID; multiple sites, single login

What is OpenID?

OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity.

OpenID starts with the concept that anyone can identify themselves on the Internet the same way websites do-with a URI (also called a URL or web address). Since URIs are at the very core of Web architecture, they provide a solid foundation for user-centric identity.

The first piece of the OpenID framework is authentication — how you prove ownership of a URI. Today, websites require usernames and passwords to login, which means that many people use the same password everywhere. With OpenID Authentication, your username is your URI, and your password (or other credentials) stays safely stored on your OpenID Provider (which you can run yourself, or use a third-party identity provider).

To login to an OpenID-enabled website (even one you’ve never been to before), just type your OpenID URI. The website will then redirect you to your OpenID Provider to login using whatever credentials it requires. Once authenticated, your OpenID provider will send you back to the website with the necessary credentials to log you in. By using string authentication where needed, the OpenID Framework can be used for all types of transactions, both extending the use of pure single-sign-on as well as the sensitivity of data shared.

Beyond Authentication, the OpenID framework provides the means for users to share other components of their digital identity. By utilizing the emerging OpenID Attribute Exchange specification, users are able to clearly control what pieces of information can be shared by their Identity Provider, such as their name, address, or phone number.

Today, OpenID has emerged as the de-facto user-centric identity framework allowing millions of people to interact online. With programs such as the I Want My OpenID Bounty, developers of Open Source projects are rapidly adding support for OpenID in order to enable their communities.

Who owns this?

Nobody should own this. Nobody’s planning on making any money from this. The goal is to release every part of this under the most liberal licenses possible, so there’s no money or licensing or registering required to play. It benefits the community as a whole if something like this exists, and we’re all a part of the community.

AJAX’s Reincarnation

In th web world today, AJAX is the most “IN” thing for any person associated with the web world. It is the driving force for web 2.0 as per programmers perspective.

Whats is AJAX:
Ajax, shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a web development technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user requests a change. This is meant to increase the web page’s interactivity, speed, and usability.

When was AJAX born
AJAX was born at Redmond by Mircosoft Developers

It took 10 yrs for a web technology to make it big when technologies are changing at faster frequency than Paris Hilton’s boyfriends (i mayb wrong here ), pretty weired.
Thats because they invented something and we didn’t have the capability to handle. Our 19-54 kbps phone lines were not capable enough to handle the bandwidth load. Our Pentium 1 or 2 just couldn’t live with those code.

Who re-incarnated AJAX
Google, with their softwares like Google Earth and Google Map. Google demonstrated to the world the real power of AJAX, and the sleeping gaint was finally awaken. The world sat stunned and saw Google’s magic. And if anything is related to Google, its got to have something in AJAX. Google did indeed save lots of our time where we just sat after freshing F5 for the page to reload. And also responsible for the fat i have put on as that used to be the only exercise i used to do

Now this has been one of the reasons for Google taking over Microsoft. If someone could look into the future, he would have certainly commented to the Mircosoft guyz,
“U have created Frankenstein now, which would be responsible for your own loss, and your competitor’s domination”.

Get your laptop talk to your TV, wirelessly

These day, thanks to the entry of budget notebooks that are pre-configured with Wi-Fi, even the average home user has a hotspot at home. Basically, surfing the internet has become simple and convenient, whether it is from dining room while have your morning tea or on the bed just before you turn out the lights.

But can you say the same about multi-media? Don’t we all know how messy wiring elaborate multi-channel home theater systems and the DVD players can get? Then those how have a large collection of multimedia on their computers have their own issues as well. Getting all those movies and songs out of the computer to the large screen in the living room is quite a headache! All you can do is burn all the media on a blank DVD and pray that your DVD player supports MP3 audio and MPEG4 video. If it doesn’t, you’re better off renting DVDs from your local video guy than suffering hours on end while the PC puts in your efforts and time to convert all those videos into a format that the DVD player can understand.

Wouldn’t it be really convenient if you could magically beam all the content on the computer to your television and music system without wires? Fortunately, there’s no magic involved here – you can have such a setup running in your house if that is what you want. Companies such as Linksys, D-Link and now even Apple have such products for sale at prices far more reasonable than they were only a couple of months ago.

All the start of such a setup the most basic element required is a wireless LAN card (also called wireless adapter). If your laptop has built-in wireless, you can jump to the next item required. However, if you are looking to stream media from your desktop computer, then the chances are that it won’t have a wireless adapter. If such is the case, you can pick one form the computer store for Rs. 1000 to Rs. 1500. Just make sure that the adapter supports the wireless 802.11g standard, which allows for faster streaming of data. These LAN cards are required to stream videos and connect your PC to the TV. You can jump off to the next component if streaming is not your objective.

Next, you’ll need to pick up a wireless media adapter. This is the most important element in the setup and cannot be eliminated by any means. How such a device works is simple: Using conventional cables, it connects to your flat-panel display and home theater system. Then it will scan for a Wi-Fi setup in its specified perimeter. Once, you have setup Wi-Fi on your home desktop or notebook, it’ll automatically pick up any sort of media you’ve allowed the player to access and transfer all to its library. Then using the adapter’s own menus, you can navigate to any songs of video of your choice and have it played before you without long wires trailing from your computer to the music system or television. You can expect such devices to cost anything from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 20,000.

For instance, Netgear’s latest offering, the EVA8000 Digital Entertainer HD is a treat if you can get hold of it. One of the best things going for it is that it supports HD video and can connect to your HDTV using the new HDMI (high definition multi-media interface) standard. Using its USB slot, you can also plug in any USB flash drive or card reader and the media adapter will automatically search for music, photos and videos it can play. This product should set you back roughly Rs 18,000 though but is capable of playing avi and xvid formats.

Also have a look at the D-Link DSM-320RD media adapter. The good thing going for this device is that it has an integrated 5-in-1 card reader and doubles as a DVD player as well. This is the media adapter rated the best in the lot for its features and comparatively low cost. At a price of around Rs. 12000 you get a 5-in-1 card reader and a DVD player connected to your TV and a media adapter that connects to your PC to play streaming videos. Like EVA 8000 , it can also play internet radio.

Cheaper options would be Linksys WMA11B that would cost around Rs 4500. The official site fails to mention any of its video capabilities but the device is featured with a S-video port.

A better option than this would be ViewSonic WMA100 priced around Rs. 14500 and can play MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4 and several audio formats like the DSM320RD and EVA8000 but not avi and xvid formats. The D-Link DRM320RD competes with this model for low price and more features.

Finally, if you’re an Apple fan who owns the latest Macbook or Mac Pro desktop, have a look at the Apple TV. While this device resembles a slob of marble, don’t be surprised if it does a lot more that merely look good. Using the Apple TV, you’ll be able to play everything in your iTunes library – from downloaded music, movies, TV serials and trailers to content already in your hard drive – in the apple manner, that is, everything works with the maximum ease and convenience. You can pick it up from any Apple store in the country or from an Apple reseller. But in Apple fashion, just don’t expect it to have it for the price of a song.

Although the setup is a bit expensive initially but it allows you to play quality audio - video from your computer directly. With easy downloads from P2P softwares; movies, videos, MP3s are readily available for you to watch on the big screen. Next time when you be to an electronic shop to purchase a LCD or Plasma TV, this would be your add-on option.

Personal Computer, on the Web

Access mails, files, music, news feeds, chat with colleagues is all what you do with internet in your office, college or at home. But then every time you wish to do that you need a lot many things installed on your system like the web browser, messenger, office, PDF reader, etc. Although it is installed only once it is available to you only on your own system. A lot many things are not made available if you are in cyber café , college computers or at office.

Here’s another option for road warriors that believe in traveling light; Operating systems that run within the confines of your web browser. With such a service you could access your data from any internet connected device, anywhere in the world since everything would be online. This is an operating system with all the components loaded for you usage of the internet.

An online operating system (OLOS), also known as webOS, is one that runs inside your web browser and contain various features and functions within it, like online storage space, chat clients, calendar, MP3 player, RSS reader and so on. Most of these operating systems are built using flash, which makes the whole experience very intuitive. But flash based applications do gobble up a lot of bandwidth and this could make your interactive experience a little bit slow if you are on a slow connection. However, with the broadband speed increasing 10 times (200kbps to 2Mbps) over the past 5 yrs, the experience is going to be simply superb at the time when the advanced version of these OS would be launched.

There are plenty of such services that you could choose from. Though most of these webOSs are still in their early stages, they do look promising. Here are few of the most promising ones.

DesktopTwo:

Though DesktopTwo is in beta stage, you will be astonished with the features it has to offer. What you have at your disposal is 1 GB of online space, website editor, and support for POP email, blogging, MP3 player and instant messenger, to name a few.

You can also read your documents, including formats such as PDF, DOC, XLS, PPT and chat directly with another DesktopTwo user using a chat client, Live. Once you sign up at the site you can straightway make use of your new email address, @desktoptwo.com. Now to access your page simply log in. Here you can choose to either go in for a windowed, full screen or a current window view. Unfortunately, each time I tried to log in while using both Firefox and IE, I was greeted only by an error message or redirected to the home page.

Glide:

Glide is another flash-based online OS that offers features almost similar to DesktopTwo.

As far as registration goes there are different options to choose from, including ones that will cost you money. The free plans include ‘free individual’ and a ‘free family’ plans. While the former offers 300MB of online space the latter offers 1 GB of online space and supports four users. The plans go all the way up to ‘Family Premium yearly’, where you are offered 8 GB of online space and support for upto 8 users. But this package will cost you $149.95 a year.

For free users, during the registration process, you will need to provide your cell phone number on which you will receive code via SMS. As said earlier, the features offered by glide are similar to DesktopTwo, which include 1GB file storage, RSS feed and IM. You can also create documents and view pictures. What sets this one apart is its simple and intuitive interface.

Goowy:

As the site mentions, the creators chose to call this webOS ‘Goowy’ so that it can be playful and easy to remember at the same time. This is another neat looking web based operating system with useful applications and games. Other features include file-uploading facility, RSS reader, instant messaging, bookmarks and so on.

To register, you simply need to fill in a few details on the main page and you are ready to go. The whole process is real quick and within seconds you can access your online OS page. If you like computer games, you will particularly enjoying using this OS as there are dozens of games to choose from various genres. The other applications can be accessed by clicking one of the icons that are neatly stacked at the bottom of the screen. With this webOS you get an option to enter your yahoo, msn, IQ id and chat in a similar way as your client messenger system would do, however with certain features disabled. This eliminates the need to install client messengers on the system.

Of all the three online OSs I took a look at, I found this one to be most rich and easy to operate. But there are a few interface glitches that hopefully will be fixed soon.

Apart from these there are many more webOS, all in alpha or beta stages like eyeOS, youOS, googleOS which are certainly going to make impact on the webOS domain.