Google Presently - Addition to Google Online Office Suite

Posted on September 18, 2007

Google inches another step towards a true Microsoft Office competitor.

Google has officially launched the missing piece of Google Docs & Sheets, i.e, Presentation product to compete with Microsoft Office.

Interestingly, IBM has also announced the launch of free Lotus Symphony to compete with Microsoft Office which will be available as free downloadable from IBM website.

Check the Demo

» Filed Under Google | 1 Comment

IBM to Offer Lotus Symphony Free

Posted on September 18, 2007

IBM has announced the launch of free Lotus Symphony to compete with  Microsoft Office  and Google Docs & Sheet (who has added its final product Presently in the Suite).

According to New York Times, IBM Lotus Symphony includes word processing, spreadsheets and presentations which will be available as free downloadable from IBM website.

» Filed Under IBM | 2 Comments

Firefox Addon Cookie Swap

Posted on September 17, 2007

I am not a big admirer of Firefox and don’t like going into the fight of Firefox and Internet Explorer, but yeah I do like some of the extensions ( Firefox Addons ). Until now, I was a big fan of “Mouse Gestures” extension, but now I have got one more which is CookieSwap.

What is CookieSwap?

CookieSwap enables you to easily swap all your cookies so that you can be logged in to multiple web e-mail accounts (like Gmail and Yahoo! mail) at the same time and quickly switch between them. It also enables you to maintain numerous sets of profiles of cookies.

This is useful for tasks like:

  • You have got multiple email accounts in Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail etc and tired of logging out and then back in to check emails. It is also useful if two or more people are using the same computer.
  • If you use MyBlogLog and don’t want to stay logged in when you are surfing website
  • If you want to use Google Web Search anonymously, but at the same time you want to keep yourself logged in for other Google Services like Orkut, Google Analytics etc.

Note : If you want to do anonymous web surfing then just create a anonymous profile and don’t login to any services using that profile.

How this extension works?

  1. Right click on the CookieSwap area of the Status Bar Panel (lower right corner of the browser) to bring up the CookieSwap menu. Select a profile (let’s say ‘Profile1′
  2. Go to a web e-mail site (like www.gmail.com) and login
  3. Bring up the CookieSwap menu again and select a different profile (let’s say ‘Profile2′)
  4. Again go to the web e-mail’s main page. Note: Don’t click on a link in the current open page. Instead, hand type the URL…like www.gmail.com, or use a bookmarked entry for the site.
  5. Notice the site doesn’t recognize you as the previous user. Login with a different username if you want.
  6. Use the CookieSwap menu to go back to Profile1 and again surf to the web e-mail’s main page. It recognizes you again as the original user that logged in!

Click here to install CookieSwap

» Filed Under Firefox, Internet | 1 Comment

Free Print Subscription of Microsoft Architecture Journal

Posted on September 17, 2007

The Architecture Journal is an independent platform for free thinkers and practitioners of IT architecture. New editions are issued quarterly with articles designed to offer perspective, share knowledge, and help you learn the discipline and pursue the art of IT architecture.

How to Subscribe ?

Click here to receive a free print version.

Current issue covers the given below topics :

Past PDF Issues (Click here for other languages)

Journal 1 - Journal 2 - Journal 3  - Journal 4 - Journal 5 - Journal 6  - Journal 7  - Journal 8  - Journal 9  - Journal 10  - Journal 11  - Journal 12

» Filed Under Microsoft | 1 Comment

Free Digital Editions of MSDN Magazine and Dr. Dobb’s Journal

Posted on September 17, 2007

Good news for IT professionals. The digital editions of MSDN Magazine and Dr. Dobb’s Journal can now be subscribed for free.

MSDN magazine (Microsoft Journal for Developers) is the publication to read for comprehensive coverage of Microsoft development technologies, whereas Dr. Dobb’s Journal covers all practical technologies, languages, platforms, and tools.  Dr Dobb’s Journal has got 30 years of experience in this industry.

How to subscribe?

Login here with your Windows Live ID account.

Sample issues

  1. Dr Dobb’s Journal
  2. MSDN Magazine

Note : The magazines are also available in PDF format

» Filed Under Microsoft | Leave a Comment

Offline Gmail Client

Posted on September 16, 2007

A report from Hindustan Times indicates that Google has developed an offline version of Gmail and likely to be made it available within this year.

Google has previously offered an offline version of Google Reader which let your work offline using the Google Gears browser plugin. It is a definite possibility that Google is working on the offline version of Gmail but it is not confirmed from Google yet.  

Hindustan Times reported,

According to highly placed sources,  Google has developed an offline version of Gmail. Gmail Offline will allow users to browse, reply, save drafts and do everything that currently Gmail does in an offline mode even when you don’t have an Internet connection. On current indications, this would mean that you would download a software client for this. When you get online your Gmail client would automatically synchronise (sync) with the Gmail server (network computer) and send and receive e-mail. A Google spokeswoman in India officially denies such a thing but there is ample evidence to believe Gmail Offline is in fact a reality and may soon be hitting a browser close to you. This has tremendous implications for corporate e-mail, but more on that later.

What is Google Gears who is powering the offline tools of Google?

Google Gears is an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline. It is still in Beta phase. Gears provides three key features:

  • A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server
  • A database, to store and access data from within the browser
  • A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background

» Filed Under Google | Leave a Comment

Windows Live Messenger IM Control

Posted on September 15, 2007

Windows Live is working on a new feature of Windows Live Messenger dubbed as “Messenger IM Control”. At Mix UK, ScottIsAFul from liveside.net managed to get the first look of this new feature from Danny Thorpe and Angus Logan who are both very much involved with the Windows Live Platform. Here is a link of ScottIsAFull’s Interview with Danny Thorpe and Angus Logan.

According to Liveside.net,

Users of the Web2Messenger service will already be familiar with the concept of this, as basically it means you can set up your account to allow anonymous messages from the web, which people would send to you from a “Messenger window” on your website/blog.

When the feature becomes available, you would go to the settings page on the net for it and select that you would like to enable this feature, you can then create the html that will go on your website/blog. This will allow people to see when you’re online and allow them to then start up a conversation with you.

» Filed Under Windows Live, Microsoft | Leave a Comment

Microsoft Gatineau - Free Web Analytics Tool

Posted on September 15, 2007

At the start of this year, stories started surfacing on the blogs about Microsoft’s free web analytics tool, codenamed Gatineaue which later on confirmed by Ian Thomas (Director at Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions) on his blog.

Gatineau is the name of the Canadian city where DeepMetrix ( Web Analytics Tool is based on this product) was based for a number of years. Final naming for the product is still unconfirmed.

Yesterday, Ian Thomas has made the first public presentation of Gatinueaue on Web Analytics Day. Ian has also shared some information about the tool on interview with Robin Wauters of Blognation. If you guys are interested in screenshots, the first look of Gatineaue is available on Sam Sethi’s Blognation website.

The invite request line is open for the first beta version of web analytics tool. Ian has confirmed that first beta invitations will be sent before the end of this month. During the beta phase, users of Project Gatineau will be required to create an adCenter account. While use of Project Gatineau is completely free of charge, there is a one-time $5 charge upon creation of an adCenter account. If you already have an adCenter account, you may use the e-mail address associated with that account.

Gatineau will be initially rolled out in English only, and only in countries who have a local adCenter support team.

» Filed Under Microsoft | 1 Comment

Windows Live Translator

Posted on September 10, 2007

The Google-Microsoft battle is now one step ahead with the addition of new service called Windows Live Translator Beta, into the managed beta testing of Windows Live Suite. The service is very similar to Google Translate and Yahoo’s Babelfish (developed by Altavista in nineties).

Windows Live Translator is powered by a French company called Systran which also provides the technology for Yahoo’s Babelfish and most of language combinations offered by Google Translate.

The Windows Live Translation Service takes bits of text and translates it from or into any of twelve languages. Entire web pages can also be translated by entering the URL.

Windows Live Translator’s presentation is very interesting with four different views for the translated URL:

  • Side By Side ( Default View)
  • Top - Bottom
  • Original text with hover translation
  • Translated text with hover original text

Default view shows the original page and the translation side by side in two vertical frames. If you hover over a sentence in one of the pages, the sentence is highlighted in both pages. If you scroll in one of the pages, the other page performs the same action (doesn’t work in Firefox).

» Filed Under Windows Live, Internet, Microsoft | 1 Comment

Windows Server 2008 to Launch with Visual Studio and SQL Server

Posted on July 12, 2007

Windows Server 2008, which was due to be released in the second half of 2007, is now going to be released on Feb 2008.

Kevin Turner (Microsoft’s COO) announced during his keynote session at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver this week that Windows Server 2008 will be launched along with SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 at the same event in LA on February 27 2008.

» Filed Under Microsoft | Leave a Comment

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