Microsoft Surface (Codename: Milan), is a forthcoming product from Microsoft which is developed as a software and hardware combination technology that allows a user, or multiple users, to manipulate digital content by the use of natural motions, hand gestures, or physical object. The product provides effortless interaction with digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects.

Surface is a 30-inch display in a table-like form factor that’s easy for individuals or small groups to interact with in a way that feels familiar, just like in the real world. In essence, it’s a surface that comes to life for exploring, learning, sharing, creating, buying and much more.

It was announced on May 29, 2007 at D5, and is expected to be released by commercial partners in November 2007. Initial customers will be in the hospitality businesses, such as restaurants, hotels, retail, and public entertainment venues.

Microsoft Surface Screenshots :

Microsoft Surface Description:

Surface is essentially a Windows Vista PC tucked inside a black table base, topped with a 30-inch touchscreen in a clear acrylic frame. Five cameras that can sense nearby objects are mounted beneath the screen. Users can interact with the machine by touching or dragging their fingertips and objects such as paintbrushes across the screen, or by setting real-world items tagged with special barcode labels on top of it.

Surface can simultaneously recognize dozens and dozens of movements such as touch, gestures and actual unique objects that have identification tags similar to bar codes. Surface will ship to partners with a portfolio of basic applications, including photos, music, virtual concierge and games, that can be customized to provide their customers with unique experiences.

Microsoft Surface Specifications :

Dimensions : Surface is a 30-inch (76 cm) display in a table-like form factor, 22 inches (56 cm) high, 21 inches (106 cm) deep, and 84 inches (214 cm) wide.
Body and Build : The Surface tabletop is acrylic, and its interior frame is powder-coated steel.
Installed Memory: 2 GB
Display Type: Flat panel display
Network Support: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.0, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista
Input Devices: Touch-screen

How does it Feels ?

Microsoft’s version of the multi-touch computer adds one very cool, though impractical, twist: interaction with other electronics.

For example, in Microsoft’s demonstration, you can take some pictures. When you set the camera down on the table top, the fresh photos come pouring out of it into a virtual puddle on the screen — a slick, visual way to indicate that you’ve just downloaded them.
Next, you can set a cellphone down on the table — and copy photos into it just by dragging them into the cellphone’s zone.

Then you can buy songs from a virtual music store and drag them directly into a Zune music player that you’ve placed on the glass.

What is Surface Computing ?

Surface computing breaks down traditional barriers between people and technology, changing the way people interact with all kinds of everyday content, from photos to maps to menus. The intuitive user interface works without a traditional mouse or keyboard, allowing people to interact with content and information by using their hands and natural movements.

Surface computing features four key attributes:

Direct interaction :

Users can actually “grab” digital information with their hands, interacting with content by touch and gesture, without the use of a mouse or keyboard.

Multi-touch contact :

Surface computing recognizes many points of contact simultaneously, not just from one finger as with a typical touch screen, but up to dozens and dozens of items at once.

Multi-user experience:

The horizontal form factor makes it easy for several people to gather around surface computers together, providing a collaborative, face-to-face computing experience.

Object recognition:

Users can place physical objects on the surface to trigger different types of digital responses, including the transfer of digital content.

How does Microsoft Surface work?

At a high level, Surface uses cameras to sense objects, hand gestures and touch. This user input is then processed and the result is displayed on the surface using rear projection.

1. Screen: A diffuser turns the Surface’s acrylic tabletop into a large horizontal “multitouch” screen, capable of processing multiple inputs from multiple users. The Surface can also recognize objects by their shapes or by reading coded “domino” tags.
2. Infrared: Surface’s “machine vision” operates in the near-infrared spectrum, using an 850-nanometer-wavelength LED light source aimed at the screen. When objects touch the tabletop, the light reflects back and is picked up by multiple infrared cameras with a net resolution of 1280 x 960.
3. CPU: Surface uses many of the same components found in everyday desktop computers — a Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM and a 256MB graphics card. Wireless communication with devices on the surface is handled using WiFi and Bluetooth antennas (future versions may incorporate RFID or Near Field Communications). The underlying operating system is a modified version of Microsoft Vista.
4. Projector: Microsoft’s Surface uses the same DLP light engine found in many rear-projection HDTVs. The footprint of the visible light screen, at 1024 x 768 pixels, is actually smaller than the invisible overlapping infrared projection to allow for better recognition at the edges of the screen.

Features of Microsoft Surface:

Multi-touch display:

The Surface display is capable of multi-touch interaction, recognizing dozens and dozens of touches simultaneously, including fingers, hands, gestures and objects placed on the surface.

Horizontal orientation:

The 30-inch display in a table-sized form factor allows users to share, explore and create experiences together, enabling a truly collaborative computing experience.

Requirements for Microsoft Surface:

Standard American 110–120V power System: The Surface custom software platform runs on Windows Vista™ and has wired Ethernet 10/100 and wireless 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity.

It’s Too early to say anything about Microsoft Surface :

How cool is all of this? Very. Unfortunately, at this point, it’s the Microsoft version of a concept car; you can ogle it, but you can’t have it. These stunts require concept cameras, concept cellphones and concept music players that have been rigged to interact with the surface computer.

iPhone is a smartphone made by Apple that combines an iPod, a tablet PC, a digital camera and a cellular phone.

Apple iPhone is thought to be ahead of its time in terms of cell phone technology with its revolutionary touch-screen interface on the display coupled with its very slim and sleek design. The Apple iPhone, with its sleek design merged with state-of-the-art cell phone technology, is tagged as a breathtaking breakthrough in the cell phone world with all of its new-generation cell phone functionality.

The Apple iPhone is actually dubbed as three devices in one, which is not just a cell phone, but also serves as a chic wide-screen iPod with touch controls for video and music together with an Internet communications device which offers amazing location-based features.

Apple iPhone ScreenShots :

Apple iPhone Specifications :

Price As Tested: $499.00 - $599.00
Music Playback Formats: AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless, Audible, MP3, WAV
Megapixels: 2
Storage Capacity: 8 GB
Video Formats: MPEG4
Video Recording: No
Audio Battery Life: 24 Hr
Dimensions: 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches
Player Type: Flash MP3 Player
Radio: No
Recording, Line In: No
Bluetooth: Yes
Bands: 850, 900, 1800, 1900
Camera: Yes
High-Speed Data: GPRS, EDGE
Operating System: Mac OS X
Network: GSM
Service Provider: AT&T Wireless
Web Browser: Yes
Screen Details: 160 dpi LCD display
Screen Resolution: 480 x 320 pixels
Screen Size: 3.5 inches
Special Features: Music
Video Battery Life: 2.8 Hr
Weight: 4.8 oz

Apple iPhone Features:

TouchScreen :

The 3.5 inch (8.9 cm) liquid crystal display (320×480 px at 160 ppi) HVGA touch screen topped with optical-quality glass is specifically created for use with a finger, or multiple fingers for multi-touch sensing. No stylus is needed, nor can an ordinary one be used, as the touch screen requires touch by something with the physical properties of bare skin to operate. For text input, the device implements a virtual keyboard on the touchscreen. It has automatic spell checking, predictive word capabilities, and a dynamic dictionary that learns new words.

Other inputs :

The display responds to three sensors: a proximity sensor that shuts off the display and touch screen when the iPhone is brought near the face to save battery power and to prevent spurious inputs from the user’s face and ears, an ambient light sensor that adjusts the display brightness which in turn saves battery power, and an accelerometer, which senses the orientation of the phone and changes the screen accordingly, albeit in only one 90 degree direction.

Phone :

The iPhone allows conferencing, call holding, call merging, caller ID, and integration with other cellular network features and iPhone functions. For example, a playing song fades out when the user receives a call. Once the call is ended the music fades back in.

Camera :

The iPhone features a built in 2.0 megapixel camera located on the back, though it cannot record video at this time. It also includes software that allows the user to upload, view, and e-mail photos. The user zooms in and out of photos by “unpinching” and “pinching” them through the Multi-touch interface. The software will interact with iPhoto on the Mac.

Multimedia :

The layout of the music library differs from previous iPods, with the sections divided more clearly alphabetically, and with a larger font. The Cover Flow, like that on iTunes, shows the different album covers in a scroll-through photo library. Scrolling is achieved by swiping a finger across the screen. Like the fifth generation iPods introduced in 2005, the iPhone can play video, allowing users to watch TV shows and films.

Internet :

The iPhone has built-in Wi-Fi, with which it will be able to access the Internet (through a wireless network) via a modified version of the Safari web browser. The iPhone will also be able to connect to the Internet through AT&T’s EDGE network.

E-mail :

The iPhone also features an HTML e-mail program, which enables the user to embed photos in an e-mail message. Yahoo! will be providing a free Push-IMAP e-mail service similar to that on a BlackBerry; IMAP and POP3 mail standards are also supported, including Microsoft Exchange. The iPhone will sync with e-mail programs such as Outlook, entourage and web based email accounts such as Gmail, .Mac mail and AOL. OS X .

Applications :

The phone has several applications located at iPhone’s “Home” Screen, including Youtube. It will stream the videos over Wi-Fi and/or EDGE after encoding them using QuickTime’s H.264 codec, to which YouTube has converted about 10,000 videos. They are expected to convert the entire catalog by Fall 2007, implying that the YouTube application on iPhone will initially only be able to view a certain selection of videos from the site.

Other :

The iPhone features a built-in battery that is not intended to be user-replaceable, similar to existing iPods. The battery is stated to be capable of providing up to seven hours of video, six hours of web browsing, or eight hours of talk time (depending on configuration). The battery life for music playing is stated to be 24 hours. The battery will also allow for up to 250 hours of standby time.

Apple iPhone Pros :

• Touch-screen interface
• Large 3.5-inch screen
• Three devices in one
• Thin phone design

Apple iPhone Cons :

• The Keyboard is Unproven
• Lack of 3G, no GPS
• If you put a scratch proof cover for it the touch screen will not work!
• no games , no iChat
• no Flash or Java support.
• No FM radio.

Conclusion :

The Apple iPhone is a great first try from Apple. The bottom line? If your priority is owning a first rate phone and messaging device, the iPhone isn’t for you. Call quality isn’t up to par, key messaging features are missing, and that virtual keyboard is really frustrating. If it’s fun you want to have, however, this is basically an iPod with Internet, YouTube, beautiful graphics, a camera, and a huge screen—it can also make calls and check email.

Many free webhosts do not offer the features you would get if you paid for a host. This guide will show you how to carefully select a paying host that will fit your needs.

Benefit of using paid host vs hosting on personal computer:

1. Information security – Web hosting services provide good security for the web site. If you decide to host site on home computer make sure are you prepared to open the “door” to your personal computer to everyone.
2. Availability - Your computer is supposed to provide service 24 hours a day. This involves two main things: One, your PC must be connected to the Internet 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Two, you must be sure that it is operating 24 hours a day. This would require power backup for 24 hours.
3. Infrastructures - Up to this point, building your site has been free or relatively inexpensive. Turning your PC into a server on the Internet obligates you to purchase a few products including: Internet server (software), an IP address and a domain name. This configuration will enable users to roam around your computer (we’ve already mentioned security).
4. Other factors - like Response time, number of simultaneous users, etc.

It is better to find a Web hosting server on the Internet for your Web site then on personal computer.

First answer why do you want  a web Site:

The first thing to be done is to decide what you need your page to do. Is this you personal site, business site or some organization site. These are just some of the questions you need to answer yourself before even starting to choose.

There are more factors in what will determine the best hosting provider for you and that will be the primary goal of this article.

Following points would help you deciding which is right web hosting plan for your web site.

How to choosed best web hosting paln for your web site.

First thing to consider: Storage Space and DataTransfer:

A small information site or personal site will usually only require a few megabytes of disk space, however, data transfer depends on the size of the pages your are offering your visitors multiplied by the number of visitors. Therefore, a popular and graphics heavy website requires a greater monthly transfer than a text site. You should look at a minimum of 2 GB (2000 MB) data transfer a month for high traffic site (8000 – 10000 unique visitor per day) go for at least 1000 GB per month If your Web site is expected to grow, look for a server that gives you the option of increasing your basic package to another convenient package, or take a package with more storage space to begin with.

Note: It is extremely important to look at the monthly data transfer bandwidth included in a plan.

Second thing to consider: reliability :

For any online business, uptime is critical. You absolutely cannot go with a host that has an uptime of less than 95%.
No web host can have 100% uptime, and it’s impossible to guarantee. Avoid any hosts promising more than they can deliver. Most claim 99.9% uptime, but due to the nature of computers and communications equipment, outages will and do occur occasionally. To find the truth ask for a couple of sites they currently host, that you can check out for yourself. The word of mouth is probably most powerful in helping to judge these companies.

Third thing to consider: Technical Support

Critical to success, you’ll need an internet hosting company that can help you resolve problems quickly with the least possible disruption to your site activity. As most hosting companies offer inclusive technical support, you shouldn’t pay extra for this. If you’re not offered 24 hours/7 days you should look elsewhere. If they don’t reply within 48 hours, or don’t reply at all, consider another hosting company. A good company should reply within 24-48 hours.

Fourth thing to consider: Added Features

Various internet hosting companies offer a variety of services. Web hosters provide a listing of overwhelming features to hosting plans to entice you into joining their services. However, more importantly, what features you need and what ones you don’t need.
If you are paying for a website, you should definitely be getting email accounts and FTP access. Don’t settle for a site without them. Make sure the email addresses are for your domain and not at your host’s domain. FTP access is critical is you intend to do any amount of uploading files to your server.

Examples of services include also visitor counts, e-mail forwarding options, real time chat, shopping cart functions, and web statistics. The list goes on.

Fifth thing to consider: Pricing Structure

If the previous four steps check out, then you need to consider price and this can vary widely. You need to consider setup fees, monthly fees, plan discounts and optional extras in your calculations. Don’t let price be the primary factor in your decision unless you are launching a personal page. For ecommerce, businesses and organizations, the quality of the service is more important.
Keep also in mind that the most expensive plan is not necessarily the best, and the biggest name company may not be the right match for you. Many perfectly fine packages for small businesses now run between $7 - $15 per month, for shared web hosting service.
A good web host company will not tie you into a long-term contract that will prevent you moving if you don’t like the service.

Sixth thing to consider:What type of Web hosting server is offered?

There are two main types of Web hosting servers - servers whose operating system is Windows NT/200x and those using UNIX/Linux.

Some are faster than others, and offer varied features. If your host uses Linux, you are going to get support of probably, PHP, MySql, and other features. If your host uses Windows, then you’re probably going to get the support of CFM, ASP, ASP.net. Pick your OS wisely.

Another main difference between Windows NT/200x and UNIX/Linux servers is that Windows NT/200x servers are not case-sensitive.

Seventh thing to consider : Does the Web hosting server provide back-up and recovery services :

Add on services like providing back-up and recovery services become very handy in case of breakdown or hacking?.

Eighth thing to consider :Read the Terms of Service:

Reading this is important because it tells you the do’s and don’ts of the hosting. If you get a host that is a little infamous you probably aren’t going to get the full advantage of a famous host. For example if it says “We do not expect porn sites, videos, etc..” and you are getting the host for a porn site then your account will probably be terminated.

The most important thing to remember is to research and shop around. The more requirements you have, the most likely you pay more. But paying for a quality web host provider is a good investment especially if your business will in the future become more reliant on the Internet.

1.0 Purpose

Cross-platform and cross-browser support are very important to reach the largest possible audience and organizations want to link tightly to all their customers and suppliers over the internet.

This paper presents a set of suggested coding conventions/guidelines for browser independent authoring.

2.0 The Problem

Here are some of the key sources of difficulty:

• No vendor has implemented every feature of many of the existing standards (e.g. HTML 4.0, CSS1, CSSP).
• Standards often leave room for differences in interpretation and implementation.
• Standards often include suggestions or recommendations which vendors are not required to comply with.
• Standards often permit vendors to add enhancements not defined by the standards.
• The standards definition and ratification process often lags behind the implementation of functionality by the vendors.

  The practical approach for building web applications is to study the standards, study each vendor’s implementation, find the common functionality, and build on top of that.

3.0 General Design Guidelines

The following are some general guidelines to follow when designing your Web pages.

3.1 Prepare a chart of features to include on pages:Before authoring web pages, you should prepare a chart of features to be included the web pages (for example, tables, frames, controls), and map these against the browser support available for each feature.This exercise helps in identifying which browsers your site will not support. For example, if you’re designing frames, you’ll need to know which browsers don’t support frames, and you’ll need to provide a way for those browser users to view the content.

3.2 Review the code for syntax: All browsers do not deal with HTML syntax (i.e missing quotes or end-tags etc) errors in the same way.There may be situations when your browser is showing the content in the required format even though your HTML syntax is malformed. For example if you miss a closing quotation mark in your HREF statement, Internet Explorer will assume it’s there, but Netscape Navigator will ignore the entire link specification

3.3 Provide a text option for Image Maps: If you’re using a client-side image map, also include a server-side CGI script to accommodate browsers that don’t support image maps. It’s also important to add a text option so that readers who browse your site with images turned off can find the basic information.

3.4 Handling multiple browser versions:To accomodate users with different browser versions either you should code HTML to comply with the lowest common denominator or use use server-side scripting to check for browsers and redirect your users to pages customized for specific browsers automatically or by coding options for choosing paths respective to their browsers.

• Internet Explorer
• Netscape Navigator
• Mosaic
• Lynx

• Netscape Navigator 3.0 understands the SIZE and COLOR attributes of the tag but it doesn’t understand the FACE attribute, where as IE does. E.g. <FONT face=’Arial’>Hello! </FONT> . FACE holds the font name. Thus a generalized solution is use cascading styles to change fonts. E.g. H1 {font-style: italic; font-size: 24pt; font-family: Arial; Background: yellow}
• The <BLINK> tag is only supported by Netscape and Not by IE.
• To display all the special characters, the code like &mp;nbsp; &mp;lt; &mp;gt; etc.. should be written in lowercase so that Netscape is able to interpret correctly.
• The attribute BORDER of <IMG> tag has different effect when used in Netscape and IE. When used with Netscape it displays black border around an image but with IE it creates a transparent border around the image. It is best to use the HSPACE and VSPACE attributes of the <IMG> tag.
• The value for ALIGN attribute for the tag <IMG> can be top, middle, bottom, left, right. IE does not support any other value.
• Do not use the TEXTAREA attribute of the <INPUT> tag instead use the <TEXTAREA> tag for compatibility with most of browsers.
• Do not use WRAP attribute of the <TEXTAREA> tag. It is not supported in IE. But if one does not uses wrap in text area, in Netscape the text does not get wrapped. So the best thing is use wrap=Virtual, it makes text wrapped in Netscape and in Internet Explorer it is ignored.
• Do not use the feature of Creating File Upload Buttons. It is a feature to browse through the File System. IE does not support it.
• Netscape does not support if any end of tag is missing. E.g. <Table> … </Table>
• Use document.<name of the form>.submit in place of form.submit().
• For referencing an index control use [] bracket instead of () Example for radio button : Radio button index i.e. document.<name of the form >.radio[0].value in place of document.form.radio(0).value.
• Example for combo box value property: Use document.form.comboname.options[docoment.<name of the form >.comboname.selectedIndex].value instead of document.form.comboname.value .
• Do not use id property for referencing controls , use the name property for the same.

Check My orkut Profile:

Orkut Helper Tools and Utilities

Since its launch on January 22, 2004 Orkut has gained enormous popularity and many helper tools for Orkut start flooding on internet. Here we will be discussing some of the most popular tools for orkut. For infomation about orkut kindly visit another articel on this site from here.

1.) Orkut Toolbar (Recommended for every orkut user):

Orkut Toolbar helps you to format the text of your posts in the Orkut forums. Works only on FireFox web browser.

With Orkut Toolbar all you need is type your entire text without any formatting code and then select the desired parts of text and apply the format using the toolbar buttons. Much like you does in OpenOffice, MS Word or any other text editor.

This Toolbar makes posting links and images within Orkut very easy. It is created by Renato Rodrigues.

For more information you can visit this site or Orkut Toolbar Forum.

2.) Changing Orkut Background:

If you are a Firefox user you got lots of options for changing the look and feel for orkut. In a message posted on //insideorkut.blogspot.com I find a very nice example of changing Orkut background from baby blue to “various blues”.

Here is a screen shot below: (taken from http://insideorkut.blogspot.com)

Steps:

First install Grease Monkey (click here) then install Blukut hack (click here).

For more information on Grease Monkey check http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/index.html

Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension which lets you to add bits of DHTML (”user scripts”) to any web page to change its behavior. In much the same way that user CSS lets you take control of a web page’s style, user scripts let you easily control any aspect of a web page’s design or interaction.

Kindlyalso visit our new web site DevelopersVoice.com

CheckMy orkut Profile:

Orkut Helper Tools and Utilities

Since its launch on January 22, 2004 Orkuthas gained enormous popularity and many helper tools for Orkutstart flooding on internet. Here we will be discussing someof the most popular tools for orkut. For infomation aboutorkut kindly visit another articel on this site from here.

1.) Orkut Toolbar (Recommended for every orkut user):

OrkutToolbar helps you to format the text of yourposts in the Orkut forums. Works only on FireFox web browser.

With Orkut Toolbar all you need is type yourentire text without any formatting code and then select thedesired parts of text and apply the format using the toolbarbuttons. Much like you does in OpenOffice, MS Word or anyother text editor.

This Toolbar makes posting links and imageswithin Orkut very easy. It is created by RenatoRodrigues.

For more information you can visit thissite or OrkutToolbar Forum.

2.) Changing Orkut Background:

If you are a Firefox user you got lots ofoptions for changing the look and feel for orkut. In a messageposted on http://insideorkut.blogspot.com I find a very nice example of changing Orkut background from baby blue to “various blues”.

Here is a screen shot below: (taken from http://insideorkut.blogspot.com)

Steps:

First install Grease Monkey (click here) then install Blukut hack (click here).

For more information on Grease Monkey check http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/index.html

Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension which lets you to add bits of DHTML (”user scripts”) to any web page to change its behavior. In much the same way that user CSS lets you take control of a web page’s style, user scripts let you easily control any aspect of a web page’s design or interaction.

3.) Orkut Cute :

Orkut Cute is a freeware program which let you send scraps (the public messages that anyone can leave on anyone else’s profile) to all your friends in Orkut and all your other online social networking communities. The program also informs you when you receive new scraps and new topics in yours communities.

Although such a program would allow you to communicate with the masses, a similar one was developed before which was abused by spammers.

Features:

• Alerts you when you receive new scraps.
• Scrap all of your friends (be careful with this one).
• Receive notifications when forums are updated.

Visit there web site to get more information about the program.

4.) Scrapboy :

Scrapboy is a kind of browser for orkut. Using Scrapboy you can browse orkut and know when you or your friends receive new scraps. Sending scraps from your desktop is also as easy as writing an instant message. Keeping in touch with your friends was never more fun and easy.

5.) Sorkut : (FireFox Extention)

It is an FireFox extention made by an indian named Rohit Kumbhar.

This toolbar search for the threads with specific words in the title. Just give the commumity id of the community you want to search, enter the search term and click Search. Its basically an automation that an ultra patient person would go through for searching the threads he wants.
NOTE: You must be logged in to orkut to use this toolbar.

DownloadLink:-
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/extensions/ search_orkut_communities/search_orkut_communities-0.3-fx.xpi
Works with :- Firefox 1.5-1.5.0*

6.) Orkut Scrap Helper : (FireFox Extention)

It is an FireFox extention made by an indian named Ajay Martin.

Features:

• Scrap those who have scrapped you in a single step!
• Persistant link to Your scrapbook.

NOTE: You must be logged in to orkut to use this tool.

Download link :-

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/ mozilla.org/extensions /orkut_scrap_helper/
works with : - Firefox 1.0+ - 1.6

Updates about new features of ORKUT: (18-Aug - 2007)

To Spice up your scraps, Orkut has recently started allowing images, videos, podcasts and HTML embeddable objects in scraps. Now you can add rich multimedia content to scraps that you send to your friends.

How to add multimedia content to scraps:

Adding images
Copy and paste urls ending in .jpg, .gif, .png or .bmp and the image will appear in the scrap.
for example, http://example.com/example.jpg

Adding videos from YouTube and Google Video
Copy and paste the url and the video will appear in the scrap.
for example, http://youtube.com/watch?v=videoid

Adding podcast/audio
Copy and paste the url of an audio file and an audio player will appear in the scrap.
for example, http://example.com/example.mp3

Adding html-embeddable objects
Create or upload your content at sites such as photobucket.com, imageshack.com, rockyou.com or slide.com. Copy and paste the html embed code to share it with your friends.

Please note that this recently announced feature may not be available on your account yet but it is being rolled out slowly to all users.

For latest updates visit our new web site DevelopersVoice.com

Note: Tips and Tricks for Orkut Here .

Tips and Tricks about GMAIL

While Web-based email is nothing new, Gmail introduces some new and unique concepts. Managing email has become very easy while at the same time having powerful tools to find and review information.

1.)  Advertizing:

This is probably the single most controversial aspect of Gmail. Opponents have said that Google’s approach to inserting ads based on message content is a huge privacy breach.

Gmail does not “read” your email. Gmail does not breach your privacy. Gmail does not care about your message content. All Gmail is doing is running your message through a “processor” that looks for ad-related keywords so that it can display unobtrusive targeted ads.

Another important point about Gmail’s ads is that they are VERY unobtrusive. They are much like the “Sponsored ads” you see on the right of a Google Search results screen. In fact, they don’t even show up on every email message that you read, and so far, that’s the only place you see the ads: when reading messages. They don’t appear in any other screen. Gmail’s ads are FAR less annoying than the flashy lights and huge billboards that services like Yahoo Mail and Hotmail use. And, given that the ads are intended to be targeted based on message content, you shouldn’t see inapropriate or unrelated ads.

2.)  Reading Messages:

Note a couple things: First, no external graphics are displayed. By default, Gmail disables displaying externally referenced graphics. The reason is that many spam messages contain externally referenced graphics. When they are displayed, the email sender can use this to track that you opened the message thus validating your email address for future spam. Clicking on the “Display External Images” link will display the images if you want.

There is one glaring problem: If the original email is HTML or Rich Text formatted, Gmail will strip out ALL formatting including links, fonts, and images. ie: you can only reply in plain text.

3.)  Archiving :

One of the first concepts that you have to get used to with Gmail is that of “Archiving”. The overall power of Gmail is in its message management, searching and archival capabilities. With 1GB of storage, the average email user will have enough storage space to hold several years worth of emails. Yes, there will always be emails that you simply don’t want to keep.

Archiving a message simply tells Gmail to remove the message from your Inbox screen and keep it in your “All Mail” screen. All emails will remain in your inbox until you specifically “Archive” them. Archiving simply removes the message from your inbox screen.But what happens to it? Don’t worry, all messages are always accessible through the “All Mail” screen. Archiving simply cleans up your inbox. Once a message has been archived, should you ever want to, you can easily move it back to the inbox, but there really isn’t a need for that.

4.)  Labels :

A Label is a way of classifying an email. It’s similar to “folders” but it goes much farther: You can optionally assign a user-definable Label to any email. Then, when you click on a specific label in the label list on the left of the screen, Gmail displays only those emails under that label. Sounds a lot like folders, right?

The power of Labels shows in being able to assign multiple labels to an email. When you organize emails in folders, an email can reside in only one folder at a time. Say you have one folder called “Family” and another called “Jokes”. Your brother sends you a joke email, so where do you put it–the Family folder or the Jokes folder? Gmail’s Labels let you assign multiple labels to each email, so you could label your brother’s joke email with both “Family” AND “Jokes” labels.

At first, this may not seem too exciting, but after a while, you will see how this could be very powerful, especially with large numbers of accumulated emails.

Gmail Tip #1: All About Labels

You can add a Label to a message in one of two ways:

1. If you are viewing a message listing, you can just click the checkbox next to the message, click on the “Apply label…” dropdown, and select the Label you want to apply. Gmail will display the Label just to the left of the message’s Subject.
2. If you are viewing a message, just click on the “Apply label…” dropdown, and select the label you want to apply. Gmail will display the new label to the right of the Subject line.

OK, you assigned a Label to a message, but at a later time, you want to remove it. How do you do that? Just select the Label view from the Labels box on the left, “select” the specific message by clicking the checkbox next to the message, and then click on the “Remove label ‘xxxx’” button at the top of the listing. Your label has now been removed!

Gmail Tip #2: How to Maintain ‘Notes’

Some email providers provide a “Notes” function to let you maintain a list of notes. For example you might keep Web site links, random thoughts, etc. Gmail doesn’t offer this feature, but by using some of Gmail’s other features, you can set up a very nice, easy to maintain group of notes…

Here’s what you do:

First, create a Contact with a Name of “Notes” and an Email Address of “username+Notes@gmail.com”

Next, create a new Label called “Notes”

Finally, create a Filter to add the “Notes” Label any email addressed to “username+Notes@gmail.com”. Also, check the “Skip the Inbox (Archive it)” checkbox.

The effect is this:

When you email yourself from an email account other than your own Gmail account, address the email to “username+Notes@gmail.com”. When the message arrives in your Gmail account, it will automatically be archived into your “Notes” Label view, bypassing the Inbox. Nice and organized.

Gmail Tip #3: The ‘Plus’ Side of Gmail

Like many Email providers, Gmail supports the standard “plus” addressing scheme. But just what is it, and how can it help me?

The “plus” method of addressing lets you add additional words to your account name (the “left side” of your email address.) For example, if your email address is “john.doe@gmail.com”, you could add “+club” when you give your email address to members of a club to which you belong. So, your email address would now be “john.doe+club@gmail.com”. But why would you want to do this? Think of the “plus” word as an extra “keyword” or “tag” that you can use to better manage your messages.

Using our example, say you email an invitation to your friends in a club asking them to rsvp to the invitaion. You ask them to reply to “john.doe+nope@gtmail.com” when sending you a responseif they don’t want to come, and reply to “john.doe+ofcourse@gmail.com”. Assuming they follow your directions, You can then set up a Gmail Filters to automatically route emails to specific Labels based on the addresses. It’s a simple example, but the uses can be numerous.

Another use is when you are shopping online. When asked for an email address, use something like “john.doe+amazon@gmail.com”. That way, whenever you get future emails addressed to that address, you’ll know that it’s either from Amazon directly or from someone to whom they sold your email address. This can be a somewhat effctive way to track spam. Just be aware that not all email systems recognize or accept “plus” addresses. In fact, some spammers even strip it out completely, but it’s a cool tool, none the less. The best way is to just try it and see if it works for your application!

Gmail Tip #4: What Happens To Sent Messages?

When you “send” a message, two things happen to it:

1. it gets copied into your “All Mail” view, and
2. it is visible in the “Sent Mail” view.

Many email clients and Webmail services let you optionally delete all sent messages by default, but Gmail doesn’t offer this feature. Here’s why…

One of Gmail’s intentions is to get you out of the “trash everything” mindset. This is one of the reasons why they offer 1GB of storage.

Gmail Tip #5: Advanced Search - View Multiple Labels :

Gmail has some advanced searching capabilities that, if you take the time to learn, enables you drill down to very specific information.

If you want to search for all messages having a specific label, you can click on the “Show search options” link, click the “Search” dropdown, select the desired Lable, and click the “Search Mail” button.

But a shortcut is to type the Label prefixed with the “label:” query word in any simple search field at the top of any Gmail page:

If you want to view all messages that have selected multiple Labels, for example messages having both ‘Label1′ and ‘Label2′, enter the following into the simple search field at the top of any Gmail page:

To see all messages with either ‘Label1′ or ‘Label2′, you can enter:

Note: the specific label names are NOT case sensitive, but the “OR” operator is case sensitive, and must be in uppercase. The pipe operator ‘|’ can also be used in the same manner as ‘OR’.

Gmail Tip #6: Advanced Search - ‘Query Words’

One of Gmail’s excellent features is its Search function.Searching can be as simple as entering a keyword or two into the Search field at the top of any page to very complex using Gmail’s advanced “Query Words” to better constrain searches.

Clicking the “Show Search Options” link will open up a pane containing several entry fields and dropdowns. This lets you easily specify more detailed search criteria. For example, say you want to search for all email that is unread, regardless of under what Label it is filed. Simply click the “Search:” dropdown, select “Unread Mail” and click the “Search Mail” button. Gmail will display a list of all unread mesasges. Likewise, you can select specific Labels and you can enter specific terms. It’s very powerful and useful.

Gmail also provides users the ability to prefix their search keywords with “query words” that instruct Gmail how to search. And there is no need to open the Search Options–these can be entered in the simple search window at the top of any page.

For example, say you want to search for messages containing attachments from your family sent before May 21, 2004? You would simply enter the following advanced search criteria:

Yes, this could actually be done in the Search Options pane, but in addition to the available search criteria fields, query words not only let you search using criteria not included in the Search Options pane, (like “cc:” and “bcc:”) but you can do “compound” searches otherwise not available in the Search Options pane. For example:

would return all messages with both Labels of “Doctors” and “Statements” containing attachments, sent before May 21, 2004, existing anywhere in my account including the Trash and Spam views.

It’s pretty powerful, and fairly intuitive once you get the hang of it.

For more information, you should check the direct link to Gmail’s “How do I use advanced search?” help page found [here] (You may need to be logged into your Gmail account to access this page.)

Gmail Tip #7: ‘Official’ Features and Bugs Status Page

Want to know what features and bugs the Gmail developers are currently working on? Read on to learn how to access Gmail’s new “Features, Fixes, & Feedback” page…

First, log into your Gmail account. You must be logged into your account to access the help screens. Next, click on the “Help” link located at the top of any Gmail page. Next, click on the “Send Feedback” link on the left column. You’ll be taken to a page detailing features Gmail is working on and bugs being squashed!

Gmail Tip #8: Cleaning Your Contacts

One of Gmail’s “features” can leave you with extra entries in your Contacts list. Gmail has a (debatably) nice feature that automatically adds to your Contacts list the email addresses of those to whom you send emails. While this can be helpful at times, just remember that EVERY unique email address you send to gets auto-added.

Log into your Gmail account and click on the “Contacts” link at the top of any Gmail page. A window will open displaying any Contacts you may have. Any you have manually edited will typically have a “Name” and possibly a “Note” associated with it. By default, any Contact Gmail auto-adds and is unedited will not contain any “name” or “note” information, just the email address. Visually scan down the list and look for any that fall into this category. If you find one, determine what to do with it: Delete is, Edit it, or leave it alone. Obviously what you do with it is up to you,

Gmail Tip #9: New feature! Import Contacts

For the best explanation of just how to Import Contacts, log into your Gmail account, click on Contacts, and click on the new “Import Contacts” link at the top of the Contacts screen.

But what can you import and how do you import? Gmail will let you import address books into Contacts from Yahoo!, Orkut, Outlook, and pretty much any other service by uploading CSV (Comma Separated Value) files to your Gmail account. You can even manually edit and create CVS files for importing using Microsoft Excel.

Just remember that currently, Gmail’s Contacts fields are limited to just “Name”, “Email Address”, and “Notes”. According to the Help screen, all other fields will be imported into the Notes field.

Gmail Tip #10: Find Your Unread Messages

Want a quick and easy way to view all of your “Unread” messages? If you have assigned Labels and archived unread messages, finding them later can sometines be challenging. Simply create a Gmail Label named “Unread”, and you will see all of your unread mail in that folder. Though there are other ways to display unread messages, the nice thing about this method is that it displays the number of unread messages right in the Label list.

Gmail Tip #11: Creating a Pseudo Address Group!

Although Gmail doesn’t currently support Groups in your Contacts, you can simulate a Group list by doing the following:

1. Create a new Contact
2. In the “Name” field, enter the name of your Group (eg “My Friends”)
3. In the “E-mail” field, enter your list of email addresses in the following format:

Note three things:

1. You must enter “>,<” (without the quotes) between all addresses.
2. Be sure NOT to include a leading “<” or trainling “>”. This is intentional, because during auto-complete, Gmail adds these characters to the beginning and end of the full string that is in the e-mail field.
3. Also, there should be no spaces in the string.

Gmail Tip #12: Adding Hotmail Contacts to Gmail

Do you have a lot of Hotmail contacts that you would like to add to your Gmail Contacts? “Montevino” submitted this tip on how to do just that.

Just set up Outlook Express to access your Hotmail account (by creating a new account, making it HTML, not POP3, and giving your Hotmail account name and password.) Then, open Windows Address Book, and synchronize. Address Book finds and auto-ads your Hotmail contacts. You can then easily output your addresses to a *.CSV file, which can then be imported into Gmail.

Gmail Tip #13: ‘Gmail Notifier’ released to beta!

The Gmail Notifier is a downloadable Windows application that alerts you when you have new Gmail messages. It displays an icon in your system tray to let you know if you have unread Gmail messages, and shows you their subjects, senders and snippets, all without your having to open a web browser.

You can also have it be the default “mailto:” handler so that when you click on an email address on a Web page, Gmail Notify will open a Compose Window.

You can even define a sound to play when new mail arrives!

To download, go here:

For FAQ’s, go here:

Gmail Tip #14: Improved and New Contacts Features!

The “Contacts” function has been enhanced to provide some additional functionality, and now adopts the familiar Gmail interface.

Gmail now displays a “Contacts” link in the left column under the “standard views” (Inbox, Starred, etc.) and just above the Labels. Clicking on the link brings up a nicely formatted display that matches the style of the rest og GMail. It displays the contact name, email address, Note, and any additional information (see below). At the top are two “tabs” that display “Frequently Mailed” and “All Contacts”. I don’t know what the criteria for “Frequently Mailed” is, but it does contain the most-used contacts.

Here are some new or expanded features:

RECENT CONVERSATIONS
Clicking on a contact displays the contact information as well as “Recent Conversations” associated with that contact. Clicking on one of these entries opens it normally with all options available. Very nice.

ADD MORE CONTACT INFO
Clicking on “Edit” allows you to update the basic contact information (Names, Email Address, Note). But there’s a new link: “Add More Contact Info” which lets you add additional “Sections” of information. For example, by default there are “Personal” and “Work” sections defined. Each section contains a Section Name field, Two user-selectable “fields” and an “Address” block. Each User Field has a drop-down label containing the following selectable labels: Phone, Mobile, FAX, Pager, Email, IM, Company, Title, Other. You can also add additional fields as needed.

SEARCH CONTACTS
Near the top of the Contacts screen is a Search field and a “Search Contacts” button. Entering text into this field and clicking the button returns all contacts that BEGINS WITH the text. This is important to know because it will search ALL contact fields (even the :extended fields) for words beginning with the entered text. For example, entering “Ste” would return “Stephanie”, “Steve”, and “Stewart” but entering “phani” would not return “Stephanie”. Obviously, it would be nice to have extended search capabilities, but this is an excellent start!

ADD CONTACTS
Clicking on the “Add Contact” link lets you enter the standard “Basic” information, and clicking the “Add More Contact Info” link opens the extended information screen as descrived above.

IMPORT CONTACTS
The “Import Contacts” links is still there letting you import contacts from a CSV file. According to the documentation, “other” information gets imported into a Notes field. There is no mention of importing into the new “extended” fields.

BETTER INTERFACE
What really makes this shine is the fact that it now uses the same interface as the rest of Gmail giving it some better consistency. That has always been one of Gmail’s strengths: a slick, clean, non-cluttered, fast interface. The added Contacts handling keeps with that philosophy.

Gmail Tip #15: Drafts!

Gmail now has the capability to save “Drafts” of your messages! If you are in the middle of composing a message, but want to finish it later, just click on the “Save Draft” button now located between the “Send” and “Discard” buttons. This droops the message in a new view located on the left side called “Drafts” located under the “Sent Mail” link and above the “All Mail” link. Later, you can just click on the message, complete it, and then click “Send” normally.

Gmail Tip #16: Auto-forward received Gmail!

Want to use your Gmail account as your main email account but have some or all email auto-forwarded to other email accounts? Well, now you can!

Gmail has added tha ability to forward received emails in two ways: “All” or “Selective”

“ALL” FORWARDING
This is a “global” setting that lets you optionally forward all received email to another email address. Click on the “Settings” link, and click on the new “Forwarding” tab. In there, you have the option do Disable or Enable email forwarding. Click on Enable, enter the email address to which you want to forward, and then select one of the following self-explanatory actions from the associated dropdown:
-keep Gmail’s copy in the Inbox
-archive Gmail’s copy
-trash Gmail’s copy

This setting will forward all received email to another email address and take the appropriate action on the received email.

“SELECTIVE” FORWARDING
Filters have also been enhanced with a new “Forward it to: emailaddress” action letting you selectivly forward emails based on filter criteria. You can use the same or different email addresss for each filter if you choose providing very powerful email management. For example, I may get statement notifications from a bank and want to auto-copy it to my wife. I just set up a filter to select emails with the bank’s sending email address and then select the “Forward it to:” action and enter my wife’s email address. Now, she’ll get notified also!

Gmail Tip #17: Google Gmail Minibrowser

“The Google Deskbar includes a minibrowser that you can use to quickly open your Gmail account in convenient window that automatically hides and can be accessed with a keyboard shortcut. Read on for more information about this tool…
The Google Deskbar is a little Google search tool for Windows taskbar. It can do most of the Google searches using shortcut keys too. (See the link for a picture.) It also include Google’s “Minibrowser” which is fast and cute. If you press Ctrl-Alt-G—by default, you can turn it off—you’ll go right to the bar. Typing a search, by default, will open in the mini browser—again you can turn it off if you want or have it use your default browser (Firefox, etc).

So here’s the tip: Go to Options > Customized Searches > Add. Name it “Gmail” and put in the url: http://gmail.google.com/gmail. For the shortcut I used Ctrl M. So if I press Ctrl alt G, then Ctrl M, instant GMail window in the Google Minibrowser! Awesome.

(Google Desktop isn’t included in the default searches either. (Yet!) But you can also add it in the customize dialogue to search your desktop just as easily. Since the minibrowser vanishes automatically it’s tres convenient to find a file!)

Gmail Tip #18: GMail

Note: Must have “keyboard shortcuts” on in settings.

• C: Compose new message.
• Shift + C: Open new window to compose new message.
• Slash (/): Switch focus to search box.
• K: Switch focus to the next most recent email. Enter or “O” opens focused email.
• J: Switch focus to the next oldest email.
• N: Switch focus to the next message in the “conversation.” Enter or “O” expands/collapses messages.
• P: Switch focus to the previous message.
• U: Takes you back to the inbox and checks for new mail.
• Y: Various actions depending on current view:
  Has no effect in “Sent” and “All Mail” views.
  
  • Inbox: Archive email or message.
  • Starred: Unstar email or message.
  • Spam: Unmark as spam and move back to “Inbox.”
  • Trash: Move back to “Inbox.”
  • Any label: Remove the label.
• X: “Check” an email. Various actions can be performed against all checked emails.
• S: “Star” an email. Identical to the more familiar term, “flagging.”
• R: Reply to the email.
• A: Reply to all recipients of the email.
• F: Forward an email.
• Shift + R: Reply to the email in a new window.
• Shift + A: Reply to all recipients of the email in a new window.
• Shift + F: Forward an email in a new window.
• Shift + 1 (!): Mark an email as spam and remove it from the inbox.
• G then I: Switch to “Inbox” view.
• G then S: Switch to “Starred” view.
• G then A: Switch to “All Mail” view.
• G then C: Switch to “Contacts” view.
• G then S: Switch to “Drafts” view.

Tips &; Tricks for Net Surfing

1.)   Tips &mp; Tricks For Browsing

• Use Opera, if you are looking for speed and its tabbed interface. Use Internet Explorer, if you do a lot of offline browsing. Internet Explorer is also good for O2 phones equipped with web browsers. Netscape 7, like Opera, allows tabbed browsing, ie., opening multiple web pages in a single window under different tabs. Besides, it has numerous add-ons such as Mail, AOL IM, Winamp, etc. The only thing that Netscape 7 lacks is IE’s panache for offline browsing with the History side-pane. In Opera, settings can be changed by choosing Preference under the File menu. To get a tabbed interface for new windows, check Open windows inside Opera workspace under Windows. In the same place, select Open pop-up windows in the background under Browser Windows. To use the cache effectively, check Never under History and cache. Press F5 to manually refresh pages.

• To save on the time spent online, start your browser along with Outlook Express. Open as many windows in the browser and enter the urls of the sites you need to visit. Do not click on Go or press Enter. Now start your dialer. Once you are connected, ask OE to send and receive messages. As the messages are being received and sent, go the browser windows and click on the Go buttons. When OE finishes its job, disconnect.

• Do not type your messages online. If you have an HotMAIL account, integrate it with OE. Type and read your messages offline. If you are using other accounts such as Yahoo, type them first in Notepad when you are offline. Then, when you go online, in the Compose section, cut and past the message.

• You can send messages to machines running the Messenger service (Windows NT/2000/XP) by using the command net send <address> message from the MS-DOS prompt. To send a message to yourself, type net send 127.0.0.1 hello.

• If you have to keep in touch with the latest news, then get the Reuters Desktop Ticker. Reuters is the world’s leading news provider and almost every newspaper and TV station in the world gets feeds from it. Once connected to the Net, headlines flash across the ticker and you can click on the headlines to see the news stories in a browser window.

• ESCAPE: Many people do not know this. If a page is being downloaded and you want to stop it, then pressing the Escape key will do that. Also, pressing Backspace key will take you to the previous page.

• Saving web pages: Beginning with Version 5, IE allows saving a web page in a single file including its images and other embedded content. To do this, choose Save As from the File menu. Here in the Save as type, choose Web Archive, single file (*.mht). Sometimes, MHT files may not show anything even though its thumbnail does show something. If you disable Javascript, you will be able to see the whatever something you saw in the thumbnail.

3.)  Tips &mp; Tricks For Outlook Express

Outlook Express is free and comes bundled with IE. You can integrate your HotMAIL account with it.

• Save some space by unchecking Contact, Outlook Bar, and View Bar in the Window Layout Properties. This is chosen by selecting Layout from the View menu.

• Implementing Spam Filters For POP Accounts: Create two folders in your mail client - Filtered Inbox and Spam. Create the following four Message Rules in Outlook Express (Tools » Message Rules » Mail). Use your old messages as a guide while picking the words for your filters. Check the Spam folder once in a while for any false-positives. If you find any spam among the flagged messages in the Filtered Inbox, then update the filters in the third rule with new words.

Mail Rule #1: Mail From Known Contacts
Where the From line contains ‘friendname’ or ‘contact@emailaddress.com’
Move it to the Filtered Inbox folder
    and Stop processing more rules

Mail Rule #2: Mail Not Addressed To Me
Where the To or CC line does not contain ‘your@emailaddress.com’
Move it to the Spam folder
   and Stop processing more rules

Mail Rule #3: Word filters on From, To, &mp; Subject lines
Where the From line contains ‘debt’ or ‘enlargement’ or ‘teens’ or ‘viagra’
    or Where the Subject line contains ‘debt’ or ‘enlargement’ or ‘teens’ or ‘viagra’
     or Where the To line contains ‘debt’ or ‘enlargement’ or ‘teens’ or ‘viagra’
Move it to the Spam folder
    and Stop processing more rules

Mail Rule #4: Suspect Mail
For all messages
Move it to the Filtered Inbox folder
      and Flag it
      and Stop processing more rules

• Integrating HotMAIL: You can integrate your HotMAIL account with Outlook Express. Just go about as you would do with adding a POP account. After you enter your HotMAIL address, OE will automatically identify it as a HotMAIL account and pre-fill the E-mail Server Names details. Click Next enter the userid and password. When you are done, OE will ask if you want to download folders for that account. Here, choose Yes. After the folders have been downloaded, you can use it like you would use a POP mail account except that you will not be able to use the Message Rules (available under the Tools menu) on this account.

• Handling Junk Mail &mp; Viruses In HotMAIL: If you get a lot of junk mail, then through the HotMAIL website activate the bulk mail folder. Create appropriate mail filters to prevent junk from landing into your inbox. Despite this, you might get junk mail and sometimes viruses. To handle these annoyances, you have to configure OE to download only mail headers. Right click on Bulk Mail and Inbox folders, and follow this - Synchronization Settings » Headers Only. Keep the Preview option off by clicking on its button on the toolbar. Some viruses get activated when Preview is on. Now, connect to the net and receive your mail. Then, read the from addresses and subject lines. Leave mails that appear to be viruses or spam alone. Mark the good ones by clicking under the column Mark for Offline. After this, once more receive your mail. Now, the messages that you had marked alone will be downloaded in full. The viruses and junk would not have been downloaded. Sometimes, your well-meaning contacts might be sending you viruses unknown to them. So, instead of opening the attachments, save them to your desktop. If the attachments contain any viruses, your antivirus should kick in at this time. I am using AVG antivirus and it does a pretty good job of handling viruses.

Email Headers: Spammers and viruses do a lot of spoofing when it comes to leaving traces. Check the screenshot for the header of a virus-laden mail that I received. Both the to and from address belong to me but the sender was actually jmcneill@stx.rr.com. By reading the header, it becomes clear from which ISP this guy has been using. In this case, RoadRunner.com or rr.com. By sending a mail to abuse@WhicheverISP.com, you will be able alert the ISP provider of the nuisance. When contacting the ISP, make sure you send them a plain text message along with the Internet header of the offending email. Without the header, they will not be able to take any action. To read the email headers, keep the Preview off. Right click on the message and select Properties » Details.

Most viruses usually attack the Address Book. The virus reads the addresses stored in the Address Book and mails a copy of the virus to all the contacts, sometimes along with a file found in your machine. Some viruses forge the to and from addresses. So, it may not be always be right to yell at your friend for sending viruses. It is best not to keep any contacts in the Address Book not just in the interest of your contacts, but also in the interest of your own privacy.

People who send junk mail or spam have large databases of email addresses. They are paid by companies that sell something. All current measures against spam are devoted against spammers rather than the spam sponsors. Spam sponsors are at the root of this evil. Is there a way to stop this group of low life? Read Reverse Spamming or How To Fight Spam With Spam.

• Archiving HotMAIL messages: When you import messages from a backup copy of the message store folder, your HotMAIL messages will not be imported. So, create two folders under Local Folders called Archived Inbox and Archived Outbox. Copy the messages from your HotMAIL folders to these folders appropriately. Before you reinstall Windows or something drastic as that, create a backup copy the store folder in some other location. The store folder’s location can be found by going to Options » Maintenance » Store Folder. After you are done with your reinstall, ask OE or whichever mail client you are using to import the messages from this folder. Now, your HotMAIL messages will be imported.

• Options: To change the various settings of OE, choose Options in the Tools menu. If you have a dial-up account, then under the General tab, uncheck all the check boxes. Under the Send tab, uncheck the Send messages immediately. Under the Compose tab, under Font Settings choose the Verdana 9pt font or anything else that you might fancy. Under the Signatures tab, create different signatures for different accounts or one for all accounts. If you are in India, then setting the dictionary to English (United Kingdom) in the Language section of the Spelling tab will prevent conflicts with American spelling.

• Blind Carbon Copy (bcc): Not many people know the advantages of bcc. When an email is cc’d to different people, each one of them get to know the other ids. Many people would be annoyed if their ids are distributed around in a careless fashion. Also, many a time, people just cc all others when replying. So, when broadcasting a message leave the “To” and “cc” fields empty and instead fill up the “bcc” with the addresses. To send mails using the bcc option in Outlook Express, choose View » All headers in the New Message window.
• Use the Firefox browser :

Tips &; Tricks for Net Surfing

1.)   Tips &mp; Tricks For Browsing

• Use Opera, if you are looking for speed and its tabbed interface. Use Internet Explorer, if you do a lot of offline browsing. Internet Explorer is also good for O2 phones equipped with web browsers. Netscape 7, like Opera, allows tabbed browsing, ie., opening multiple web pages in a single window under different tabs. Besides, it has numerous add-ons such as Mail, AOL IM, Winamp, etc. The only thing that Netscape 7 lacks is IE’s panache for offline browsing with the History side-pane. In Opera, settings can be changed by choosing Preference under the File menu. To get a tabbed interface for new windows, check Open windows inside Opera workspace under Windows. In the same place, select Open pop-up windows in the background under Browser Windows. To use the cache effectively, check Never under History and cache. Press F5 to manually refresh pages.

• To save on the time spent online, start your browser along with Outlook Express. Open as many windows in the browser and enter the urls of the sites you need to visit. Do not click on Go or press Enter. Now start your dialer. Once you are connected, ask OE to send and receive messages. As the messages are being received and sent, go the browser windows and click on the Go buttons. When OE finishes its job, disconnect.

• Do not type your messages online. If you have an HotMAIL account, integrate it with OE. Type and read your messages offline. If you are using other accounts such as Yahoo, type them first in Notepad when you are offline. Then, when you go online, in the Compose section, cut and past the message.

• You can send messages to machines running the Messenger service (Windows NT/2000/XP) by using the command net send <address> message from the MS-DOS prompt. To send a message to yourself, type net send 127.0.0.1 hello.

• If you have to keep in touch with the latest news, then get the Reuters Desktop Ticker. Reuters is the world’s leading news provider and almost every newspaper and TV station in the world gets feeds from it. Once connected to the Net, headlines flash across the ticker and you can click on the headlines to see the news stories in a browser window.

• ESCAPE: Many people do not know this. If a page is being downloaded and you want to stop it, then pressing the Escape key will do that. Also, pressing Backspace key will take you to the previous page.

• Saving web pages: Beginning with Version 5, IE allows saving a web page in a single file including its images and other embedded content. To do this, choose Save As from the File menu. Here in the Save as type, choose Web Archive, single file (*.mht). Sometimes, MHT files may not show anything even though its thumbnail does show something. If you disable Javascript, you will be able to see the whatever something you saw in the thumbnail.

3.)  Tips &mp; Tricks For Outlook Express

Outlook Express is free and comes bundled with IE. You can integrate your HotMAIL account with it.

• Save some space by unchecking Contact, Outlook Bar, and View Bar in the Window Layout Properties. This is chosen by selecting Layout from the View menu.

• Implementing Spam Filters For POP Accounts: Create two folders in your mail client - Filtered Inbox and Spam. Create the following four Message Rules in Outlook Express (Tools » Message Rules » Mail). Use your old messages as a guide while picking the words for your filters. Check the Spam folder once in a while for any false-positives. If you find any spam among the flagged messages in the Filtered Inbox, then update the filters in the third rule with new words.

Mail Rule #1: Mail From Known Contacts
Where the From line contains ‘friendname’ or ‘contact@emailaddress.com’
Move it to the Filtered Inbox folder
    and Stop processing more rules

Mail Rule #2: Mail Not Addressed To Me
Where the To or CC line does not contain ‘your@emailaddress.com’
Move it to the Spam folder
   and Stop processing more rules

Mail Rule #3: Word filters on From, To, &mp; Subject lines
Where the From line contains ‘debt’ or ‘enlargement’ or ‘teens’ or ‘viagra’
    or Where the Subject line contains ‘debt’ or ‘enlargement’ or ‘teens’ or ‘viagra’
     or Where the To line contains ‘debt’ or ‘enlargement’ or ‘teens’ or ‘viagra’
Move it to the Spam folder
    and Stop processing more rules

Mail Rule #4: Suspect Mail
For all messages
Move it to the Filtered Inbox folder
      and Flag it
      and Stop processing more rules

• Integrating HotMAIL: You can integrate your HotMAIL account with Outlook Express. Just go about as you would do with adding a POP account. After you enter your HotMAIL address, OE will automatically identify it as a HotMAIL account and pre-fill the E-mail Server Names details. Click Next enter the userid and password. When you are done, OE will ask if you want to download folders for that account. Here, choose Yes. After the folders have been downloaded, you can use it like you would use a POP mail account except that you will not be able to use the Message Rules (available under the Tools menu) on this account.

• Handling Junk Mail &mp; Viruses In HotMAIL: If you get a lot of junk mail, then through the HotMAIL website activate the bulk mail folder. Create appropriate mail filters to prevent junk from landing into your inbox. Despite this, you might get junk mail and sometimes viruses. To handle these annoyances, you have to configure OE to download only mail headers. Right click on Bulk Mail and Inbox folders, and follow this - Synchronization Settings » Headers Only. Keep the Preview option off by clicking on its button on the toolbar. Some viruses get activated when Preview is on. Now, connect to the net and receive your mail. Then, read the from addresses and subject lines. Leave mails that appear to be viruses or spam alone. Mark the good ones by clicking under the column Mark for Offline. After this, once more receive your mail. Now, the messages that you had marked alone will be downloaded in full. The viruses and junk would not have been downloaded. Sometimes, your well-meaning contacts might be sending you viruses unknown to them. So, instead of opening the attachments, save them to your desktop. If the attachments contain any viruses, your antivirus should kick in at this time. I am using AVG antivirus and it does a pretty good job of handling viruses.

Email Headers: Spammers and viruses do a lot of spoofing when it comes to leaving traces. Check the screenshot for the header of a virus-laden mail that I received. Both the to and from address belong to me but the sender was actually jmcneill@stx.rr.com. By reading the header, it becomes clear from which ISP this guy has been using. In this case, RoadRunner.com or rr.com. By sending a mail to abuse@WhicheverISP.com, you will be able alert the ISP provider of the nuisance. When contacting the ISP, make sure you send them a plain text message along with the Internet header of the offending email. Without the header, they will not be able to take any action. To read the email headers, keep the Preview off. Right click on the message and select Properties » Details.

Most viruses usually attack the Address Book. The virus reads the addresses stored in the Address Book and mails a copy of the virus to all the contacts, sometimes along with a file found in your machine. Some viruses forge the to and from addresses. So, it may not be always be right to yell at your friend for sending viruses. It is best not to keep any contacts in the Address Book not just in the interest of your contacts, but also in the interest of your own privacy.

People who send junk mail or spam have large databases of email addresses. They are paid by companies that sell something. All current measures against spam are devoted against spammers rather than the spam sponsors. Spam sponsors are at the root of this evil. Is there a way to stop this group of low life? Read Reverse Spamming or How To Fight Spam With Spam.

• Archiving HotMAIL messages: When you import messages from a backup copy of the message store folder, your HotMAIL messages will not be imported. So, create two folders under Local Folders called Archived Inbox and Archived Outbox. Copy the messages from your HotMAIL folders to these folders appropriately. Before you reinstall Windows or something drastic as that, create a backup copy the store folder in some other location. The store folder’s location can be found by going to Options » Maintenance » Store Folder. After you are done with your reinstall, ask OE or whichever mail client you are using to import the messages from this folder. Now, your HotMAIL messages will be imported.

• Options: To change the various settings of OE, choose Options in the Tools menu. If you have a dial-up account, then under the General tab, uncheck all the check boxes. Under the Send tab, uncheck the Send messages immediately. Under the Compose tab, under Font Settings choose the Verdana 9pt font or anything else that you might fancy. Under the Signatures tab, create different signatures for different accounts or one for all accounts. If you are in India, then setting the dictionary to English (United Kingdom) in the Language section of the Spelling tab will prevent conflicts with American spelling.

• Blind Carbon Copy (bcc): Not many people know the advantages of bcc. When an email is cc’d to different people, each one of them get to know the other ids. Many people would be annoyed if their ids are distributed around in a careless fashion. Also, many a time, people just cc all others when replying. So, when broadcasting a message leave the “To” and “cc” fields empty and instead fill up the “bcc” with the addresses. To send mails using the bcc option in Outlook Express, choose View » All headers in the New Message window.
• Use the Firefox browser :

The Google database exists on many servers spread throughout the world. A large update of the Google databases can take several days.

A Google dance is when the Google servers are out of sync with one another. Your web site could be the #7 result for your main keywords on one Google server, and the #1 result on another server.

How Often Does The Google Dance Happen?

The name “Google Dance” was in the past used to describe the period that a major index update of the Google search engine are being implemented. These major Google index update occured on average every 36 days or 10 times per year. It was easiest be identified by significant changes in search results, and by an updating of Google’s cache of all indexed pages. These changes would be evident from one minute to the next. But the update did not proceed as a switch from one index to another like the flip of a switch. In fact, it took several days to finish the complete update of the index.

Checking The Google Dance:

Until January 2004, Google had 12 main www servers online, which were as follows:

• www-ex.google.com - (where you get when you type www.google.com)
• www-sj.google.com - (which can also be accessed at www2.google.com)
• www-va.google.com - (which can also be accessed at www3.google.com)
• www-dc.google.com
• www-ab.google.com
• www-in.google.com
• www-zu.google.com
• www-cw.google.com
• www-fi.google.com - found in May 2003.
• www-gv.google.com - found in August 2003.
• www-gv2.google.com - found in September 2003.
• www-kr.google.com - found in October 2003.

At some point in January, these servers stopped accepting connections, and the only servers easy to connect to were:

• www.google.com
• www2.google.com
• www3.google.com

At any time during an index update you can check the Google servers, and they will display sometime wildly differing results, thus they are said to be “dancing”, and hence the name “Google Dance”.

Importance Of The Google Dance

For most people, this event in and of itself was not important. However for anyone in the search engine optimization industry it was a period of note. Pages got temporarily dropped. Sometimes it lasted a day.

Many free webhosts do not offer the features you would get if you paid for a host. This guide will show you how to carefully select a paying host that will fit your needs.

Benefit of using paid host vs hosting on personal computer:

1. Information security – Web hosting services provide good security for the web site. If you decide to host site on home computer make sure are you prepared to open the “door” to your personal computer to everyone.
2. Availability - Your computer is supposed to provide service 24 hours a day. This involves two main things: One, your PC must be connected to the Internet 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Two, you must be sure that it is operating 24 hours a day. This would require power backup for 24 hours.
3. Infrastructures - Up to this point, building your site has been free or relatively inexpensive. Turning your PC into a server on the Internet obligates you to purchase a few products including: Internet server (software), an IP address and a domain name. This configuration will enable users to roam around your computer (we’ve already mentioned security).
4. Other factors - like Response time, number of simultaneous users, etc.

It is better to find a Web hosting server on the Internet for your Web site then on personal computer.

First answer why do you want  a web Site:

The first thing to be done is to decide what you need your page to do. Is this you personal site, business site or some organization site. These are just some of the questions you need to answer yourself before even starting to choose.

There are more factors in what will determine the best hosting provider for you and that will be the primary goal of this article.

Following points would help you deciding which is right web hosting plan for your web site.

How to choosed best web hosting paln for your web site.

First thing to consider: Storage Space and DataTransfer:

A small information site or personal site will usually only require a few megabytes of disk space, however, data transfer depends on the size of the pages your are offering your visitors multiplied by the number of visitors. Therefore, a popular and graphics heavy website requires a greater monthly transfer than a text site. You should look at a minimum of 2 GB (2000 MB) data transfer a month for high traffic site (8000 – 10000 unique visitor per day) go for at least 1000 GB per month If your Web site is expected to grow, look for a server that gives you the option of increasing your basic package to another convenient package, or take a package with more storage space to begin with.

Note: It is extremely important to look at the monthly data transfer bandwidth included in a plan.

Second thing to consider: reliability :

For any online business, uptime is critical. You absolutely cannot go with a host that has an uptime of less than 95%.
No web host can have 100% uptime, and it’s impossible to guarantee. Avoid any hosts promising more than they can deliver. Most claim 99.9% uptime, but due to the nature of computers and communications equipment, outages will and do occur occasionally. To find the truth ask for a couple of sites they currently host, that you can check out for yourself. The word of mouth is probably most powerful in helping to judge these companies.

Third thing to consider: Technical Support

Critical to success, you’ll need an internet hosting company that can help you resolve problems quickly with the least possible disruption to your site activity. As most hosting companies offer inclusive technical support, you shouldn’t pay extra for this. If you’re not offered 24 hours/7 days you should look elsewhere. If they don’t reply within 48 hours, or don’t reply at all, consider another hosting company. A good company should reply within 24-48 hours.

Fourth thing to consider: Added Features

Various internet hosting companies offer a variety of services. Web hosters provide a listing of overwhelming features to hosting plans to entice you into joining their services. However, more importantly, what features you need and what ones you don’t need.
If you are paying for a website, you should definitely be getting email accounts and FTP access. Don’t settle for a site without them. Make sure the email addresses are for your domain and not at your host’s domain. FTP access is critical is you intend to do any amount of uploading files to your server.

Examples of services include also visitor counts, e-mail forwarding options, real time chat, shopping cart functions, and web statistics. The list goes on.

Fifth thing to consider: Pricing Structure

If the previous four steps check out, then you need to consider price and this can vary widely. You need to consider setup fees, monthly fees, plan discounts and optional extras in your calculations. Don’t let price be the primary factor in your decision unless you are launching a personal page. For ecommerce, businesses and organizations, the quality of the service is more important.
Keep also in mind that the most expensive plan is not necessarily the best, and the biggest name company may not be the right match for you. Many perfectly fine packages for small businesses now run between $7 - $15 per month, for shared web hosting service.
A good web host company will not tie you into a long-term contract that will prevent you moving if you don’t like the service.

Sixth thing to consider:What type of Web hosting server is offered?

There are two main types of Web hosting servers - servers whose operating system is Windows NT/200x and those using UNIX/Linux.

Some are faster than others, and offer varied features. If your host uses Linux, you are going to get support of probably, PHP, MySql, and other features. If your host uses Windows, then you’re probably going to get the support of CFM, ASP, ASP.net. Pick your OS wisely.

Another main difference between Windows NT/200x and UNIX/Linux servers is that Windows NT/200x servers are not case-sensitive.

Seventh thing to consider : Does the Web hosting server provide back-up and recovery services :

Add on services like providing back-up and recovery services become very handy in case of breakdown or hacking?.

Eighth thing to consider :Read the Terms of Service:

Reading this is important because it tells you the do’s and don’ts of the hosting. If you get a host that is a little infamous you probably aren’t going to get the full advantage of a famous host. For example if it says “We do not expect porn sites, videos, etc..” and you are getting the host for a porn site then your account will probably be terminated.

The most important thing to remember is to research and shop around. The more requirements you have, the most likely you pay more. But paying for a quality web host provider is a good investment especially if your business will in the future become more reliant on the Internet.

Our Recomendation :

Based on All these factors I have choose some of the best web hosting plan around. I have give them ranking as below.

1. Netfirms Web Hosting Netfirms is the fastest growing Web Hosting and Domain Name service provider in the world. We currently host over 1,200,000 small to medium sized business Websites.
2. HostGator.com Best web hosting around. One of the only plan having a 30 day money back guarantee. On all the reviews they got the highest ranking. A perfect Paln to start with.
3. Lunarpages Web Hosting A very close competitor to Hostgator. Their plan include much more sapce and bandwidth limit tahn any other competitor around. They have just one plan and they maintain it quite well.
4. iPowerWeb : IPowerWeb takes the lead by providing one integrated web hosting solution for one low price. You pay just $7.95 month with no set up fee. You get 300 Gigabytes of storage space with unlimited email forwarding, 2500 emails, MySQL, CGI-Bin, 3000 gigs of data transfer, the works.
5. AN Hosting : ANHosting’s one plan is a shared Unix hosting plan. It comes with generous storage and transfer allowances, as well as midPhase’s traditional “free domain for life.”
6. InMotion Hosting : One of the best offer of the price. 6 domain free with 8.95 $ per month hosting paln. InMotion offers flexibility, features, and services other hosting companies just don’t provide.