Edunology - Saumya Aggarwal

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Microsoft has revealed a new feature that will ship with Internet Explorer 9 to help users avoid the online tracking that is now widespread on the Web and is used to power behavioral advertising. The new Tracking Protection Lists will tell the browser which third-party content to permit and which to prohibit.


Tracking Protection Lists will be an opt-in feature, and Microsoft says that it will not provide any lists itself. Instead, third parties can provide lists to end-users. As such, the lists may come from privacy advocacy groups, ad-blocking advocates, or individuals who want to block certain content. The lists will update themselves automatically on a weekly basis.

Internet Explorer already contains a feature, InPrivate Filtering, that attempts to block third-party scripting and tracking devices. However, InPrivate Filtering operates on a heuristic basis. It can both fail to block certain tracking devices, and it can also block too much third-party scripting, leaving sites inoperative. Tracking Protection Lists, in contrast, will be curated, and so should be less susceptible to these issues.


Specifics of the Tracking Protection Lists are not yet finalized. Microsoft has proposed a file format for the lists, and it promises that the final specification will be available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Support for Tracking Protection Lists will first arrive in a release candidate of Internet Explorer 9. Redmond did not give a date for this, but it is likely to be early next year.

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The latest increase in intake for Institute of Managament Technology (IMT) Ghaziabad’s PGDM programme has prompted me to write this article. The total intake has crossed 500 and mind you its IMT and no IIM. I will look at it in two perspectives:

1. Decrease in percentile for admissions
2. Sacrifice on job quality

There has been tremendous pressure of IMT Ghaziabad in terms of admitting students. The same admission form is used to admit students ranging from as low as 25% percentile in IMT Dubai to 95% in IMTG. The focus is certainly missing. What's more PGDM(MBA) is no engineering degree and students with work-ex like to have quality placements. If placements are happening where Tech firm is taking 100+ students I have my doubt to call it a placement even.

• Increasing fees (What’s the ROI???)
• Pressure on quality of students with increased intake (Not long before we heard about the student unrest in IMT over the same issue)
• Decreasing high end management jobs at IMT (With 500+ students, can you get your dream job in a company looking to hire 2 candidates. What is your visibility?)

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Contest Details:

What to do: Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Leave a comment with your Twitter and Facebook ID. No questions to be answered! Isnt that cooooool!!!

Deadline: 31st Jan, 2011
Over 5 T-shirts to be won!

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The holiday season came one day early for Facebook this year, as Santa bestowed the company the title of "third largest website ever." New metrics from comScore indicate that Facebook has finally passed Yahoo for third place, pulling in 648 million unique visitors for November 2010 versus Yahoo's 630 million.

Only Microsoft, with 869 million unique visitors, and Google, with 970 million, stand in Facebook's way at this point. Yahoo drops down to fourth, though that should really come as little surprise--Facebook has been chipping away at the search giant for some time now.

As of December 2009, Facebook's pageviews were already up to 193 billion versus Yahoo's 100 billion (and Microsoft's 109 billion, to note). As well, November metrics from comScore indicate that Facebook serves up more than twice as much display advertising as Yahoo—23 percent of all online ads within the U.S. compared to Yahoo's 11 percent.

Facebook leaped over Yahoo in a batch of September comScore metrics related to U.S. video properties. As of August 2010, Facebook delivered video to 58.5 million users versus Yahoo's 53.9, representing a total of 243 million viewing sessions to Yahoo's 229 million. The only metric where Yahoo actually beat Facebook out was on viewing time—Yahoo users viewed an average of 31.6 minutes of online video per person versus Facebook users' 20.5 minutes per person.

Yahoo nevertheless beats out Facebook when isolated to just U.S. visitors only. In this, the company is the top website on the Internet with 181 million unique monthly visitors. Facebook, at 152 million, sits in fourth place on this ranking.

Narrowing the category to search engines only, Yahoo still trails Google at a rate of 16 percent to 66.2 percent for U.S. search engine market share. Its second place ranking is a bit tentative as well, for November 2010 metrics from comScore show that Microsoft, at 11.8 percent, is slowly gaining ground based on October 2010 results.
"Our greatest competitor probably is Facebook, more so than Google," said Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz at a Bloomberg event earlier this month. "They're a hot site, but there's room for more than one of anything."

via Thinkdigit

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The much-awaited Facebook email service (Project Titan) was finally announced on Monday. Facebook email is actually part of a larger, simplified communication system called Facebook Messages. Facebook Messages will have email, SMS, chat conversations with your Facebook friends under one thread.

I have to respectfully disagree with my colleague, Nikhil Pradhan, and his views on how Facebook email could actually beat Gmail -- but in all fairness, his article was written before Facebook's email announcement. Although Facebook email (and Facebook Messages) definitely has convergence and simplicity of use going for it, but from the evidence of Facebook's announcement and Facebook Messages' first look, the service is far from upsetting Gmail -- let alone kill it. Here's why:

Threaded conversation: Most Gmail users prefer Gmail's email conversation view -- it was the first webmail service to have email conversation view back in 2004. Emails on the same subject appear as threaded conversations in Gmail, putting the latest email right on top of the pile. Facebook Messages will have emails, SMS, chats between two individuals as one thread -- irrespective of the subject. This may get confusing after a while, and the length of scroll over time difficult to manage if Facebook continues with posting the most recent update to a conversation at the bottom of the pile.

Spam: To put it simply, Gmail has a pretty robust spam filter deployed to prevent spam from reaching your Gmail inbox. It has a spam-filtering mechanism that learns when Gmail users report a spam email. Historically, Facebook has had trouble stamping out spam attacks in messages and chats. Facebook has said it will deploy an unnamed third-party filtering mechanism for inbound emails for Facebook email service, but as of now Gmail still triumphs.

Multiple Email Accounts: I currently use multiple email accounts (Gmail and others) to send and receive email from my Gmail inbox. This makes Gmail central to my webmail experience -- it works great for anyone who has multiple email accounts and doesn't want to use several email clients or access multiple inboxes.

IMAP support: Facebook email won't have IMAP support -- which is a popular email protocol. IMAP really helps if you're accessing your inbox from different locations or different devices. Gmail includes IMAP support.

Attachments: Facebook emails will only be able to preview attached Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, and Excel files within their browsers -- through Facebook and Microsoft's Docs service. It won't preview PDFs, for example -- something that Gmail does.

SMS/Chat/Phone: I understand it's great and will help Facebook users when email, SMS, and chat comes under one Social Inbox. But Gmail has already converged the three a while back -- it has Gmail chat, SMS, and Gmail free phone calls, all within your inbox window. Facebook just goes one step ahead by converging different forms of communication under one thread -- as far as services offered, there's nothing new or groundbreaking.

via pcworld

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Google Inc will begin blocking Facebook and other Web services from accessing its users' information , highlighting an intensifying rivalry between the two Internet giants.

Google will no longer let other services automatically import its users' email contact data for their own purposes, unless the information flows both ways. It accused Facebook in particular of siphoning up Google contact data, without allowing for the automatic import and export of Facebook users' information.

Facebook, with more than 500 million users, relies on email services such as Google's Gmail to help new users find friends already on the network. When a person joins, they are asked to import their Gmail contact list into the social network service. Facebook then tells the user which email contacts are also on the social network.

In a statement, Google said websites such as Facebook "leave users in a data dead end." Facebook did not immediately provide a comment on Friday.

While Google framed the move as an attempt to protect its users' ability to retain control of their personal data on the Internet, analysts said the move underscored the battle between Google, the world's largest search engine, and Facebook, the dominant Internet social network.

"The fundamental power dynamic on the Web today is this emerging conflict between Facebook and Google," said Gartner analyst Ray Valdes. "Google needs to evolve to become a big player in the social Web and it hasn't been able to do that."

"If people do search within Facebook, if they do email within Facebook, if they do instant messaging within Facebook, all of these will chip away at Google's properties."

RECIPROCITY

Google said that while it makes it easy for other Web services to automatically import a user's contact data, Facebook was not reciprocating.

"We have decided to change our approach slightly to reflect the fact that users often aren't aware that once they have imported their contacts into sites like Facebook, they are effectively trapped," Google said in an emailed statement.

"We will no longer allow websites to automate the import of users' Google Contacts (via our API) unless they allow similar export to other sites," Google said. 


via ET

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A lot of Gmail users are noticing a major drop in the performance of the user interface in the recent times. A small trick which can really help in slow connections:

1. Turn on Offline Gmail.
2. Turn on Flaky connection mode.
3. That’s it.

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The biggest search engine in the world has decided to take on the US government, suing it for anticompetitive practices. Certainly big news, it still isn’t much of a shocker, as Google seems to be rather justified in its stance.


Google is suing the Department of Interior (DOI) for not considering Google Apps for its web-based document and messaging needs in its Request for Quotation, which stated that the solution had to be a part of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite. This according to Google is “unduly restrictive of competition”, and an "arbitrary and capricious, and abuse of discretion, and otherwise contrary to law" requirement.

DOI so far maintains that Microsoft’s solutions offered something the competition didn’t, specifically “unified/consolidated email” and “enhanced security”. Google of course disputes this claim, and pointed out several flaws and problems with Microsoft’s solutions, including recent vulnerabilities and downtime issues. In other words, Google is accusing the DOI of Microsoft favouritism.

Google has been competing against Microsoft for various government contracts so far, and both have had their victories at the state and city level. According to Google though, it has been attempting to demonstrate the many benefits of Google Apps to the DOI since June last year, but it had been reputedly refused since. Google now says that though DOI kept insisting that the contract was wide open in this period, work had already started with Microsoft's solution. Now, Google wants a fair chance to make a bid for the job, 'in accordance with applicable law and regulations'.

Microsoft has not commented on the lawsuit so far.

via Thinkdigit

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Urging Indians to contribute to the growth of Wikipedia in a bigger way, Mr. Wales spoke about the uniqueness of the country in the manner in which its people used Wikipedia. Though Wikipedia is offered in 12 Indian languages, 81% of all edits made by Indian users were in the English language, something very rarely seen in other countries, whose people tend to use and edit the content in their local language. This disparity is also seen in page views from India to the English section of Wikipedia.

A recent count of the number of Wikipedia articles in local Indian languages yielded the below figures:
Hindi - 57,823 articles
Telugu - 45,963
Marathi - 31,400
Tamil - 25,263
Gujarati - 17,142
Malayalam - 14,830

Jimmy Wales went on to comment that WMF hopes to have matured content of at least 100,000 articles in the top 10 local Indian languages by 2015, seeking to serve 80% of the population. To this end, Wales said that WMF is actively seeking the involvement of 75% schools in India, and that it wants increased access to be provided to them, both offline and online. He also urged various governments to release content into the public domain.

Wikipedia in India
The highlight of Wales’ talk was his announcement of opening an Indian Wikipedia office soon, which when opened, will be the second Wikipedia office in the world after the WMF headquarters in San Francisco. Certainly big news, Wales spoke about how India was a significant factor in the tremendous growth experienced by Wikipedia in recent years, and how the country’s multi-lingual talents should be tapped to their fullest.

Also praising the exceptional rise of local language articles combined with English articles from India, Wales spoke about why India was the perfect choice for a second office: “As a media project, for me India was the perfect place because we wish to work with a variety of people and India has a lot of communities. The community in India should lead and Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) will follow them.”

Though questioned, Wales did not reveal which Indian city would be chosen as the site for Wikipedia’s India office. He clarified “We are talking about an office of three or four people. It's not a huge investment. One of the benefits of an office in India is it would facilitate communication with local communities.” The office would also work hand-in-hand with the Bangalore chapter of the WMF, seeking to help train and find contributors and also provide technical support

via Thinkdigit

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The company is offering their connection for just Rs. 888 (plus Rs. 300 for installation) that comes with one month long subscription of their diamond package.

There is another option that costs Rs. 1390 (plus Rs. 300 for installation). It comes with four month subscription of their diamond package.

The diamond package itself is worth around Rs. 292 so this is an incredible value for money deal.

Industry set to see price war, we as consumers will be benefited! 

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Opera has announced  a full-fledged Opera Mobile browser for smartphones running the Google Android OS. Opera Mobile for Android, which is slated to arrived within a month, will feature hardware acceleration and pinch-to-zoom functionality.

So far the company offered only Opera Mini for Android, a scaled-down version of its browser, designed for less capable phones. Instead of translating and compressing pages through a server before reaching the user, Opera says Opera Mobile for Android will be a full-fledged browser, on the par with Android's built-in browser or Safari on iOS.

Opera claims hardware acceleration will give a major speed boost to Opera Mobile for Android, alongside some user interface improvements. One feature leveraged by hardware acceleration will be pinch-to-zoom, so that you can adjust the zoom level to your liking, instead of relying on the two preset levels of zoom on Opera Mini.

Some website layouts do not display correctly with Opera Mini.

It's unknown how fast Opera Mobile for Android will be in comparison to Opera Mini. The latter compresses website data by up to 90 percent before pushing content to your smartphone, so you get fast loading times even on slow network connections. This has a disadvantage, as fonts and some website layouts do not display correctly on your phone - which is what Opera Mobile plans to address.

Opera Mobile for Android won't be the only third-party browser on the platform. Mozilla previewed earlier this year the Android version of Firefox called Fennec, which is still in its early stages. If you're not happy with the built-in browser on your Android phone, you can wait for Opera Mobile or Fennec, or you can take the Dolphin Browser, a cool browser with pinch-to-zoom and gesture commands, for a spin.

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Facebook Inc expanded its partnership with Microsoft Corp.s Bing  search engine, letting people automatically see what their Facebook friends think about the topics they're seeking information on.

Bing's new search screen also will let users become a person's friend on Facebook or send a message to the social- networking service, Microsoft and Facebook said at a media event in Mountain View, California. Searches for restaurants or movies will spotlight the ones that a user's friends like. Terms of the partnership weren't disclosed.



"This is a new era," Qi Lu, president of online services at Microsoft, said at the event. "Can the search experience be better if all the people you trust are part of that experience? You will find that the experience will be much better."

Microsoft is counting on traffic from Facebook, the world's most popular social network, as it steps up competition with Google Inc. Microsoft is merging its search operations with Yahoo! Inc. this year in a bid to challenge Google's dominance in the market. The new features "offer a lot of promise," said Danny Sullivan, who runs the search-analysis website Search Engine Land.

"This opens the idea that your friends can somewhat mind- meld with your search engine," he said. "But there's still more to be done. The early implementation shows a lot of gaps so far to me."


Better results?

The queries from Facebook users will help Microsoft refine its searches, said Yusuf Mehdi, a senior vice president at the Redmond, Washington-based company. Bing users can opt out of being integrated with Facebook, he said.

Microsoft aims to get an edge on Google, which is making its own search-engine refinements. Last month, Google unveiled a faster search feature called Instant that gives users results as they type in a query. Advertisers will spend $12.4 billion on search ads this year, up from $10.7 billion in 2009, EMarketer Inc. estimates.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Palo Alto, California-based Facebook, credited Bing with spurring innovation in search, saying at the event that search user interface hadn't changed for eight years before Bing.

"The thing that makes Microsoft a great partner for us is that they really are the underdog here," he said at the event. "Because of that, they're in a structural position where they're incentivized to just go all out and innovate."

Ad partnership

Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, paid $240 million for a stake in Facebook in 2007. Facebook uses Microsoft for search-linked advertisements, though it stopped running its partner's banner ads this year. Facebook opted to focus on its own efforts in that area.

Google's share of US Internet search rose to 66.1 percent last month from 65.4 in August, according to Reston, Virginia- based ComScore Inc. Microsoft's share edged up to 11.2 percent from 11.1 percent. Yahoo, which has begun using Bing for search, dropped to 16.7 percent from 17.4 percent, ComScore said.

via TOI

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Nokia today announced that it was launching the C5, an inexpensive touchscreen phone that runs the Symbian^1 OS found on phones like the 5800 XpressMusic and the N97. Nokia made the launch announcement through its blog, Nokia Conversations.

The blog clarifies that today's launch is the C5-03 variation of the Nokia C5 model and will have a 3.2-inch touchscreen with Wi-Fi, 3G and assisted GPS along with free Ovi Maps support. The C5-03 also has a 5MP camera with no flash, has 40MB of internal memory and supports upto 16GB of microSD cards. Although, there is no mention of when it will be hitting stores in India, Nokia mentions that the expected price will be €170 (Rs. 10,700 approx.)
Here are a couple of pictures of the C5, helpfully provided by the Nokia Blog:






via Nokia Conversations

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Internet Explorer ebook tips and tricks ebook authored by me. Please promote it.


IE9 - Tips and Tricks

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Opera has released its State of the Mobile Web, August 2010 report, which shows India has 3rd most Opera Mini users in the world. Since the month of August 2009, pages-per-view of opera mobile users in India has grown by 397 percent, while unique-users have grown by 339 percent. The State of the Mobile Web, August 2010 report also states that the page-views per user in India has grown to 405 and the average data transferred per user is 7MB.

"Growth of the mobile Web worldwide accelerated dramatically in August. These numbers are not limited to smartphones alone. The mobile Web was, and remains, a global phenomenon for people all over the world, on a variety of devices and screen sizes," said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera Software.
The State of the Mobile Web, August 2010 also reports many global trends. In August 2010, Opera Mini had more than 66.5 million users. As compared to July 2010, it has increased by 6.8 percent, and if you compared it from August 2009, then the number of unique users have increased 108.3 percent. In terms of number of pages viewed, Opera Mini users viewed more than 33.9 billion pages in August 2010, an increase of 14.3 percent since July 2010, and 143.2 percent since August 2009.

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While Google launched its own URL shortening service quite a while back, it has finally given it its own website, namely, http://goo.gl. So while you can now access the Google URL shortener much more easily, without resorting to the Google Toolbar or Feedburner, Google also says they have improved the service in many ways. Here’s how, in Google’s words:

There are many shorteners out there with great features, so some people may wonder whether the world really needs yet another. As we said late last year, we built goo.gl with a focus on quality. With goo.gl, every time you shorten a URL, you know it will work, it will work fast, and it will keep working. You also know that when you click a goo.gl shortened URL, you’re protected against malware, phishing and spam using the same industry-leading technology we use in search and other products. Since our initial release, we’ve continued to invest in the core quality of the service:

Stability: We've had near 100% uptime since our initial launch, and we've worked behind the scenes to make goo.gl even stabler and more robust

Security: We've added automatic spam detection based on the same type of filtering technology we use in Gmail

Speed: We've more than doubled our speed in just over nine months

Also, you will be able to create QR (quick response) codes very, very easily, by simply adding “.qr” to the end of the shortened URL that's generated by Goo.gl. This is obviously a nod in the direction of mobile apps that can scan QR codes, and Google has used them in the past for the installation of Android apps.

Other features of the URL shortener include the ability to view a list of your shortened URLs when you log in via your Google account, and, various analytics about those links.

Google says it will release the API to the service soon to allow developers to give users of their applications the ability to shorten/expand URLs, as well as view analytics, directly. It is already available as an extension for Chrome and Firefox. The move comes soon after Twitter launched its own URL shortening service.

via Thinkdigit

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Google has probably made one of the toughest decision regarding Gmail by offering an option to disable conversations view.

Conversations was one of the innovations of Gmail and it changed the way a lot of us deal with emails on a daily basis.

However, there are still users out there who prefer it the old way. Just like we have it on Yahoo and Hotmail and in most desktop clients.

They took a long time to accept the demands and they have finally given in.

Gmail now allows you to disable the conversations mode. You can have emails in your Gmail Inbox in the old style.

The company stated in a blog posting:

Conversation view is perhaps Gmail’s most hotly debated feature. Threading enthusiasts say they spend less mental energy drawing connections between related messages and that their inboxes are much less cluttered. On the other hand, email traditionalists like many former Outlook users think conversation view just complicates something that has worked for years.

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The browser company which has been taking a bit of hit these days in its main offering has come up with hottest mobile phone concept 'Seabird'.

The device aims to address some of the frustrations people have when interacting with small devices.

"While mobile CPUs, connectivity and development platforms begin approaching that of desktops, the lagging ability to efficiently input information has grown ever more pronounced," he wrote in a blog post describing the phone. The post includes videos--one in 3D--with a rendering of the concept phone.

Seabird has two pico projectors. When placed in a dock it uses one of them to project the screen on a nearby wall for easier viewing and the other to project a full-size, virtual keyboard on the table where it sits. A user can then type on the virtual keyboard instead of a tiny on-screen or physical keyboard on the phone.

A small Bluetooth dongle fits into a slot on the back of the phone. It can be popped out and used as an earpiece. Or, users can wave the dongle in space to move a cursor on the phone screen, clicking the dongle to select an item on the screen. May says it lets users "pan and zoom in 3D space."

The dual pico projectors, located on the sides of the phone, could also be used without the dock to project half a keyboard each -- one on each side of the phone. "The Seabird, on just a flat surface, enables netbook-quality interaction by working with the projector's angular distortion to deliver interface, rather than content," May wrote.

Seabird features other standard smartphone components like an 8-megapixel camera, a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack and a mini-USB port. May envisions that it can be charged wirelessly. It is built on Android and has an unusual shape. With a flat face and no physical buttons, it tapers to just a sliver at the bottom, with a bulge protruding from the top at the back. That bulge elevates the projector lenses enough to project an image onto the surface that the phone sits on.

While Mozilla says it has no intention of developing a phone like it, the technologies in it are either already available or not terribly far-fetched.

Here's the video:

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That's a million dollar question! Undoubtely Internet Explorer 9 beta is the one of the major releases of IE since long time. With this Microsoft gave away cluttered User Interface and seems to be following route of other browsers with adherence to Web standards.

IE9 is a crucially important browser for Microsoft, and hopefully it eventually will represent the future on mobile devices, too. Microsoft needs to be as competitive, if not more, in mobile browsing as PCs. According to the U.S. State Department, 5 billion of the world's 6.6 billion people use cell phones. The total install base of PCs is about 1 billion units. Granted, the percentage of PCs capable of browsing the Web is higher than the percentage of handsets.

For now, Microsoft must recover lost territory on PCs. According to Net Applications, Internet Explorer usage share was 60.4 percent in August. Before Mozilla released Firefox 1.0 in November 2004, IE commanded more than 90 percent usage share, according to combined analyst reports.

The excitement and efforts around IE9 gives encouragement. Will it be IE9 for Microsoft?

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Last month, Nokia India tweeted that Nokia C3 will hit the market mid september, and today, it has announced via Twitter again that the Nokia C3 has hit the stores. The affordable messaging phone, the Nokia C3 comes with a full QWERTY keypad and optimized social networking feature. The Nokia C3 with its different color options and its Home screen featuring social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter will surely attract those who want to always get connected with their Facebook and Twitter account.

As a phone, the Nokia C3 is a series40 device which sports a 2.4-inch QVGA (240 x 320) TFT non-touchscreen. It has Wi-Fi apart from EDGE and Bluetooth v2.1 connectivity but there is no 3G and GPS which may be a deal-breaker for some. The Nokia C3 phone also comes with a 2MP camera with fixed focus lens and no LED flash. Video is recorded at QVGA resolution. The phone has a 3.5mm stereo headphones jack and it play most standard audio and video files. There is also a Stereo FM radio.

The Nokia C3 weighs 114g including the Li-Ion 1320 mAh battery which has a rated talk time of up to 7 hours. The Nokia C3 is available at all Nokia Priority Dealers and it is priced at Rs. 7,200.

via pcworld

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I found this interesting video of how actually a USB Flash drive is made. It is pretty interesting and elaborates the process. The video depicts trip to Kingston Production Plant. Must watch!

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Now that Microsoft and Yahoo have joined hands, Yahoo will be powered by Bing in US and Canada. This is the sign for more positive things coming in near future.
As a proof of correction, Nielsen says its search data only counts "genuine intentional searches" that users type into a search box, and does not include contextual searches that are automatically generated by search engines based on browsing behavior. However, other US search-measuring groups, including comScore, Experian Hitwise, and StatCounter, still show Yahoo in second place and Bing in third.

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US web surfers, the best of all as many say are spending more time on Facebook than Google according to research conducted at comScore Inc.

In August, people spent a total of 41.1 million minutes on Facebook, comScore said, about 9.9 per cent of their Web-surfing minutes for the month. That just barely surpassed the 39.8 million minutes, or 9.6 per cent, people spent on all of Google Inc's sites combined, including YouTube, the free Gmail email program, Google news and other content sites.
In August of last year, Web surfers spent less than 5 per cent of their online time on Facebook, about the same percentage of their time on Google and almost 12 per cent on Yahoo. In August 2007, Facebook captured less than 2 per cent of US surfers' total minutes. Google accounted for less than 4 per cent, and Yahoo for just over 12 per cent.

Is searching loosing its mark with more people remain connected online?
Well the answer will soon be clear. I myself finds most authentic information on twitter rather than on news sites.

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM team has reached a key milestone as it releases the beta of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, for both cloud-based and on-premises deployments.

Announced today, it is available for download and testing in eight languages (English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Chinese) and 36 markets, this release marks the first global public beta for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.
Additionally, beta for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 on-premises is available in 40 markets in eight languages.
Additionally, the all new Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace online catalog (also announced at WPC) will be released as a beta later this month and will offer customers and partners a searchable and filterable catalog of more than 700 applications and professional services. This service will offer partners an easy way to market and distribute solutions to Microsoft Dynamics customers and customers a convenient way to find solutions that meet their business needs.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 delivers the Power of Productivity through familiar, connected and intelligent experiences for users inside and outside an organization.

* Familiar experiences through a next-generation native Microsoft Outlook client, Microsoft Office contextual CRM Ribbon, RoleTailored design and user personalization
* Intelligent experiences through guided process dialogs, inline data visualizations, performance and goal management, and real-time dashboards
* Connected experiences through cloud development, Windows Azure integration, contextual Microsoft SharePoint document repositories, teamwork and collaboration, and the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace
To try out the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 beta or sign up for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online beta visit http://www.crm2011beta.com/.

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What is in WebMatrix?

WebMatrix is a 15MB download (50MB if you don’t have .NET 4 installed) and is quick to install. The 15MB download includes a lightweight development tool, IIS Express, SQL Compact Edition, and a set of ASP.NET extensions that enable you to build standalone ASP.NET Pages using the new Razor syntax, as well as a set of easy to use database and HTML helpers for performing common web-tasks. WebMatrix can be installed side-by-side with Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express.

Note: Razor support within ASP.NET MVC applications is not included in this first beta of WebMatrix – it will instead show up later this month in a separate ASP.NET MVC Preview - which will also include Visual Studio tooling support for it.

Getting Started with WebMatrix

WebMatrix is a task-focused tool that is designed to make it really easy to get started with web development. It minimizes the number of concepts someone needs to learn in order to get simple things done, and includes and integrates all of the pieces necessary to quickly build Web sites.

When you run WebMatrix it starts by displaying a screen like below. The three icons on the right-hand side provide the ability to create new Web sites – either using an existing open-source application from a web application gallery, from site templates that contain some default pages you can start from, or from an empty folder on disk:

Download Now: http://bit.ly/cxrPG0

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Today, Google has launched its latest update to search technology. It has improved the original Web search tool that formed the foundation of its business. Google has introduced Instant Search. Instant Search does away with the need to hit enter when you search. As you type, Google will automatically search. Search results are updated as you type.


This new feature allows you to scan the results as you type, refining your search terms when you don’t see what you want.

This means you can perform faster searches, and less time waiting for the page to refresh.
Google claims that the new Instant Search can save an average users between two and five seconds per search. With Google’s massive user base that’s a combined 3.5 billion seconds per day, meaning in all, a lot of time saved.
As with most Google tools, Google Instant is not being introduced to everyone all at once, it’s being gradually introduced to users in the U.S. over the next days, and to the rest of the world over the next week.
You can turn Instant results on and off by simply clicking on the “instant” drop-down menu which is located next to the search box, right above the “safe search” menu.
This new feature allows users to search easier and faster. A video from Google states that Google Instant has been introduced, “so you can think less about what you search, and more about what you find.”
 
Note: The article is reproduction of Damego article

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I spend most of my day checking the analytics of the website and how it has done in recent past. I am quite impressed with the results.

Here is the summary of my findings:

1. Top most site on both Bing and Google with key word "saumya aggarwal"

2. Top most referring sites Facebook and MeraWindows

3. Top traffic destinations

4. Last Month page views - 1000

Thanks a lot readers for all this. Based on the analysis, I have figured out key areas of improvement and this will help me to come up with better offerings.

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Freecharge.in is new service that enables users to recharge prepaid mobile phones in India. Major telecom companies are on its list. It has been launched by Mumbai-based Accelyst Solutions. According to the company, its offering is unique in the sense that the amount paid by the user for recharge is returned in the form of shopping coupons of some of the top retailers in India, thereby making the recharge virtually free.

If a user recharges his prepaid connection for Rs 100 by paying for it online on FreeCharge.in, he will also receive discount coupons worth Rs 100 that he can avail at any of the listed retailers. Currently, FreeCharge.in is offering coupons of McDonald’s and Barista. FreeCharge.in is also planning to add more coupons of renowned restaurants, multiplexes, apparels and grocery stores.

Kunal Shah, managing director, Accelyst Solutions, has said, “The potential of ecommerce in India cannot be doubted, though the lack of successful ecommerce companies in India mostly owes to the fact that companies do not invest enough resources in gaining insight about consumer behaviour. At FreeCharge we have taken this challenge head on and are constantly working towards improving user experience.”

Its new age concept, I think its worth trying!

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The UI is attractive and people can find similarity between Pulse and Facebook. The clear target audience is Facebook users and why not when Yahoo may tap large online users. Not only that Facebook addict, people playing popular games like Farmville will soon join Yahoo App.

I think its a good move and consolidation was very much needed. I hope it will bring some cheers to Yahoo!

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IMI came up with this professional video depicting the sense of "I". It depicts the process value at IMI alongwith making of a manager. Looking forward for more such stuff in future. Keep on rocking guys.

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I went for Aashayein with my MSP friends (why did I listen to them) and thought it could be a good watch with Nagesh Kukonnor reputation.

The movie started with Rahul (John Abraham) earning huge amount of money on cricket gambling. After that the movie is all negative.

Nafisa (Sonal Sehgal) is looking good but has too short an apperance. The movie revolves around death which started with Rahul getting know about Lung Cancer. Don’t know how Nagesh could write that pathetic script and unnecessarily figuring out vague imaginations and characters.

There is no emotional connect and the social message of smoking isn’t getting portrated at all. According to me, Aashayen tried matching up to ‘Anand’. Even the movie had couple of scenes from ‘Anand’.

Most Important, the popular song used in promos “Mera Jina hai Kya, Marna hai Kya” was missing from the movie. That was irrational and unexpected.

At the end, good acting, no script and poor scenes. A package that is far away from selling and a total Paisa waste. I don’t know if I am gonna kill Srishti (my MSP friend) for making me watch this disaster.

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Apple new patent application describes methods that may enable the iPhone and iPad to "sense" the user, detecting voice prints, faces, activity patterns and even heartbeats. If unauthorized use is detected, many security measures could be activated.

If the iOS device detects that the user is not authorized, it can start taking photos and sending them to an email account, along with GPS coordinates, keystroke logs, phone calls, and other activity. The owner would also be able to save any data remotely, and wipe out the device after that.

The patent application seems like a supercharged version of the Find My iPhone feature now available in MobileMe, coupled with new hardware and software features. While these patents may never get their way into real products, it makes sense for Apple to increase the security, especially for their increasing number of corporate clients. [Apple Insider via Ars]

Courtesy: Gizmodo

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It was a pleasure to be part of Microsoft Boot Camp in GOA from 16-18 August, 2010. The trip started on 16th morning with me taking flight with other Microsoft Student Partners who were invited for the event.

The flight was complete fun, Thanks to Neetika for her all time masti. Infact I was wondering if flight stewart throws her out of plane. :P

Finally we arrived in GOA...I had one mantra in my mind "GO GOA!!!". It was luxury to have stayed in Neelam The Grand, Calangute.

Day one - Sessions, Meeting Microsoft Employees and Academia Team. It was learning as well as fun. On my way, I visited BITS Pilani GOA Campus, found it too good a place to study.

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August 15th - India 's 64th Independence Day


 

 
Happy Independence Day to my countrymen all over the world.

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We’ve seen what Nokia-Intel’s MeeGo OS for handsets looks like, a while back. Now, we’ve got a glimpse of how Nokia plans to use it on their handsets, in the below video. With its large and crisp fonts, we’re somehow reminded of the Metro UI of the Windows Phone 7 OS, though of course, that’s just the beginning. The one and half minute long video is very informative, showing us MeeGo’s multitasking prowess, going online, visiting the Ovi Store, and displaying the music player. Let us know what you think in the comments section...Will Nokia finally get a break in the smartphone market with MeeGo?

Source: Digit Maganize

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Product Category: Bluetooth Headeset


Manufacturer: Jabra

Price: $116.99

System Requirements: Bluetooth Headset Profile 1.1, Handsfree Profile 1.5, Right Ear

Specifications: 10 meter operational range; Pairing with up to 8 devices, 2 simultaneously; 2 hours talk time, 8 with charger; headset weighs 7 grams, charger weighs 26 grams; Charges through MicroUSB.

Pros:

Small & Stylish;

Charges while in STONE portable charging unit;

Charges through MicroUSB.

Cons:

Those missing a right ear need not apply;

Slightly tinny & lackluster sound when streaming audio;

Price is on the high side.

As reviewed by experts.