What is OpenID? How do I get an OpenID?

What is OpenID?

OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.

You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to. And best of all, the OpenID technology is not proprietary and is completely free.

For businesses, this means a lower cost of password and account management, while increasing site visitor registration conversion rates. OpenID lowers user frustration by letting users have control of their login.

For geeks, OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity. OpenID takes advantage of already existing internet technology (URI, HTTP, SSL, Diffie-Hellman) and realizes that people are already creating identities for themselves whether it be at their blog, photostream, profile page, etc. With OpenID you can easily transform one of these existing URIs into an account which can be used at sites which support OpenID logins.

OpenID is growing quickly and becoming more popular as large organizations like AOL, Facebook, France Telecom, Google, LiveDoor, Microsoft, Mixi, MySpace, Novell, Sun, Telecom Italia, Yahoo!, etc. begin to accept and/or provide OpenIDs. Today, it is estimated that there are over one billion OpenID enabled user accounts with over 40,000 websites supporting OpenID for sign in.

Who Owns or Controls OpenID?

OpenID was created in the summer of 2005 by an open source community trying to solve a problem that was not easily solved by other existing identity technologies. As such, OpenID is not owned by anyone, nor should it be. Today, anyone can choose to be an OpenID user or an OpenID Provider for free without having to register or be approved by any organization.

The OpenID Foundation was formed to assist the open source model by providing a legal entity to be the steward for the community by providing needed infrastructure and generally helping to promote and support expanded adoption of OpenID.

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

This statement continues to resonate today within the OpenID community.

How do I get an OpenID?

Surprise! You may already have one. If you use any of the following services, you already have your own OpenID. (When you see bold text, you should replace it with your own username, screenname or membername on the service.)

AOL

openid.aol.com/screenname

Google

Look for the “Sign in with a Google Account” button

MySpace

Look for the “Login with MySpaceID” button or enter myspace.com/username

Yahoo!

Look for the “Sign in with Yahoo! ID” button

Blogger

blogname.blogspot.com

Flickr

Look for the “Sign in with Yahoo! ID” button or enter www.flickr.com/photos/username

LiveDoor

profile.livedoor.com/username

LiveJournal

username.livejournal.com

Orange (France Telecom)

http://openid.orange.fr/

SmugMug

username.smugmug.com

Technorati

technorati.com/people/technorati/username

Vox

member.vox.com

WordPress.com

username.wordpress.com

Use the Flashblock and save your time

Flashblock is an extension for the Mozilla, Firefox, and Netscape browsers that takes a pessimistic approach to dealing with Macromedia Flash content on a webpage and blocks ALL Flash content from loading. It then leaves placeholders on the webpage that allow you to click to download and then view the Flash content.

Flashblock currently blocks the following content types:

• Macromedia Flash
• Macromedia Shockwave
• Macromedia Authorware

As per my view the Flashblock is the best of all add-ons available for firefox which really blocks all the flash content on the webpage. To download and install the latest version of Flashblock click here

What is feed ?

A web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation, which is performed by an Internet aggregator. A web feed is also sometimes referred to as a syndicated feed.

In the typical scenario of using web feeds, a content provider publishes a feed link on their site which end users can register with an aggregator program (also called a feed reader or a news reader) running on their own machines; doing this is usually as simple as dragging the link from the web browser to the aggregator. When instructed, the aggregator asks all the servers in its feed list if they have new content; if so, the aggregator either makes a note of the new content or downloads it. Aggregators can be scheduled to check for new content periodically. Web feeds are an example of pull technology, although they may appear to push content to the user.

The kinds of content delivered by a web feed are typically HTML (webpage content) or links to webpages and other kinds of digital media. Often when websites provide web feeds to notify users of content updates, they only include summaries in the web feed rather than the full content itself.

You Can Join the feeds on this blog simply clicking on the subscribe now option. The feed can be read using the most popular feed reader Google Reader.

Click below to join and then subscribe :-

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ComputerInspiration

What are digital signatures and how do they work

A digital signature is basically a way to ensure that an electronic document (e-mail, spreadsheet, text file, etc.) is authentic. Authentic means that you know who created the document and you know that it has not been altered in any way since that person created it.

Digital signatures rely on certain types of encryption to ensure authentication. Encryption is the process of taking all the data that one computer is sending to another and encoding it into a form that only the other computer will be able to decode. Authentication is the process of verifying that information is coming from a trusted source. These two processes work hand in hand for digital signatures.

There are several ways to authenticate a person or information on a computer:

• Password - The use of a user name and password provide the most common form of authentication. You enter your name and password when prompted by the computer. It checks the pair against a secure file to confirm. If either the name or password do not match, then you are not allowed further access.
• Checksum - Probably one of the oldest methods of ensuring that data is correct, checksums also provide a form of authentication since an invalid checksum suggests that the data has been compromised in some fashion. A checksum is determined in one of two ways. Let's say the checksum of a packet is 1 byte long, which means it can have a maximum value of 255. If the sum of the other bytes in the packet is 255 or less, then the checksum contains that exact value. However, if the sum of the other bytes is more than 255, then the checksum is the remainder of the total value after it has been divided by 256. Look at this example:

  Byte 1	Byte 2	Byte 3	Byte 4	Byte 5	Byte 6	Byte 7	Byte 8	Total	Checksum
  212	232	54	135	244	15	179	80	1151	127

  1151 divided by 256 equals 4.496 (round to 4)
  Multiply 4 X 256 which equals 1024
  1151 minus 1024 equals 127
• CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) - CRCs are similar in concept to checksums but they use polynomial division to determine the value of the CRC, which is usually 16 or 32 bits in length. The good thing about CRC is that it is very accurate. If a single bit is incorrect, the CRC value will not match up. Both checksum and CRC are good for preventing random errors in transmission, but provide little protection from an intentional attack on your data. The encryption techniques below are much more secure.
• Private key encryption -Private key means that each computer has a secret key (code) that it can use to encrypt a packet of information before it is sent over the network to the other computer. Private key requires that you know which computers will talk to each other and install the key on each one. Private key encryption is essentially the same as a secret code that the two computers must each know in order to decode the information. The code would provide the key to decoding the message. Think of it like this. You create a coded message to send to a friend where each letter is substituted by the letter that is second from it. So "A" becomes "C" and "B" becomes "D". You have already told a trusted friend that the code is "Shift by 2". Your friend gets the message and decodes it. Anyone else who sees the message will only see nonsense.
• Public key encryption - Public key encryption uses a combination of a private key and a public key. The private key is known only to your computer while the public key is given by your computer to any computer that wants to communicate securely with it. To decode an encrypted message, a computer must use the public key provided by the originating computer and it's own private key.

  The key is based on a hash value. This is a value that is computed from a base input number using a hashing algorithm. The important thing about a hash value is that it is nearly impossible to derive the original input number without knowing the data used to create the hash value. Here's a simple example:

  Input number	Hashing algorithm	Hash value
  10667	Input # x 143	1525381

  You can see how hard it would be to determine that the value of 1525381 came from the multiplication of 10667 and 143. But if you knew that the multiplier was 143, then it would be very easy to calculate the value of 10667. Public key encryption is much more complex than this example but that is the basic idea. Public keys generally use complex algorithms and very large hash values for encrypting: 40-bit or even 128-bit numbers. A 128-bit number has a possible 2¹²⁸ different combinations. That's as many combinations as there are water molecules in 2.7 million olympic size swimming pools. Even the tiniest water droplet you can image has billions and billions of water molecules in it!

• Digital certificates - To implement public key encryption on a large scale, such as a secure Web server might need, requires a different approach. This is where digital certificates come in. A digital certificate is essentially a bit of information that says the Web server is trusted by an independent source known as a Certificate Authority. The Certificate Authority acts as the middleman that both computers trust. It confirms that each computer is in fact who they say they are and then provides the public keys of each computer to the other.

The Digital Signature Standard (DSS) is based on a type of public key encryption method that uses the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA). DSS is the format for digital signatures that has been endorsed by the US government. The DSA algorithm consists of a private key that only the originator of the document (signer) knows and a public key.

Get the digital signature for your email or website from the websites below:-

• www.comodo.com
• www.varisign.com.au

Portable Application Suite by PortableApps.com

Convenient

Now you can carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any Windows computer. All without leaving any personal data behind.

Open

PortableApps.com provides a truly open platform that works with any hardware you like (USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, etc). It's open source built around an open format that any hardware vendor or software developer can use.

Free

The PortableApps.com Suite and Platform is free. It contains no spyware. There are no advertisements. It isn't a limited or trial version. There is no additional hardware or software to buy. You don't even have to give out your email address. It's 100% free to use, free to copy and free to share.

Get it Now

What is a portable app?

portable - carried or moved with ease
app - a computer program like a web browser or word processor

A portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug the device, none of your personal data is left behind.

No Special Hardware - Use any USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod/MP3 player, etc

No Additional Software - Just download, run the portable installer and go

No Kidding - It's that easy

Portable App Guidelines

• A portable app works from any device (USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod, etc)
• A portable app works as you move computers and your drive letter changes
• A portable app's features continue working as you move computers
• A portable app doesn't leave files or folders behind on the PC
• A portable app doesn't leave registry entries behind except those automatically generated by Windows
• A portable app is optimized for use on removable drives
• A portable app doesn't require additional software on the PC
• A portable app doesn't interfere with software installed on the PC

Consider the Possibilities...

• Carry your web browser with all your favorite bookmarks
• Carry your calendar with all your appointments
• Carry your email client with all your contacts and settings
• Carry your instant messenger and your buddy list
  
• Carry your whole office suite along with your documents and presentations
• Carry your antivirus program and other computer utilities
  
• Carry all your important passwords and account information securely
  

Consider the Convenience...

• Have your favorite websites handy to recommend to a friend or colleague
• Have your presentation AND the required software ready to go for that big meeting
• Have your password with you if you want to bank online while traveling
  
• Have utilities handy when visiting family or friends that are having PC problems

Facebook Privacy tip of the day - Avoid Embarrassing Wall Posts

Avoid Embarrassing Wall Posts

Just because you use Facebook for business doesn’t mean your friends do. That’s why once in a while a friend of yours will come post something embarrassing or not necessarily “work friendly” and it can end up having adverse effects. That’s why Facebook has provided you with the ability to customize your wall postings visibility. You can also control which friends can post on your wall. There are two places you can control these things.

Adjust Wall Posting Visibility

Within your profile page you can control who can view wall postings made by your friends. To do so, click on the “Settings” icon on the wall in your profile page. Next, find the box pictured in the image above and adjust the setting which says “Who can see posts made by friends?” I’d suggest using a strategy similar to the one outlined in the previous step regarding contact information.

Control Who Can Post to Your Wall
In addition to controlling who can view wall postings published by your friends, you also want to control which friends can post on your wall. Not everybody needs to do this, but occasionally you simply want to prevent some people from posting on your page. If you visit the Profile Privacy settings page, there is a section labeled “Wall Posts”.

From this area you can completely disable your friends’ ability to post on your wall. You can also select specific friend lists that can post on your wall. Personally, I don’t really care who can post on my wall but I can understand the need to control who can see those wall postings. If you want to limit who can post wall posts on your profile, this is where you can do it.

Facebook Privacy tip of the day - Make Your Contact Information Private

Make Your Contact Information Private

I personally use Facebook for professional and personal use and it can frequently become overwhelming. That’s why I’ve taken the time to outline these ten privacy protection steps. One of the first things I did when I started approving friend requests from people that I hadn’t built a strong relationship with, was make my contact information visible only to close contacts.

The contact information is my personal email and phone number. It’s a simple thing to set but many people forget to do it. Frequently people we don’t know end up contacting us and we have no idea how they got our contact information. Your contact privacy can be edited right from your profile. If you have chosen to enter this information, you should see a “Contact Information” area under the “Info” tab in your profile.

If it displays, you simply click “Edit” and then a screen like the one pictured below will show up.

For each contact item that you have in your profile you should set custom privacy settings (as pictured below) so that contacts that you aren’t close to don’t have access to your phone number and/or email. It’s a small change but it can save you the hassle of being pestered by people you don’t know well. Also, protecting your privacy is generally a good practice to get in the habit of doing.

As a side note, this is a great area to take advantage of friend lists. By getting in the habit of grouping your friends, you can ensure that you are navigating Facebook safely through privacy settings that are attached to your friend lists.

Facebook Privacy tip of the day - Prevent Stories From Showing Up in Your Friends’ News Feeds

Prevent Stories From Showing Up in Your Friends’ News Feeds

Oh, did you really just break up with your girlfriend? I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure all of your friends and business contacts are also sorry to hear that. I can’t tell you how many awkward relationship status changes I’ve seen. The most regular one I’ve seen recently is when an attractive female ends their relationship and numerous guys hop on the opportunity to console her.

I’ve also seen the end of marriages, as well as weekly relationship status changes as individuals try to determine where their relationship stands with their significant other. My personal policy is to not display a relationship status, but many like to make a public statement out of their relationship. For those individuals, it can be a smart move to hedge against future disasters.

There are a number of ways to control how your relationship status is displayed. The first thing that most people should do is uncheck the box next to “Remove Relationship Status” in the News Feed and Wall Privacy page. In the rare instance that a relationship does uncomfortably end, you can avoid making things more uncomfortable by avoiding a friend notification about it.

Second, your relationship status falls within your “Basic Information” section of your profile. You can control who can see your basic information next to the “Basic Information” setting on the Profile Privacy page. Keep in mind that other relevant profile information like your gender, birth date, networks, and other settings are visible within your basic information section.

Making your basic information completely invisible to friends probably isn’t a good idea, but removing the news feed stories about relationship changes most likely is.

Whats new in Opera 10 - beta

Opera Turbo for fast browsing on slow connections

Ever felt a Web site was loading slowly? Do you think it will happen again? Think again: Opera Turbo is a compression technology that provides significant improvements in browsing speeds over limited-bandwidth connections like a crowded Wi-Fi in a cafe or browsing through your mobile phone while commuting.

New visual tabs and sleek design

Opera has always been the pioneer for how to deal with tabs in your browser. In Opera 10, we introduce a resizable tab bar. Drag the handle underneath the tabs to reveal thumbnails of your open Web pages. And, because great features should come in beautiful packages: world famous designer Jon Hicks created a whole new look for Opera 10.

Speed Dial your way

You asked for it! Customize your Speed Dial to fit your own needs. Hit the configure button and choose from 4 to 25 favorite Web sites for quick access every time you open a new tab. You can also add a custom background so you feel right at home.

Web integration

If you use a Web mail service as your default mail client, you can tell Opera 10 to do the same. Clicking on e-mail addresses or the Send by Mail in Opera will open the compose page from your Web mail service provider. The same is true with the Feed reader — you can now also add any RSS/atom feed into your favorite online feed reader from within Opera 10.

Resizable search field

Have a clearer view of what you are about to search by simply expanding the size of the search field — because many of life questions require more than two words of space.

40% faster engine and cutting-edge Web standards support

We optimized the new Opera Presto 2.2 engine in Opera 10 to be much faster on resource intensive pages such as Gmail and Facebook. In addition, with an Acid3 100/100 score, Web Fonts support, RGBA/HSLA color and SVG improvements, Opera 10 beta is ready for the next generation of Web applications. Learn more...

More new features in Opera 10

Inline spell-check

Write freely in your Facebook wall, blog or Web mail. Opera 10 beta underlines any misspelled words, so you can express yourself without reservation. By using the popular Hunspell dictionary format, you can be sure you’ll always have the most complete and updated list of all languages.

Auto-update

Opera 10 beta makes it easier than ever to stay up to date with the latest version. With Auto-Update you will be able to choose completely automatic updates or have the option of being notified when an update is ready to install. As always with Opera, it is your choice.

E-mail your way

Opera Mail can now send rich text messages including inline images, styled text, links, and/or custom HTML. You can also delete emails from your POP server after a determined amount of days, so can keep under control of your Web space.

Automated Crash Reporting

Opera is designed to restart and recover all your tabs if a crash occurs. But, now you can easily send us a crash report to help us continue to make Opera the most stable browser around.

Opera Dragonfly evolved

Our Web developer debugging tool is now even better, allowing you to edit the DOM and inspect HTTP headers.

For more information, please read the Opera 10 beta detailed changelog.

Facebook Privacy tip of the day - Protect Your Albums

Protect Your Albums

Just because you’ve uploaded photos doesn’t mean that you’ve accurately tagged every photo correctly. This setting is more of a reminder than anything else. Frequently people will turn of their tagged photo visibility to certain friend lists yet keep their photo albums public to the world. If you are trying to make all your photos invisible you must do so on an album by album basis.

There is a specific Photos Privacy page from which you can manually configure the visibility of each album (as pictured below). This is an extremely useful configuration option and I highly recommend that you take advantage of it. This way you can store your photos indefinitely on Facebook yet ensure that the only people that can view your photos are the ones who you really want to see them.

Facebook Privacy tip of the day - Remove Yourself From Google

Remove Yourself From Google

Facebook gets A TON of traffic from displaying user profiles in search engines. Not all of your profile is displayed though. Currently the information displayed in the search profile is limited to: your profile picture, a list of your friends, a link to add you as a friend, a link to send you a message, and a list of up to approximately 20 fan pages that you are a member of.

For some people, being displayed in the search engines is a great way to let people get in contact with you, especially if you don’t have an existing website. Facebook also tends to rank high in the search results, so if you want to be easy to find, making your search profile can be a great idea. Many people don’t want any of their information to be public though.

By visiting the same search privacy settings page listed in the previous step, you can control the visibility of your public search listing which is visible to Google and other search engines. You can turn off your public search listing by simply unchecking the box next to the phrase “Create a public search listing for me and submit it for search engine indexing” as pictured in the image below.

Search billions of documents with the Google Search Appliance 6.0

It's hard to conceptualize the number 1,000,000,000. One billion sheets of paper could circle the earth at the equator well over five times. Counting to one billion would take about 30 years of your life, even if you never stop to sleep. And if you had to find a single piece of information by sorting through a billion documents it would take you, on average, about 2000 years. Businesses and large organizations have tons of documents and other types of data — some even have a billion documents that need searching, and it's unlikely that employees have 2000 years to dedicate to the hunt.

Figuring out how to navigate the complex content systems of large organizations is a tough problem, one we've dedicated years to solving. Today we're releasing the newest version of our solution, the Google Search Appliance 6.0 (GSA), which has the capacity to search billions of documents. So whether you own a small business with a few thousand docs or belong to a huge organization with a billion, the GSA can search them all. Even if the content you need lives in a bunch of different departments or locations, in all kinds of formats, languages and repositories, the GSA makes searching within your organization as simple as searching on Google.com. It also has helpful features like user-added results and query suggestions, so over time your coworkers' input improves search results. The GSA 6.0 also is full of customization features, as well as flexible security policies so that each enterprise or large organizations can tweak the settings to suit its needs. We believe that setting your enterprise up with the GSA can save you tons of employee hours spent looking for data — letting you focus on the actual work to be done.

We demonstrated the infrastructure you'd actually need to search a billion docs — check it out in the video below. To learn more about the GSA 6.0 or our search solutions for businesses, check out the Google Enterprise Blog or our website.

Official Google Blog : Search billions of documents with the Google Search Appliance 6.0

Bing tricks and tips to get the most out of it

Here is the first tricks and tips for Bing which are surfacing from the Internet:

• If live outside the United States there are chances that you are using a kind of limited version of Bing. In fact what you are using it is not the “real Bing” but a localised edition. Visit the worldwide Bing page and, set English - US as your default region and use Bing full version.
• If you check company stocks a lot and, at the same time, you use Internet Explorer 8 as your default browser, you have to know that Bing automatically create Web Slices of the company you are checking. Just add the Web Slice to IE 8 and track whatever happen to the company directly from the favorites bar, without visiting any website.
• If you live outside the U.S you have to know that you can not watch some video avilable on Hulu. As a matter of fact, Hulu checks your IP. If it doesn’t belong to the United States, Hulu will limit the access to certain videos, forbidding you to watch other ones. Bing lets you watch small bites and previews of the such “forbidden” videos. Just search for a certain video on Bing Videos and watch whatever you want.
• Bing lets you save your search history to a local folder inside Bing itself or to your Windows Skydrive account. You can also send your search queries to a friend via email or publish them on your Facebook wall via Bing.
• After a search, just hover the pointer on the right side of each result. After a couple of seconds a new window will appear containing some useful information and links of the website you want to visit.
• If you want to restrict your searches to videos, images, maps etc, just click More link located at the top left-side of your screen. A new window will be loaded containing specific links which will help you refine your search.
• Bing search field is embedded inside a picture. Hover your pointer on the it. Mysterious buttons will appear! They contain links letting you know more about the picture itself.

Use K9 Web Protection and get safe Internet experience

Blue Coat® K9 Web Protection is a content filtering solution for your home computer. Its job is to provide you with a family-safe Internet experience, where YOU control the Internet content that enters your home. K9 Web Protection implements the same enterprise-class Web filtering technology used by Blue Coat's Fortune 500 customers around the world, wrapped in simple, friendly, and reliable software for your Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista computer.

Blue Coat's unique Web filtering technology divides Internet content into 60 distinct categories. These categories are stored in the master Blue Coat database, through which we maintain and update more than 15 million ratings of websites and domains. A Web site will fall into one or more of these categories, based on the content of the site. To meet your particular needs and preferences, you can configure the software to block or allow specific categories.

K9 Web Protection is different from other solutions for the home in several important respects:

* Service-based filtering – Blue Coat's filtering database operates as a service. It receives and rates over 80 million requests every day, making it the most accurate content filtering database available. This accuracy is important in protecting your family, given the Internet's rapid changes and growth. Plus, there is no database to download. K9 Web Protection won't clog your Internet connection, get "stale" or out of date, or slow down your computer like other products do.

* Dynamic Real-Time Rating™ (DRTR) – Blue Coat's patent-pending DRTR technology is a very powerful element in our solution, and is vastly different from the old-fashioned "key word filtering" that is so frustrating to users. Using a method of statistical analysis and artificial intelligence to rate new or previously unrated Web pages, DRTR can determine the category of a URL on the fly, without human intervention. However, DRTR only renders a rating when it is confident that it has reached an accurate conclusion.

We've focused DRTR on recognizing the kinds of categories most likely to be blocked. In particular, DRTR is highly accurate in blocking pornography and other "adult content" sites. This focus for DRTR is particularly important because these kinds of sites are constantly – daily and even hourly – popping up on the Internet, and no static database can keep up.

* Automatic updating – Automatic updates of the K9 Web Protection application ensure that you are always protected by the latest features. For example, in Spring of 2005, we added two new categories to our solution: Spyware/Malware Sources, and Spyware Effects/Privacy Concerns. By electing to block sites in these categories, your computer's rate of infection by unwanted software can be reduced dramatically. We have a variety of new features planned, and your K9 installation will automatically receive updates that include them.

* Efficient caching – K9 Web Protection is a product from Blue Coat. Blue Coat is recognized world-wide as expert in high-performance caching and secure proxy technology. We take advantage of that expertise in K9, so your Internet experience is as fast, reliable, and safe as we can make it.

Unlike other filtering solutions, K9 Web Protection ensures the highest level of protection by building the most relevant ratings database available. Its effective coverage reaches more than one billion Web pages. With K9 Web Protection, you finally have a chance to build a family-safe Internet experience for your home, simply and easily.

Like to listen music while browsing internet????

For those who like to listen music while browsing internet either using Internet Explore OR Firefox. Then the FoxyTunes is the right add-on for your browser.

This is the great plug-in , why dont you try it out. here are some of its features :-

• Tiny, unobtrusive and customizable
• Multiplatform - works on MS Windows, Linux and Mac OS X
• Supports more than 30 media players, will support more players in future versions
• Also supports Mozilla Thunderbird, SeaMonkey and Flock
• Position anywhere in the browser - on the status bar or on one of the toolbars
• Volume controls
• Seek Slider
• Configurable keyboard shortcuts
• Currently playing track information
• Customizable and collapsible
• Auto-hide
• Skinnable and localizable.
• Automatically launch your player when needed
• Pop up and hide the player window with a click
• Correctly shows track information encoded in any language, supports Unicode
• Alarm Clock and Sleep Timer
• No third-party controller applications and plugins - everything is done efficiently by the FoxyTunes extension

It is the great choice for those who always use to listen music while browsing , but it may slow down your computer because the default player you have chosen to play with will be continuously running in background even though you are not listening the music. But the best idea behind this which i like is We dont have to switch between windows while listening and browsing. The foxytunes supports most of the media players including WMP, Winamp , Real Player , i-Tunes etc.

The following link can help you to chose the add-on for your browser
Get it Now

Show multiple time zones in the system tray (Windows Vista)

If you're an international traveller, or have family or business overseas, this one might come in handy, allowing you to display up to two extra clocks from the system tray.

1. Click on the time, then click on the Change date and time settings... link
2. Click on the Additional Clocks tab
3. Check one of the boxes that says Show this clock
4. Set the time zone and display name and click OK when done
5. Now when you click on the time, a second or third clock is shown, with the display name used as a label above it

Whats new in Vista SP2 ????????

SP2 is a fairly significant upgrade.

Windows Vista SP2 includes numerous changes to the Vista operating system. Here are some of the highlights of what it'll do for you:

• Let you record data onto Blu-ray discs

• Add into your system Vista Feature Pack For Wireless, which provides support for the latest Bluetooth technology -- Bluetooth v2.1 -- as well as for the Windows Connect Now (WCN) Wi-Fi protocol

• Give you better Wi-Fi performance when you're exiting Vista's sleep mode

• Make your RSS feeds sidebar gadget work faster and better

• Give you the latest desktop search engine, Windows Search 4

• Cut down the resources it takes to run your various sidebar gadgets

It'll give your OS an overall tune-up, too.

Vista Service Pack 2 will also deliver some under-the-hood improvements, which will:

• Give your computer support for VIA Technologies' new 64-bit CPU

• Let your system support exFAT, which can handle larger files and can also use UTC timestamps so you can synchronize files across different time zones

• Boost your power management efficiency by as much as 10 percent

Additionally, a slew of system bugs will be corrected in the update, including some slow shutdown problems and other crash-causing issues.

You have to have SP1 installed before you begin.

Like most Microsoft Service Packs, SP2 won't work on your system if you haven't already installed SP1. If you're thinking about trying the SP2 upgrade, you'll have to hit SP1 first.

Things may not be totally smooth at first.

Microsoft has had some history with glitches seemingly caused by its Windows Service Pack updates. It sometimes takes several hotfixes for these kinks to be worked out. That's precisely why it's often best to wait for the full release, at the very least, before jumping on the upgrade.

This Service Pack does offer some improvements over past ones.

Microsoft did take some steps to make this Service Pack function a bit better than past upgrades. It is the first Windows Service Pack to work for both the client (Vista) and server (Windows 2008) editions of the operating system in a single update.

SP2 also includes what Microsoft is calling a "Service Pack Clean-up Tool." This will permanently delete old versions of files SP2 is updating, helping you reduce clutter and get rid of outdated system files that'd otherwise just take up space. As mentioned in previous post on Computer Inspiration Blog.

Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner

Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner detects a multitude of spyware, adware, Trojan horses, keyloggers, and trackware components, sources of irritation that many antivirus products do not deal with. The scanning process only takes a fraction of a second and tells you how to uninstall the invasive spyware or puts you in contact with the spyware developer for the most up-to-date and safe uninstall instructions. Spyware and adware often is bundled with software such as Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster, iMesh, Xolox, and Gnutella, and in many cases it's installed without your knowledge.

Some send information about your surfing habits to ad companies, which target you with pop-up ads that fit your preferences. Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner search for Gator, GAIN, Bargain Buddy, CommonName, FlashTrack, IPInsight, nCase, NetRatings, NewDotNet, SaveNow, and WurldMedia.

Author: Kephyr
Software: Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner
Program Type: Freeware
Download Page!
File Size: 1.09MB
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Platform: Windows all 95/98/Me/NT/XP/2000

Boost HDD Performance

Win9x sets DMA to OFF by default. You have to switch it on. In theory, enabling DMA increases UDMA Hard Disk access to 33.3 MB/sec. In practice, speed will increase substantially from the old standard of 16MB/sec. Furthermore, DMA uses only 25% of CPU resources compared to 40% normally. Nearly all 5400rpm/7200rpm, and some lower speed, drives, support DMA.

Now I'll tell you about it. Ready ?

Open control panel and Now search for "device manager" and click properties of your hard drive. It should have an option called "DMA". By enabling this, your hard drive should show an increase in performance. Also, this method can increase the transfer rate of your CD/DVD-ROM or CD/DVD-Writer, possibly eliminating those under buffer run errors.

Again, an easy tweak which could improve you hard drive's performance

Increase the amount of Virtual Memory Used by XP

Virtual memory is a small portion of hard drive space converted to RAM. This is useful for computers which use more physical RAM than is available. Windows XP allow the user to change the amount of virual memory used. By default, the system determines the amount automatically. It is possible to change this to a set amount. It can be a good idea to do this for better performance. Here are the instructions setp by step, along with suggested settings:

1. Click 'Start'
2. Click 'My Computer'
3. Click 'View System Information' under 'System Tasks' (If you can not see this option then click 'System Tasks' to collapse the menu). This will open the System Properies window. Alternatively, you can go to Control Panel and open 'System'.
4. Click the 'Advanced' tab
5. Click the 'Settings' button under 'Performance'. This opens the Performance Options window.
6. Click the 'Advanced' tab.
7. Click the 'Change' button under 'Virtual Memory'
8. Under 'Paging file size for selected drive' select the 'Custom size:' option.
9. In the box next to where it says 'Intial size (MB)' the best number to enter is 2X the amount of physical memory currently in your system. For example, if you have 512 MB of RAM you would enter 1024 in this box.
10. In the box next to where it says 'Maximum size (MB)' enter the same number.
11. Click 'OK'
12. Click 'Apply' on the previous window
13. Click 'OK'
14. Click 'OK' on the previous window.

Disabling Automatic Startup Programs

If you don't want certain programs or applications to run automatically on startup, there's an easy way to disable them.

• Click Start and then Run
  
• Type msconfig in the Run box
• Click Continue in the User Account Control to continue(In Vista Only)
  
• Click on the Startup Tab
• Uncheck any boxes in the "Startup Items" that you wish to disable or click the Disable All button (not recommended)
• Click OK

If you need to re-enable any of the programs, go through the same process and check the boxes of programs you wish to run automatically on startup and check now you have got the quick startup.

MouseAway: Keep Your Mouse Cursor Out Of The Way

MouseAway is a small application that detects the location of your mouse pointer and keyboard cursor and move the mouse away them if they are too close.

In most situation, when you use the mouse to change the keyboard cursor location, the mouse pointer always end up in the same position as the keyboard cursor and blocks your view. Most of the time, we have to move the mouse away so as to get a better view of the keyboard cursor. What MouseAway does is to check the proximity between the mouse and the keyboard cursor and move the mouse away if it is too near to the cursor. Nothing great, but useful and efficient task.

MouseAway is very small in size (~39kb) and only take up little resources. It runs quietly in the background and does not disrupt you in your work. It has been tested to work fom Windows 95 onward.

Time saving Google tips

Google Shortcut	Finds Pages That Have...
Computer Inspiration	the words Computer and Inspiration
sailing OR boating	either the word sailing or the word boating
"love me tender"	the exact phrase love me tender
printer -cartridge	the word printer but NOT the word cartridge
Toy Story +2	movie title including the number 2
~auto	looks up the word auto and synonyms
define:serendipity	definitions of the word serendipity
how now * cow	the words how now cow separated by one or more words
+	addition; 978+456
-	subtraction; 978-456
*	multiplication; 978*456
/	division; 978/456
% of	percentage; 50% of 100
^	raise to a power; 4^18 (4 to the eighteenth power)
old in new (conversion)	45 celsius in Fahrenheit
site:(search only one website)	site:http://compinsp.blogspot.com/ “
link:(find linked pages)	link:http://compinsp.blogspot.com/
#...#(search within a number range)	nokia phone $200...$300
daterange:(search within specific date range)	bosnia daterange:200508-200510
safesearch: (exclude adult content)	safesearch:breast cancer
info: (find info about a page)	info:www.websearch.about.com
related: (related pages)	related:www.websearch.about.com
cache: (view cached page)	cache:google.com
filetype:(restrict search to specific filetype)	zoology filetype:ppt
allintitle: (search for keywords in page title)	allintitle:"nike" running
inurl:(restrict search to page URLs)	inurl:chewbacca
site:.edu (specific domain search)	site:.edu, site:.gov, site:.org, etc.
site:country code (restrict search to country)	site:.br “rio de Janeiro”
intext:(search for keyword in body text)	intext:parlor
allintext: (return pages with all words specified in body text)	allintext:north pole
book(search book text)	book The Lord of the Rings
phonebook:(find a phone number)	phonebook:Google CA
bphonebook: (find business phone numbers)	bphonebook:Intel OR
rphonebook:(find residential phone numbers)	rphonebook:Joe Smith Seattle WA
movie:(search for showtimes)	movie:wallace and gromit 97110
stocks:(get a stock quote)	stocks:ncesa
weather:(get local weather)	weather:97132

So enjoy searching google and save your time.

10 Reasons Why Linux Ubuntu is Better than Windows

I was busy from some days in my exams as well as LINUX research for a software called LATEX and overall safety of LINUX. I got lost into the Linux world and you have no idea how hard it is to make out of this virtual world safe and sound. But very amazingly I managed to do so without much effort.

Linux Ubuntu is one of my new ultimate operating system choice and trust me it is not for the faint of heart. Though I have not left Windows Vista completely (I usually have to switch to it to play games (NFS,CZ) and do some work(MS OFFICE,pspice)) but after much determination and struggle I have managed to adapt myself in the Linux environment and it is very cool and challenging.

For those of you who think that Linux is terrible and Windows rocks, here is my say on why Ubuntu is better than Windows.

1. No Viruses - Thats true! as Linux does not recognize Win32 Executables so the possibility of having a virus on-board is absolutely 0%
2. Open Source - Unlike Windows, Linux distributions are open source and the source code can be edited and modified to the most to suit your needs.
3. Better Learning - While Windows just teaches you how to install and run a program, Linux helps you do that using a Terminal. So if you fall in a situation where you don’t have a GUI, you can operate things well.
4. Free Software - Every application and software on Linux is free and open source. You don’t need to worry about licenses anymore and you can always find a better and free Linux alternative to a Windows application.
5. Easy to Use - This point may seem ironic but is true to a lot of extent. Linux Ubuntu is one of the most user-friendly and easy to use Linux distribution which even beats Windows XP and Vista in usability and ease of use.
6. Ubuntu Community Help - Ubuntu has a very active support and help community where you can get answer to your questions and problems in minutes.
7. Cool Desktop Effects - For those who think Aero in Windows Vista is damn cool! wait till you experience Compiz on Ubuntu which provides better 3D desktop effects with less resource usage.
8. Easy Upgrade - You can upgrade Linux Ubuntu through the package manager and all applications can be installed/updated through it. There is no need to Google for freewares as the package manager helps you find all of them.
9. Highly Customizable - If you like customizing your operating system without a billion registry and software hacks then Ubuntu is your ultimate choice.
10. Experience Live - Linux Ubuntu CDs come with a pre-installed OS environment which allows you to run the OS without even installing it. Carry your Ubuntu Live CD with you and use it on any PC anywhere around the world.

This may not be all but still these are some of the strong points that tell you how powerful Linux Ubuntu is. It definitely has some bugs and issues but as long as you don’t mingle with commands and updates too much, there shouldn’t be a problem using it. Just wait for next release........and let me study for my exams.

KDE and Gnome Comparison

Disclaimers:

• This is not, by any means a comprehensive look at the differences between KDE and Gnome, but it should give new users a small taste of their different strengths and weaknesses and their philosophical approaches to usability.
• The focus is particularly on Ubuntu and Kubuntu, but aspects of this comparison can apply to other Linux distributions as well.
• Many of the details of this comparison may be outdated, especially as newer versions of KDE and Gnome are released, but a lot of the general principles remain the same.

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Default Look
When you look at the default setup of Gnome and KDE in Ubuntu, their differences are mainly cosmetic.

Gnome favors brown and orange, has two toolbars (one at the top, one at the bottom), and splits its menu into three submenus—Applications, Places, and System.

KDE, on the other hand, favors blue and silver, has one toolbar at the bottom of the screen, and has one main menu.

You should not select your desktop environment based on its default look. Gnome can just as easily favor blue, and KDE can be made to be orange. Both can be any color you want. Toolbars can be moved, added, deleted. The Gnome menus can be combined. New KDE menus can be added.
Both KDE and Gnome offer flexibility.

---

File Renaming
In both KDE and Gnome, you can rename files by pressing F2.

In Gnome's file manager called Nautilus, you can also rename files by doing two spaced-out single-clicks on the name. Gnome's renaming will focus on the name of the file and not the file extension.

In KDE's file manager called Konqueror—since it defaults to single-click behavior—you have to hold down the shift key and then do the spaced-out clicks to rename files with your mouse. You can, of course, change KDE to double-click behavior if you want.

KDE will highlight the entire file name, including the file extension.

---

Sorting Files

In Nautilus, you sort items by right-clicking on some empty space and selecting Arrange Items and then the preferred arrangement order.

In Konqueror, you sort items by going to View, then Sort, then the sort order.

---

User Preferences

User preferences and configuration in Gnome are done through the System menu. User preferences are in the Preferences menu and divided up into categories within that. System-wide administration is done through the Administration menu and usually requires your super-user password.

KDE has one place where all your settings live—it's called System Settings (there's another version of it called Control Center that you can access with the command

kcontrol

—it's basically the same as System Settings but in a tree menu format).

The system-wide administration is divvied up within each category and can be accessed (again, with a super-user password) by pressing the Administration Mode button.

---

Removable Media

Gnome has tabs for each category of removable drives and media with checkboxes for the behavior you want and fill-in-the-blank slots for commands you wish to execute for that media device.

KDE has a storage media drop-down menu for each type where you can add and remove various action types—each action (Open a New Window, for example) has an accompanying command and a set of options for which it will be available as an action type.

---

Numlock
Yes, some of us who don't have laptops do appreciate numlock being on almost all of the time. Here's how you do it in Gnome and KDE.

In Gnome, you install a helper application called numlockx. It's not in the standard repositories, so you'll have to enable extra repositories to get the universe repository it's in.

Install that, press your numlock key, and it'll stay on for future sessions.

In KDE, go to the Keyboard part of the System Settings and click the Turn on option under the heading Numlock on KDE Startup

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Themes

To change your theme in Gnome, you go to System > Preferences > Themes and select the theme you want by clicking on it. If you click on Theme Details, you can select a mix and match of window borders, controls, and icons.

To add a new theme to Gnome, you just download a theme from your favorite theme site (I prefer Gnome Look) and drag-and-drop the .tar.gz to the Theme Preferences window.

To change themes in KDE, you go to System Settings > Appearance and select Colors, Icons, Style, and Window Decorations. You'll see many options for configuring each aspect of your theme. To have changes take effect, you have to click Apply, or if you just move to a different part of the System Settings, you'll be prompted to Apply or Discard the changes you made.

To install themes or icons in KDE, you often have to extract a theme manually to a particular directory. KDE has its own "Look" site, too.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

In Gnome, there's one place where you can define keyboard shortcuts for various predefined actions (opening the home folder, launching your default web browser) by just pressing the key combination.

If you want to add keyboard shortcuts for other commands, you press Alt-F2 and type

gconf-editor

to open the Configuration Editor, then navigate to Apps > Metacity. Within Metacity, you define the command in Keybinding Commands and define the keyboard shortcut in Global Keybindings.

The advantage to the Configuration Editor approach is that you can define a keyboard shortcut for just about any command you can think of. The disadvantage is that you have to type out the keyboard shortcut. You can't just press Control-Shift-A. You have to type

a

KDE also has two places to define keyboard shortcuts, but they're both traditional point-and-click environments.

Keyboard shortcuts for custom commands are defined within the menu editor—so the disadvantage to KDE's approach is that you have to have a menu item (yes—it appears in the menu) for every command you create a shortcut for.

You don't have to type out the shortcut, though—you can just press it—this goes for both the predefined commands and the menu items.

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Terminal Transparency
Yeah, it's a random option, but it's a popular one.

In Gnome, you go to Edit, then Profiles, double-click on the Default profile, go to Effects and select Transparent background.

In KDE, you go to Settings, then Schema, and select Transparent, Dark Background or Transparent, Light Background. If you want to refine the degree of transparency, you go to Settings and Configure Konsole.

To have your changes take effect every time you launch the terminal, you have to select Settings and Save as Default.

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Summary
Generally, KDE focuses on offering as many features as possible with as many graphical ways as possible for configuring those features. Fans of KDE highlight the functionality it has. Critics of KDE say the menus are too confusing.

Gnome, on the other hand, opts for simplicity and often hides certain configurations in order to achieve that simplicity. Fans of Gnome think the simplicity of Gnome offers a cleanliness that allows the user to get stuff done. Critics of Gnome think it just lacks certain functionality.

Once again, this comparison touches on only the surface of the differences and similarities between Gnome and KDE. As you can see, both offer the same functionality—theming, file management, device management, etc. It's up to you to pick the desktop environment that works for you.