JitNik's Tech World

1. Use the full version of Bing

If you are using Bing outside North America, chances are that you seeing a localized version of Bing that may be missing some features. For instance, the Indian version of Bing.com doesn’t have search history and the image on the Bing home page here is not interactive as in the US version.

To explore the full version of Bing, go to this page and set English - US as your default region. You can now enjoy all the Bing features from anywhere.

2. Track Companies from the IE Favorites Bar

If you search for a company stock (e.g. GOOG or MSFT), Bing will automatically create a web slice for that company which you may then add to IE 8 and track the performance directly from the favorites bar. You need Internet Explorer 8 to try this feature.




3. Watch Preview of Hulu Videos outside US

Hulu hosts some popular popular TV shows but the problem is that you can only watch these videos if your computer has US based IP address.

However, Bing lets you watch shot previews of Hulu video even outside US. Just search for any TV show episode on Bing Videos (see example) and hover the mouse over any of the video thumbnail to watch a short clip.

4. Save and Email search results

With Bing, you can save your search history on to a local folder inside Bing or to your Windows Skydrive account. Alternatively, you may send your search queries to a friend via email or publish them on your Facebook wall via Bing. You’ll need Silverlight to share queries in Bing.

5. RSS Feeds of Search Results

Unlike Google or Yahoo, Bing offers RSS feeds for their web search results that you can subscribe to inside any feed reader. Your browser should be able to auto-detect the RSS feed of Bing pages or you can append &format=rss to any Bing search URL and convert it into a feed.

This RSS feature is not available for Image or Video search in Bing.

6. Find Pages That Link to MP3 Files or Documents

Bing (and Live Search) supports a unique "contains" search operator that lets you find web pages that contain links to particular file types.

For instance, a search like susan boyle contains:mp3 will show pages that are about the British singer and that also link to MP3 files. Replace mp3 with doc to search pages that contain links to Word Documents.

http://www.bing.com

Adobe BrowserLab is a new online service that will help you test the layout of your web pages across a variety of web browsers and operating systems.

Comparing web design in Firefox 3.0 & IE 7.0



You can use the Browser Lab service to view the design of your site in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari on both Mac and Windows. BrowserLab works by taking screen shots of your web pages in different browsers on different platforms and then displays these screenshot images side by side for easy comparison.

Though the service doesn’t support Chrome, Opera and some Linux specific browsers, the advantage is that there’s no waiting time and it also offers skinning so you can place renderings one over the other to quickly spot the differences.

Skinning superimposes one screen shot over another



BrowserLab can integrate with Dreamweaver CS4 so you can test web page designs from within the WYSIWYG HTML editor without having to publish pages on to an external web server

https://browserlab.adobe.com/

There are numerous url shortening services like for example tinyurl.com, that help us convert long urls into short and manageable urls. But one of the problems with a shortened url is that, when you come across one either in your mail, or a website or in a forum, there is no way of knowing where that link is headed to without actually following the url by clicking on it.

The other problem is that, some of the url shortening services are blocked in some countries though the original url is not blocked.

Untiny is a free service that addresses the above problems. With Untiny you can find out the original url behind the tiny url without having to visit the link. That way you can know which domain the url is headed to. You can then decide whether you want to follow it or not. Also, if the shortened url is blocked in your country, you can use Untiny to extract the original url which may not be blocked.

Untiny currently supports over 75 url shortening services.

http://www.untiny.com

Most of you would be aware of the usual places to look for programs that are auto-starting – such as the Startup folder itself and the Run and RunOnce registry keys. Using MSCONFIG.EXE we can examine the components that execute from these locations.

However, there are numerous other components and locations to be aware of, including:

IE Browser Helper Objects
Scheduled Tasks
Sidebar Gadgets (Windows Vista)
Services and Drivers
Print Monitors



This is where Autoruns becomes almost indispensable. Autoruns is a free XP and Vista toll developed by Sysinternals (now part of Microsoft). The beauty of Autoruns is that it shows you absolutely everything that’s loaded a startup, including services, drivers, applications and more. Using the tabs, you can view items in individual segments, or you can view all entries in one list under the Everything tab.

Each entry details the publisher name along with a brief description of what its function is. If you’re still not sure what and entry relates to, right-click it, select Search Online and a browser window will appear complete with web search results relating to that specific entry.

For example, if you’ve installed Apple iTunes, you’ll see a service called Apple Mobile Device that has a Startup Type of Automatic. However, if you don’t have an iPod or other Apple-based portable media player, this service isn’t required. To find out a little more about the service, right-click it and select Search Online. Now right-click the service and select the Process Explorer option. The Process Explorer utility will load and you’ll be taken to the Apple Mobile Device properties window. Under Physical Memory, the WS Private entry (this details how much memory the service is hogging) shows it’s only using 872KB, but if you want to squeeze every last bit of performance out of your PC, it’s worth turning it off.

You can disable the service in Autoruns by removing the tick from the box next to it, or use the Window’s Services utility to change the Startup Type to Disabled. If later you buy an iPod, do remember to return this setting to Automatic.

Since Autoruns is designed to highlight those items that are run as soon as you boot into Windows, it won’t display those services that have Startup Type of Manual, even if they’re running. To view all services, you’ll need to use the Windows Services utility, which is accessible under Administrative Tools within Control Panel. Each service is listed, along with its Startup Type, status and a brief description. By right-clicking a service you can change its status and, by selecting Properties (or double-clicking an entry), change its Startup Type.

All said and done, knowing which services can safely have their Startup Type altered isn’t always easy, and if you’re not sure about one, it’s best to simply leave it alone.

http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/Autoruns.zip

Yet another Windows 7 build has leaked to the Web, turning recent appearances of pirated copies into a weekly event on file-sharing sites.

As many as 10 different copies of Windows 7 Build 7068 have been added to BitTorrent since last Friday, according to searches on popular tracking sites such as Mininova.org and Pirate Bay. Illegal copies of both 32- and 64-bit editions are available.

The appearance of Windows 7 Build 7068 follows the leak of Build 7057 by about a week; 7057, in turn, followed 7048 by about the same time span. The newest build is the fourth to hit BitTorrent since Microsoft stopped offering the public beta last month.

Traffic on this build has been especially brisk. As of midday today, Mininova reported that the various copies of Windows 7 Build 7068 have been downloaded a combined total of more than 65,000 times.

Although Build 7068 was compiled by Microsoft on March 21, there's no hint in the new version that it is a possible release candidate (RC), unlike earlier this month when some downloaders speculated that Build 7057 was the long-awaited RC.

Last week, in fact, Microsoft accidentally revealed details of Windows 7 RC, including a May 2009 delivery of a public download and a new expiration date, June 1, 2010, for the preview.

According to the My Digital Life site, Windows 7 Build 7068 expires on March 2, 2010, the same date as earlier builds, including 7057, displayed.

Windows 7 leaks have been a problem for Microsoft since previews were first handed out in October 2008 at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference. Since then, other versions have appeared on BitTorrent, including a pirated copy of what was later released as the beta.

Intel used the first day of the Spring IDF in Beijing to show off its Moorestown integrated processor, which is expected to replace the current Atom CPU and chipset later this year or early 2010. The company also introduced two new Z-series Atom processors.

It was the first time that a Moorestown chip was shown live to the public. What makes this processor special is the fact that it integrates graphics and all other chipset components on-die, which will make it substantially smaller and apparently less power hungry than today’s Atom generation.

Moorestown is promised to run at ten times less idle power than the current Atom platform. Intel declined to reveal how much power the chip will actually consume and, at least for us, it is difficult to estimate that number. Today’s Atom relies on a 45 nm processor as well as an older chipset design, based on an updated i915 version, which is called System Controller Hub (SCH) as part of the Atom platform. The SCH is manufactured in 130 nm and simply too power hungry and too large to be used in small mobile devices such as smartphones.

Moorestown is expected to become Intel’s second serious attempt to make an impact in the cellphone market – the first was the Xscale processor, a technology which was acquired by Marvell in 2006. However, this time, the CPU seems to be much more focused and could turn into an interesting competitor to ARM processors

Sony Erickson has announced launch of its first made in India & 'made for India' mobile phone for true music lovers.this unique radio inspire design phone promise to meet audience, and allow them to listen their fav live show anywhere.
R300 Radio phone comes with a radio look-and-feel offering features including, radio speakers, VGA camera, TrackID
R300 is truly radio inspire mobile phone design to have a clear radio look-and-feel comes with the FM frequency channels,it also has AM frequencies, a first for radio phones in India.

The R300 Sony Ericsson's mobile phone battery can be used up to 9 hours of talk time, up to 400 hours of standby time. The phone is GPRS enabled with other very minimalistic features.
The R300 mobile phone will come in two colors, copper and black.
Estimate price:Rs 4000/-

Microsoft introduced its new version of Internet Explorer on Thursday, touting its new security features such as the SmartScreen phishing filter. However, the new features weren't enough to keep a the browser from being hacked at the CanSecWest conference.

Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) More about Microsoft unveiling of Internet 10th Annual Online Fraud Report. Online Payment Fraud Trends, Merchant Practices and Benchmarks. Get your copy today. Explorer 8 on Thursday was marred by news that the browser, touted to be its most secure ever, already has been hacked.

The launch has also kicked off a new round of browser wars, with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) More about Google unveiling a new beta of its Chrome browser, and Mozilla More about Mozilla Foundation releasing Fennec, the mobile version of its Firefox browser, in beta.

IE8 was cracked at the 10th annual CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, Canada, Wednesday by a hacker who identified himself only as "Nils." To be fair, the first browser to go down at the hacking contest at CanSecWest was Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) More about Apple Safari.

"Microsoft is investigating reports of a possible vulnerability in Internet Explorer 8," a Microsoft spokesperson said. "While we're not aware of any actual attacks using this possible vulnerability or of any customers affected, if the vulnerability is confirmed, we'll take action to help protect our customers."
Security and IE8

This is not the first time a security vulnerability has been discovered in IE8 --in February, Microsoft released a security bulletin for IE8.

Announcing IE8's release Thursday, Microsoft said it "offers leading-edge security features in direct response to people's increasing concerns about online safety," and quoted CEO Steve Ballmer as saying that IE8 "provides protection that no other browser can match."

Does that square with the facts? Probably, Jason Miller, security and data team manager at network security and patch management vendor Shavlik Technologies, told TechNewsWorld. "They have SmartScreen Filter, which they haven't had before, and there are reports that it's catching a lot of malware," he explained.

SmartScreen Filter is an extension of IE7's phishing filter. When a user visits a site that has been labeled harmful, IE8 will put up a warning and suggest the user not visit the site.

Still, all software has vulnerabilities and is prone to hacking, Miller said.
Browser Wars Reignite

IE8 has lots of nice new stuff. These include accelerators, a version of selection-based search that lets users invoke an online service from any other page using just the mouse. IE8 also has Web Slices, which are snippets of a page that a user subscribes to. The browser will automatically update the snippets, which users can view directly from the Favorites bar.

This could kick off a new round of browser wars, as other firms offering Web browsers have revved up their efforts recently.

Google has just unveiled a new beta of Google Chrome, which it claims in a blog is almost twice as fast as the original beta. It also has several new features, including form autofill, full page zoom and autoscroll, and lets the user drag tabs out to get a side-by-side view of Web pages.

Meanwhile, Mozilla rolled out the mobile version of its Firefox browser, called "Fennec." This has impressed reviewers at first sight because of the variety of features it offers.
More Trouble Coming?

The browser wars could lead to more security issues, Shavlik's Miller warns. "As you add new features, there will be new areas for vulnerabilities to exist," he said. "The more bloated these browsers get, the more areas there are to attack."

Miller predicts that hackers will unleash a torrent of attacks on IE8 over the next few weeks. "There's a lot of money in this for the hackers, and they'll want to find a way in."

The situation won't be helped by the fact that hackers are now targeting browsers more heavily. "Over the past couple of years, browsers have overtaken e-mail as the area where users spend the most time, and attackers are putting out traps on Web sites," Paul Judge, chief technology officer at Web security application vendor Purewire, told TechNewsWorld.

"There's no shortage of vulnerabilities out there," Judge added.