IT Masala

It looks like Microsoft is on its way to give some special look and feel to their upcoming Windows version !  Apart from adding new features, they should concentrate on having patches for existing problems too. don't you think 

Microsoft's next OS will come with a touch screen to replace the existing mouse ! This will be a nice feature, replacing the old classic mouse. This touch screen will bring in more interactivity for the user,making him feel good ..maybe..

Touch Screen Demo :

Scheduled to be released in 2010, the new touch screen lets users enlarge and shrink photos, trace routes on maps, paint pictures or play the piano ( as seen in the video )..

BBC reports "When challenged as to who would get to market first with a new touch screen device, Microsoft or Apple, Mr Ballmer said it was not much of an issue. "We'll sell 290 million PCs and Apple will sell 10 million PCs "

So lets wait and watch how far this multi-touch Windows 7 will be successful ! 

[ Microsoft Windows ] 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WORDPRESS ! 

On Tuesday, May 27th, WordPress turned 5 years old. Wordpress team is having a party in San Francisco. You can get the full details and RSVP on Upcoming.org or on Facebook.

And I was surprised to see a new Wordpress's screenshot on safari or firefox browser on MAC (probably.. the screenshot seemed so)

Thank you Wordpress team for such a nice opensource blogging platform ! Long Live Wordpress !

Samsung is claiming the fastest SSD data transfer rates to date.CNET site ZDNet Korea reports that Samsung announced the development of a 2.5-inch, 256GB solid state drive (SSD) at the fifth annual Samsung Mobile Solution Forum in Taipei, Taiwan.

Normal notebook PCs come with solid state drives with capacity of 64GB.This drive has a sequential read speed of 200 megabytes per second and sequential write speed of 160MBps.

Special feature of these SSD is they don't have any mechanical moving parts which separates them from other drives which have mechanical failures and delays. 

But there was no mention of price anywhere mentioned !

[ photo credit - samsung ]

While going through Orkut apps, we happened to look at this event notification. Google is going to host Google's largest developer  event.As said on the site,Its a two day event which covers in depth on how to develop application with Google and Open technologies.Its at San Francisco on May 28-89.

Sessions consists of talks on OpenSocial, Google App Engine, Android, Google Maps API, Google Web Toolkit and more ..presented by Google's leading developers like David Glazer, Alex Martelli, Steve Souders, Dion Almaer, Mark Lucovsky, Guido van Rossum, Jeff Dean, Chris DiBona, Josh Bloch.

Registration is $50 fo students/teachers !

[ Sign up ] [ Google I/O ] 

TeamViewer is one of the best tools for desktop sharing and remote control. They claim that this tool is being used by more than 7,000,000 Users.If you are looking out for a very easy tool to transfer files or control your home pc right from your office, then Team Viewer is the best app ever ! Installs in seconds, no need of complex configurations or setup. You will be really amazed by the size of the software.Its just 1.28 MB,mind blowing isn't it !  Free for non-commercial use

Download the software from their site. Install it, usual double click install.

Each installation gives an user unique id and pass.You can change the password if you want to. Lets know how to connect to your home pc remotely.

- Connect to your home pc using the unique id and pass. Enter it on the right side.

- Choose file tranfer or remote support. File tranfer gives a window which shows two columns with remote side and your pc , you can select the folders or files which you want to transfer and say receive or send.

- In settings, there is option of restricting the user, i.e whether to allow editing the files remotely.

- Stop using memory stick to transfer files from your friend's pc to your pc within your LAN.Check allow LAN connections in the settings so that you can transfer at amazing speed within your LAN.

The steps are so easy to follow. Any non-techie can use this tool very easily. Its very handy when you want some files from your home pc or troubleshoot somebody's pc. Below are some screenshots of the live desktop sharing and remote control to my friend's pc.   

- Use TeamViewer Manager to handle multiple clients and extended logging. 

( Login window )          ( Screenshot of me transferring images from my friend's pc to my laptop) 

PS: TeamViewer(full version) is FREE for non-commercial,personal use ! 

[ TeamViewer ] [ Download for Windows ] [ Download for Mac ] [ TeamViewer Manager ]

Gspace is a lovely firefox addon and supported on 3 platforms(Windows,Mac,Linux). It makes life easier to store all your stuff on Gmail very easily. What do you do with a 6Gb online space, use it as a storage space..just dump all your stuff.

- Install the firefox addon : | Windows | Mac | Linux |

- Goto Tools -> Gspace . The panel will open up in a different tab (chrome://gspace/content/gspaceWindow.xul )

You are shown a 2-column panel , left side is your pc and right side is your gmail storage space. Nice thing about this addon is, it shows the total space and the free space and shows details of files with timestamp etc… Below is the capture of how the email message looks like in the inbox.

How to use: Login to your account using your gmail account and password. You can create folders and put your stuff into your account. When you upload your stuff, it shows up as shown in the screenshots. To avoid showing all the upload messages in your inbox, archive the mails sent by Gspace.

PS: Using this addon maybe(not sure) against Gmail's TOS. So be careful !

[Gspace] [Gmail] [Firefox addon]

The most widely used video site Youtube, launches its Indian edition.This Indian version of Youtube(Desi Youtube) is being used by companies like Rajshri to market their serials.

There have been already many Indian videos on Youtube.Some of them are ,IIT Madras has put up advanced engineering classes, companies like eros entertainment,Rajshri Media use it to release movie trailors and serials and many colleges release their college videos too..

[Youtube India] 

This is a compilation of How-To's by HowtoGeek. This is a must to read for every Ubuntu user!

• How to Tell What Version of Ubuntu You Are Running
• How to use an ISO image on Ubuntu Linux
• Keep the Display From Turning Off on Ubuntu
• Keyboard Shortcuts for Bash ( Command Shell for Ubuntu, Debian, Suse, Redhat, Linux, etc)
• Make Backspace Key Work Correctly in Firefox on Linux
• Make Grub Bootloader Wait Indefinitely for OS Selection
• Reload the Gnome or KDE Panels Without Restarting (Linux)
• Search Your Computer Quickly With the Deskbar Applet on Ubuntu
• How to display a list of recent commands in Ubuntu Linux
• Make your Gnome Terminal Background (mostly)Transparent on Ubuntu

[ HowtoGeek ] [ image from Kubuntu ]

Apple will pay $25 to $79 to customers who "bought an adapter made by Apple or another company to replace a failed one." Customers who bought certain replacement adapters for PowerBook and iBook computers are eligible for the settlement. Apple is gonna pay that amount to around 2.3 million Macintosh computer owners.

[LA Times, photo by Don Ramsey]

My friend had sent me this site just 2 weeks before but this was disappointing.

QuickSilverScreen had been accused of Copyright Violations and closed down. This is their message on their site.

This morning we were falsely accused of hosting copyrighted content by the Malaysian government, in result our host (located in Malaysia) asked us to shutdown the QSS main site server.

We still have full control over all our servers and are working with our host & the malaysian government to find a solution for this stupid mistake.

We expect to be up and running within a few hours/days

[ Quick Silver Screen ]