Google has introduced group chat in it’s GMail chat tool (Google Talk via GMail). It lets you chat with more than one buddy at a time. There’s no limit to the number of people you can chat with, and any participant can invite others to join. To get started:
- Start a chat with a single person in your Contacts list.
- Once you’ve started the chat, click Options at the bottom left of your chat window and select Group Chat.
- In the field labeled ‘Add a person to this chat,’ enter the name of the contact(s) you want to add to your group chat.
- To end your chat, click the X at the corner of the chat window. Others
in the group chat will get a message saying that you’ve left the
conversation.
Google has also introduced new emoticons which are more graphical than the symbols. You can click on the small smiley icon at the bottom of the chat window to select the emoticon you want.
Source: Google.
Technorati Tags: Google, GMail, Emoticons, Group Chat, Google Talk
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Posted 27 Nov 2007 — by Arun
Category General
My brother gifted me a Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD Player. I didn’t have any HD movie at home to test and the movie rental stores near my house didn’t have any HD DVD movie for rent. I played the regular DVDs and they worked fine. I then rented couple of HD DVDs from Netflix. The player reported one of the HD DVD was not a playable disk and recognized the other one, but didn’t play it. It didn’t work. I was going to return the player, but then decided to upgrade the firmware and try.
You can update the firmware in 3 different ways.
1. You can update using the Ethernet connection (HD-A2 has Ethernet port), but my router was not close to my living room.
2. You can get it by postal mail which might take couple of weeks.
3. You can download the ISO image to the CD and load the firmware in the player through the CD. This is the only solution that could work for me, so I downloaded the firmware ISO for my HD-A2 from here and burnt it to the CD. I then loaded the CD in the player. The player then prompted with Yes or No to upgrade. Once I pressed Yes, it took few minutes to upgrade the firmware. Once upgraded, it ejected the CD and powered itself off. I removed the CD and put the HD DVDs back and the player played both the HD DVDs fine. I’m not sure how many people returned their HD-A2 player back due to difficulty in playing the HD DVD discs. If you have issues playing the HD DVD using Toshiba HD-A2 and haven’t returned the piece yet, then try upgrading your firmware.
Technorati Tags: Toshiba, HD-A2, HD DVD, Netflix, DVD, CD, Firmware
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CNet has included Windows Vista as one of the top 10 terrible tech products. According to CNet, “Any operating system that provokes a campaign for its predecessor’s reintroduction deserves to be classed as terrible technology. Any operating system that quietly has a downgrade-to- previous-edition option introduced for PC makers deserves to be classed as terrible technology. Any operating system that takes six years of development but is instantly hated by hordes of PC professionals and enthusiasts deserves to be classed as terrible technology. Windows Vista conforms to all of the above.”
Well said CNet!!!
Technorati Tags: CNet, Windows Vista, Products, Operating System, Technology
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Mozilla released Firefox 2.0.0.10 with the following security fixes:
MFSA 2007-39
Referer-spoofing via window.location race condition
MFSA 2007-38
Memory corruption vulnerabilities (rv:1.8.1.10)
MFSA 2007-37
jar: URI scheme XSS hazard
Technorati Tags: Mozilla, Firefox 2.0.0.10, URI, XSS
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Posted 26 Nov 2007 — by Arun
Category General
I wrote 10 days back about buying DLink DWL-G120 USB wireless adapter for my Tivo. I mentioned that the CDs and the box didn’t bear any D-Link or for that matter any label at all. I submitted a review for that product in Overstock’s website the next day. Overstock message said they would 5-7 days to review and publish the review. It’s 10 days since I entered my review where I mentioned this label thing. Overstock has not yet published my review. Weird.
Technorati Tags: Overstock.com, DLink, DWL-G120, Tivo, USB, Wireless
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Posted 26 Nov 2007 — by Arun
Category General
I’m back to work after Thanksgiving break (4 days) and catching up with the backlog now. My daughter (6 years old) drew the Thanksgiving note (click on the picture below) on Thanksgiving day and gave it to us. It was about the husband turkey looking at his wife (baked turkey) with tears and said “I’m a sad turkey to say my wife was cut on Thanksgiving day. I can’t wait until she’s rebuilt again & she was cut by farmer Ben. (Note at the bottom says sing to the tune of twinkle twinkle little star)”. 
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Posted 21 Nov 2007 — by Arun
Category Ubuntu
You might have read the news earlier that KDE team released the first release candidate for KDE 4.0. Here is the instruction to install KDE 4.0 RC1 in Kubuntu:
- Remove previous KDE 4 packages if you have installed, they are not compatible (apt-get remove kdelibs5)
- Add deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/tsimpson/ubuntu gutsy main to your /etc/apt/sources.list
- Install kdebase-dev-kde4 kdebase-workspace-dev kdebase-runtime,
note that PPAs aren’t authenticated so you will likely get a warning
when installing
- These KDE 4 packages install to /usr/lib/kde4 so run:
- export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/kde4/lib
- export KDEDIRS=/usr/lib/kde4
- export PATH=/usr/lib/kde4/bin/:$PATH
- export KDEHOME=~/.kde4
- Run some programmes. Most parts run successfully.
- To avoid having to start a second X server for a full session install xserver-xephyr and run Xephyr :1 & export DISPLAY=:1; xterm and run startkde in the Xerphyr xterm.
- To run it as a full session install kdm-kde4 and copy
/usr/lib/kde4/share/kde4/apps/kdm/sessions/kde.desktop to
/usr/share/xsessions/kde4.desktop, edit the Name entry in kde4.desktop
to be called “KDE 4″, put the four export lines at the top of
/usr/lib/kde4/bin/startkde and start a new session in KDM with KDE 4.
Source: Kubuntu.
Technorati Tags: KDE 4.0, RC1, Kubuntu
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KDE team has released KDE 4.0 RC1 today. Release Candidate 1 is the first preview of KDE 4.0 which is
suitable for general use and discovering the improvements that have taken
place all over the KDE codebase. For more information, refer to KDE 4.0 RC1 release announcement.
Technorati Tags: KDE 4.0 RC1, Linux
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Mozilla has released the first beta of their next generation web browser Firefox 3.0. There are lots of minor improvements and new features in Firefox 3.0 including the new Gecko 1.9 web rendering platform. Here are some of the new and improved functionality in Firefox 3.0:
Security:
- One click site info: Click the site favicon in the location bar to
see who owns the site.
- Malware protection warns users when they arrive
at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other
malware.
- New Web Forgery Protection page.
- New SSL error pages.
- Firefox now automatically checks
add-on and plugin versions and will disable older, insecure versions.
- To improve add-on update security, add-ons
that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled.
- Anti-virus integration: Firefox will inform anti-virus software when
downloading executables.
- Firefox now respects the Vista system-wide
parental control setting for disabling file downloads.
Usage:
- An information bar replaces the old
password dialog so you can now save passwords after a successful login.
- The add-ons whitelist has been removed
making it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer
clicks.
- New Download Manager.
- Users can now resume downloads after
restarting the browser or resetting your network connection.
- The
new zooming feature lets you zoom in and out of entire pages, scaling the
layout, text and images.
- New tab scrolling and quick menu.
- Opening a folder of bookmarks in
tabs now appends the new tabs rather than overwriting.
- Location and Search bar size can now be customized.
- Multiple text selections can be made
with Ctrl key.
- Native theme support.
- Quickly add bookmarks from the location bar with a
single click; a second click lets you file and tag them.
- Tags: associate keywords with your bookmarks to sort them by
topic.
- Type the title or tag of a page in the
location bar to quickly find the site you were looking for in your history;
favicons, bookmark.
- Smart Places Folder.
Developers:
- New graphics and font handling.
- Native Web page forms.
- Firefox can now adjust images
with embedded color profiles.
- Offline support.
Source: Mozilla
For more detailed list of changes, you can refer to Burning Edge. You can download Firefox 3.0 beta 1 from here.
Technorati Tags: Mozilla, Firefox 3.0, Gecko 1.9, HTML
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Netscape has released the first alpha version of Netscape Messenger 9. Netscape Messenger 9 is an email client based on Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 similar to Netscape browser which is based on Firefox source. Netscape Messenger 9 is available for all 3 platforms (Windows, Linux and Mac OS X). It’s an alpha version, so use it with caution. Netscape Messenger is compatible with all Thunderbird 2.x addons. You can launch AOL IM directly from the messenger.
Technorati Tags: Netscape Messenger 9.0, Thunderbird, Firefox, Netscape, AOL
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