Website to trace missing people

It is a small start to trace people who have gone missing.

The state government plans to design a website with details of missing people. It will have their photographs and will be accessible to all police stations, state Home Minister R.R. Patil said in the state legislative council on Tuesday.

Responding to a calling attention motion raised by the Shiv Sena’s Kiran Pawaskar, Patil said it would be helpful to police stations, particularly the railway and bus stand police outposts to get information to trace missing people.

Patil admitted that the number of missing children in the state, particularly in Mumbai, had risen sharply. There are around 3,800 to 4,000 children reported missing from Mumbai every year. Of them, on an average at least 300 children are never found.

The state government will launch a special drive across the state, particularly in Mumbai, to detect cases in which children are employed, forced into begging or used for other purposes.

Earlier, the Mumbai police had launched such a drive that helped the state to discourage exploitation of children.
More than 13,000 children were freed from the clutches of employers during the drive.

The proposed drive will be undertaken with the help of non-government organisations.

Patil said the government has already set up a special cell in the state police department to trace missing people and to detect cases of child labour.

Sex selection just a mouse click away

Select your baby’s gender at will in 3 simple steps with 94% accuracy”: that’s not a furtive sign at a shady clinic but what you get when you type ‘gender selection clinics’ on the Yahoo search engine.

Popular Internet portals Google and Yahoo are breaking Indian laws by carrying ads of sex selection clinics.

India’s Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) Act, 2002 bans the use of technology (ultrasounds and sonograms) for and advertising of sex selection that lead to foeticide (sex-selective abortion).

According to the United Nations Population Fund, the natural sex ratio at birth is 940-950 girls per 1,000 boys. Easy access to diagnostic technology has led to India’s sex ratio falling from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001.

“Indian law bans advertisements and sponsored links related to sex selection facilities on any web page that can be accessed in India. It does not matter where the server or the clinic being advertised is. If an ad can be seen by opening a web page in India, it is banned,” said Supreme Court lawyer A. Shenoy.

Representatives of portals, however, say the Act only bans the advertisement of such facilities in India. Since there is no ban on writing about them, search results can’t be monitored as it may block educational and academic content.

Google advertising policy states “advertising is not permitted for the promotion of pre-natal gender determination or pre-conception sex selection when targeting ads to India”. But its search portal carries ads of clinics in other countries.

“In India, we don’t allow ads for the promotion of pre-natal gender determination or preconception sex selection,” a Google India statement said.

“Yahoo! operates a global business and abides by relevant local laws and regulations,” its official spokesperson said.

“These portals break the law in India and get paid for it,” said Sabu George, an activist for the girl child.

Gurgaon boy doodles his way to Google

For once, Puru Pratap Singh’s (9) folks will allow him to surf the Net late at night. In fact, his whole family will be up till midnight
http://www.hindustantimes.com//Images/edstoryImg/131109/doodle.jpg
Puru Pratap Singh, a Class 4 student from Gurgaon, won the Doodle for Google competition. Singh’s doodle was chosen from 4,000 entries across India. Log on to Google and you will see the logo
Friday, to see his artwork displayed as an icon on the homepage of Google India.

Singh, a Class IV student of Amity International, Saket, won the GoogleDoodle contest in India, edging out 4,000 others. His will be the search engine’s first “made in India” doodle.

But having won the contest, and a laptop in prize, Singh has other plans for the future: “I want to be a scientist, not an artist as they aren’t very well paid.”

The Gurgaon boy had a little help. His art teacher mother, Arti Singh, pitched in with the artwork while his father, N.P. Singh, helped him think up the concept, ‘My India full of life’.

“The first ‘G’ is in the shape of a peacock; ‘O’ represents the wisdom of our country; the other ‘O’ shows the discovery of water on the moon by India, ‘G’ revolves around Kashmir; ‘L’ is designed as the rifle at Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate; and ‘E’ depicts Mahatma Gandhi,” said Singh.

To see Singh’s doodle, a Google India spokesman said, all you have to do is log on to www.google.co.in.

Internet could run out of web addresses next year

The world could well run out of Internet addresses next year, unless urgent action is taken to switch to a new generation of net
addresses, the European Commission has warned.

According to the commission, businesses urgently need to upgrade to Internet protocol version six or IPv6, a new version of the Internet's addressing protocol, which will hugely increase the number of available addresses.

The IPv6 system has been ready for over a decade and is providing 340 trillion, trillion, trillion web addresses. But, not many companies are actually ready to migrate to the new platform.

In fact, a survey, conducted by the Commission, found that few companies are prepared for the switch from the current naming protocol, IPv4, to the new regime, IPv6, ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reported.

The IPv4 and IPv6 protocols refer to the way in which web addresses are created and assigned. Each website has a unique IP address, represented by a string of numbers, such as 192.168.1.1, which are then given a user-friendly web address to make them easier to remember.

The IPv4 protocol uses 32-bit addresses, which enables the web to support around 4.3 billion unique addresses while IPv6 uses 128-bit web addresses, creating billions of possible new web addresses.

The EC survey found that of the 610 government, educational and other industry organisations questioned across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, just 17 per cent have upgraded to IPv6.

The Commission has warned that the timely deployment of the protocol is vital to the growth and stability of the Internet.
Detlef Eckert, Director in Commission’s information society and media directorate-general, said: “In the last 10 years, the Internet has become hugely important worldwide...

“Only by ensuring that all devices connected to the internet are compatible with IPv6 can we stay connected and safeguard sustainable growth of the Internet and the global digital economy, now and in the years to come.”

Mickey Mouse reinvented as action hero

After more than 80 years after he first appeared in Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse is poised to make his debut as the lead character in a computer game, The Guardian reported.

Disney's popular character has got a year-long makeover which has transformed him into a vintage-looking yet three-dimensional cartoon character.

Disney wants to establish Mickey as an action hero just like Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog. The company wants to build on his new fame with games franchise and lots of cool merchandise to attract the younger generation.

"We’ve pulled Mickey out of the world of cartoons which is where he belongs and we pull him into a world of Cartoon Wasteland,” the paper reported game designer Warren Spector saying.

The Disney Epic Mickey game developed by Spector, is set for launch on Nintendo's Wii console next year.

So get ready to see your favourite Mickey in the game roaming the Cartoon Wasteland, faces up to friends he cast aside and overshadowed with his own fame.

Yahoo-owned GeoCities closes down

Yahoo! on Monday closed GeoCities, a free Web hosting service that it purchased for over three billion dollars at the height of the dot-com boom.

"We have enjoyed hosting websites created by Yahoo! users all over the world, and we're proud of the community you've built," the California-based Internet pioneer said in a message at the GeoCities website.

"However, we have decided to focus on helping our customers explore and build relationships online in other ways."

Yahoo! said GeoCities would not be available after Monday and recommended GeoCities refugees set up new online homes at its paid Web hosting service, with an introductory offer of just five dollars for the first 12 months.

The closure of GeoCities comes a week after Yahoo! reported that aggressive cost-cutting helped it more than triple its net profit despite a 12-percent decline in revenue in its third quarter.

Yahoo! said net profit soared more than 244 percent in the quarter to 186 million dollars, or 13 cents per share, from 54 million dollars, or four cents per share, a year ago, easily surpassing analysts' forecasts.

The better-than-expected performance was due in large part to cost-cutting measures implemented by Carol Bartz since being named in January to replace Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang as chief executive.

Yahoo! has reduced its headcount by some 2,000 during the past year and presently has some 13,200 employees.

Yahoo! announced the planned closure of GeoCities early this year, saying it was "increasing investment in some areas while scaling back in others."

GeoCities was founded in 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet and bought by Yahoo! during the infamous dot-com boom in Silicon Valley.

GeoCities provided people with tools to build interactive websites and eventually added chat forums and other community-oriented features.

Yahoo! eventually added fee-paying premium services in an effort to make money at GeoCities, which had trouble retaining users and getting profitable.

Log on to www. Beautifulpeople.com to date attractive people

An online dating exclusively for beautiful people is set to be launched on a global platform, despite criticism.

Beautifulpeople.com was first launched in Denmark and ever since has opened in several countries including Britain, the United States and Japan.

The site insists applicants must submit a photograph of themselves to allow existing members to decide through an online rating system whether they are attractive enough to be admitted.

“Is it shallow to want to be with someone you’re attracted to? If you are in a bar or a club and you are going to approach someone, you’ll approach someone you’re attracted to. There’s nothing shallow in that,” the Telegraph quoted Greg Hodge, 34, managing director of the site as saying.

“People are fed up wasting time and money meeting unattractive people on the net,” he added.

The website also promises successful applicants “glamorous parties, a jet-set global network” and “potential contracts from top modelling agencies”.

40 years of Internet: How the world changed for ever

Leonard Kleinrock never imagined Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube that day 40 years ago when his team gave birth to what is now taken for granted as the Internet.

“We are constantly surprised by the applications that come along,” Kleinrock said as he and others at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) were preparing to throw the Internet a 40th birthday party.

“It’s a teenager now. It’s learned some things but it has a long way to go. It’s behaving erratically, but it’s given enormous gratification to its parents and the community.”

On October 29, 1969 Kleinrock led a team that got a computer at UCLA to “talk” to one at a research institute.

Kleinrock was driven by a certainty that computers were destined to speak to each other and that the resulting network should be as simple to use as telephones.

“I thought it would be computer to computer, not people to people,” Kleinrock said in a nod to online social networking and content sharing that are hallmarks of the Internet Age.

“I never expected that my 99-year-old mother would be on the Internet like she was until she passed away.”

A key to getting computers to exchange data was breaking digitised information into packets fired between on-demand with no wasting of time, according to Kleinrock.

He had outlined his vision in a 1962 graduate school dissertation published as a book.

“Nobody cared, in particular AT&T,” Kleinrock said. “I went to them and they said it wouldn’t work and that even if it worked they didn’t want anything to do with it.”

US telecom colossus AT&T ran lines connecting the computers for ARPANET, a project backed with money from a research arm of the US military.

Engineers began typing “LOG” to log into the distant computer, which crashed after getting the “O.”

“So, the first message was ‘Lo’ as in ‘Lo and behold’,” Kleinrock recounted. “We couldn’t have a better, more succinct first message.”

Kleinrock’s team logged in on the second try, sending digital data packets between computers on the ARPANET. Computers at two other US universities were added to the network by the end of that year.

Microsoft launches Windows 7

Microsoft Corp launched Windows 7 on Thursday in its most important release for more than a decade, aiming to win back customers after the disappointing Vista and strengthen its grip on the PC market.

The world's largest software company, which powers more than 90 percent of personal computers, has received good reviews for the new operating system, which it hopes will grab back the impetus in new technology from rivals Apple Inc and Google Inc.

"It's the first really significant release of Windows in a decade," analyst Brendan Barnicle of Pacific Crest Securities told Reuters Television. "Given the missteps around Vista, people really questioned Microsoft's relevancy in the technology space. So this is a critical first step for Microsoft regaining that credibility."

The new system -- which is faster, less cluttered and has new touch-screen features -- comes almost three years after the launch of Vista, whose complexity frustrated many home users and turned off business customers.

The success of Windows -- which accounts for more than half of Microsoft's profit -- is crucial for Chief Executive Steve Ballmer to revive the company's image as the world's most important software firm.

"I have to say I'm chomping at the bit," Ballmer told an audience of Microsoft customers and partners in Toronto on Wednesday, adding that he is ready to make sales calls himself on Windows 7.

Sales won't immediately impact the bottom line of Microsoft, which is expected to post a lower quarterly profit on Friday.

Cheaper Than Vista

Microsoft is charging $199.99 for the Home Premium version of Windows 7, or $119.99 for users seeking to upgrade from older versions of the operating system -- well below comparable prices for Vista.

It also has a range of offers in conjunction with retailer Best Buy and PC makers such as Dell Inc and Acer Inc.

For the first time, shoppers will be able to buy PCs loaded with the software direct from a branded Microsoft store, with the first of a planned chain set to open on Thursday in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The U.S. holiday season will soon reveal whether consumer PC sales get a kick from Windows 7, but success with corporations -- the key to Microsoft's financial power -- won't be clear until next year, analysts say.

"Come June of next year, we are going to get the real indication of the business-to-business marketplace," said Mark Simons, chief executive of the U.S. arm of Toshiba Corp, the world's No. 5 PC maker, on Wednesday.

Early indications are that companies are getting ready to switch to Windows 7.

"People like it," said Michael Capone, chief information officer for payroll services firm ADP, pointing out its quick start-up time and good user interface.

Exposed! Your Hotmail password might not be secret anymore

Microsoft on Monday blocked access to thousands of Hotmail accounts in response to hackers plundering password information and posting it online.

Cyber-crooks evidently used "phishing" tactics to dupe users of Microsoft's free Web-based email service into revealing account and access information, according to the US technology giant.

"We are aware that some Windows Live Hotmail customers' credentials were acquired illegally by a phishing scheme and exposed on a website," Microsoft said in response to an AFP inquiry.

"We have taken measures to block access to all of the accounts that were exposed and have resources in place to help those users reclaim their accounts."

Microsoft said it learned of the problem during the weekend after Hotmail account information of "several thousand" users, many of them reportedly in Europe, was posted at a website.

Phishing is an Internet bane and involves using what hackers refer to as "social engineering" to trick people into revealing information online or downloading malicious software onto computers.

Phishing tactics include sending people tainted email attachments that promise enticing content such as sexy photos of celebrities and luring people to bogus log-in pages that are convincing replicas of legitimate websites.

"This was not a breach of internal Microsoft data," the Redmond, Washington-based technology firm said.

"Phishing is an industry-wide problem ... exercise extreme caution when opening unsolicited attachments and links from both known and unknown sources, and install and regularly update anti-virus software."

Microsoft is also advising Hotmail users to change their account passwords every 90 days.

Lost bag at airport? Log on

Lost your luggage at the airport? Don't fret. In a "first of a kind" initiative that will come as a relief to all such harried travellers, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) on Monday launched a 'lost and found' section on its website that will help one trace missing baggage.

The initiative, a brainchild of the CISF's director general, is certain to come as a relief to many. The CISF handles security of 57 airports in India. Its website is www.cisf.gov.in

"After looking for the rightful owner of an unattended or lost luggage, if he or she is not found, then it will be handed over to the airport manager. Details of the baggage and when it was found will be uploaded on our website daily in the 'lost and found' section, along with the procedure to claim it," Inspector General (Administration) Ajeet Shekhawat told reporters at a conference in New Delhi.

The CISF will also upload the contact details of the airports officials whom one has to contact to claim those articles. The claimants will have to provide necessary ownership proofs for collecting the baggage.

"This initiative is first of its kind anywhere across the world," Shekhawat said.

According to the CISF, a large number of lost items such as laptops, mobile phones, cameras, handbags, jewellery and cash is collected on a daily basis.

Between January and August this year, goods worth Rs 8,07,37,623 were recovered from various airports manned by the CISF personnel across India. In several instances, it has recovered huge amounts of cash.

Of those, goods worth Rs.1,91,52,824 were handed over to passengers and goods worth Rs.6,15,84,799 were handed over to the airport manager.

Recoveries from the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi alone during this period were worth to Rs.2,33,97,305.

During 2007 and 2008, CISF guards recovered valuable articles approximately worth of Rs.11.34 crore and Rs.13.81 crore respectively.

"A large number of items remain unclaimed because of lack of information. We hope our move would benefit a lot of airline travellers. We don't think airline authorities will have any problem with this step. We will modify the system depending upon our experience," Shekhawat added.

The CISF has also put a disclaimer that it is just facilitating the passengers to locate their lost items and is not responsible if an item could not be retrieved.

"As per the procedure, unclaimed items are auctioned three months after their date of recovery," a CISF official said.

Yahoo launches a Twitter lookalike!

Yahoo, which is otherwise not doing very well in the tech market, has finally taken the first step towards improving its situation.

YahooThe giant has directly challenged the current favourite of netizens - Twitter and launched a microblogging platform called Yahoo Meme. Yahoo had previously launched a Portuguese language micro-blogging product, Yahoo Meme, which was obviously similar to Twitter and Tumblr.

It looks like Yahoo definitely has lofty ambitions for Yahoo Meme, as it has stealthily rolled the micro-blogging service out in Spanish and now in English to appeal to the masses. Yahoo Meme exactly works like Twitter.

Let's see if Meme does any good to Yahoo's image.

Is your name Popular on net?

Are you a Rahul or a Neha? Chances are, you might happen to bump into your namesakes way too often on the internet, since the just out Google Zeitgeist 2009 lists them as the two most popular names in Delhi. These are followed by Amit, Raj and Rohit, and Priya, Pooja and Priyanka in the popular names rating.

But what’s more interesting is that these common names have propelled close to half a million Orkut users to start their names with special characters like $%^*&.

The survey, an aggregated study of the behaviour of city’s Orkut users over the past seven days, shows Delhiites obsessed with style and being stylish. ‘Stylish People’ is the most active community among city youth.

Commitment, says the survey, is latent among Delhiites. Of the 17 million Orkut users, 49 per cent women, and 32 per cent men are clueless about their relationship status. And it’s not because they’re looking for love online or heading for a break-up. The Google list shows that these 18-30-yr-olds just don’t know where they’re in life — as opposed to the 2 percent who claim to be in ‘open’ relationships, and the 50 odd per cent who say they’re single! It’s not like the confused bunch is here to date either. Only 36 per cent guys, and 22 per cent girls are online looking for a date. For over 70 per cent social networking is a ladder to a larger friend circle.

Delhi’s top communities
1. Stylish people
2. Chocolate
3. India
4. Boys vs Girls (Who is d best?)
5. Unforgettable School Life
6. MTV & still more MTV
7. I hate to wake up early
8. India stock market
9. Don’t Worry Be Happy
10. Jat World

The top 100 dirtiest sites Enlisted

Internet security company Norton Symantec has come up with a list of Top 100 Dirtiest sites, which could infect your computer with malware.

Malware is a software that can damage or compromise a computer system without the owner's consent.

Natalie Connor, spokeswoman of the anti-virus company, said that even visiting any of the named websites could expose a computer to infection and put the personal information into the hands of unwanted people.

"What people don't realise is when you type in a website, you're bringing down information on a page and with it could be malware," News.com.au quoted her as saying.

The list was compiled with the help of global data collected on Norton Safe Web, a site that analysed websites' security risks.

The infected sites had on average 18,000 threats and 40 per cent of the sites had more than 20,000 threats, while 75 per cent of websites on the list were found to be spreading malware for over six months.

According to Connor, most websites in the list had adult content with unprintable names, suggesting they contained hardcore pornography.

Some others sites include those on ice skating, deer hunting, catering and legal services.

Hackers can apparently obtain personal information using keystroke-logging software from both PCs and Mac computers.

The reps said that hackers are a force to reckon with as cyber crime is increasing rapidly.

She added: "The last thing we want to do is scare people, we want to educate them so they know how to protect themselves.

"It's not about the fame any more of creating viruses and getting in the media. They're making money."

Norton released a sample of the dirtiest websites:

17ebook.com
aladel.net
bpwhamburgorchardpark.org
clicnews.com
dfwdiesel.net
divineenterprises.net
fantasticfilms.ru
gardensrestaurantandcatering.com
ginedis.com
gncr.org
hdvideoforums.org
hihanin.com
kingfamilyphotoalbum.com
likaraoke.com
mactep.org
magic4you.nu
marbling.pe.kr
nacjalneg.info
pronline.ru
purplehoodie.com
qsng.cn
seksburada.net
sportsmansclub.net
stock888.cn
tathli.com
teamclouds.com
texaswhitetailfever.com
wadefamilytree.org
xnescat.info
yt118.com

Facebook, MySpace encouraging Suicide'

The Catholic Church in England has warned that websites such as Facebook and MySpace are pushing teenagers to view friendship as a "commodity" and ultimately leading them to commit suicide.

Archbishop Nichols, who is the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, blamed social network sites for leaving children with impoverished friendships. He stressed that the internet and mobile phones were "dehumanising" community life and that relationships had been weakened by the decline in face-to-face meetings.

"I think there's a worry that an excessive use or an almost exclusive use of text and emails means that as a society we're losing some of the ability to build interpersonal communication that's necessary for living together and building a community," the Archbishop of Westminster was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph on Sunday.

Underlining that he was "wary" about Facebook and MySpace, the top bishop warned that the sites are contributing to a trend for teenagers to put too much importance on the number of friends they have and that this can ultimately lead to suicide.

The top bishop also raised concerns about the rise of individualism. He described footballers who break their contracts to move to other clubs for bigger salaries as "mercenaries" and said moves to loosen laws on assisted suicide were particularly worrying.

Tips to perform deleted file Recovery

Just imagine yourself in a situation, where you spend hours in doing any work and the entire file gets permanently deleted from your system. What will you do in such a situation? Of course, you will look forward to recover it but how? Well all these questions will be answered in this article, as this article is all about files that have deleted due to any error like accidental deletion, unexpected system shutdown, software failure or any other physical or operational error.

Let us find the answer of the first question i.e. what to do in a situation where any unexpected file deletion has spoiled all your efforts? The best possible and efficient way to deal with such a situation is searching out a deleted file recovery tool that may enable you to recover the deleted file without making any delay. Basically, deleted file recovery tools refer to softwares that are tailored by keeping unexpected deletion and recovery requirement in mind. In fact, such software can enable a user to recover the deleted file along with its all components. In the software industry, such deleted file recovery tools are known as file undelete software; the recovery process is very simple or we can say it is just like using a magic wand to undelete all deleted files. With these tools a thorough scanning of damaged disk drive or data storage media is performed, so that deleted files can be located and displayed.

Now let us come to the second major question i.e. how to recover deleted files? For making it possible, first of all finding these tools is necessary. Just sit at ease and use Internet search tools to check out available options. Give some time to this process, as only wise selection may enable you to perform accurate and instant deleted file recovery. Since a wide range of file undelete software is available in the marketplace, you need to check out the functionality of selected options. There is no need to spend a single penny for doing so, as most of the file undelete software providers offer free demo version. With it all features can be tested and decision over efficiency of the software can also be made. As far as rate of such software is concerned, you can find the best deal by comparing cost of available options.

So just stop banging your head for deleted precious files and search for a suitable deleted file recovery tool to recover the deleted file. In fact, making prolific efforts is always better than repenting for mistakes that are affecting you and your work.

Tips OF Maintaining Laptops

Nowadays laptop has become a very common means of studying and working. With the potential development of Information Technology, this device will promise to continue to play a very important role in our life. Although laptop is so common like this, there are not many people knowing how to use and maintain it in a right way. The following advices may be useful for you.

1. Avoid letting laptops fall down

Laptops should be placed on a safe position so that they do not fall. Further more, physical damages like this will make the guaranty right invalid so repairing them will cost much money. For example, placing the laptop at the middle of the table instead of placing it near the edge of the table or it when easily fall down when it is clashed. Even when those damages can be recovered, the laptop will not be as durable as it is if there are no damages.

2. Do not place heavy objects on the laptop

Putting heavy objects may break some parts of the laptop. This will destroy its hard wares and affect badly the operation of soft wares. It is the best to place nothing on the laptop. Many people have the bad habit of letting their working desk look like a mess and there is no space free. As they choose the laptop to put other things on. Therefore, tidy your working place and puts things in order is a very essential action.

3. Do not let laptops be soaked or wet

Mobile phones, cameras, laptops or other electronic devices should be completely prevented from getting soaked or wet. Water is one of the most dangerous factor can disable the laptop. In unlucky cases, users should immediately detach the laptop's battery and use driers to make it dry. By doing this, damages will be reduced the most.

4. Ways to lengthen battery life

Battery is one of the most important components in a laptop. It is also a component that causes the most inconvenience to the laptop. Battery life usually lasts from 2 to 7 hours. Luckily, there are some hints that can help you to lengthen it such as reduce the lighting level of the screen, activate the standby mode after a certain time when you do not touch the laptop. Nowadays, manufacturers still continue to study and produce better batteries which have longer life and more durable.

5. Use suitable virus software

One of the advantages of laptops is that it is movable and you can take it everywhere. This means that the laptop will be connected to different networks in different places. There may be unsafe network among these ones so the laptop can be affected by viruses or spy wares. There are many ways to help your laptop prevent from being attacked by those dangerous risks like install an effective anti-virus soft ware in the laptop and update it regularly. Among various anti-virus soft wares in the market, users should study and choose the best one which is suitable to the configuration of the laptop. Unsuitable laptop may bring us some inconveniences such as slow speed, taking up much space in the memory, etc

Increase your cable Modem or DSL speed in XP

This tweak is for broadband cable connections on stand alone machines with winXP professional version - might work on Home version also. It will probably work with networked machines as well but I haven't tried it in that configuration. This is for windows XP only.

This tweak assumes that you have let winXP create a connection on install for your cable modem/NIC combination and that your connection has tcp/ip - QoS - file and print sharing - and client for microsoft networks , only, installed. It also assumes that winxp will detect your NIC and has in-box drivers for it. If it doesn't do not try this. In the "My Network Places" properties (right click on the desktop icon and choose properties), highlight the connection then at the menu bar choose "Advanced" then "Advanced Settings". Uncheck the two boxes in the lower half for the bindings for File and Printer sharing and Client for MS networks. Click OK

1. From the windows XP cd in the support directory from the support cab, extract the file netcap.exe and place it in a directory on your hard drive or even in the root of your C:\ drive.

2. Next, open up a command prompt window and change directories to where you put netcap.exe. then type "netcap/?". It will list some commands that are available for netcap and a netmon driver will be installed. At the bottom you will see your adapters. You should see two of them if using a 3Com card. One will be for LAN and the other will be for WAN something or other.

3. Next type "netcap/Remove" . This will remove the netmon driver.

4. Open up control panel / system / dev man and look at your network adapters. You should now see two of them and one will have a yellow ! on it. Right click on the one without the yellow ! and choose uninstall. YES! you are uninstalling your network adapter, continue with the uninstall. Do not restart yet.

5. Check your connection properties to make sure that no connection exists. If you get a wizard just cancel out of it.

6. Now re-start the machine.

7. After re-start go to your connection properties again and you should have a new connection called "Local area connection 2". highlight the connection then at the menu bar choose "Advanced" then "Advanced Settings". Uncheck the two boxes in the lower half for the bindings for File and Printer sharing and Client for MS networks. Click OK.

8. Choose connection properties and uncheck the "QOS" box

9. Re-start the machine

10. After restart enjoy the increased responsiveness of IE, faster page loading, and a connection speed boost.

Is it the end of Google?

The perception among lay users of the Internet is that Google’s omniscience is unparalleled as far as looking up information on the Internet goes. But with Artificial Intelligence fast evolving, inference search engines like True Knowledge and Wolfram Alpha have begun to throw up results that promise to enlighten the user faster and more intuitively.

Google primarily indexes websites and stores millions of keywords in its database, based on which it throws up results. For instance, if a user were to type in ‘Bombay’, Google would return all webpages with the term ‘Bombay’ in them irrespective of what context it was needed in. The information is all pre-fed into the database.

On the contrary...
Inference search engines are programmed to recognise words in a context. They, too, recognise only keywords from the input, but show direct answers to queries rather than direct you to webpages on the Internet.

So if a user were to type in ‘Bombay’, such an engine will recognise Bombay as a metropolis and will accordingly display all of the city’s attributes much as it is pre-programmed to do. Wolfram Alpha comprehensively lists out the population, current temperature, local time and approximate elevation among other things. Simply put, direct answers. Such search engines help keep malware away, as they minimise your exposure to other websites.

Too much information?
In a Google search the kind of answer you get depends on the keywords you type in. And while you may be flooded with websites, it’s important to remember, excess information isn’t necessarily useless. You invariably come across a piece of information browsing through website that you never intended to directly search for, but found useful nonetheless.
If you’re not too clear on what you want, Google helps you navigate through even the most ambiguous searches and get to the answer. Wolfram Alpha isn’t too helpful as it throws up only a select few details.

So is Google still God?
According to journalist Aashray Hariharan, “Inference websites aren’t as informative and I only get specific information on them. I don’t even consider them as competition to Google. ”

Wolfram Alpha currently performs less than one-fifth of the operations a search engine with its kind of technology ideally should. So it doesn’t really do to compare it with Google. The whole point of having inference search engines is to streamline searches, and make them as direct and intuitive for the user.

How to link FB to Gmail And Yahoo!?

If you are a user of Facebook and also have an account on Google (e.g. Gmail) or Yahoo!, there’s good news for you. You can now link your Google account as well as your Yahoo! ID with Facebook. The advantage is that if you are signed into any of these services, you’ll automatically be logged into your Facebook account as well.

How it works
For example, if you are writing an email in Gmail or working on a spreadsheet in Google Docs, you can open the Facebook website in another browser tab and it won’t show you the sign-in screen anymore as it can use the login information from the Google Account where you are already logged in.

To set up this association between Facebook and your Yahoo!/Google accounts, just open the Facebook site and go to Settings > Accounts Settings. Now click the “Add a new linked account” in the drop-down and link all your accounts one by one.
You can link Google, Yahoo!, MySpace and OpenID with your Facebook account.