~TECH-BYTES~

I am very sorry readers for not posting for quite a long time as i was busy with my final exams{result is out and i got 8.3 sgpa} and project and now training… but now i’ll try to post regularly…

Here are some of the recent top technical stories….

Google’s New Favicon

This is one of the smaller changes to Google – at least if measured in pixels! Google changed their “Favicon.ico”, the 16×16 image file that usually shows in the browser address bar or in bookmarks. The old icon used a square with red, green and blue edges, wrapping an upper-case “G”. The new logo is a bit more open, showing just the lower-case blue “g” from the Google logo, without borders, and a bit of shadow.

Google Sites Available Without Google Apps

Now you can use Google Sites without having a domain. “A few months ago we launched Google Sites exclusively as part of Google Apps for companies and organizations that wanted to use the service on their own domains. Now we’ve made it easy for anyone to set up a website to share all types of information — team projects, company intranets, community groups, classrooms, clubs, family updates, you name it — in one place, for a few people, a group or the world,” says Andrew Zaeske on the Google Blog.

Internet Explorer 8 Coming in August

Microsoft said yesterday it is planning on releasing yet another test version (Beta 2) of its Internet Explorer 8 (IE Web browser in August.
In March this year, the company released IE 8 Beta 1 offering Web developers/designers a preview of the latest iteration of its popular Web browser.

orkut Themes

When orkut doesn’t borrow features from Facebook, it gets inspired by other Google services. This time, orkut added themes, but not all the users can see the new option. The themes should be familiar, since most of them were created for iGoogle. When you select a theme, only you and your friends can see it in your profile page.
Will Gmail Get Themes?
A source is telling me that Gmail will get themes – custom layouts to personalize Google’s web mail client. According to the source, the launch of this may happen within the next months. There will be 12 themes to pick from, according to this information, like a black-and-green “terminal” view, as well as a flowery view.

Orkut Adds Photo Tagging feature

Orkut have just added a photo tagging feature. This allows you to tag the photos of other users in your profile or other’s profile. The tagged photos will then be visible in the profile page next to the messages field.

Cool Features in Firefox 3

If you decide to upgrade from Firefox 2 to the first release candidate of Firefox 3, you’ll notice an improved performance, less memory leaks, a revamped interface and some very interesting new features:* select discontinuous text - press Ctrl while selecting different blocks of text, like you can do in Microsoft Office

Finally Microsoft has released SP3 for your Windows Xp and this time just run your windows update
to get this sp3 update which promises speed boost and various other security features found in Vista.

If you’re a Vista user you’re also in luck, since Microsoft has restarted its Vista SP1 distribution after some compatibility problems with Microsoft Dynamics RMS.

You know, we should have paid a little closer attention to Microsoft’s decision yesterday to extend Windows XP sales to “June 2010 or one year after the general availability of Windows 7″ — if the company was really planning on shipping Windows 7 in 2010, that first date doesn’t make a lot of sense unless the plan is to ship Windows 7 much, much earlier. And hey — what’s Bill Gates doing telling investors this afternoon that Windows 7 will come “in the next year” and that he’s “super-enthused” about it? As far as we know, the official Windows 7 timeline hasn’t changed, so Bill might just talking about beta versions, but something’s clearly up Windows-wise in Redmond — perhaps Vista’s wow is not long for this now.

[source]

No, Microsoft hasn’t suddenly transformed its 30-inch, multi-touch Surface into a big-ass cellphone. It has, however, chosen AT&T to launch the world’s first Surface into retail. Shoppers in New York, Atlanta, San Antonio, and San Francisco will be treated to what amounts to the novelty (at least initially) of learning about a device (Samsung BlackJack II, pictured) by simply placing it atop the Surface. They’ll also have the ability to explore interactive coverage maps. Later, users will be able to drag ringtones, graphics and video and drop it into “the phones.” Note their use of “the” and not “your” phone in the press release. Nevertheless, we’re happy to see Microsoft get the technology out the door on its long march towards consumerdom.

[source]

After a week full of Red Bulls, Fruit by the Foot and dreams of In-N-Out, the mighty Sony VAIO loaded with Linux stood as the only machine unhacked by the end of the PWN 2 OWN hacking contest at CanSecWest.

In this competition there were 3 laptops, with different OS’s offered for being hacked into. These included an Apple Macbook Air running OS X 10.5.2, a Sony Vaio VGN-TZ37CN running Ubuntu 7.10 and a Fujitsu U810 running Vista Ultimate SP1. Anyone who could successfully hack or exploit these machines would win a $10,000 price from famous security company Tipping Point.

the MacBook Air on display was seized in two minutes by the presumably well prepared Charlie Miller, and after two full days of work, Shane Macaulay and a few of his 1337 associates managed to crack the Vista rig on Friday. Reportedly, Shane and his pals weren’t expecting to do battle with the extra protected SP1 version of Vista, and while the exact loophole won’t be divulged, we are told that it was a cross-platform bug that “took advantage of Java to circumvent Vista’s security.” In the end, it was reported that some folks on hand had discovered bugs in the Linux OS, but many of them “didn’t want to put the work into developing the exploit code that would be required to win the contest.”