Google Wave has been launched since quite a while . I'm sure a lot of you have tried it or probably many of you are still waiting for your invites . Google Wave received a lot of attention when it was being released as it promised a totally new way of communication . So here's more on google wave :



I received my invite around a month and ever since i've been trying to figure out google wave . One of the most popular questions asked on the internet is " How do i use google wave?" or "Whats google wave used for? " . Now i dont blame these people for asking such questions simply because at first look , google wave looks like a chat application like google talk . or it could also look like an email application like gmail . Now i guess what suits google wave is a combination of email and chat . Now what i mean by this is that you can send your messages in email format , i.e. with all the editing and paragraphs etc.. so that it looks like an email but only thing is it is in real time . Which means as your typing your message , it is shown on the recipient's wave account letter by letter.


SO i guess one of the best uses of google wave is when you have multiple people on it . I dont think google wave would be useful for just 2 people . If you have like 4-5 people in one wave then it would be VERY useful . Something like a real time google group or yahoo group . You can not only use that wave to communicate , but also share files , photos , music etc .


You even have a lot of gadgets like in gmail to collaborate even more . Like for example the Maps gadget which helps you collaborate on directions ,places etc.



Google wave has quite a lot of features like playback , unfollow,adding tags etc. It will take time for you to get used to it and actually FIND A USE in your environment. Read More Of This Post!

Mozilla Labs have come out with an interesting service called Weave . This seems to be very useful as it allows you to sync all your browsing data with multiple devices . SO if you open a webpage on one computer , it would be shown in the history of the other machine which is synced with the same weave account.

Now apart from syncing , it can be used as a backup . for example : by having a weave account all your browsing history will be backed up in the weave servers tagged to your account . So incase you have formatted your pc , your new mozilla firefox can retrieve back all its history by just logging in to the same weave account .

Now while this part of it seems pretty cool!! Its the critical data like your passwords , bank account details which would also be backed up which is the scary part!!

Now the question is , do you want your browsing history and other such critical data like passwords etc onto another server like the Weave server ? Well , yes it does backup and helps you out when it needs to . But how safe is your data on another server especially when it deals with passwords , bank account details etc. I would rather back them up on my own machine taking a little extra trouble!

Mozilla Weave seems to be an interesting service but i dont know how many would actually use that service for their personal data. Read More Of This Post!

Ever since google voice had acquired gizmo servers , their service with the SIP network has been simply fantastic . Gizmo servers used to be pretty stable at one point of time , but ever since google integrated google voice with gizmo , gizmo servers had been overloaded therefore causing a lot of issues in terms of call quality and connection to the server itself.
But right after google voice took over gizmo the problem seems to have vanished . Gizmo service is now in the best of form and since its coupled with google voice its performing really well . Previously there used to be issues where the SIP adapter used to loose connection with the server as a result of which the SIP adapter never used to ring when the google voice number was dialed . Now that seems to have vanished and the call quality is simply fantastic.

Not only that , since google voice has been so popular , there are a lot of applications already made for google voice so you can route calls right from your mobile phone thus cutting down your cell phone bills . GVDialer is one such application for windows mobile . THere is also an application for blackberry and android devices as well. CLICK HERE to know more on that. Read More Of This Post!

Windows has plenty of applications including a built in one to control your windows desktop using your voice . Right from opening applications to shutting down your machine you could use your voice . Ubuntu Has a similar feature using Gnome Voice Control . Here's how you can set it up :

Step 1 : Go to the Terminal And type sudo apt-get install gnome-voice-control
Step 2 : Once the installation is done , right click on the top bar and click on ADD TO PANEL

Step 3 : Now look for Voice control and click on ADD
Step 4 : Now right click on the voice control icon and click on Start Control and Stop Control accordingly.


Step 5 : Thats it , you should now be able to control your ubuntu desktop using voice

CLICK HERE to view a video on youtube on the working of gnome voice control Read More Of This Post!

A lot of photos go on facebook and we often would like to keep a copy of those pics on our computers . Facebook doesnt give you a direct option to download these pictures .So here is a way you can download these pictures to your computer :

NOTE : You need to be using Mozilla Firefox for this
Step 1 : Go to THIS LINK and install FACEPAD which is an addon to download albums

Step 2 : Now restart firefox
Step 3 : Then go to the album you wish to download and right click on the title and click on Download Album with FACEPAD


Step 4 : THats it , your pictures would now be downloaded to the desktop Read More Of This Post!

Deluge as you all know is a very popular torrent client in ubuntu . It works flawlessly and can copmletely replace utorrent which is used in ubuntu . Now most of us have deluge installed on main machines which are probably headless machines or we probably sometimes wish to remotely access the deluge client say from another machine over the internet using a web browser . Deluge WebUI helps you do just that . So here's how you set it up :
Step 1 : Go to the Terminal and type sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list and add the following two lines

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/deluge-team/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/deluge-team/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

NOTE : Replace Intrepid with your version of ubuntu like jaunty etc.

Step 2 : After you have deluge installed( sudo aptitude install deluge ) , go to the Terminal and type sudo aptitude install deluge-webui
Step 3 : Now to launch the WebUI just type deluge --ui web
Step 4 : Thats it , that would start the WebUI service , to access the webUI service locally just open http://127.0.0,1:8112 . TO launch it via LAN type http://x.x.x.x:8112 where x.x.x.x is your LAN ip , the same applies via the internet for which x.x.x.x will be your WAN IP ( you can get this at www.whatismyip.com ) .
NOTE: TO access via the internet you need to open port 8112 on your router
Here are a few screenshots :





Read More Of This Post!

Google had recently launched their own public DNS servers which would be FREE to use for the world . They promise a much faster and a much more secure service . Being google i'm sure not quality is compromised and you could expect the best service from them .
Although google would be facing stiff competition from OpenDNS which has been the favourite so far as they did provide a much more faster and reliable service , now with google entering into this market it would be interesting to see who provides a better service.
I had switched a few PCS to Google's DNS servers a few days back and i must say although pings show that opendns and google are almost the same in terms of response time ( very few milli second difference ) but when you actually use google's DNS Servers to start opening pages you will notice that google's DNS service to be a little more faster to load pages , this is probably because their DNS service is new and not yet known and used by many people . It would probably slow down a little more after a while.
At this point of time it is not a bad idea to switch to Google DNS servers and give it a shot . For those who know how to do it , Google's DNS servers are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 . Here is a small guide for windows users :

Step 1 : Go to the Control Panel

Step 2 : Click on Network and Internet

Step 3 : Click on View Network Status and Tasks

Step 4 : Click on Change Adapter Settings


Step 5 : Right click on Local Area Connection ( if wireless , right click on Wireless Connection) and click on Properties

Step 6: Click on Internet Protocol Version 4 and click on Properties

Step 7 : Select Use The FOllowing DNS server Addresses and type in 8.8.8.8 as preferred and 8.8.4.4 as alternate DNS servers

Step 8 : Thats it , Click on OK and close all windows

Your pc would now be using Google's DNS Servers for web browsing.

FOR LINUX USERS - CLICK HERE for a tutorial , just replace 208.67.222.222 with 8.8.8.8 and 208.67.220.220 with 8.8.4.4 Read More Of This Post!

Google Chrome 0S had been spoken about by google a few days ago and a compilation of google chrome OS has been made by gdgt.com . Its in the vmware format , so you could use VMWARE to actually run google chrome OS within windows or ubuntu .

Google Chrome OS as you all know is the latest plunge by google into the OS market . This OS primarily focuses on the netbook market which is an upcoming technology . Although some say its now a direct competition with windows , some disagree as windows does not focus primarily on the netbook market they are mostly into the desktops and laptops market which chrome OS isnt focusing on at this point of time .
Google Chrome OS promises the fastest boot time which is less than 10 seconds and promotes storing most of the data on the internet than on the machine therefore this would require very minimum system requirements .

So if you would like to know what google chrome OS would end up being like , you could definitely give this compilation of google chrome OS a shot . This has been compiled by gdgt.com , you could CLICK HERE to go to the download link . You would need to register on their site to download , but that barely takes any time .
For all google fans , i think its surely worth the download if you are eager to know what it looks like!! Read More Of This Post!

Microsoft has recently launched the public beta of Office 2010 . Its now available to download from their homepage . The beta version lasts till october 2010 which is almsot a year and you dont have to pay for it at all . There are no limitations whatsoever . So its not a bad idea to actually grab a copy of office 2010 and use it for FREE till october 2010 . So here's more on this :

Remember this is just a beta version of office 2010 , so make sure while installing , you choose the CUSTOM install instead of the UPGRADE install and choose to KEEP EXISTING VERSIONS OF OFFICE so you can always use the previous version of office you already have installed ( if you do ) . So here are the steps to follow to get office 2010 on your pc :
Step 1 : Go to THIS Page and click on GET OFFICE 2010 BETA

Step 2 : Now you would need to fill in some information on this page (NOTE : You can use your HOTMAIL account for signing in )


Step 3 : Click on Proceed and you will be given your MAK key which you need to have a registered office 2010 so that it would work till october 2010

Step 4 : Now at this page , select the language and the version of office 2010 you want to download - 32bit or 64 bit


Step 5 : Click on the Download now button and allow it to download
Step 6 : Now launch the EXE file you just downloaded and follow the instructions to install

Step 7 : You now need to activate your copy , do this by launching office 2010 and going to File->Help and then click on Change Product Key



Step 8 : Insert the MAK key you got in step 3 and once done with registering , you are good to go!!



OFFICE 2010 seems to be very appealing mainly due to its interface , although it does seem to slow down the system a bit , even the installation procedure took quite a while!! Read More Of This Post!

One of the missing things in ubuntu which softwares like winamp in windows have is the option to enqueue a media file . This can be done by a simple procedure allowing you to enqueue a media file in totem using ubuntu . So here's how you do it :

Step 1 : Go to the Terminal(Applications->Accessories->Terminal) and then type sudo apt-get install nautilus-actions
Step 2 : Go to System->preferences->nautilus actions configuration

Step 3 : Now click on the ADD button .

Step 4 : You would see a page like this
Step 5 : Now enter all the fields as shown , then click on add under profiles
Step 6 : Now enter all the fields as shown in the screenshots for the various tabs



Step 7 : Thats it , now restart your machine and the next time you right click on a media file you can click on enqueue in totem . Read More Of This Post!