Adobe Photoshop CS 2 released

Can't wait to start using the new features of the CS 2 version!

Star Wars Revelations

"Panic Struck Productions have just released their first Star Wars movie, 'Revelations.' The movie has been produced on a not-for profit basis by a team of volunteers and is available for free download. Despite its humble origins, the production appears extraordinarily professional. The film is over 40 minutes long, complete with space battles and lightsaber fights -- need I say more? See more details at the official site, or jump straight to the download mirrors." (The dvd artwork and soundtrack can be downloaded gratis from their official website.)

Partner Pack for Windows XP

Microsoft has released yet another free goodie pack for Windows XP users under their Windows XP Reloaded scheme (to compensate for the lateness of Longhorn, the next version of Windows that has been delayed twice until Q2 2006).

Included in this pack are ... The Partner Pack applications can be downloaded after your computer has been updated. Click on the more information button to learn more about the applications.
Play Super Slyder™ Serpentine™ Share PhotoSite™ Microsoft Time Zone Protect Computer Associates eTrust™		Explore Google Deskbar™ Desktop Media Gallery™ Onfolio Express Do More Post-it® Software Notes PayPal Payment Wizard Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager

Google's My Search History (Beta)

Don't take this personally, but Google wants your Web search history.

A new feature offered by the Internet search leader invites people to save and view all the Web searches they conduct at Google.

Launched in trial form Wednesday, Google's "my search history" is designed as a kind of Internet memory aid, giving people new ways to find information they previously saw online and to repeat previous searches.

The search history is an optional feature that requires people to sign in, so Google can store their searching histories online and make them available later from any computer where they might sign in. People who already have an e-mail address from Google's Gmail site or have registered at its Google Groups site can use those log-ins; anyone can also sign up for a new account (www.google.com/searchhistory).

This history feature is surprisingly detailed, showing not only what terms you entered into Google's search box before, but also which matching Web sites you clicked on, along with date and time stamps. A calendar view lets you browse through previous searches chronologically as well.

While Google tracks your searches whenever you are signed in, you can ask it to avert its gaze temporarily by clicking a "pause" button. You can also sign out entirely to stop all recording activity until you sign back in. A "remove items" button will erase all or some of your prior searches.

Google is far from the first Internet service to save people's searches, though it offers a few more choices with its implementation. Yahoo, America Online, Ask Jeeves and Amazon.com's A9.com also offer search history services.

All provide a basic ability to scan through prior search histories while people are signed in, allowing them to limit a new search for, say, "cave men" to all the previous pages Google has shown them in response to prior queries.

(Posted below are some screenshots I took of the new Beta service)

Welcome to Google's My Search History (Beta) 

When signed into Google Search History Beta... 

The new look whenever you visit Google.com 

New and cool Firefox extensions

1) Adsense Notifer

Adsense Notifier simply shows your Google adsense stats on the status bar and updates the stats automatically. This is wonderful for anyone with OCD who needs to check their stats every three seconds to see if they have gotten any more clicks :-p

Adsense Notifier is highly configurable and should be useful for everyone that uses adsense.

2) Bork Bork Bork!

In a bit of humorous tit-for-tat, Opera Software has released a version of its browser that automatically translates the MSN home page into text only The Swedish Chef would love.The "Bork Bork Bork!" extension Transforms all page loads to Bork talk like in the Muppets while enabled.

2) BBCodeXtra

BBCodeXtra is an extension, compatible with Mozilla FireFox and Mozilla Suite, which adds to the context menu new commands to insert BBCode/Html/XHtml codes in an easy and fast way. BBCodeXtra suits well with all forum types, for example: * phpBB * Invision * VBullettin This extension can really simplify your life with all forums that use BBCode or Html codes when posting new messages.

Firefox 1.0.3 Released, Plugs Recent Security Holes

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.3 has just been released. A minor update, this version fixes a few security holes and some other bugs. If you're currently using Firefox 1.0.x, you want to install this release. Firefox 1.0.3 is a "branch build" serving as an interim update to Firefox 1.0. It addresses critical security and performance issues that resulted after the release of Firefox 1.0.

Google adds 13 different languages to GMail Interface

While Google just entered the local searching market through its SMS based searching capabilities, it also somewhere down the line added support for 13 different languages for their GMail Webmail Services. As a result, the GMail interface now supports 13 languages. Unfortunately, the list still ignores Hindi for maybe logistically complicated reasons.

The Google’s new feature page gives out instructions on how to change the relevant setting in the backend. There is a new language option added in the settings providing this enhanced functionality. The newly supported languages are Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and UK English.

The language selection however does not change the way messages are sent and received. There is another warning from the search engine giant. Some of the functionalities available in the English version are not made available from other language selections. They are still working on perfecting this transformation and adding more languages. And knowing Google, support for the rarest of languages might not be far off!

Firefox share in Europe

The French company Xiti Monitor just published an updated and more complete Firefox market share analysis for Europe. The numbers are amazingly high for some countries:

* Finland: 22.62%
* Germany: 21.56%
* Czech Republic: 19.02%
* Poland: 14.93%
* Sweden: 14.41%
* Switzerland: 13.89%
* Austria: 12.80%
* France: 12.45%
* Luxemburg: 11.57%
* Romania:10.69%
* U.K.: 10.66%
* Belgium: 10.01%

By popular demand, here is the picture (source: Xiti):


More details on http://www.xitimonitor.com/etudes/equipement5.asp (in French, but I guess people can read the figures and the map in any language, right? ;-) Please note that these numbers where gathered on a Sunday (March 27th). Firefox usage on week-ends is usually higher than during week days, with a 2 to 3 points margin.

Microsoft launches final version of MSN Messenger 7

It has taken the world’s largest software company quite sometime to release the final version of their flagship instant messaging client. After four months of intense testing, Microsoft has finally released MSN Messenger 7 as a final release. The company has done its homework well and integrated many of their services together to release this latest version.

MSN Messenger 7 brings to its users full-screen video and PC-to-PC audio in addition to integration with MSN Spaces and MSN Search. In addition, to enhance their MSN Video Conversations, the company has joined hands with tech giants Logitech who would be providing them with the technology.

Microsoft has also brought in SMS text messaging to this updated version. This let the messenger users contact other people on their mobile phones using MSN Messenger 7. Messenger users get to add new friends using their mobile numbers. A test message to a mobile phone in the United States from MSN Messenger 7 in India worked fine.

MSN Messenger 7 is also now somewhat integrated with Microsoft’s own Windows Media Player and Apple iTunes application and displays the current song being played on these applications. Winamp is however missing from this list of supported applications. MSN Winks is of course present as in the beta versions along with the paid content from services like American Greetings, Sprite, and Adidas.

User would not definitely like the addition of paid services and advertisements on the chat windows of the applications. Nevertheless, this is how the company has decided to extract revenues from this otherwise resource intensive online service. Especially considering the fact that Microsoft is serving around 155 million users with 2 billion instant messages transmitting around every day.

Gmail's Infinity + 1 storage coming to an end?

According to pjh,

The ever-going-counter will stop on around April 9th, with an amount of storage equalling 2075 MB(unless Google decides to update the page before then…). You can find this out by looking at the JavaScript on the page.

Happy 1st Birthday Gmail!

from Gmail.com A Google approach to math.

On the eve of Gmail's one-year birthday, our engineers were toiling away furiously. Notes scribbled all over the walls. Complex calculations on napkins and empty pizza boxes. Millions of M&Ms. The result?... starting today, we're beginning the roll-out of their new and top secret Infinity+1 storage plan. The key features are: Write, don't worry. You want to stop caring about storage. We want to keep giving you more. Today, and beyond. The gift that keeps on giving. 2 gigabytes of storage (and counting) for every user. No complicated equations. No tough algorithms. Just this one graph:

PLUS, Gmail's not in the plains anymore
Fonts, bullets and highlighting, oh my! Gmail now offers rich text formatting. And over 60 colors of the rainbow. Discover a land of more than just black and white. Learn more