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[Tip] Get Imagery Update Alerts For Your Favorite Places In Google Maps And Google Earth

January 31, 2011 by bharath

We all love to follow our favorite places our hometown, our college, places where we used to play with our friends etc. on Google Earth and Google Maps. But we don’t really know when the imagery in these applications gets updated. Wouldn’t it be good if we get notified as and when there is an update in the imagery? Google has just done that! They have released a new app, called “Follow Your World” which lets you track of your favorite places in Google Maps and Google Earth and lets you notify any physical changes in your corresponding subscriptions.

To get started, visit the Follow Your World homepage, set your location for which you want to get imagery update (you can manually search and locate it or you can do it through longitude and latitude values). Scroll down and you will see your email address to which these updates will be delivered, check the details and click the “Submit” button when you are done. You will receive email whenever there is a physical change in the imagery of the places that you have subscribed. As Google Maps and Google Earth make use of the same imagery, you can then see the changes in both the products.

Chrome Gmail Desktop Notifications For Email And Chat Messages

January 28, 2011 by bharath

gmail desktop notifications sample

We always want to get notified for new emails (read Gmail), right? Probably because we can’t always stay online or even if we are online, we just can’t keep the Gmail window open and keep looking at it. That’s why there are so many services out there offering these kind of email alerts (both offline and online). We had earlier covered how you can get free Gmail SMS alerts whenever a new email arrives. When you are online you can just install one of those widely available desktop notification application to get alerted for new emails and chat messages.
But, wait! Google has listened to us, Google has recently integrated the desktop notifications for email and chat conversations into Gmail. But the catch? You should use Google Chrome to make this thing work. The Gmail desktop notifications is based on HTML5 and even though the most of the modern browsers support HTML5, it’s just available for Chrome! But as a Gmail fan, I would like to see this feature extended to other browsers in near future. Okay, lets get into the details about how to enable the desktop notifications in Gmail if you are using Google Chrome.

1. Login to your Gmail using Google Chrome.

2. Click on the Settings link found towards the top right corner of your inbox.

3. Under the General tab, locate the settings for “Desktop Notifications”.

4. Choose the right options for you. You can get notifications for both chat messages as well as usual email messages or for just important mails.

5. Click the Save Changes button once you are done.

Gmail desktop email alert

That’s it! You will get the notifications for new emails or chat messages like the one shown above. In case, if you want to turn these desktop notifications off for your Gmail account, select the respective options in the step 4. Note that desktop notifications isn’t available for Google Apps users yet.

[via] Official Gmail blog

[Tip] Enable Secure “HTTPS” In Facebook

January 28, 2011January 26, 2011 by bharath

Facebook has just announced the availability of HTTPS/SSL all the time on the Facebook. If you enable HTTPS mode, all the data beginning from the password you type at the login page would be encrypted when it travels between the browser and the Facebook server, offering a more sophisticated security for your stay on Facebook. HTTPS mode isn’t new, you might have seen this while doing any transactions on the internet. A similar HTTPS/SSL mode is also optional on Gmail and Hotmail.

# Who Should Consider HTTPS Secure Mode For Facebook?

Facebook suggests that if you frequently use your account at public internet access enabled places coffee shops, restaurants, airports, libraries and schools etc.

# How To Enable The HTTPS Mode In Facebook?

Open your account settings page and click on the “Account Security” section. You will find the “Secure Browsing (https)” option and check against “Browser Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible” and click Save.

Can’t find the option in your account? You may have to wait! Facebook will rollout the option for all the users in the coming weeks starting from today.

When you enable the HTTPS mode and log back into the Facebook, you will see this in the address bar.

# What Are The Downsides?

While you press hard for enabling more secure HTTPS mode, you might have to compromise on the page load speeds part. Facebook alerts users that enabling encryptions mode means that pages take longer than usual time to load. Also many third-party applications are currently not supported in HTTPS mode.

# Social Authentication

Besides this, Facebook has one more interesting feature announcement about using Social authentication. Facebook is now testing this feature which now lets users to authenticate by using pictures of their friends (like the one shown in the screenshot):

[Via] The Facebook Blog

Search Gmail Labs Features As You Type

January 21, 2011 by bharath

Gmail is great, and so are its labs features that would come handy for most of the Gmail users. To enable a particular lab feature in Gmail, users just had to go to the “Labs” tab under the settings page and choose the required lab feature from the list. But over the time, what happened was a huge in the number of such labs features added to the Gmail. As such now there are more than 50 labs features available under Gmail Labs section. Finding and selecting the item needed from them is just getting troublesome for few users like. Agree that there is always the built-in search feature (using CTRL + F) feature available in all the browsers to narrow down your search, it would have been better had Google, the giant search engine had added a small search engine to their Labs section to avoid scrolling. Gmail engineers have now responded quick enough to add not just a search feature but with Google Instant-like “search-as-you-type” feature.

If you haven’t really figured it out, go try it and enable this Google HD Video chat option from the Gmail Labs.

[Tip] Voice Search For Google Chrome

January 8, 2011 by bharath

Voice Search for Google Chrome is a useful extension that lets you to quickly search the web using your voice input.

Google Voice search feature is nothing new, Google has been offering this feature for various Android, iOS and other smartphones for a while but I don’t why they haven’t really tried getting this handy feature for PC users. The extension of course is not built by Google. You need to have a built-in or an external microphone to use this feature. The extension comes with preloaded search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, WikiPedia, Wolfram|Alpha, DuckDuckGo, YouTube etc. The extension also integrates a speech button into all the HTML5 search input boxes. Just enable your microphone say a word like for instance “Sony Ericsson Arc” just add the search engine name before your query, like “Google Sony Ericsson Arc” to search in Google.

This is experimental feature and the voice input may not be accurate. Also, English is the only supported language for now. The extension is also missing a keyboard shortcut to activate the voice search. Though the extension is not so impressive but it is a good start, we hope Google comes out with an official app for Chrome, until then try using this.

Install Voice Search for Google Chrome [from Google Chrome web store]

Track Stolen Laptops With Quick Heal Free Laptop Tracker Service

January 7, 2011 by bharath

Track stolen laptops with Quick Heal laptop tracker

Do you own a laptop? Do you worry about its security? Here is a good news for you! Quick Heal Technologies has launched a free laptop tracker service (available in India only). This is a very good initiative from the PC security software maker Quick Heal, I would say.

The good thing about this free service is that anyone can use this service free of cost irrespective of whether they use Quick Heal software or not. But if you are a Quick Heal user, it just gets better and much easier. The tracking service makes use of the MAC IDs of the laptops to locate them with IP address and it has also made it easier for law enforcement authorities to check if the laptops they found are on the reported stolen laptops list.

How To Use Laptop Tracker Service:

The prerequisite for using the service is you must have your MAC address for at least one of your various network cards. For starters, MAC address is [Quote from Wikipedia]:

A Media Access Control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier assigned to network interfaces for communications on the physical network segment.

We had already covered a detailed guide to find the MAC address of your computer’s NIC(Network Interface Card). Please go through it and note down MAC addresses for all of your network cards (LAN, Wireless, Bluetooth etc.) and carefully note down and store them for future use.

1. Go to www.trackmylaptop.net

>> If you are already a user of Quick Heal anti-virus or Internet Security suites, just register yourself for the laptop tracker service by providing the Quick Heal product key and other details as required. The advantage for the Quick Heal users here is that they don’t need to provide the MAC ID manually. The MAC IDs will be automatically obtained and stored in the database during Quick Heal activation or update.

>> If you are a non Quick Heal user and have your MAC ID of your stolen or lost laptop with you, go to this page and fill-in the required details and click “Register Now”. Quick Heal will regularly search through its database and will notify you in case it finds a match.

If your laptop was stolen, and if you’ve got the MAC ID of it, you can register your MAC ID with this free tracker service and hope that the your stolen laptop gets connected to internet one day or the other. One more advantage of using this service is that you can also get to know whether a used laptop that you are planning to purchase is a stolen one.

Watch CES 2011 Live Online

January 6, 2011 by bharath

The 2011 international Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2011) is scheduled for January 6 through January 9, 2011. With the kickoff just few hours away, the gadget lovers would be gearing up to watch the event live (live on CBS on TV as well as on CBS radio station in association with CNET). All the new and upcoming innovative gadgets that are slated for release this year will feature in this biggest annual tech show. CES 2011 is going to be crucial for Android as almost all the manufacturers (HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola) are coming up with tablets and smartphones based on Android OS. The show is not just about tablets, smartphones and notebooks there are digital cameras, camcorders, gaming devices, TVs, and lots more to watch out for. If you are not able to make it to Las Vegas Convention Center (that’s where the event is happening) or not at home to watch the updates on TV, don’t worry, we have some links here for you to watch the CES 2011 proceeding online.

Live Streaming And Updates Links:

>> Watch CES 2011 updates on CNET Live

>> Stickam CES 2011 live stream:

>> Microsoft has a dedicated page for covering the Steve Ballmer keynotes and other CES 2011 updates.

>> Skype press conference at CES’11 (by Tony Bates, CEO)

>> Ford Keynote live stream (by Alan Mulally, CEO)

>> Samsung keynote live show

For live streaming of keynotes of other biggies like Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba etc. head over to ustream.tv, you might see their live broadcast videos there.

Other coverage:

Engadget

Gizmodo

UbderGizmo

www.cesweb.org (official website)

Twitter tags: #CES2011, #CES

Mobile updates: m.cnet.com

[Tip] Disable ‘Recently Closed Tabs’ In Firefox

December 25, 2010 by bharath

Firefox recently closed tabs

Firefox lets users to quickly reopen few of the recently closed tabs for quicker access. Even though the users can go to the history and access all of the webpages that were accessed or closed previously, the “Recently Closed Tabs” that appears under the “History” menu item is surely a timesaver for many of us. But yes, there are people who don’t like this feature. You can always configure Firefox to not to remember any of your recently closed tabs or manually configure it to remember certain number of the recently closed tabs. Here is what you have to do:

1. Type about:config in the address bar and hit enter.

2. A warnings message will be shown, accept that you would be careful while working the about:config entries.

about:config firefox warning

3. In the “Filter” filed, type the following text code and look for an entry which exactly matches with it.

browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo

About:config settings in Firefox

4. Double click on the entry. By default it will hold a value “10”, meaning that it will remember and show the last ten recently closed tabs. Here we want none. So change the value from 10 to 0.

Change number of tabs closed undo setting

That is it! Firefox will no longer remember your recently closed tabs. If you have entered any other non-zero value, Firefox will let you see that many number of the most recently closed tabs.

Make Phone Calls From Gmail For Free All Through 2011

December 21, 2010 by bharath

If you are located in US and Canada, Google has some very good news for you. You can now make free phone calls to all your pals till the end of 2011. When this feature was launched initially in August 2010, Google said that it would offer free phone calls service to the U.S. and Canada till the rest of 2010. According to a recent blog post at Official Gmail blog, the free service has been extended through 2011.

gmail phone call free

To get started with calling phone numbers in Gmail, get the Gmail voice and video chat plugin click on the “Call Phone” that appears at the top of your chat list and you will see the dial pad. You can either dial the phone number or enter a contact name to start a voice phone call. If you have a Google Voice phone number, you can even display it as the outbound caller ID and receive calls made to this number inside Gmail as well. It may not be as good as other leading VOIP solutions like Skype but still a decent one.While calls to the U.S. and Canada are free, calls to phones outside the United States are charged as per the following rates list.

gmail phone call rates

For more information, go visit gmail.com/call.

[Tip] Restore Accidentally Deleted Contacts In Gmail

December 15, 2010December 15, 2010 by bharath

Have you accidentally deleted any contact in Gmail while syncing the contacts between various devices that you possess? Have you ever mistakenly deleted a wrong contact that had almost similar name to the contact that you wished to delete?

Yes, these sorts of things do happen now and then! But Gmail think-tank seems to be wary of these accidental deletions that happen to users like us. Gmail has announced highly useful “Restore Contacts” feature that lets you quickly recover contacts that you had previously deleted. With this, you can restore any deleted contact information deleted from your Gmail account in the past 30 days.

How To Use?

To use “Restore Contacts” feature in Gmail,

1. Login to your Gmail account.

2. Go to the Contacts page inside your Gmail.

3. Click the “More Actions..” drop-down button and choose “Restore Contacts”.

restore contacts link under more actions in gmail

4. In the new “Restore Contacts” dialog box, choose the time stamp to where you want to restore your contacts. You can restore the contacts to any point within the past 30 days.

Restore contacts in gmail

When you restore the contacts to an earlier time frame, all the contacts added since then will be deleted. All the contacts that you had deleted will be back.

[Via] Official Gmail blog