What? How? Who? Etc about the Google Chrome OS in Brief

1. Will be Open Source.
2. Speed, Simplicity, and Security are the pillars of Chrome OS
3. Cloud based OS, which means all your data will be stored online not on the hardisk.
4. Here is the funny part it will be a paid ?
5. Support the latest Web Standards HTML 5 CSS 3.0 etc
6. Not meant to be your Primary OS.
7. Can be run in a Virtual Machine.
8. Main targets are netbooks, since the use of netbooks have been growing at an exponential rate.
9. 7 Second boot time. Everything is flash-memory-based–no hard drive.
10. Will run only web applications no native applications.
11. Chrome OS looks very much like Chrome browser

Here is a video of a prototype of the Chrome OS

What is the Google Chrome OS Video In Brief?

Watch this video which explains it in brief. After the video I have listed out all the technical details.

Related posts:

1. Internet Explorer 9 and SilverLight 4 Announced Breaking News
2. Uninstall Google Gears From Mac OS X, Windows, Linux
3. Google Updater Service Uninstall, Disable Or Configure The Complete Guide
4. Microsoft’s Secret Run Office 2007 in any Browser And Kill Google Docs, Zoho
5. OpenSocial, OpenBox, OpenMedia What the Hells Going On?

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Catergories: Google, Open Source, Software, Technology Tags:

First of all lets see how Google updater gets install, this will help in preventing you from getting the update service running in the background. If you are using any of the Google prodcuts, like Google Desktop, Google gears, Google Talk, Google Pack and Google Earth the updater gets installed and starts running in the background silently.

Scroll down if you are looking for the Mac OS X Guide

Google Updater Service on Windows 7, Vista & XP

For people using windows you can hit the CNTRL + ALT + DEL keys to bring up the task manager to see if the Google Update program is running in the background or not.

Now there are a couple of things you might want to do, completely get rid of the Google update which can cause so programs to malfunction or Configure google updater to check the internet at a specified time.

Completly Get rid Of Google Updater Service.

There are a couple of different way you can remove the Google Updater. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

Uninstall from the Start Menu

1. Go to the Start menu > Programs > Google Updater > Uninstall Google Updater.
2. Restart your computer after you uninstall.

Uninstall from the Control Panel

1. Click the Start menu on your computer taskbar.
2. Select Control Panel.
3. Double-click Add or Remove Programs (on XP) or Programs and Features (on Vista).
4. Select Google Updater in the list of programs.
5. Click Remove.
6. Restart your computer after you uninstall.

Uninstall from the command line (advanced)

1. Click the Start menu on your computer taskbar.
2. Select Run.
3. Enter cmd to open a command prompt.
4. Type cd C:\Program Files\Google\Google Updater to change directories.
5. Type GoogleUpdater.exe -uninstall to uninstall.
6. Restart your computer after you uninstall.

If the Above Methods don’t work you can try the following options.
Disabling the Google Updater from startup List

1. Click on Start Button then in the Run box, type in msconfig in the Open field and click OK or press the Enter key.
2. The System Configuration Utility will open up. On the top you’ll a couple of tabs, select the Startup tab. Go down to the GoogleUpdate startup item and deselect it.
3. Restart the computer.

Disabling the Google Updater service

1. Click on Start Button then in the Run box, type in services.msc in the Open field and click OK or press the Enter key.
2. You will see a huge list of Services, scroll down to find the GoogleUpdate Service. Double click on it to open the Properties box (or right click and select Properties). The Startup Type drop-down will list three options, select Disabled.
3. Click on Apply and OK.

Customizing the Updater: Software update preferences

The Google Updater lets you choose if and how you’re notified about updates for software you’ve installed through Google Pack. To set your preferences for Pack software updates, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Start menu > Programs > Google Updater > Google Updater.
2. Click the Preferences tab.
3. Click Advanced options.
4. In the ‘Updates’ section, select one of the following options:
   • ‘Automatically update software’: The Updater will silently keep your software up-to-date without any prompts or notifications. Occasionally, an issue may need your attention, in which case you’ll be notified.
   • ‘Let me check for updates myself’: The Updater won’t send you any update notifcations and your software won’t be updated automatically. To see a list of available updates, click the Updates tab at any time.
5. Once you’ve made your selection, click Save Preferences.

Configure Google Update using Registry.

If your operating doesn’t include a policy editor (Windows XP Home, Windows Vista Home), edit the Registry directly. Just create the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Update

and add two DWORD values:

AutoUpdateCheckPeriodMinutes – auto-update check interval (for example: 1440 to check for updates once a day)

DisableAutoUpdateChecksCheckboxValue – 1, if you want to disable the auto-updater; 0, if you want to enable it.

Configure Google Update using the Group Policy.

Change the default update check period to once per week or disable it.
Step 1. Download the Administrative Template provided by Google Google Updater Group Policy Template

Step 2. Launch Group Policy Editor

• Navigate to Start > Run: gpedit.msc

Step 3. Importing Google Update ADM template.

• Navigate to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates
• Right-click Administrative Templates, and select Add/Remove Templates
  Google Updater Configure Group Policy
• Add the GoogleUpdate.adm template via the dialog.
• Once complete, a Google folder will appear under ‘Administrative Templates’ if it’s not there already.

Step 4. Set the update check period.

• Navigate to Administrative Templates > Google > Google Update > Preferences.
  Google Updater Configure Group Policy
• Modify the Auto-update check period override property as shown or mark is a Disabled.
  Google Updater Configure Group Policy

If you want Disable Individual Google products. The Example below uses Google Chrome auto-updates as an Example.

Follow steps 1 and 2 in the first example if you haven’t imported the GoogleUpdate.adm template. Change the update policy override for Google Chrome:

• Navigate to Administrative Templates > Google > Google Update > Applications > Google Chrome.
  Disable Google Chrome
• Modify the Update policy override property as shown.
  Disable Google Chrome

Mac OS X GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent and GoogleSoftwareUpdateDaemon

Remove GoogleSoftwareUpdateDaemon from the Mac OS X

1. Uninstall any Google programs you currently have installed on your computer.
   Failing to uninstall your Google applications may cause these applications to work improperly and, in many cases, Google Software Update will be reinstalled after a few hours.
2. Open a Terminal window by going to Applications > Utilities in Finder.
3. Google Software Update can be uninstalled for a specific user or for your whole system. Paste one of the following commands in Terminal:
   • Uninstall for a specific user:Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/install.py –uninstall
   • Uninstall for the whole system: (needs root access)sudo /Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/install.py –uninstall
4. After pasting the command, press Enter on your keyboard.

Google Software Update should now be uninstalled

Configure Google Updater for the Mac OS X

Update Frequency
To change how frequently Google Software Update checks for updates, execute the following in the Terminal application:

$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval

where is the elapsed time in seconds between update checks.

To disable Google Software Update from checking for updates, execute the following in the Terminal application:

$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 0

Manual Updates
Google Software Update also provides a way to manually update all Google software on a user’s Mac. Here’s how:

1. In Finder, select Go > Go to Folder.
2. In the window that appears, enter one of the following locations. It’s expected that one of these folders won’t be found:
   • /Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/
   • ~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/
3. In the folder that opens, double click the file named ‘CheckForUpdatesNow.command’.

Terminal will open to run the file. When you see the message ‘[Process completed]‘ you can close Terminal. Once this is done, your Google programs will be up to date.

Related posts:

1. Uninstall Google Gears From Mac OS X, Windows, Linux
2. How to Hide or Remove A Installed Program from Add Remove
3. How To Remove SpyWare, AdWare Clean and Fix Windows
4. How To Upgrade and Update WordPress A Simple Guide
5. Myspace Hack : Profile url And MySpace Email

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Catergories: Google, Software, Technology Tags: Guide, How To, Update

Internet Explorer 9 Whats new?

Increased JavaScript Performance

The latest builds of Internet Explorer 9 shows that the performance is comparable to that of FireFox 3.6 and Chrome 4 and the latest Web Kit Nightly build. If true this is a huge improvement.

Internet Explorer 9 JavaScript Performance

Standards Support CSS 3.0 and HTML 5

What does that mean? In plain english it means support for rounded corners, text shadows, Box shadows, video support etc without the need for using images or scripts. Thought the latest ACID 3 test for Internet Explorer 9 doesn’t seem to be that great.

Acid 3

Rounded Corners

CSS Selectors

Uses Graphics hardware acceleration for rendering

We’re changing IE to use the DirectX family of Windows APIs to enable many advances for web developers. The starting point is moving all graphics and text rendering from the CPU to the graphics card using Direct2D and DirectWrite. Graphics hardware acceleration means that rich, graphically intensive sites can render faster while using less CPU. Now, web developers can take advantage of the hardware ecosystem’s advances in graphics while they continue to author sites with the same interoperable standards patterns they’re used to.

In addition to better performance, this technology shift also increases font quality and readability with sub-pixel positioning

Rendering of font normally

96 point Gabriola on a Lenovo X61 ThinkPad at 100% Zoom using GDI (note jaggies)

Rendering of font using Graphic card hardware

96 point Gabriola on a Lenovo X61 ThinkPad at 100% Zoom: Direct2D (without jaggies)

SilverLight 4 Whats new?

Empowering richer, more interactive experiences

Silverlight is already in use as a comprehensive platform for building rich experiences both for application and pure media scenarios including HD quality, interactive video through Smooth Streaming. Silverlight 4 introduces additional capabilities to enable creation of ever more rich, appealing high-performance interactive experiences and innovative media experiences:

• Fluid interface enhancements advance application usability through animation effects.
• Webcam and microphone to allow sharing of video and audio for instance for chat or customer service applications.
• Audio and video local recording capabilities capture RAW video without requiring server interaction, enabling a wide range of end-user interaction and communication scenarios for example video conferencing.
• Bring data in to your application with features such as copy and paste or drag and drop.
• Long lists can now be scrolled effortlessly with the mouse wheel.
• Support conventional desktop interaction models through new features such as right-click context menu.
• Support for Google’s Chrome browser.
• Performance optimizations mean Silverlight 4 applications start quicker and run 200% faster than the equivalent Silverlight 3 application.
• Deep Zoom enhancements include hardware acceleration to support larger datasets and faster animation.
• Multi-touch support enables a range of gestures and touch interactions to be integrated into user experiences.
• Multicast networking, enabling Enterprises to lower the cost of streaming broadcast events such as company meetings and training, interoperating seamlessly with existing Windows Media Server streaming infrastructure.
• Content protection for H.264 media through Silverlight DRM powered by PlayReady.
• Output protection for audio/video streams allowing content owners or distributors to ensure protected content is only viewed through a secure video connection.

For Sandboxed applications

• Place HTML within your application enabling much tighter integration with content from web servers such as email, help and reports.
• Provide support for ‘toast’ notification windows, allowing applications to communicate status or change information while the user is working on another application through a popup window on the taskbar.
• Offline DRM, extending the existing Silverlight DRM powered by PlayReady technology to work offline. Protected content can be delivered with an embedded license so that users can go offline immediately and start enjoying their content.
• Control over aspects of UI include window settings such as start position, size and chrome.

For Trusted applications

• Read and write files to the user’s MyDocuments, MyMusic, MyPictures and MyVideos folder (or equivalent for non-windows platforms) for example storage of media files and taking local copies of reports.
• Run other desktop programs such as Office, for example requesting Outlook to send an email, send a report to Word or data to Excel.
• COM automation enables access to devices and other system capabilities by calling into application components; for instance to access a USB security card reader.
• A new user interface for requesting application privileges access outside the standard Silverlight sandbox.
• Group policy objects allow organizations to tailor which applications may have elevated trust.
• Full keyboard support in fullscreen mode richer kiosk and media applications.
• Enhancements to networking allow cross-domain access without a security policy file.

Related posts:

1. Download Internet Explorer 8 Beta, New Features In IE8
2. The SilverLight Poster and more on Silverlight and Microsoft
3. Google Chrome OS All About it – Breaking News
4. Microsoft We Screwed Up Windows Mobile, iPhone Competitor Silverlight Mobile 2010
5. Prism and XUL Could Have Been A Silverlight And Adobe AIR Killer

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Catergories: Microsoft, Software, Technology Tags: Browser, Internet Explorer, Silverlight

Windows 7 Activation Key Cracks Using Chew WGA & RemoveWGA

The cracks currently floating around the internet are called Chew WGA and RemoveWGA. They provide one click patch solution for Windows 7 RTM. The cracks do not actually validate or activate windows, but lets you use Windows 7 indefinitely. Microsoft has confirmed that they are aware of these cracks for Windows 7 and are working swiftly to fix this. Knowing Microsoft this shouldn’t take too long. The Security fix from Microsoft will most likely be a Windows 7 Update patch. People who use pirated and cracked software, will mostly likely be unable to update Windows 7 without deactivating the crack.

People who use pirated and cracked software are mostly likely to be open to malware and virus attacks, personally I recommend buying the original software, If you can’t afford it Ubuntu Linux is a great option its Free and Open Source, and in some ways is better than windows in terms of security.

Windows 7 Activation MGA

Windows 7 System Properties

Source: Orginally reported by Cnet

Related posts:

1. Download FairUse4WM and Crack Windows Media DRM
2. How to Hack or Crack a Windows XP Administrator Password
3. How To Remove SpyWare, AdWare Clean and Fix Windows
4. Microsoft We Screwed Up Windows Mobile, iPhone Competitor Silverlight Mobile 2010
5. Recover Lost Forgotten Windows XP Administrator Password

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Catergories: Microsoft, Technology Tags: Hacking, Hacks, Windows

Unlocked iPhone 3GS

This post is for all iPhone lovers, if you are like me and totally frustrated by the locked iPhones that Apple sells the good news is Apple sells Official Factory Unlocked iPhones 3GS. Unlike the US there are some countries that have sane laws about locking the phone that a Mobile service provider gives you. I own an iPhone 3GS which I brought for the full price contract free from AT&T, straight off from Cupertino, California, US when I was there a few months back. Using the iPhone 3GS was a great experience while I was in the US. Once I came back to India I had no other option but to hack the iPhone 3GS or Jailbreak it as its called, once the iPhone is Jailbroken you can Unlock it to make it work with your local Service Provider.

The jailbreaking was not an issue, the iPhone worked great after unlocking it, but I get frustrated when I think about how I brought such an expensive gadget with my money and was not being allowed to use it in the way I wanted to, also the ethical factor bothered me a lot. And every time there is a firmware update I have to wait for the unlock to come out.

I am a great Apple fan. I work on a 15″ Mac Book pro and all my design and development work is done on it, Apple is great at churning out really cool products that just simply work out of the box, the User Experience, right from the packaging, Design, Hardware and Software is extremely streamlined. But they have one big drawback they lock you down into their system whether its Hardware or Software.

So I began my quest for an Official unlocked iPhone. First I started by looking on eBay and was horrified by the prices at which the 3GS was selling. Now by cheap I don’t literally mean cheap but you can get it for the exact full price that Apple sells it for, without the need for buying it off from eBay for $$$ and then when you get it you realise it’s badly scratched or doesn’t work properly or is truly locked.

The Cheapest Place to buy An Unlocked iPhone 3GS

The Cheapest Place to buy An official factory Unlocked iPhone 3GS now is Hong Kong. Hong Kong is one of the few countries where its illegal to lock a Phone down to a Mobile service provider, hence Apple sells it unlocked. check out the iPhone Prices on the Hong Kong Apple Store

Here is what it states on the Apple iPhone Page.

iPhone 3G & iPhone 3GS purchased at the Apple Online Store can be activated with any wireless carrier. Simply insert the SIM from your current phone into iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS and connect to
iTunes 8.2 to complete activation.2 Purchase limitations may apply.

Price Listing for an unlocked iPhone 3GS in Hong Kong.

• iPhone 3GS 16GB is 5388 Hong Kong dollars = 696 U.S. dollars
• iPhone 3GS 32GB is 6288 Hong Kong dollars = 812 U.S. dollars

Official Unlocked iPhone 3GS Hong Kong Prices

The Other places to buy unlocked iPhones but not so cheap prices are

Australia iPhone 3GS Apple Store Prices

• iPhone 3GS 16GB is 879 Australian dollars = 820 U.S. dollars
• iPhone 3GS 32GB is 1040 Australian dollars = 970 U.S. dollars

New Zealand iPhone 3GS Apple Store Prices

• iPhone 3GS 16GB is 1149 New Zealand dollars = 853 U.S. dollars
• iPhone 3GS 32GB is 1349 New Zealand dollars = 1002 U.S. dollars

The List of Places where you Can buy an unlocked iPhone are list below. the data might be a little old. But you can check for an Updated list on the Apple Website itself which lists all the places in the World where the iPhone is sold and also which Wireless provider sells Unlocked iPhones

• Belgium – Mobistar 16GB: 575 EUR32GB: 675 EUR
• Czech Republic – O2, T-Mobile, Vodafone 16GB: 15 777 CZK32GB: 18 377 CZK
• Greece – Vodafone, Cosmote16GB: 569.00 EUR32GB: 668.99 EUR
• Hong Kong – 316GB: HK$ 5,38832GB: HK$ 6,288
• Italy – TIM, Vodafone16GB: 619 EUR32GB: 719 EUR
• Luxemburg – Vox Mobile, LUXGSM
• Macau – 3
• Malaysia – Maxis16GB: RM249032GB: RM2990
• New Zealand – Vodafone16GB: 1,179 NZD32GB: 1,379 NZD
• Russia – MegaFon, MTS, Beeline
• Saudi Arabia – Mobily
• Singapore – SingTel
• Slovakia – Orange
• South Africa – Vodacom16GB: R750032GB: R8500
• Taiwan – Chunghwa Telecom
• Thailand – TrueMove
• Turkey – TurkCell
• United Arab Emirates – Etisalat

Source my google search turned up hackint0sh.org/

Related posts:

1. Apple Numbers
2. Good Bye Apple You Suck Really Bad
3. Confirmed iPhone To be Launched on June 29
4. Microsoft We Screwed Up Windows Mobile, iPhone Competitor Silverlight Mobile 2010
5. iPhone Nano Can It Be True ? Naaa

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Apple, Featured, Technology, iPhone Tags: Buying Guide, Gadget, Mac OSX

S. Somasegar VP at Microsoft

Its very rare to see an executive of such high level come down to meet with developers and mix and mingle with them. Its people like Somasegar who connect and engage with the community that increases the appeal Microsoft has as a Company and separates them from Apple or Google. A down to earth person he candidly answers all the questions that were fired at him.

He began by explaining Microsoft’s Vision and how they always plan and develop things which would be relevant 5 years down the line, the next version of .NET 4, Visual Studio 2010, new features introduced the completely redesigned UI based on WPF for the IDE. Most of the discussion centered around .NET and the developer tools. But Missing from the whole talk was Windows Mobile. While I been a .NET developer for 3 years before I quit to become a freelancer, I was more interested in what Microsoft was doing with Silverlight and its Mobile Platform, and how they were looking to compete with the iPhone OS and Android Platform.

Yes We Screwed up with Windows Mobile

I pointed out Windows Mobile and the lack of innovation and stagnation with regards to features, User Experience, Design and interface his answer was extremely candid and frank. “Yes we screwed up Windows Mobile, and let it stagnant. In fact you are being very polite in pointing this out.” He went to say how the initial vision of Windows Mobile had been long term and well planned but along the way the lost the game.

Microsoft Secret Plans For Windows Mobile, Silverlight for Mobile

While he was very mum and secretive about what Microsoft had planned for Windows Mobile, he did let out that a few things about what Microsoft was doing for the mobile platform, they had revamped the whole Windows mobile team and rebooted the process similar to what they had done with Windows Longhorn. I see it more like a comparison of what happened with Windows Vista Vs Windows 7.

Some of the Key Points he made were.

1. Rebooted Windows mobile Strategy.
2. Brand New Windows Mobile Team
3. Microsoft is laying its bet on SilverLight
4. Silverlight for mobile will be the competitor for iPhone and Andriod.
5. Silverlight for Mobile will be announced at MIX 2010

Things Microsoft got wrong

• They are too late in the game.
• They are taking too long to come out with a competing product and keeping with the trends.
• Billions spent on R&D hard to believe nothing concrete on the Mobile front has come out yet
• Clear Disconnect between Microsoft Design team and products. Do they even have a Design R&D team?

Related posts:

1. The SilverLight Poster and more on Silverlight and Microsoft
2. Microsoft Launches Killer RIA Say Goodbye to Flash
3. Microsoft and Facebook Announce Partnership
4. Prism and XUL Could Have Been A Silverlight And Adobe AIR Killer
5. Internet Explorer 9 and SilverLight 4 Announced Breaking News

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Microsoft, Software, Technology Tags: iPhone, Microsoft, Mobile, Software, Web-Development

1. Avast or AVG (Get the Free Versions)
2. AdAware (Get the free Version)
3. CCleaner
4. AutoRuns
5. ProcessExplorer
6. FireFox

Update Window

The first step is to make sure your windows is updated with the latest security patches and fixes. If you are running Windows XP make sure you have installed Service Pack 2. Once you are done installing service pack 2 you should run Windows update and get the latest patches. Another alternative is to use AutoPatcher this is a utility which will download all the required patches and security fixes from Microsoft and store it in a folder on your system which you can later reuse to apply to other computers that you need to update.

Run A Full Scan Using AntiVirus and AntiSpyware Softwares.

There are a number of free AntiVirus software I have for now listed two of them. Virus can do all sorts of weird things to your computer. For example on my laptop the virus disabled the “View Hidden Files” option, even though I checked the option it would reset it back, it also set a number of scheduled tasks in my Task Scheduler to call a number of different copies of the Virus. Run a full scan of the system. Next run a Anti-SpyWare software I highly recommend AdAware.

A Virus Infected Tasks list

AVG Virus Scan With Detected Viruses

Clean Up Your Start Up Items.

Most SpyWare and Virus configure your start up items to run the Virus when you boot up or log into your system. Use the MsConfig tool in windows to check which items are being loaded at start up. If you see any suspicious looking entries uncheck them also identify which file is being called and manually delete it. Sometime this might not work like in my case I had to log into widows using safe mode (When Windows is booting up press F8 you will see an option to load windows under safe mode) and delete the offending file. Use the process explorer tool to see if the processing running on your system are all legitimate. Also use AutoRuns to delete any entries that look suspicious especially DLL that are unsigned and have random looking names.

Clean Up And Optimise Your System.

There are a number of tools that can clean your system of unwanted and unused temporary files and registry entries. One of the best tools that I have found so far is CCleaner which provides a number of advanced options to clean up your system. Try to keep the number of items that start up when you boot the system to a minimum.

Prevention Is Better Than Cure.

Better safe than sorry. Ditch IE period and get FireFox. Run an Anti-Virus software and do a full scan periodically. Also do a full Anti-SpyWare scan periodically. Also scan external drives like thumb drives and external hard disk when you connect it to the computer.

Related posts:

1. Free Online Virus Scan Using Multiple Anti-Virus Tools
2. How to Hide or Remove A Installed Program from Add Remove
3. Windows 7 Activation Key Crack By Hackers, Chew WGA & RemoveWGA
4. Clean Wordpress Theme Updated To Version 0.6
5. How to Hack or Crack a Windows XP Administrator Password

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2008. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Featured, Technology, Tutorial Tags: Anti-Virus, How To, Repair, SpyWare

In the recent news it was announced that IE 8 Passes the ACID 2 test and will render in standard mode by default. The folks at Neowin have managed to uncover links to Internet Explorer 8 Download page and also a list of upcoming features in IE 8.

Here is the link to download Internet explorer 8 beta 1 and a list of new features in IE 8.

Note: The download links currently don’t work try them later.

Below are the list of new features found in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1.

Whats New For Users

Activities

Activities are contextual services to quickly access a service from any webpage. Users typically copy and paste from one webpage to another. Internet Explorer 8 Activities make this common pattern easier to do.

WebSlices

WebSlices is a new feature for websites to connect to their users by subscribing to content directly within a webpage. WebSlices behave just like feeds where clients can subscribe to get updates and notify the user of changes.

Favorites Bar

In Internet Explorer 7, the Links bar provided users with one-click access to their favorite sites. The Links bar has undergone a complete makeover for Internet Explorer 8. It has been renamed the Favorites bar to enable users to associate this bar as a place to put and easily access all their favorite web content such as links, feeds, WebSlices and even Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

Automatic Crash Recovery

Automatic Crash Recovery (ACR) is a feature of Windows^®Internet Explorer^® 8 that can help to prevent the loss of work and productivity in the unlikely event of the browser crashing or hanging. The ACR feature takes advantage of the Loosely-Coupled Internet Explorer feature to provide new crash recovery capabilities, such as tab recovery, which will minimize interruptions to users’ browsing sessions.

Improved Phishing Filter

Internet Explorer 7 introduced the Phishing Filter, a feature which helps warn users when they visit a Phishing site. Phishing sites spoof a trusted legitimate site, with the goal of stealing the user’s personal or financial information. For Internet Explorer 8, we are building on the success of the Phishing Filter with a more comprehensive feature called the “Safety Filter.”

Whats New For Developer

Read more here.  

Better AJAX Development

1. AJAX Navigation enables users to navigate back and forth without leaving the AJAX application and could be used navigating a page without performing a traditional full navigation. This allows websites to trigger an update to browser components like the address bar by setting the window.location.hash value, firing an event to alert components in the page and even creating an entry in the travel log.
2. DOM Storage is a simple-to-use method for storing and retrieving strings of key/value pair data. Data can be stored per tab instance for a session or persisted to the local machine. This allows pages to cache text on the machine which reduces the effect of network latencies by providing faster access to pre-cached data. Several innovative uses are possible. For example, use this in combination with the new network connectivity event to allow a page to cache data if it detects that the computer is offline.
3. Connectivity events allow websites to check when the user is connected to the network and receive notification of connectivity changes.
4. Six connections per host instead of two for broadband scenarios and a scriptable property allow for more improved performance by allowing parallelization of downloads in Internet Explorer 8. In addition, this increases functionality by ensuring a request is not blocked to a host if two connections already exist. Websites can optimize their downloads based on a scriptable property.
5. XMLHTTPRequest Enhancements include a timeout property that can be set to cancel the request if necessary, allowing developers to manage the request better.

Cross-domain communication is an integral part of AJAX development and mashup Web applications. Internet Explorer 8 includes two features to help you build cross-domain communications that are safe and easy to implement:

• With Cross-domain Request (XDR), developers can create cross-site data aggregation scenarios. Similar to the XMLHttpRequest object but with a simpler programming model, this request, called XDomainRequest, is the easiest way to make anonymous requests to third-party sites that support XDR and opt in to making their data available across domains. Three lines of code will have you making basic cross-site requests. This will ensure data aggregation for public sites (such as blogs) will be simple, secure and fast.
• Cross-document Messaging (XDM) APIs allow communication between documents from different domains through IFrames in a way that is easy, secure and standardized.

DOM Core Improvements

• Internet Explorer’s object model does not distinguish properties from attributes. This makes it impossible for a property (.href) to return a different value than an attribute (getAttribute(’href’)).
• Core attribute operations are broken: Getters and setters behave inconsistently given certain parameters. An oft-cited example is getAttribute(’style’), which returns the style object rather than a string as expected.

Internet Explorer 8 fixes many of the cross-browser inconsistencies in these two areas. Specifically, the following bugs in core areas have been fixed:

• Separate URL handing for properties and attributes such that relative URLs can be retrieved via an attribute and absolute URLs can be retrieved via a property.
• Fix element’s attribute array modifiers—getAttribute, setAttribute, and removeAttribute have cross-browser compatible implementations.
• Other attribute-related API fixes implemented.

Platform Performance Improvements

Internet Explorer 8 includes several changes that improve the performance of Web sites. These changes affect many Internet Explorer subsystems, including the HTML parser, CSS rule processing, markup-tree manipulation as well as the JScript garbage collector and runtime.

The majority of these changes will affect performance only, with little to no functional effect on most Web sites. However, they may expose aspects of Web sites that depend on the timing of operations or performance of the browser. In addition, those Web sites that unknowingly access objects after they are freed may find such access failing in Internet Explorer 8.

Internet Explorer 8’s performance improvements affect each site loaded in Internet Explorer 8 regardless of the chosen rendering mode.

Circular Memory Leak Mitigation

Internet Explorer 8 includes improvements to memory management. These improvements mitigate memory leaks that were previously created by circular references between JScript objects and DOM objects.

This feature may affect the behavior of webpages that depend on garbage memory that, only as the result of a memory leak, existed in previous versions of Internet Explorer. In Internet Explorer 8, these pages will reference unallocated memory and generate a fault.

This feature affects each website displayed in Internet Explorer 8 regardless of the site’s chosen rendering mode.

HTML Improvements and ACID2

HTML uses elements to represent both structure and meaning in a document. To help developers take full advantage of the elements that HTML 4 offers, and to better provide the semantic meaning intended by Web author, Internet Explorer 8 has upgraded support of the following presentational elements:

• The P element: Represents a logical paragraph.
• The OBJECT element: May represent any object including images.

Through improved support of these HTML elements, Web developers may build more expressive and accessible HTML markup.

Related posts:

1. Internet Explorer 9 and SilverLight 4 Announced Breaking News
2. Its Official Windows Vista SP1 To Be Out In Mid July
3. IE 8 Is Going To Kick Every Browsers Butt
4. Cool Hidden Features In Wordpress 2.1 Editor
5. Flock The Web 2.0 Social Browser To Be Forever In Beta?

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2008. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Microsoft, Software, Technology Tags: Web-Design, Web-Development, Web-Standards, Windows

Shared Hosting Really Sucks

I while back I recommended bluehost, since their uptime and response time is comparably better than other shared web hosting providers even better than Media Temple overrated Grid Servers. I would like to withdraw my good opinion about them, after they banned my site without giving me a reason. I had to contact tech support to ask them the reason why they had banned me. The reason they gave me turned out to be a really dumb one, according to them I had violated there TOC by posting about a security flaw in myspace and mind you this offending article is more than a year old. I knew they were just looking for a reason to ban me since my site takes up a lot of bandwidth.

Shared hosting sucks for a number of reasons.

1. There are too many Websites crammed onto a single server.
2. You don’t have control over the server resources and application.
3. You are rarely given root/SSH access.
4. Most shared hosts are slow and put restriction on your CPU Usage. My site has show the CPU exceeded error a number of time.

Since my site has grown and deserves much better. The first thing that I did was to purchase a basic Dedicated Virtual Hosting package from Media Temple. I am totally loving the huge increase in performance and response time. My Pingdom account shows that the average response time for the site has dropped below 1 sec unlike the previous 1.5 – 3 sec.

Since MT Dedicated Virtual Hosting is too expensive for me. I did a lot of research into Dedicated Virtual Hosting and finally settled on Slicehost. While I am not a Linux guru I don’t mind getting my hands dirty so currently I am busy teaching myself how to setup a Linux Box from scratch. I plan to run this site on a combination of Lighttpd, MySql, and PHP called a LLMP setup. Expect this site to load 10 times faster than before.

Related posts:

1. Moved To BlueHost Media Temple Grid Server Overrated
2. Advanced Guide On How To Choose A Good Web Host
3. 7 Reasons Why Your Blog Sucks And Digger Hate You
4. Use Free Virtualization Softwares To Run Mutliple OS’s
5. Why My Mom And Dad Don’t Get It

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2008. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Blogging, Open Source, Technology Tags: Web-Hosting

This shows that Apple had more than 5 times the number of flaws per month than Windows XP and Vista in 2007, and most of these flaws are serious. Clearly this goes against conventional wisdom because the numbers show just the opposite and it isn’t even close.

Also noteworthy is that while Windows Vista shows fewer flaws than Windows XP and has more mitigating factors against exploitation, the addition of Windows Defender and Sidebar added 4 highly critical flaws to Vista that weren’t present in Windows XP. Sidebar accounted for three of those additional vulnerabilities and it’s something I am glad I don’t use. The lone Defender critical vulnerability that was supposed to defend Windows Vista was ironically the first critical vulnerability for Windows Vista.

Source CybernetNews

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5. Its Official Windows Vista SP1 To Be Out In Mid July

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Apple, Software, Technology Tags: Mac, Security