Tag: google

Google Apps Sync Kills Outlook Search

June 26, 2009 by Jason

Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, introduced at the start of the past week, manages to handicap the Redmond company’s email client, delivered as a part of the Office System. Essentially, the installation of Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook manages to kill the email client’s ability to search its own data. The tool from the Mountain View-based search giant is designed to bridge Outlook 2003 SP3 and 2007 SP2 (or SP1) with Google Apps. However, it appears that Google failed to perform sufficient testing of the utility, as Microsoft came across a bug that no longer allowed users of Outlook to search through their data.

“The installation of the Google Apps Sync plugin disables Outlook’s ability to search any and all of your Outlook data,” stated Dev Balasubramanian, Outlook product manager. “When a Google Apps user installs the sync plugin for Outlook, the plugin modifies a registry key which disables Windows Desktop Search from indexing and providing search functionality for all Outlook data, not just the Outlook data being synchronized from GMail. Because Outlook search relies upon the indexing performed by Windows Desktop Search, Outlook search functions are broken as a result.” Read More»

How to Become a Gmail Ninja

June 24, 2009 by Jason

Gmail revolutionized online email clients when it first launched, and has since added a host of functionality and features to the site to help users get trough the ever-increasing number of emails they receive every day. But many of those features aren’t even known by most, let alone used, so the Gmail team has set out to create some tips for all types of Gmail users, from rookies to seasoned veterans.

“Everybody has their own system for managing email, but some are definitely more efficient than others. Even if you only get a few messages a day, there are probably some simple things you can do to make it easier to get through your inbox and maybe even have a little fun along the way.” Zach Yeskel, product marketing manager, wrote on the Gmail blog.

“We know time is valuable, so we asked lots of Googlers for their tips and tricks on how they make the most of Gmail, and we combined the best of these into a guide at www.gmail.com/tips, cheekily entitled ‘Become a Gmail Ninja.’ The tips are categorized into ninja belts (white, green, black and master) based on how much mail you get each day.” Read More»

IE8 RTW Blocked Ports Set Expanded

June 19, 2009 by Jason

With the advent of Internet Explorer 8 Microsoft has expanded the list of ports blocked by the browser, in comparison to previous versions of IE, namely IE6 and IE7. While past releases of Internet Explorer blocked eight ports, with IE8 Microsoft has extended the list to no less than 10. This behavior is by default and is designed as an extra mitigation set up to protect end users. With its 10 blocked ports, Internet Explorer 8 trails behind rival browsers, which are blocking a more extensive list of ports.

“Internet Explorer (actually, WinINET, the network stack beneath IE) prohibits use of certain ports for HTTP(S) connections. The intent of this blocking is to prevent Cross Service/Protocol Request Forgery attacks. For instance, an attacker could use HTML Forms to send a request to an unprotected mail server such that the mail server interprets the request as a poorly-formatted, but valid request, to send an email message. Such attacks are obviously interesting to spammers and other bad guys,” revealed Eric Lawrence, a program manager on the Internet Explorer team. Read More»

13 security and privacy tips for Firefox

April 24, 2009 by Jason

1. Delete items from address bar history
While it’s very handy to have your recently visited pages autocompleted as you type, it’s not always desirable. Go to the address bar (Ctrl-L), start typing an address, and the drop-down menu will appear with the URLs of pages you’ve visited. You can highlight and delete these at will, for maximum privacy.

2. Protect your PC from malware
You don’t have to visit the seedy side of the web to pick up a virus – even the best social networking sites regularly host all kinds of malware. But you can reduce the chance of infection by installing NoScript. This handy add-on blocks Javascript, Java, Flash and other executable content from running unless you explicitly allow it, and is a great way to keep yourself safe online.

3. Speedily search for images
Browse Google images and your results are split into blocks of 21. But use CoolIris and you’ll get all your results displayed on a 3D photo wall, a much faster and easier way to find the images you need. It only works with some sites, unfortunately, but as these include Google, Flickr, Picasa, Yahoo, Photobucket, Facebook and MySpace then you’ll still have plenty to browse. Especially as it searches and displays YouTube videos, too. Give it a try. Read More»

40 productivity tips for Firefox

April 17, 2009 by Jason

1. Auto-complete websites
Go to the address bar (Control-L) and type the name of the site without the “www” or the “.com”. Press Control-Enter, and it will automatically fill in the “www” and the “.com” and take you there. For .net addresses, press Shift-Enter, and for .org addresses, press Control-Shift-Enter.

2. Turn your bookmarks into keywords
Right-click the bookmark and then select Properties. Put a short keyword in the keyword field, save it, and now you can type that keyword in the address bar and it will go to that bookmark.

3. Speed up your downloads
Download Manager Tweak Extension adds extra functionality to the existing Download Manager to help you download faster.

4. Search faster
To search with lightning speed just highlight the word or phrase with your mouse and drag the highlighted text into the search bar. Firefox will then automatically load up the search in a new tab, so you can stay informed faster. Read More»

IE8 Faster than Firefox 3.05 and Chrome 1.0

March 17, 2009 by Jason

At the end of the past week, Microsoft made available to the public the results of a “browser measuring contest” involving Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.05 and Google Chrome 1.0. What the Redmond company did was to measure the browser load times for the top 25 websites worldwide. In the software company’s own comparison, IE8 managed to come out on top of its rivals, besting the open source Firefox and Chrome which were released in 2008, and not the current 3.1/3.5 version of Firefox or the 2.0 flavor of Chrome. But the real question is does it matter?

Obviously, Microsoft is rather a new comer to the browser measuring game. Simply because Internet Explorer, while considered by rival browser makers a reference point, never actually needed to compare itself to competitive products, especially from the perspective of the dominant browser on the market. IE continues to account for the lion’s share when it comes down to browser usage share worldwide, but Firefox has made a dent in its dominance that is harder and harder to ignore. And fact is that for the first time in the long life of Internet Explorer, Microsoft has a release that it’s worth comparing, as it is bound to score at least on par with rivals, if not even best them in certain scenarios. Read More»

Enable ActiveX On Firefox

January 17, 2009 by Jason

This is a firefox plugin that I was looking for since long time, you will probably say why we need activeX with Firefox ? But some Intranet application require some functionnalities that are already available as ActiveX. I had a ActiveX twain solution that I wanted to run on firefox, so finally I think this could be done using ff-activex-host.

The extension is developed by Leeor Aharon, IT Structures Ltd, makes possible to use ActiveX controls in Firefox and provides full access to the hosted control (events, functions, properties) based on the Gecko NPAPI. Concerning security :

The plugin has some security related features to limit the risk it might pose to users by making ActiveX controls available in Firefox. First of all, it is using a special MIME Type so that it won’t get triggered by sites that were not specifically designed for it. Additionally, it supports lists of well known CLSIDs and PROGIDs so that it can be limited to use with specific controls and interfaces. Finally, it can be “site locked” to make sure it’s only being used by a predetermined list of domains. Read More»

Delete Index.dat files on Windows

January 09, 2009 by Jason

Index.dat files are windows system files on windows which records every web site you visit with internet explorer. These files are hidden on your computer that contain all of the Web sites that you have ever visited.

Every URL, and every Web page is listed there. Not only that but all of the email that has been sent or received through Outlook or Outlook Express is also being logged. Microsoft has not supplied an adequate explanation as to what these files are for or why they have been hidden so well.

According to Microsoft, these index.dat files are used to store cache of visited sites to speed up the loading of sites in Internet Explorer. But this cannot be the case because when we delete the Temporary Internet Files the “index.dat” files remain behind.

Irrespective of what ever program you have been using to clean windows history they may clean but does not delete index.dat files on your computer as they protected in real time by windows operating system. Read More»

TOP10 – December 2008 Popular Tips

January 01, 2009 by Jason

1. Hide Drives In Windows XP and Vista

2. Optimize Firefox and IE Browsing Speed

3. Install Windows XP On Windows Vista Without Formatting Hard Drive

4. Nine tweaks for Firefox location bar

5. Vista SP1 and XP SP3 Security Release ISO Image

6. Windows Vista Service Pack 2

7. Ten Tips and Tricks for Google Chrome

8. Clear Run History In Windows

9. Top 10 – November 2008 Popular Tips

10. Media Pack for Windows XP N SP3
Read More»

Ten Tips and Tricks for Google Chrome

December 10, 2008 by Jason

Now that you have enjoyed the speed of Google Chrome, it’s time to dig deeper and get more out of it. Here are 10 tips/tricks to supercharge your chroming experience.

1) Install flash player in Google Chrome

After you have installed Chrome, some of you will find that you are not able to view Youtube video. This is especially true if you are installing Chrome under Ubuntu (or other Linux distro).

Here is what you can do to fix the problem:

  • Download the flash player for windows xpi file.
  • Change the xpi extension to zip
  • Extract the content of the zip file into a folder
  • Copy the files flashplayer.xpt and NPSWF32.dll to the directory /home/USERNAME/.wine/drive_c/windows/profiles/USERNAME/Local Settings/Application Data/Google/Chrome/Application/Plugins.
  • For Vista, copy to the directory: C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\Plugins
  • For XP,copy to the directory C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\Plugins
  • Create the Plugins folder if it does not exist.

Restart your Chrome. Your flash player should be working now. Read More»