Another Social news service : Mixx

There are many social news services available in the internet but the new ones still come because nothing of them is able to provide all the features that a user is demanding for. And perhaps for that reason, yahoo also started this under the name Mash, though it has another vertical site,yahoo answers; Everyone is focusing on these social sites because you get a huge amount of with which you can either make a site or unpopular , but thank God that no one does so. Ok, lets see the new one Mixx.

Mixx is a new kind of social bookmarking network. There are different kinds of social bookmarking sites like digg, delicious, stumbleupon. This mixx website is different and it shows some real popular content producing in the internet.

What makes mix as a unique social bookmarking site is they have a very simple and easy interface. It is very easy to navigate in their website to know the buzz happening around the world over a specific category or domain. They also pick up some good topics and show them under the category "mixx picks". They are giving importance to the member who submits highest number of topics and also gives the information of various popular topics.

Race-Track Memory

It’s the one of ten most emerging technologies as reviewed by hub of engineering world MIT. Stuart Parking fellow and manager of Magneto electronics group at IBM who had done research on the fundamental physics of magnetic materials and his research gave the present hard disks in every pc and laptop the thousands of storage capacity than it used to be before.

Parkin and his team now are in the process of developing a different kind of memory which could support heavy storage just as magnetic hard disks and speed of flash memory. In his words “Both the semiconductor and solid state devices will reach their size limits in terms of accessing bits and there should be some new means and which could be the one like ours which is 3 dimensional unlike the current memories.”


Their innovative technology has to do with U shaped magnetic nanowires arranged vertically as shown in the figure. There will be different magnetic polarities in the wires at different regions and the boundaries between the regions represent 1’s or 0’s depending on the polarities of the regions on the either side. Data can be moved when the current with single spin either +1/2 or –1/2 is passed through the wires. Read and write of data is performed at the bottom of the wires with small devices as shown through another wire perpendicular to the U shaped wire and the small device reads data from the nanowire.

How to hide the system tray icons ?

Windows displays icons for active and urgent notifications, and hides inactive ones. You can change the behavior for items present in the system tray. Sometimes, it annoys when there are too many system tray icons. They are also not needed to be shown always. Cleaning the system tray also provides more space on the task bar which can accommodate more number of windows.

Actually this feature is provided by much software by themselves but some don't provide this (e.g.: anti-viruses). They can also be forced to hide by this trick.

1. Right click on green colored start menu.
2. Select properties.
3. Navigate to taskbar (by default it is only active)
Then you can see a window similar to the one shown in the picture.
4. For every item, there are three options namely always hide, always show and hide when inactive.
5. Select the item for which you want to change the settings.
6. Click ok.

You are done, you can use this to keep an item to appear or hide permanently.
This is a very easy process to hide the system tray icons, through which you can get rid of annoying and useless icons. I assume that you know what the system tray icons are!

Using internet with mobile phone

Internet can be surfed using both computer and mobile. All Indian prepaid and postpaid mobile can be used to surf the internet. Though the speed from the mobile is very low, they are very cheap. Some mobile operators provide internet service via mobile at as low as fifteen rupees per day. They provide unlimited surfing at these prices. If you want to use the internet for causal purpose to check the mails and for reading the personal messages. This won’t be useful if want to use internet throughout the day for earning some money or starting a website or blog.


You can use your mobile as an internet hub by plugging your mobile to computer using a card. Presently, new kinds of internet pen drives are available in the internet. The new plug and surf drive can be taken anywhere and can be sued to surf the internet. The only problem with it is signals, the towers of the particular service providers have to send proper signals and if your drive can receive signals, you can use internet. The better the signals, the better the speed of your internet. The mobile based internet connections are slow and they will be disconnected easily.

What is difference between SATA and PATA hard disks?

SATA and PATA are standards for connecting Disk Drives. Hard disks are the heart of computer as they store the entire data of your computer on them. Choosing a right hard disk is an important aspect while buying a new computer. To do that, you need to know the difference between different types of hard disks. There are advantages for both SATA and PATA. The maximum speed (at factory production conditions) transfer of PATA is 133 MBps where as SATA has a maximum speed of 400-500 MBps. PATA requires as high as 5v but SATA requires less than 250 milli volts, one-twentieth of PATA.


One easy method to identify whether your hard disk is a SATA or PATA is to check the rear side of the hard disk. If the rear side contains a pin with 18 holes, then it is a PATA hard disk else it will be a SATA hard disk (SATA will have a very thin data cable as compared to PATA). It is good to buy a SATA hard disk than a PATA hard disk due to its advantages. It is important to know that, the computer model decides whether it is a PATA or SATA. All other devices connected with a data card have to be of same type.

Webmasters tools : Browsershots - Test your web design in different browsers

Recently, I have come across as a useful site helpful for webmasters and I like to share it with you. This site help the webmasters to test the appearance of their site in various browsers across various platforms.

Overview: Most of the webmasters are creative enough in designing the sites but the main problem for them is the compatibility of their site in various browsers like Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer etc and in various operating system like Windows, Mac, Linux etc This is because no one will install all the web browsers and check their sites, moreover web masters don't care about them because 90% of their designs are suitable in the popular browsers and the last 10% compatibility test is a tedious task. Hence they check only in some popular browsers and leave them.

The site is Browsershots - Test your web design in different browsers


Official description: "Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server".

This is a open source project which uses 104 computer to make browser screenshots voluntarily. Although this is a free service, there is also premium service which can e acquired by donating $15 or 10 Euros per month or $150 or 100 Euros per year. Your screenshots will be ready in 30 minutes.

Features:

1. They provide all the operating systems and browsers supported by that OS
2. You can see the screen shots of your site at any time using http://browsershots.org/http://www.yoursite.com/
3. You can download all the screen shots to your computer in a single click
4. You can request the new screen shots your site or blog at any time
5. You can know the full details of screen shot at any time like hardware, file size in the browser of that particular operating system
6. You can also check the functionality if your site's extra features like Java, flash, Javascript, screen size(800x600, 1024x768...) and color depth (32 bit, 16 bit,...)
7. You can also report bout the screenshot that you get from them if you wish.
   

Premium Features:

1. Your screenshot requests will be processed immediately.
2. You will often get 30 to 50 screenshots within 2 to 5 minutes.
3. Get screenshots of any web address, as often as you want.
4. Instant activation when you pay with PayPal.
5. No need to extend requests to avoid expiration.
6. Your screenshots are private (only you will see them, or somebody who already knows your URL).
7. Ad-free web interface.
8. Dedicated email support from johann@browsershots.org.
9. Your payment supports an open-source project.

Pros and Cons:

1. The best thing is you get them at free of cost by just a request which doesn't require more than 2 minutes but it takes 30 minutes to get your shots.
2. The large quantity of browsers of different Operating systems is very impressive feature but unfortunately you will not get all the requested screenshots as some servers/computers are having very less uptime.
3. There could have been more features like time taken to load the page, some suggestions basing on the appearance and behavior of site in those browsers.
4. As it is a open source project done voluntarily by a few people, they are unable to store the screenshots that are produced during the request, so you have to request them again to get them if you are asking them after your individual time.
5. You can download the files in one time is a good feature but they will be deleted after a short amount of time which is rectified in premium service.
6. The price should have been a bit lower like $10 per month.

On the whole, I the effort made by the brains behind this site, it is an innovative idea. Good luck browser shots and I hope to see more features and I wish you to be more successful in the upcoming days...

Fury as XP automatically installs Desktop Search

Microsoft has come under fire from Windows XP users who have found an unwanted update installed on their machines. Windows Desktop Search has reportedly been installed automatically, even on computers set up to update only existing programs.

IT departments have found that the update has been installed company-wide, which could have large implications for performance. The application uses an index to speed up search results, which many claim is slowing down their PCs. Those who have tried to uninstall the program have not only been forced to restart, but have found that Windows again attempts to install the program unless specifically told not to.

Last month, Microsoft was accused of installing "stealth updates", even on machines configured not to automatically update, prompting Microsoft to be more transparent about the update process in future.

"This is helpful and important feedback, and we are now looking at the best way to clarify WU's [Windows Update's] behaviour to customers so that they can more clearly understand how WU works," said Nate Clinton, product manager for Windows Update, after the incident.

Microsoft has also been forced to give Vista users a choice over their desktop search software, after Windows Live search was set as the default in the OS.

via pcpro