Google Launches Voice-powered Search engine

Bullish on the mobile segment, global search engine major Google is strengthening its applications portfolio with the introduction of services like voice-based search and map solutions.

"Mobiles (more than 400 million) outnumber the personal computers (PCs - slightly over 30 million) concentration in India. A big part of the population accessing Internet

going ahead would do so on a mobile handset and so we need to offer enriching experience to these users," Google India Head of products Vinay Goel said.

Google has recently launched a free voice-based mobile Internet search application for BlackBerry users. The application has been built by the Internet search giant's India engineering team.

"This feature has been developed by the India team and takes into account the Indian accent. Currently the facility is available only to Blackberry cellphone users in India but we hope to extend this to other handsets by the end of the year," Goel said.

A user can open the Google search page, and ask for a particular location like a pizza joint or taxi stand and the search would show the top results.

With the availability of low-cost GPRS handsets and cheaper data plans, Google expects value-added services like social networking and voice-based Internet search to do well.

Download Songbird Music Player

Songbird is an open-source customizable music player that's under active development.

It is integrated with these Web 2.0 services: mashTape, SHOUTcast Radio, Last.fm Scrobbling, and Songkick concert tickets. You can enhance Songbird with community-contributed plugins like Media Flow.

Features include:

• GStreamer
• Smart Playlists
• Built-In Web Browser
• Multi-language Support
• Automatic Updates
• Setup Assistant
• Custom User Interface
• Library Management
• Developer Support

Beta features include portable device support, metadata management, album artwork, and subscriptions.

Download Songbird:

All Keyboard Shortcuts

A-Z ALL KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Click here to download and don't forget to comment for such updates in future:

For a Safer, faster XP Close Unwanted Services

To disable unneeded startup services for a safer, faster XP, use the "Services" Admin Tool (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services). If you are a single user of a non-networked machine, you can disable the following items, with no ill effect.

Alerter
Clipbook
Computer Browser
Fast User Switching
Human Interface Access Devices
Indexing Service (Slows the hard drive down)
Messenger
Net Logon (unnecessary unless networked on a Domain)
Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (disabled for extra security)
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (disabled for extra security)
Remote Procedure Call Locator
Remote Registry (disabled for extra security)
Routing & Remote Access (disabled for extra security)
Server
SSDP Discovery Service (this is for the utterly pointless "Universal P'n'P", & leaves TCP Port 5000 wide open)
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Telnet (disabled for extra security)
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Upload Manager
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration (for wireless networks)
Workstation

How To Check Windows Last Boot Up Time

For those who use a mixture of Windows and Linux system should know that Linux OS has simple command to check system uptime or the last reboot time.

How to do this in Windows system? Are there such simple commands as last reboot or uptime that both available in Linux distributions?

Well, there are some Windows command line utilities to check Windows uptime, last boot up time, last reboot time, whatever you call it. (But, Linux command is much simple and easier for this subject!)

Using Windows command to check system uptime

In NT-based Windows (e.g. Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, etc), just click Start button followed by Run menu to type cmd and press OK to bring up Command Prompt window.

For Windows Vista, click the Vista Orb, type cmd.exe in the Start Search text box (Vista Instant Search), and click the cmd.exe icon in the Program listing will do.

1. net statistics workstation shows a line “Statistics since” in command output that indicates the Workstation service starting time. By default, this Windows system service started automatically when Windows boots up. It’s not the precise uptime indicator, but the variance is usually less than 60 seconds (at most, probably).
   To simplify the command output, pipe it to the find command, i.e.
   

   net statistics workstation | find "Statistics since"

2. systeminfo output is lengthy, but there is a line that exactly showing the last Windows boot up time.
   • In Windows Vista, look for “System Boot Time”.
   • For other non-Vista, NT-based Windows (such as Windows XP), find the “System Up Time” keyword.
   
   To shorter the systeminfo command output for this subject, use the find command.
   For Windows Vista SP1:
   

   systeminfo| find "System Boot Time"

   
   For Windows XP:
   

   systeminfo| find "System Up Time"

3. uptime.exe command. Sound familiar right? This Windows version of uptime command is not bundled with Windows, although the command is available for download from Microsoft.com since Windows NT SP 4.
   Update.exe command output in Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 (Though, the update.exe command options are not working correctly in this Vista version):
   

   C:\Users\Walker\Desktop>uptime.exe
   \\WalkerPC has been up for: 0 day(s), 2 hour(s), 3 minute(s), 20 second(s)

If you wonder when is your Windows PC rebooted, pick up one of those options to check it out!

How To Send Program File As Attachment In Gmail?

If you’re trying to send a program file as attachment in Gmail, an error message similar to this will be shown: “Error – HoboCopy.exe is an executable file. For security reasons, Gmail does not allow you to send this type of file.”

It won’t works if you simply rename the program file extension (.exe) to other file type that is allowed by Gmail anti-virus scanner / attachment filtering system, according to Gmail Help on "attachment" topic:

Gmail will not deliver email with application program file attachment (even if the program files are zipped into .zip, .tar, .tgz, .taz, .z, .gz, etc format.

Encrypt the zipped file might able to bypass the attachment filtering system, but Gmail doesn’t allow an encrypted zipped file, as outlined in this section.

A trick to send program files as attachment in Gmail

If you’ve a useful program (like SWF-Exporter) to share over email, it should be a tiny program (Gmail allows email not greater than 20 MB) and “green” software (i.e. no virus, malicious code, Trojan, etc).

For example, the open-source HoboCopy.exe for my buddies who are interested to extract FLV movie cached by Google Chrome in Windows temp folder.

Next, use the trick of Microsoft Office embedded object to send the document as attachment in Gmail:

1. Compress the program files into zip file format. Indeed, any compression format will do, but .zip is the common compression format and thus is preferred.
   
2. Open up Microsoft Word 2007 (any Microsoft Office version that support embedded object, preferable Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel),

2. 1. Access to Insert menu,
   2. Click the “Object” button under the “Text” ribbon,
   3. Go to “Create From File” tab,
   4. Uncheck the two check-boxes that related to “link to file” and “display as icon”,
   5. Use the browse button to select the zipped program file,
   6. Click OK button to insert it as an embedded object in Word document.
      
3. Send the Word document (that already embed the zipped program file) as a normal attachment in Gmail

I’ve just tested this trick again, and it’s still working in machine that running Vista Ultimate SP1, Power Archiver 2007 and Microsoft Word 2007.