Microsoft issues IE8 beta warning

Microsoft has warned users of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) that they won’t be able to uninstall either the service pack or Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) under certain circumstances.

In a post on IE blog, Jane Maliouta, a Microsoft programme manager, said that if users download and install IE8 beta 1 prior to updating Windows XP to SP3, they may be stuck with both IE8 and Windows XP SP3. The only time we encourage you to manually uninstall Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 prior to upgrading to IE8 beta 2 for Windows XP users is if you happened to install Windows XP SP3 after installing IE8 beta 1,” said Maliouta.

A warning dialog will appear to alert users. “Are you sure you want to continue installing Internet Explorer 8? Setup has detected that you’ve installed a new service pack for your operating system since installing a previous version of Internet Explorer 8. After completing this installation, you will not be able to uninstall Internet Explorer 8.”

Maliouta said that if users choose to continue, Windows XP SP3 and IE8 beta 2 will become permanent. They will still be able to upgrade to later IE8 builds as they become available, but they won’t be able to uninstall them.

She recommends that users instead first uninstall Windows XP SP3, then uninstall IE8 beta 1; they should then reinstall XP SP3 and follow that by installing IE8 beta 2.

Windows XP users who do have the first beta already on their machines will be offered the update to beta 2 via Windows Update if they have Automatic Updates enabled, Maliouta continued. “A prompt in your Windows task bar will alert you when IE8 beta 2 is ready for installation,” she said.

Microsoft has also released a list of IE8 beta 2 known issues.

Incidentally, of the nine applications called out as incompatible with the new IE8, the only two that will lock up and crash are Microsoft’s.

Visual Studio .Net Version 7, said Microsoft will crash on a PC that also contains IE8 beta 2. “No workaround is currently available,” Microsoft said in the release notes.

The other Microsoft incompatible application is Windows Live Mail, formerly called Windows Live Desktop, and the desktop mail client meant to replace Outlook Express and Windows Mail.

“If you install Internet Explorer 8 beta 2, Windows Live Mail will crash when you create or reply to an email message,” Microsoft warned.

Interestingly, Microsoft had issued a similar warning to users in May this year, during Windows XP SP3 release. During that time the company told users they wouldn’t be able to downgrade from IE7 to the older IE6 browser without uninstalling the service pack.

Courtesy/Source: infotech.indiatimes.com

Shortcuts on your 3G iPhone

The most sought-after gadget of all times, Apple’s all-new 3G iPhone had a dream launch. The iPhone 2.0 which saw a global launch on July 11 sold one million 3G iPhones around the world over the weekend. Though iPhone’s dream run was a bit curtailed in India, courtesy its price, the phone still has many fans drooling. These iPhone aficionado’s can’t get more of their beloved gadget.

However, still there are many in the tribe, with no offence meant, who would still not know the smart shortcuts that it offers. These nifty shortcuts to several applications lets users do a world of things, like double tapping on your iPhone Home Button can wake up the sleeping iPhone. Similarly, double tapping from the ‘Slide to unlock” icon always brings up the iPod controls, so the user can control his iPod without even unlocking the phone.

Here’s looking into these and many more such shortcuts that add further zing to iPhone.

• Headphone button
  Do you know that small button on the built-in microphone in your iPhone’s headphone serves several functions. Like, when a user gets a call all he needs to do is press it once to answer the call, press it twice to send it to voice mail and press once again to disconnect the call.
  And when the phone is not in call all he needs to do is just press once to activate the iPod, and press again to pause the song and similarly press twice to move to the next track.
• Shortcut to Favourites
  Again, a user can use the Home button to create a shortcut to his Favourite listing on iPhone. What exactly the setting does is that when a user double taps on the Home button, his list of Favourite people to call will be displayed.
  To get this, the user just needs to follow some simple instructions. Start with the home screen and then proceed to the Settings. In Settings the user needs to select the General option and from there select the Home Button option. In Home Button, he again needs to tap the option that reads Phone Favourite so that it is check marked.
  This way, every time a user double taps the iPhone’s Home button in quick succession, his phone Favourites will appear.
• Home Button for iPod
  You can also use the Home button to control your iPod features in iPhone. A double tap on the Home button will take a user straight to his music collection. For this, all that a user needs to do is go to Settings from the Home screen, and choose the General option. From the General option the user requires to choose the Home Button and then tap the option that reads iPod so that there is a checkmark next to it.
  Now, each time the user double taps the iPhone’s Home button in quick succession, his music list will appear.
• Self correction
  Here’s a cool shortcut for that virtual keyboard on your iPhone. Made an error while typing that SMS, then the tiny on-screen keys beneath the word you typed, will provide a alternative word (just like typing in dictionary mode on most phones) replacement in a tiny bubble. The software analyses the letters around the one a user types and figures out what he really meant to type.
  In case a user wants to accept the suggestion, he just needs to tap the Space bar. And to ignore the suggestion he has to keep on typing or tap it with his finger. The suggestion feature also kicks in when the iPhone thinks it knows how the user intends to complete a correctly spelled word.
• Master the double-tap
  Double tap can also help a user to read web pages more easily, manage photos and do much more.
  Here’s how it works. The user has to double tap on a column of text on a website, to zoom onto it and the iPhone will automatically enlarge the view to fit the width of the screen. Double-tapping the screen again helps to zoom back out.
  Similarly double-tapping on a picture will automatically focus in to show a close up. This double tap feature can also be used to zoom in/out on photos in the iPhone’s Photo app and toggle between full screen and letterbox mode during video playback.
  The double tap shortcut is also a simple way to zoom in and out of Google Maps in iPhone.
• Easy edit
  This is another handy tip. Ever wondered how would you correct an error in a sentence in a phone that lacks cursor keys? Apple iPhone makes it easy.
  The user just needs to hold his fingertip down anywhere on the text and a magnified circle appears. Then without lifting his finger he just needs to drag it anywhere in the text and the insertion point moves along with it. Then just release where he wants the word phrase to be added. In the same way any deletion can be done.
• Browsing shortcuts
  This is a part of the hidden tricks that the phone can do. To do this, a user needs to hold down the .com button to select the ending of the domain name after typing the websites URL in the space bar. The usual endings such as, “.com,” “.net,” “.edu” and “.org” will then be displayed. All the user needs to do is tab on any of the endings to insert them to the address bar.
  Similarly, when the user needs to compose a mail, he just needs to hold down the period key to select the endings of the email address. This will again display all the endings such as, “.com,” “.net,” “.edu” and “.org.” Just tab to insert any of the endings.

Courtesy/Source: Indiatimes News Network, infotech.indiatimes.com

Airbus mulls 1,000-passenger plane

Two airlines, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Air France-KLM SA, are interested in the extended version of the A380

Berlin: Airbus SAS, the world’s largest plane maker, is considering an extended 1,000-passenger version of the A380 aircraft, Louis Gallois, chief executive of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), has said.

Two airlines, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Air France-KLM SA, were interested in the extende d version of the A380, Gallois told the German newspaper Saechsische Zeitung in an interview to be published Friday.

EADS is the parent company of Airbus SAS.

The A380, the world’s largest commercial aircraft even in its current form, can carry 555 passengers. It entered service in October last year after a two-year delay that severely hit Airbus profits and forced a major restructuring of the company.

Gallois said Airbus had planned the extended version right from the start.

According to information received by DPA, a decision on building the huge aircraft is to be taken only in 2010.

Regarding production delays on the A380, Gallois expressed confidence that the current timetable could be adhered to.

At the end of July, Airbus chief executive Thomas Enders said the aircraft’s problems would be over only once series production was running sm oothly at a considerably higher rate than the current one per month.

Gallois said Airbus would extend its plant at Dresden in the eastern German state of Saxony if it won a contract for tanker aircraft with the US Air Force that is currently under consideration.

The European aircraft maker is competing with Boeing Company for the contract which is worth billions of dollars.

Source: DPA

Courtesy: news.in.msn.com

After Nano comes world’s most expensive One-77

Prized at 1.3mn euros, the first batch of cars is expected to be delivered to customers at the end of 2009.

Gaydon (Britain): Aston Martin has released scant details and sketches of its new super car codenamed One-77 that will sell for at least 1.3 million euros excluding tax ($1.95 million), making it the most expensive car on the market.

Each of the 77 limited edition Aston Martins will be tailored to the individual buyer and the engineers and designers will work out the exact specifications with the future owner.

The car’s aluminium body will be handcrafted and the owner will even be able to choose their own exhaust note. The V12 engine has a top speed of 354 km/h accelerating from zero to 100 km/h in 3.5 seconds, producing around 700 hp.

Aston Martin has identified around 500 potential customers, offering to bring a demonstration model to wherever the customer wishes to see it – either at a reclusive villa, luxury hotel or yacht club. The first cars are expected to be delivered to customers at the end of 2009.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service

Courtesy: news.in.msn.com

NASA completes Mars exploration

NASA’s Mars Exploration rover ‘Opportunity’ is driving out of a giant crater nearly a year after descending into it to examine exposed ancient rock layers, the American space agency has announced.

“We have done everything. We entered Victoria Crater to do and more,” said Bruce Banerdt, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Banerdt is project scientist for ‘Opportunity’ and its rover twin, Spirit.

Having completed its job in the crater, ‘Opport unity’ is now preparing to inspect loose cobbles on the plains. Some of these rocks, approximately fist-size and larger, were thrown long distances when objects hitting Mars blasted craters deeper than Victoria into the Red Planet. ‘Opportunity’ has driven past scores of cobbles but examined only a few.

“Our experience tells us there’s lots of diversity among the cobbles,” said Scott McLennan of the State University of New York, Stony Brook. McLennan is a long-term planning leader for the rover science team.

“We want to get a better characterisation of them. A statistical sampling from examining more of them will be important for understanding the geology of the area.”

‘Opportunity’ entered Victoria Crater on September 11, 2007, after a year of scouting from the rim. Once a drivable inner slope was identified, the r over used contact instruments on its robotic arm to inspect the composition and textures of accessible layers.

The rover then drove close to the base of a cliff called “Cape Verde,” part of the crater rim, to capture detailed images of a stack of layers 20 feet tall. The information Opportunity has returned about the layers in Victoria suggest the sediments were deposited by wind and then altered by groundwater.

“The patterns broadly resemble what we saw at the smaller craters ‘Opportunity’ explored earlier,” McLennan said. “By looking deeper into the layering, we are looking farther back in time.” The crater stretches approximately a half mile in diameter and is deeper than any other seen by ‘Opportunity’.

Engineers are programming ‘Opportunity’ to climb out of the crater at the same place it entered.

NASA said a spike in electric current drawn by the rover’s left front wheel last month quickly settled discussions about whether to keep trying to edge even closer to the base of Cape Verde on a steep slope. The spike resembled one seen on Spirit when that rover lost the use of its right front wheel in 2006.

‘Opportunity’s’ six wheels, the space agency said, are all still working after 10 times more use than they were designed to perform, but the team took the spike in current as a reminder that one could quit.

“If ‘Opportunity’ were driving with only five wheels, like Spirit, it probably would never get out of Victoria Crater,” said JPL’s Bill Nelson, a rover mission manager.

“We also know from experience with Spirit that if ‘Opportunity’ were to lose the use of a wheel afte r it is out on the level ground, mobility should not be a problem.”

Courtesy: timesof india.indiatimes.com

What if Google owned the world

Google has raced to become the biggest brand of the century. And there is nothing virtual about it as the company streamrolls ahead notwithstanding even the US economic recession.

For millions of Netizens, the G company has already become synonymous with God. According to a recent survey, the Internet company has managed to upstage established brands and behemoths such as Coca Cola and Microsoft to claim the No. 1 spot as global top brand.

In fact, the search leader recently also emerged as the top brand in UK, moving two places up from last year. Google beat Microsoft and Mercedes Benz to gain the top spot. It had also topped a ‘Superbrands’ poll earlier this year. Clearly, there seems to be no stopping the Google juggernaut as it chugs ahead.

Ever wondered what the world around you will look like if Google owned it? WPRI-TV owned Eyewitness News ran a contest where it asked the users to let loose their creative juices and visualise a ‘Google World’, a world where Google runs burger chains, automobile companies, owns resorts, has a fleet of Airbus, and whatever else that one can think of.

We decided to bring to you some of the most interesting entries in this rather light-hearted depiction of Google’s global dominance by the readers of this contest. Of course, everything is virtual about it!

Courtesy: infotech.indiatimes.com

Microsoft vs Adobe in Web war

As the world’s best athletes compete in Beijing, the summer Olympic games are setting the stage for a battle between Microsoft Corp and Adobe Systems Inc over the Internet’s next big competition.

Microsoft’s Silverlight technology and rival Adobe’s Flash format are currently locked in a race over who delivers the world’s online video, but the ultimate prize may be who powers the next generation of Web software.

Using Silverlight, the NBC site offers a glimpse of what is possible with future Web applications because viewers are able to watch up to four videos at once or follow the action with an online commentary that runs alongside the video.

More than 40 million US viewers have gone to NBC’s Olympics site to watch some of the 2,200 hours of live footage from the Beijing games. All those viewers need is a Silverlight player on their browser if they do not have one already.

By building up Silverlight’s user base, the world’s largest software maker is looking to win over developers who see Web platforms such as Silverlight and Flash as a new way to deliver powerful Web-linked programmes incorporating rich graphics.

Currently, those platforms are mainly reserved for multimedia applications such as Google Inc’s popular YouTube site, which runs on Adobe’s Flash technology.

“It’s quickly becoming a very popular way to build next-generation applications. There’s a lot of interest in capturing the hearts and minds of developers,” said Jeffrey Hammond, an analyst at Forrester Research. “It’ll be a big business.”

Microsoft, which said nearly half the visitors to NBC’s site did not have Silverlight, plans to expand its reach to close the gap on Flash, which is already running on most of the world’s Web-connected computers and powers over 80 per cent of the video on the Internet.

For Microsoft, keeping outside developers loyal is especially important at a time when there is a major shift in how people buy software.

After years of selling licenses for software that runs on a computer’s hard drive, Microsoft is facing a new batch of competitors providing software free as a service through the Web browser in exchange for online advertising.

Taking advantage of Flash, Silverlight and other more simple Web-coding technologies such as AJAX, a new breed of interactive Web software — known as rich Internet applications (RIAs) — has emerged.

Like other Web applications, RIAs are cheaper to deploy and maintain than traditional software, but they differ from more simple Web programmes by employing rich graphics, running faster and creating a seamless experience that does not require the application to constantly reload or refresh.

For example, a financial institution may use Flash or Silverlight to build a programme to instantly chart stock prices or receive a steady stream of stock prices that do not require a trader to repeatedly hit refresh on his browser.

But those applications have yet to gain momentum with large corporate technology customers.

Adobe vs Microsoft
Gartner analyst Ray Valdes said 90 per cent of the top global 1,000 companies have yet to deploy any sort of RIA, while 90 per cent of the top 100 consumer websites have already done so using the nonproprietary and more simple AJAX format.

That opportunity has Microsoft eyeing current leader Adobe for business that extends beyond Silverlight and into the sale of design tools along with server and database software to enable these new applications.

“We have a large and established customer base. There is no doubt in our minds that Microsoft is going after this space very aggressively, but we feel very strong and confident,” said Jennifer Taylor, director of Flash product development.

Historically, Adobe’s developer tools have focused mainly on design and creating for the Web. Now, it plans to extend that to more traditional software development with Flex, a system to help developers create and deploy applications.

Adobe plans to take the next step with tools called Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), which allow programmes to run on the Web or offline on a computer’s desktop.

On the other hand, Microsoft is approaching Silverlight from the opposite direction. It plans to take advantage of its legions of outside developers experienced in writing for its ubiquitous Windows operating system.

The next version of Silverlight, being tested now and due later this year, will support Microsoft’s .NET framework — tools used by developers to create desktop applications that work on Windows.

“This is a logical extension of the investment that we’ve had in the development space for decades,” said Brian Goldfarb, group product manager for Microsoft’s developer division.

Microsoft introduced its first version of Silverlight a year ago, but Gartner’s Valdes said the second version is the first real form of Silverlight since the inclusion of .NET support turns the technology into “very different animal.”

Courtesy: infotech.indiatimes.com