The 1990s saw a humongous rush to secure an attractive and promising domain names. ‘Squatting’ was more pronounced for domain name registrations which went on to became a lucrative business opportunity.

Hoping that a worthy buyer will come along and make good the exorbitant price tag they carried. Quite a few did, like business.com, which went under the hammer for $7.5 million in 1999. More recently creditcards.com found a buyer at $2.75 million. Most of these were sold before the dot-com burst in 2001. Most of the domains names registered worldwide are under .com suffix, while .net comes a distant second.

This low investment, effortless business opportunity for several wannabe entrepreneurs across the globe has seen it charm fade away. This received a further blow, when last year the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which regulates top-level domain names, announced that it would open up the system to allow any suffix.

More recently, in Feb 2009, the “.tel” (touted to be world’s largest phone book ) was launched where this was available on first come first served basis, which meant registration of domains under the nose of popular establishments, vis-a-vis bmw.com etc. For those of you beginning to rush to check on the more recognisable names, NASA, FBI, Microsoft, IBM, Google and so on, don’t fret, as they have already secured their “.tel” addresses, earlier this year, while some of the popular Indian names, like “rediff.tel”, “ndtv.tel”, etc. are still up for grabs!

However, this needs to be bought for a minimum of 3 years initially costing $327 to $375 based on the country and domain registrar you register from. From 23rd March, .tel domains would be registered at $20 a year.

“.tel is your place on the internet, which will act like a switchboard.” said Kash Madhavi, the chief executive of Telnic, the London-based company that runs the .tel registry. “You can say, ‘Here are my Facebook details, here is my mobile number, and people will always be able to find you.” In the near future these will become more valuable when the need for mobile content increases further and a stripped-down web pages made available through mobile phones such as Blackberry, Apple iPhone etc.

Happy buying, if you foresee a big moolah, in this.

Image Credit: Existentist

Popularity: 18%

Ovi, which means door in Finnish, is the new service from Nokia for all its users.

Ovi, helps you manage your phone by providing a host of features. This service signs that Nokia clearly wants to keep its hold on the mobile market and realizes that it will be in competition with likes of Microsoft, Google and Apple.

Nokia recently conducted a survey and mentioned that Indian population is now fast becoming top in mobile internet usage therefore needless to say that this service is open to India as well.

Ovi provides the following features which for any users would be very handy:

• Calendar, Contacts, Notes Sync: This will help backup all entries of Contact, Calendar and notes on your Nokia phone to the Ovi website. What this means is even if you lose your phone, you still have all your important details safe. The experience to sync is seamless and easy. The website provides good features to edit the contacts and calendar entries. One thing I wish this site has was ability to import calendars from say Outlook, Hotmail or Gmail. I am sure they will add it as the time passes. Overall this takes away the worry about keeping your contacts in sync.
• Photos and Videos: One of the best feature. This site provides unlimited storage and sharing options for Photos and Videos. You can upload as many of videos and photos as you want, either from your computer or from your mobile directly. There is integration with Flickr available to share you pictures directly to Flickr. Overall a very nice service.
• Files: This service is similar to Mobile Me service from Apple. This one is not free, but has some good features to give it a try. This enables you to access files on your computer through your mobile. Microsoft already is ready to launch My Phone service which is specifically for Windows Mobile Phone.

Other services include, the Nokia Maps, N-Gage and Nokia Music store. It looks like the rumoured Nokia App Store will be an addition to this site.

Overall Ovi is a very good service and sure will set some good competition for Apple Mobile Me and upcoming My Phone.

If you own a Nokia phone, then this is a service that you must use. Give it a spin @ http://ovi.com

Popularity: 21%

It’s weekend and after clearing up some email, I started exploring new stuff around. I stumbled upon Google Latitude. Yet another Beta from Google you must be thinking, but I must tell you this one is worth exploring.

Not too sure if you have heard of Nokia Friend View, Google Latitude is very much on those lines. Simply put Latitude is a spy in your pocket

Latitude is an add on in Google Maps for mobile. It lets you sign in with your Google Account, and sets your current location using the GPS (Global Positioning System) device on your mobile. These days many mobile phones are coming with GPS devices and this will exactly make use of that.

Here’s what it lets you do:

• Update your status-For instance I have updated my status here in the picture as “Testing Google Latitude”.
• Add friends and share your location with them.
• See their location on Google Maps
• For those concerned about invasion of privacy it lets you manually set the location, so for instance you may be on the road, but your location may show as office
• It also provides an iGoogle gadget which you can use on computer to view locations (pictured here)

It works with most locations, if it says “not supported in your region”, just change the URL on your browser to point to .google.com instead of say .google.co.in .

On the whole it seems to be an excellent piece of work from Google and with recent steps Google is taking in terms of Social Networking with Friend Connect and now Latitude, they may very well be on their road to creating the world’s largest network of social networks.

For now good work Google, you guys keep pushing the limits on use of technology and bring it to masses.

And readers get on to Google Latitude and give it a try!

Popularity: 17%

Ok, now it’s Windows Live Photo Gallery’s (WLPG) turn. Read my views on other Windows Live Apps here.

Firstly, WLPG is a very refined photo management software. It’s interface is familiar to the Windows Explorer and let you perform most of the functions that you can perform on a folder through explorer.

Second, WLPG’s online uploads land in Windows Live Sky Drive, which means you have 25GB of online storage at disposal.

I am trying to compare it to Picasa, which is currently very popular and see where it stands:

So that’s a quick feature to feature comparison of WLPG, Picasa and Shutterfly. Lack of ability to upload to third party sites in Picasa needs to be plugged as soon as possible. I just wish it had a shorter name like Picasa. Anyway, there are few unique features that I want to highlight.

The photos uploaded on Sky Drive can be downloaded at one go, like Picasa. However with many other tools you need to download every photo separately. You can either download the entire album or download them as a ZIP file. Also the feature  to sync the whole library, will make it even simpler to keep your photos synced with Sky Drive. The Sync Library option is disabled right now and should open up soon, in the meanwhile you can publish pictures to Sky Drive using Publish option. While Picasa offers a similar functionality, it is a bit crippled by low free of cost space.

Talking about the online storage you have the standard share features and ability to order prints via HP Snapfish.

Finally I would say that, Windows Live Photo Gallery is a very good addition and is a must have on your PC for the ease of use and host of other features. Also, keep Picasa for those cool collages it can make.

Popularity: 88%

It’s time to review another product of Windows Live, after my previous reviews.

I have been using various online storage options for quite sometime. Before Yahoo shutdown its photos service and moved to Flickr, I was using Yahoo for my online photo storage. I later switched to Shutterfly, which offers unlimited photo storage.

For my document storage, I have mostly used my Hotmail and Gmail accounts. But sharing those documents stored there with someone actually meant forwarding them.

Windows Live Sky Drive (WLSD), might just help addressing such problems.

To begin with WLSD, like all Windows Live applications needs a Windows Live ID. As you soon as you have your ID, you already have access to 25 GB of online storage, free of cost.

You can visit WLSD at Sky Drive . The following are the features that WLSD provides.

• 25 GB of Storage
• File sizes up to 50 MB
• Folders, Permissions at folder levels
• Permissions at file levels
• Shared Folders
• Public Folders
• Access permissions within people network
• Photos Can be added directly from Windows Live Photo Gallery
• Order prints Directly from Sky Drive through HP Snapfish.

You can add files to the folder on Sky Drive Share them as single files, folders or for photos you can share them as album. The online slide show rendered in Microsoft Silverlight is excellent.

The best reason to switch to Sky Drive is its integration with Windows Live Photo Gallery. You can pick any photos folder on your computer and upload it to the Sky Drive directly. I will write more about Windows Live Photo Gallery in a separate post.

If you have multiple Windows Live IDs, you can link them all to avoid logging in and out multiple times and keep viewing all the files.

So say if you have two Windows Live IDs then you already have 50GB of online storage. Definitely worthwhile, while rest of the services like Picasa and Flickr are offering paltry 1GB and 100MB Monthly limits.

Go Explore!

Popularity: 25%

In my earlier posts I have introduced you to the Windows Live Applications Family and have reviewed Windows Live Writer.

In today’s post I would like to write my views on Windows Live Sync (WLS).

WLS was earlier called Windows Folder Share in its Beta. WLS uses a Windows Live ID and helps keep folders in sync between different computers. This is especially useful when you have multiple computers at home and need few files to be available on all of them, especially photos, videos and your CVs perhaps in these turbulent times .

What particularly enticing about WLS is that none of the biggies Google, Apple, Yahoo or others have a similar service available at this time and it is available for both PCs and Apple MACs.

Anyway, what WLS does is, helps you configured folders on each computer that can be shared and synced with other computers. What’s more, it also allows you to access these files from Internet, if the selected computer is online and you have granted the permission to do so. Cool ain’t it?

So, here’s how you can configure it:

1) Go to WLS software from Live Sync

2) Install it on the PC or MAC, once installed you will be prompted to enter your Windows Live ID. Enter it and you are set. You need to do this on all computers that you want to sync.

3) Go the sync website

4) Select a folder from the computer to sync

5) Then add computers which need this folder to be synced

You can also enable remote folder access, which means you can access contents of your hard drive from anywhere via Live Sync .

Sounds very simple and cool. Yes it is. As it stands I have 3 of my home computers on sync and web access enabled.

But is there a catch? Not really but a few limitations.

• Can sync up to 20 folders
• Each folder can only have 20000 files
• Max file size 4GB

Now I don’t exactly call those limitations for personal use.

Happy syncing!

Popularity: 18%

Before we get started a quick dope on Microsoft’s status in today’s Web 2.0-3.0 era. Google clearly had a head start. It is (un)common knowledge that Microsoft could not catch up with Google’s search when Google was still new, because it was busy sorting things out with DOJ (Department of Justice) regarding its lawsuits and was banned till 2007 from any anti-competitive behaviour.

By the time Microsoft was ready, Google was an Internet Goliath, which made a PC Goliath like Microsoft become David in this Internet war.

Microsoft appointed, Ray Ozzie, as it’s Architect for future and Live services is his brainchild. Live set of services are designed to complement PC functionality in Web 2.0 Era. All the applications in Live Services are Internet aware and designed to enable accessibility and get users into the center of cloud computing.

The Windows Live applications that Microsoft offers are following:

• Hotmail (Email)
• Messenger (Instant Messenger)
• Writer (Reviewed earlier)
• Photo Gallery
• Movie Maker (Vista and above)
• Toolbar
• Family Safety
• Sky drive (Online storage)
• Spaces (Blogging)
• Sync (File Sync Solution)

All of these are available as a single download from Live Home . All of these services need you to have a Windows Live ID, which is free.

As it stands today Live stands 4^th top used website after Yahoo.com (1^st), Google.com (2^nd), Youtube.com (3^rd). (source: Alexa.com)

I will share a review on many of these products and a comparison with a similar tool available in my next posts.

Popularity: 19%

Microsoft just announced Windows 7, a successor to Windows Vista. It has been about 2 years of unpopular time for Vista and Microsoft is quickly readying its successor to cleanup its tarnished Image.

Windows XP is touted as most successful operating system ever. It has been in use since October 2001 and continues to dominate as the PC Operating System. Microsoft perhaps was a victim of its own success; yes I am talking about Windows Vista.

As a successor to XP, Vista had huge expectations. While it delivered on Security, Refined Interface, Ease of use and Application Compatibility, many users felt the same to be issues with the system, which made it unpopular:

> Security – Annoying User Account control

> Resource Intensive Aeroglass Interface

> Updated Menus – Confusing at times

Apple thrived on this fact with its “I am a Mac” campaign. Result, Vista disaster. While Microsoft is trying hard to revive the image with “I am a PC” campaign, it has quite some ground to cover.

Enter Windows 7. I have just downloaded the 64 Bit Beta and have installed it on my HP Laptop running AMD Turion. For a Beta version, I am pleasantly surprised with the way it has been performing:

Installation time was 20 minutes and was exactly 6 clicks (Thought it restarted couple of times, it did not require my intervention. As soon as the OS loaded, it prompted me with my wireless connection and I quickly configured.

The moment I logged in, it suggested installing an Anti-Virus solution and took me to a recommended page. I have however installed my favourite, Avast. It ran with no issues at all.

Quickly I added my favourite applications; Windows Live Applications, Google Picasa, Skype, Google Talk, Flock and Firefox. All of them functioning very well with no compatibility issues. It also downloaded drivers for my latest nvidia card and gave me a preview of its slicker interface than Aero of Vista.

For the User account control, Microsoft seems to have now incorporated different levels so that you can customize, unlike Vista, which seemed a very nice move.

Another striking feature is the new taskbar, which replaces miniature icons with giant ones. Even the applications current running would be minimized into icons on this task bar.

I strongly recommend you to give it a try; however as this is in beta, please do take full backups of your systems before you install it. If you have a spare laptop or desktop on which you can try it, even better.

You can download a copy of Windows 7 Beta from here.

For now, it looks like Microsoft seems to be very much in control and would take every step to avoid repetition of Vista debacle, and from what I have seen of Windows 7 so far. It looks like they will succeed.

Popularity: 15%

If you haven’t heard of Twitter yet, it is social networking site, which lets you stay connected and network with people. It only allows short message of about 140 characters. These messages are usually referred to as Tweets.

If you want to know more about Twitter then give a reading about what it is on Wikipedia.

Now talking about Tweets, the standard way to add them is through the website by logging into the website. Tweet.im is a site which makes Twitter more usable and provides a time-saving interface, your Instant Messenger. While there was a direct option from Twitter to do this earlier, it is now disabled (indefinitely)

You can go to Tweet.im and register for the their service either with a Jabber account or a Google Talk account in just three steps. All you need to do is:

1. Provide your Twitter user name and password and the Google Talk or Jabber account you want to link with.
2. As soon as you register, you will be prompted in your Instant Messenger to add a friend names something like <Twitterusername>@Twitter.tweet.im
3. Accept the request and you are all set.

You can directly send a Instant message to this contact and it will be updated on Twitter for you. And should someone in your network post updates, they will directly come to you as a Instant message.

While there are other services like Ping.fm which let you update Twitter through IM, the difference with Tweet.im is that it returns the message posted by members of your network to the Instant Messenger.  Give this one a try, It is fun.

Image Copyright: Tweet.im

Popularity: 11%

Perhaps I have been writing a bit more on piracy these days, so be it, I think it is important.

Baidu.com, is the top search engine in China. Google is trying it’s best to get hold on the search market in China. Music One box, is an idea from Google, which could just get it in the right direction.

In China, just as rest of world, illegal downloads of music are rampant. People use Baidu to search for the songs and then just simply download. The recording labels have given up hope of earning any revenues. Enter Google. Google created Onebox to: A) To tackle this problem and make music downloads legal. B) Get revenues to music companies C) Go up in Search market in China.

So what Google does is, whenever any one searches for music, it sends them straight top100.cn. This portal already has agreements with Music companies to distribute their music. All the ad generated revenue from Top100.cn is shared between the portal and the music labels. Google is not taking a cut.

Now let us look at this in context of India. Indian music industry is also facing this problem. Innumerable number of blogs host links to illegal music. Can Google or say Microsoft setting up such a deal with the music companies in India? Which this help the cause?

I think the answer to this is no. Not yet in India. Internet is the smallest channel for piracy in India and there are other rampant ways, which are being dealt with by agencies like IMI etc.

While there is little relevance for this to India at this time, this ad supported music could be a concept for the future and could be readily taken to the rest of the world. Only if the music companies have some open mind and look to the future.

Popularity: 15%

Well this section is “Time Pass”, what else can expect this section other than what follows. Now that you are here why don’t you pass sometime doing these? 

Online Treasure Hunt:
Now try this link: This is an online Treasure Hunt. IIM Indore folks have put some good thinking behind its creation. You really have to think out of the box to progress further. Put your web (and a logical thinking) to good test. Try it for your self! (Do check the Game Hints section if you are really stuck) All the best!

Search:
1)      Try searching “Search” on Google and click I am feeling lucky, and be surprised. Apparently Google doesn’t believe it is the best?
2)      Now try searching “Search” on Live.com and check the results, it looks like even Microsoft doesn’t believe that they are the best.
3)      Finally try this on Yahoo, but looks like Yahoo believes it is the best J

Interesting, you have read so far without giving up, now you can look up this site.

And if you did comeback to read the rest of article after that, then it will be my responsibility to send you up to this site, which is a bit more useful. Sometime helps to see where we stand.

If I managed to lure you to read up to this point, then potentially many phishers can exploit your interest to lead you into trouble with phishing scams. So beware and understand how to be safe online.

Now, let me thank you for reading this post and do take a look around the blog, there is lot more to read.

PS: If you’ve liked what you read on our site, please link to us http://indiaspecial.net

Popularity: 22%

History

You must have heard about this or read about this. Well it is some word coined by the media to describe the competition between Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer in early 2000’s. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 (IE6) is dubbed, final nail in Netscape Navigator’s coffin. After IE6, the scene was pretty much silent with IE6 ruling the roost with over 90% market share (including Macintosh).  Opera had it’s own share and no major competitor to was on the scene for IE6.

Enter Safari (Jan ‘03) and Mozilla Firefox (Nov ‘04). While Safari was primarily targeted at uprooting Microsoft’s hold on Macintosh platform, Firefox was a open source project targeted at improving the web experience for users, an it succeeded big time! It got Microsoft working, which slipped into a slumber on development of a new browser. By the time Microsoft woke up to the new challenge in the browser arena and readied IE7, Firefox already developed a huge following and chipped about 12% of market share, therefore successfully initiating the browser wars yet again.

Today

Today IE is at 72%, Firefox enjoys about 20% of market share, Safari (sneaked into most of Windows systems through Apple software update) is at about 6% and Opera a humble 1%. Read in more detail about the percentage shares at this Wikipedia article.

The browser wars today have reached it’s peak with a new entrant, Google Chrome. Google has launched its new browser built on top of Webkit framework used also by Apple Safari. It is a instant hit with the Google fans and is yet to woo hardcore Firefox fans. Chrome is a little more than browser, it is sort of an Operating system which is optimized for all Google Web Apps, try running any Google applications on it and you will agree.

On a feature to feature basis, IE8 and Chrome almost match each other. Safari and Firefox have almost every feature and just lack the crash control (which they claim they will never require )

Do a quick search with the title of this article and you will have a bunch of articles, giving their own views on what’s better and what’s not. I am not going to go into all those details for you. As I believe you can test for yourself and decide.

For now, I run all of the above and give them their respective share of my CPU time

Happy surfing.

Popularity: 32%