August 2009

Windows 7 drivers become available commercially

August 31, 2009 12:11 pm by Jal

As October 22 is closing in, this is bound to happen. Folks at Dell have started deploying Windows 7 drivers for some models of desktops and laptops. Although one can say its a good and an early start. This was published officially on one of Dell’s blogs:

We’ve listened and recently, we have started posting Dell Certified Windows 7 drivers at www.support.dell.com/Windows7 where you will find the first set of drivers for many of our commercial systems.

We will post additional drivers once they pass rigorous testing and certification standards–please check back if there is something you don’t see. For customers without dedicated IT staff interested in evaluating Windows 7, check out Windows Update.

Picture courtesy: Dell

What others are doing?

Dell initiated and was first to commercially deploy Windows 7 drivers which is quite encouraging. I checked HP’s website to check out what are their plans on providing support to the Windows 7 platform. Unfortunately, HP stated on its website that currently it won’t support the test versions of Windows 7 and would take steps forward in this direction only after the official launch of Windows 7 on October 22, 2009.

Snapshot taken from HP.com

Lenovo, on the other hand, seem to be following the middle policy. This is what the Lenovo’s FAQ/Announcement section declared some months ago:

Drivers:

Drivers for Windows 7 Beta are currently in development. As drivers are made available, they will be posted to the following page:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/WIN7-BETA.html

Please understand that there is no set schedule for various driver releases. Until drivers are released, you may or may not be able to get all of your on-board hardware or docks / ultrabases working on various systems.

Well, we cannot say the latter two took entirely a bad decision. Of course, two companies never think the same way.

Patience my friend, patience!

Many users of Dell were a bit disappointed to learn the fact that Dell has not yet made available the Windows 7 drivers to many of the popular desktop and laptop models. For example, at the time of this writing, Windows 7 drivers are not available for Vostro 1310 and Vostro 1400, whereas they are available for Dell E6500. However, one needs to have some patience as drivers for more and more models will be made available eventually. As for those who have HP laptops, the driver support will be made available after October 22, 2009.

So the verdict is that, Dell is the first one to jump in the Windows 7 bandwagon by providing its first set of Windows 7 drivers to its users and that is it! But no one is going to get deprived of them because very soon, as October 22 nears, Windows 7 drivers will be made available for the rest of the models.

Technorati Tags: windows 7 drivers,dell windows 7 drivers,commercial windows 7 drivers

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Ad Blocking in various browsers

August 30, 2009 2:49 am by Jal

Some time ago we discussed how one can surf the Internet privately using different options provided in web browsers. Today we are going to see methods to block ads that appear on websites on different browsers. Blocking ads has advantages. Needless to say, blocking ads with rich multimedia content can save loads of bandwidth and you can view the website’s content with much ease and simplicity, without getting distracted.

IE8:

Blocking ads in Internet Explorer 8 is darn easy. Just activate the InPrivate Filtering option (Shortcut key: Ctrl+Shift+F) as shown below.

Here, you will also find the ‘InPrivate Filtering Settings’ option using which you can customize the ad blocking options. I really like IE8’s ad blocking feature because it is almost automatic. Overtime, IE8’s InPrivate Filtering option will build a list of content to be blocked and eventually you will see reduced number of ads.

However, if you are really impatient and want to block ads right away, you can do that by importing a predefined XML ad list (created by me, thank you) that need to be blocked. Follow below mentioned steps.

1) First download this RAR file and extract the XML file contained within on your desktop: IE8 Ad List

1) Open ‘InPrivate Filtering Settings’ in IE8 and click ‘Advanced Settings’.

2) In the window that appears, click ‘Import’ and browse for the XML file you extracted. Click ‘Open’ and the list of ads that will be blocked from now on, will get populated. Click ‘Close’. Now ads will get blocked right away.

Chrome:

Blocking ads in Chrome got a lot easier with the support of extensions. So, fire up Google Chrome and go to this site: Adsweep.org and click ‘AdSweep.crx’ link and install the extension. More details can be found on the site itself.

Mozilla Firefox:

For Mozilla Firefox, a very well known ad blocking add-on is available which is by far the best: Ad Block Plus. Once you install it, follow these steps.

1) In the Add-ons window, click Adblock Plus ‘Options’ button.

2) In the window that appears, click ‘Filters’ >> ‘Add filter subscription…’

3) A new window will appear. Here, select ‘EasyList (USA)’ and click ‘Subscribe’ button and you’re done.

Opera:

Blocking ads in Opera is similar to that in Chrome. Go to AdSweep.org and download the ‘AdSweep.js’ file. Follow the steps mentioned over there on how to block ads in Opera.

Safari:

Ah Safari! How can we forget you! Well, blocking ads in Safari is also not much of a task.The makers of Adblock Plus also made an ad blocker utility for Safari – Safari Adblock. Download and install it for Safari browser.

Now that all major browsers has been covered, I am sure you can very well say a final goodbye to those pesky ads, eh? Enjoy ad-free browsing!

Technorati Tags: adblocking,blocking ads in browsers

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How to make a ‘sticky’ post in Blogger

August 29, 2009 5:17 am by Jal

Many a times you wish to post an important topic which you want to be displayed on top of your other posts such as a welcome message, an important declaration, announcement of a contest, etc. Such information needs to be on the top of other posts so that viewers can spot it distinctly. However, in Blogger, we know that as you publish more and more posts, the older post goes down in the timeline. So in order to make a blog post ‘sticky’ (meaning to keep it always on top, no matter what) you need to follow the below steps. (I have used the Blogger platform for demonstration but the same concept can be applied on other platforms too).

1) Write the content of your post as usual, provide relevant labels and once you are done with it, click ‘Post options’ and you will be able to customize the advanced options like publishing date and time and allow/disallow comments.

Making a blog post 'sticky'

2) Now you need to change the publishing date to any random future date. Make sure you follow the ‘mm/dd/yy’ format. By doing this, any post you publish hereafter will have a publishing date earlier than this, so blogger will put that post below this post. This way, the post with a future publishing date will always remain on top. That’s it. You’ve just created your very own sticky post.

Technorati Tags: sticky post in blogger,making a post sticky

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How to turn your blog into a ‘DO-FOLLOW’ one

August 28, 2009 2:26 am by Jal

Some of you might get a little confused as to what I am saying, right? Well, this is actually a very old concept but hardly anyone cared to pay attention to it. The thing is, most blogs have a ‘no-follow’ policy which means that if anyone comments on a blog, the commenter won’t get a trackback from that blog. This is done to prevent spam to get the trackback. But doing so would deprive the genuine commenter of the valuable trackback. Putting a ‘no follow’ code in the template of a blog would ‘tell’ the search engines not to index the links inside the comments.

However, if you want your commenters to gain a ‘follow’, then you need to follow certain steps as mentioned below.

1) Login to your blog account.

2) Navigate to the ‘Edit HTML’ section and remove the code mentioned below wherever you find it. (In Blogger powered blogs, there are 3 instances of the below mentioned code)

rel="nofollow"

3) Save your template. You can even mention before the comment box that your blog follows a ‘do follow’ policy to urge readers to comment on your blog which, in turn, would earn them a valuable trackback and better page-rank.

Technorati Tags: do follow policy,removing no follow

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Draw a picture in Wordpad

August 27, 2009 11:23 am by Jal

Wordpad is one of the most versatile text editors of all time. Even qualified professionals prefer it over other resource consuming text editors. This time I am going to show you how you can draw pictures in Wordpad. This requires you to have the latest version of Wordpad which comes bundled with Windows 7 and Windows Vista. The following trick won’t work in the Wordpad version of Windows XP.

1) Open Wordpad and point your cursor where you want to draw a picture. Now click the ‘Paint drawing’ button on the ribbon above.

'Paint Drawing' button

2) Once you click it, the ‘Paint’ application will launch. Draw a picture you want to get inserted in your Wordpad document. Once you are done with the drawing, click the ‘Quick access toolbar’ button (located in the top-left corner) and select ‘Update document’ and finally close the ‘Paint’ application.

'Update Document' option

3) Once you close the ‘Paint’ application, your picture will appear in your Wordpad document.

Picture displayed in Wordpad

Technorati Tags: picture in Wordpad,drawing an image in wordpad,wordpad tricks

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How to remove nav-bar from blogger blog

August 27, 2009 8:55 am by Jal

If you own a blogger blog then you must be aware of a navigation bar (usually referred to as ‘nav-bar’) that sits right on top of the blog page. It is quite handy for newbies but many professional bloggers find it disturbing as it appears to be tacky on some custom blog themes. So, if you are one of them then here’s a trick to remove the nav-bar from blogger powered blogs.

1) Login to your blogger account. From the ‘Dashboard’ click on ‘Layout’ link. In the page that appears, click on ‘Edit HTML’ sub-section.

2) Now find the below piece of code (use CTRL+F to find easily)

#navbar, #navbar-iframe {   ...   ...}

Note: I have represented dots here (…) as the code between the two curly braces may vary from template to template.

3) Replace the above code with the one mentioned below.

#navbar, #navbar-iframe {   height: 0px;   visibility: hidden;   display: none;}

Here we have changed three attributes of the nav bar. We have changed its height to 0 pixels, its visibility to hidden and display property to none. This way the nav bar won’t appear any more. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: blogger tutorial,blogging tips,removing nav bar,hiding nav bar

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Download Yahoo! Messenger 10 Beta

August 25, 2009 8:20 am by Jal

Just few days back I thought why isn’t there any more updates to the Yahoo Messenger. Is this it? And now a hot news just came in. Yahoo has launched a beta version of Yahoo Messenger 10. This new update to the current version 9 has few crucially awaited features. This update includes high-quality video chat, new Y! Updates alongside your contact list which displays integrated updates of your friends using other social networks (You can add social networks on our Yahoo! profile page), some cool new eye candy, better icons, easily manageable contacts, video chat integrated to the IM window, ability to keep a video chat on-hold and much more. I have just downloaded Yahoo Messenger 10 Beta and its running as expected. I haven’t found any bug but as it is a Beta, I won’t be surprised if I find one. Some screenshots:

Change languages easily Contacts and Y! Updates

Yahoo! Messenger is available for download in standard installer or offline installer. According to me, an offline installer is much of a wise choice so download the Yahoo! Messenger 10 Beta here. The original article is on the Yahoo! Messenger blog.

Technorati Tags: yahoo messenger 10,yahoo messenger beta

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