Gmail extends Free Gmail Calling for 2011

Google is giving away Christmas/New Year gift to all of its users by extending its free calling service to all US and Canada for entire 2011. If you remember, Google started free US and Canada calling few months back.

Here's what Google said in its blog post:

We made calls to the U.S. and Canada free for the rest of 2010. In the spirit of holiday giving and to help people keep in touch in the new year, we’re extending free calling for all of 2011.

Google voice calls is a big hit ever since its launch and I am pretty sure, Gmail users would enjoy this holiday gift by Gmail! team.

Yahoo! shutting down Delicious MyBloglog Buzz

Surprising news for everyone is that Yahoo is shutting Delicious, MyBlogLog, AltaVista and Larry King. In addition to these services, Yahoo is also terminating the Yahoo Buzz, Yahoo Bookmarks, and Yahoo Picks.

Yahoo! announced in a press conference:

"Part of our organizational streamlining involves cutting our investment in under performing or off-strategy products to put better focus on our core strengths and fund new innovation in the next year and beyond,” the company said. “We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months such as Yahoo! Buzz, our Traffic APIs, and others. We will communicate specific plans when appropriate."

This can be a big change for all the bloggers out there who are dependent on Delicious, Yahoo's Buzz to bookmark and share their articles. MyBlogLog is another useful product to bloggers who prefer to add the MyBlogLog widgets on your blog sidebar. Now these widgets and plug-ins are no longer useful.

Of course there are other services sharing and bookmarks available, but Delicious and Yahoo Buzz also played an important role in the exchange of links and bookmarks. I hope that Yahoo's think again about the same and did not exit the service. Meanwhile, do not forget to share your views on the closure of the above products Yahoo.

Unlock iOS 4.2.1 on iPhone 3GS/3G Using UltraSn0w 1.2

Just as we predicted, the iPhone dev team released the 1.2 Ultrasn0w tool to unlock the latest firmware 4.2.1 iOS iPhone 3G and the 3G baseband later than 13/05/2004. The trick is to flash iPhone 3G/3GS with 06.15 baseband iPad 3.2.2 update.

Note that the iPhone 4 is not yet unlocked, because it has a different baseband OS. It is important to reiterate the risks involved with using 4.2.1 unlock iOS Ultrasn0w 1.2

- Once you unlock your iPhone 3G/3GS, you can never go back from 06.15 baseband. Warranty is void and version baseband will not be hidden by Apple.

- If some future baseband comes with a critical patch, you will not be able to update, if it remains in the sequence 05.xx (again, you would not update for you want to keep your unlock anyway).

- From 3G FW 4.2.1 iPhone with 06.15 baseband, you will not be able to restore to original firmware (it will fail). Restore using custom IPSWs to keep your unlocks.

Before unlocking you need to jailbreak iPhone 4.2.1 iOS 3GS/3G on using PwnageTool 4.1.3 or 0.9.6b5 RedSn0w. The jailbreak procedure using either the tools were provided previously.

Make sure the iPhone 3G is fully charged and connected to a PC or Mac via USB through the process. Also, do not leave your SIM in the iPhone. eject it and keep aside.

Step 1: After successfully jailbreaking is complete, connect your iPhone 3G/3GS to a Wi-Fi and run Cydia.

Step 2: Go to manage menu & then select sources. Press the Change button in the upper right, then press the Add button in the upper left.

Step 3: Enter the URL http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com in the small Enter Cydia / APT URL window popup.

Step 4: After the ultrasn0w source gets added, tap on the ‘Return to Cydia’ option & choose repo666.ultrasn0w.com from the sources list.

Step 5: Look for Ultrasn0w 1.2, select it and then tap on Install button on top right of the screen

Step 6: Wait for the ultrasn0w package to be installed and tap on Restart the Springboard.

Step 7: Insert the active SIM you wish to use on this iPhone 3G running iOS 4.2.1 with 06.15 baseband.

Download Windows 7 And Office 2010 ISO Images Directly From Microsoft Servers

Windows 7 and Office 2010 are the most sought after products from PC users around the world. There are so many people searching for the ISO images or installers of these products on the web and often they bump into fake sites that provide malicious downloads.

In order to help the users who are looking for the ISO images of Windows 7 and Office 2010, we collected links on Microsoft and it’s affiliate sites. These are genuine and official download links. It’s completely legal to download and use these installer as they are not associated with any product keys. To activate the products you need to use your own product keys.

Windows 7 Professional

• Download Windows 7 Professional 32-bit ISO (English)
• Download Windows 7 Professional 64-bit ISO (English)
• Download Windows 7 Professional 32-bit ISO (German)
• Download Windows 7 Professional 64-bit ISO (German)
• Download Windows 7 Professional 32-bit ISO (French)
• Download Windows 7 Professional 64-bit ISO (French)
• Download Windows 7 Professional 32-bit ISO (Spanish)
• Download Windows 7 Professional 64-bit ISO (Spanish)

Windows 7 Home Premium

• Download Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit ISO (English)
• Download Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit ISO (English)
• Download Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit ISO (German)
• Download Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit ISO (German)
• Download Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit ISO (French)
• Download Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit ISO (French)
• Download Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit ISO (Spanish)
• Download Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit ISO (Spanish)

Microsoft Office 2010

• Download Office 2010 Professional Plus 32-Bit Installer
• Download Office 2010 Professional Plus 64-Bit Installer

Facebook & Skype shake hands

Social networking giant and internet telephone giant are all set to shake hands. This news comes in a time when we heard rumors that Facebook is building its own phone and also Skype 5.0 version is about to be released in few weeks.

This partnership could further strengthen Facebook network with its users as communication could reach much higher level than just writing on the wall and sharing photos with friends. It looks like what has been proposed that….

when Facebook users sign in to the website they would also sign into Skype. When signed-on, the Facebook users can use the Skype’s services like text messages, voice chat and video chat with Facebook friends [within Skype].

This is very exciting to hear! Oh Google, the God of Internet, what are you going to do?

Convert Your photo into Art Work – Photo to Sketch

Photo to Sketch Is a free software to convert any photo into Art Work or convert photo into sketch, this is easy photo to sketch conversion tool. With the help of this tool you can convert your photo into pen sketch, pencil sketch and pastel colours. To make your sketch more creative you can also change texture of your sketch.

Features-
# Pen sketch
# Pencil sketch
# pastel

With this easy-to-use program you can convert any photo-into-portraits.

Download

Convert PDF to editable Word files : PDF Word Converter

Simpo PDF to Word is a pdf converter, this tool converts pdf files into editable Word files. This converter can convert encrypted pdf also. With the help this converter you can edit pdf files after conversion. Simpo PDF to Word could convert PDF to Word with good quality, preserves graphs, charts and text layouts. This application is standalone, you do not need to install extra Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat.

Simpo PDF to Word Converter is a easy tool even beginners can use this tool easily. Simpo Standalone PDF to Word Converter is a economical tool to save your money, because you do not need to extra install Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat in your computer. You can use Simpo PDF to Word to convert a batch of PDFs to doc to save your time, because this utility allows importing batch of PDF files and converting PDF to Word at a time.


Simpo PDF to Word is a software with two outputs combined – convert pdf to doc or convert pdf to txt, that means, you get two different kinds software at the same time.

Download

5 Google Analytics Metrics To Increase Traffic

Many of us may be busy in writing compelling content for our blog and forgetting to analyse the current visitors and trends that are driving traffic. Google Analytics is a great free tool that offers loads of information on visitors and traffic source of our blogs. If you can spend time once a week on analysing the important metrics of Google Analytics, you can take your blog to next level.

The 5 most important Google Analytics metrics we should check are:

1. New vs. Returning Visitors
2. Keywords
3. Referring Sites
4. Top Content
5. Visitor Loyalty

Indian Rupee Symbol now on Mobile Phone With Lava Mobiles

We already knew that the Indian Rupee Symbol has been launched on documents, web and keyboards, now on mobile phones also. Lava Mobiles, an Indian mobile phone brand has launched a new mobile handset(Lava B5) that will have the Rupee symbol integrated on the mobile keypad.

The same Lava B5 mobile, which came out with the first full alpha keypad (means having keys in A,B,C,D format instead of normal QWERTY ones) few days back.

However it is quite heartening to see the rate of adoption of Rupee Symbol – Many prominent online publishers have already started using it. Also, if you glance at your daily newspaper, many advertisers now use it to show their product pricing.



Certainly, Lava B5 is the first mobile phone having the rupee symbol on its keypad.B5 is also the first phone with world’s first Alpha keypad with keys arranged in ABCD order. Expect more companies to follow this soon.

Earth running out of Helium: No more Balloons in Future for parties

There is no doubt that we are running out of many resources required for supporting life on Earth. There is shortage of water, oil, natural gas, minerals and many more resource.

Couple of days ago Stephen Hawking, the renowned astrophysicist, said that we should colonize space within two centuries, otherwise there is a danger of mankind extinct.

Another scientist Robert Richardson, a Nobel Prize winner, believes that Helium supplies will run out in another 25 years. Once we are out of Helium there are no more balloons for birthday parties or as gifts to our loved ones, at least for the common man.

Helium is widely used in medical MRI systems, manufacturing LCDs & fibre options, rocketry, airships, controlled atmospheres, pressurizing and purging gas systems.

So what do we do once we run out of Helium. According to Robert Richardson

"There is no chemical means to make helium. The supplies we have on Earth come from radioactive alpha decay in rocks. Right now it’s not commercially viable to recover helium from the air, so we have to rely on extracting it from rocks. But if we do run out altogether, we will have to recover helium from the air and it will cost 10,000 times what it does today."

US is the major producer of Helium as it accounts to 80% of the entire world’s production. US seems to be selling Helium at “ridiculously low prices” says Robert. So we need to do something to preserve this precious gas. Robert suggests

[Let the US] Get out of the business and let the free market prevail. The consequence will be a rise in prices. Unfortunately, party balloons will be $100 each rather than $3 but we’ll have to live with that. We will have to live with those prices eventually anyway.

iPhone 4 vs iPhone 3GS Comparison – Graphical Chart

600,000 people in iPhone pre-order 4 on a single day and the rush of fan boys left both Apple and AT & T web servers down for several hours. If you wonder why so many people rush to iPhone 4, here is the picture that explains the difference between iPhone 3G and iPhone 4.

Delete Your Skype Call and Chat History

Like all other modern applications, Skype also records all communications we exchange use. It records instant messages, calls, file transfers, SMS, etc., and it is easy to see through the conversation tab.

If you ever want to get rid of the history information, then you must delete them. Skype offers a single click option to clear the entire history of your account, but the functionality is buried deep under options menu.Really deep!.

To erase history follow the menu Tools -> Options, go to Privacy Settings tab on the left side, click Show Advanced Options button and then hit the Delete button history. Ah You're almost done. Just confirm popup, it displays on the screen and your story is missing from your account.

Hide Facebook status from people

Sometime we want to hide our status updates from specific people who are already accepted as Friends in Facebook. Do you wonder why we need to accept someone as friend and then hide status updates from them? Well, may be you have to accept a friend request from your boss, but certainly love to hide status updates as well as other Facebook activities from him. Something similar goes with few annoying friends whom you cant’ de-friend but like to hide your updates.

Thanks to Facebook for providing fine grain privacy options on controlling what we want to share and with whom we want to share. It’s very easy to block one or more specific friends from seeing your status updates. Here are the step by step instructions:

1. Login to Facebook and go to Privacy Settings Page. It shows a page something similar to what is shown in the below image.

2. Click on “Customize settings” link

3. Expand the privacy options available in the section Things I Share -> Posts by me. Choose Customise from the list of available options

4. Type the list of unwanted friend’s names in to input box of the section "Hide this from”. Here is a screen grab of couple of my friends whom I added for writing this post

5. Click the Save Settings button. That’s all. Facebook will ensure that these people will not see your status updates on their news feed.

Delete Top 100 Rows from SQL Server Tables

Want the top 100 / n to remove records from a SQL Server table, it is very simple to achieve with the below mentioned query:

DELETE FROM MyTable
WHERE PK_Column
IN(
SELECT TOP 100 PK_Column
FROM MyTable
ORDER BY creation
)

Why do you want to delete top 100 rows from SQL Server Database?

If the size of my SQL Server table is too huge, I often tend to delete top n records instead of deleting whole table. To simplify what I am saying, lets say I have 1 million records in a table, then instead of deleting whole table in one go, it would be faster to delete 1000 rows in a loop in one go.

Google's new Secured search

Google deployed secure version of its search engine at https://google.com (have you noticed https instead of http?). This search engine allows anyone to use the Google search safely.

How is it secure?

If you use https://google.com, data exchanged between your browser and Google's servers is encrypted so that nobody can feel it.

Is my Google search history secure?

No, the queries that you submit to Google's servers are stored in Google. There is no change in the registration of Google's search history.
Any difference between public and secure search results?

Yes. Secure Search is different from the regular search. When you go to Google Safe Search

1. Image search will not be available in the left sidebar.
2. Site may respond slowly compared to regular research site because of an overhead projector to show between your browser and the server.

WalMart Reduced iPhone 3GS Price To 97$

Walmart store has cut the price of iPhone 3G 16GB model for $ 97 with two-year service contract. This offer saves you $ 100 and it starts today.

Apple slashes prices for its products where they plan to release an improved version of a product.

The slash of the iPhone 3G have enough confirmation that Apple is planning the next release of iPhone, unofficially dubbed as iPhone 4, released in the coming WWDC conference....

Intel wraps up 'best first quarter ever' by teasing new dual-core Atoms for Q2

Support for Android Moorestown is not the only piece of news Intel to come out today. In an earnings call today that started with the words of a 288 percent growth year over year net income - the "best [first fiscal quarter] Record" reported - Intel CEO Paul Otellini said, "the next innovation coming out on Atom is dual core, which appears in the second quarter. " Since there are already dual-core Atoms for nettop, we're going to guess he is referring specifically to the netbook. That jibes well with what we have heard about the alleged remake D510 N500. Guess we have something to look forward to the Netbook category in the coming months.

Toshima crams Core i3 and i5 options into business similar Tecra M11

It is impossible not to notice the simple fact that this machine is aimed primarily at those rocking suits more often than pajamas, but only because the new equipment Tecra M11 is not flashy, does not mean that there is a party rages at ' procedure. In an attempt to keep with the times, Toshiba has equipped its newest fighter works with Intel Core and Core i3 i5 processors, and only if the company had to evolve its operating system, a copy of WinXP is cast into the side of Windows 7. Other specifications include up to 3GB of DDR3 RAM, integrated Intel Graphics HD (NVS NVIDIA 2100M or $ 1,229 on the model), a 320GB hard drive (7,200 rpm), dual-layer DVD burner and a 14-inch backlit panel LED (1,366 x 768). You will also have a webcam, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, WiFi, audio in / out, an ExpressCard slot and a three-year warranty, all for the low, low price starting at $ 899. Oh, and is available today!

Recover SQL Server Database Suspect Mode

I got stuck with a SQL Server database which is on suspect mode and need to recover it without having any recent backups in hand. I Googled for quite a long time and found these steps to bring back the database to online state without losing any data. I found these steps very useful and I hope they will be useful to others who face similar problem

Step 1:
Open SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the SQL Server. Make sure that your current database is set to master

Step 2:
Clear the suspect mode of the database using sp_resetstatus DatabaseName. This will clear the suspect flag and make the database available online

Step 3:
Change the database status to Emergency using the following command. Emergency mode allows you to access the databases as normal but with no consistency guarantee. This option also allows us to export the table data so that we can minimize the damage.

ALTER DATABASE DatabaseName SET EMERGENCY;

Step 4:
Restrict database to single user by changing the access mode as mentioned below
ALTER DATABASE DatabaseName SET SINGLE_USER;

Step 5:
Run the CHECKDB command with “REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS” option. This option should be tried as last option as it always behaves the way it is named. We are not sure of what data it removes.

DBCC CHECKDB (DatabaseName, REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS) WITH NO_INFOMSGS, ALL_ERRORMSGS;

Even though the step 4 is expected to result in data loss while repairing the database, I was lucky to restore the database without any loss. My job would have been much easier if the admin of the database server followed few general guidelines that allow recovery of database in case of any unexpected failures. Here are the few of them

• Backup your data frequently. (once in two days or daily or even more frequent depending on your needs)
• Have multiple backups. Move the backups to external drives or tapes frequently
• Validate that your backups are good by performing trial restores to alternate server
• Run CHECKDB regularly if possibly in your case, to know how long it regularly takes