Macromedia FlashPaper Vs Adobe PDF

FlashPaper files are smaller than PDF files due to compression. If you compress both the pdf & the flash paper with zip, they end up about the same size. This is because swf’s have built in compression while pdf’s don’t seem to.

Flash Player is slower than Adobe Reader especially when you make the window large, and are trying to scroll, you get a very sluggish interface (as compared to any normal application).

Dave Wraight compares Macromedia FlashPaper with Adobe PDF and feels that FlashPaper has a lot of potential to provide source content in a form that is useful inside other Macromedia technologies (Director, ShockWave, AuthorWare) and also in common web standards such as HTML.

However its future usefulness as a means to sharing content may be limited by either the underlying document format or the viewing technology.

Adobe recently acquired Macromedia and their PDF standard is already facing the heat from Microsoft’s Metro which is being called by some as a potential “Adobe Killer”.

See this PDF presentation on Web Standards: Redesigning Sydney Morning Herald

The Forbes 400 Richest Bloggers

Kotte points to a list of 400 richest people in America who blog:

- Pierre Omidyar, $10.4 billion

- George Soros, $7.2 billion

- Mark Cuban, $1.3 billion

A little bit surprising that Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, David Filo, Jerry Yang, and Oprah aren’t on the list.

Checkout Homes of the Richest.

Frustrated with a website? Just destroy it

Drop nuclear weapons over the target-site, thowing at random different kinds of bombs with devastating effects. Or the best way to show one’s anger towards a specific site is to shoot at it like a mad man. You can even spill digital coffee or inflict cigarette burns on victims. Heck, pull in the big guns and have Mars attack!

Have you ever experienced, just like God himself, how it feels to generate disasters anywhere in the World (Wide Web)? You can do it now!

Click here to see what happens if I spill Coffee on my blog. Or here to see my blog burning right before my eyes. I see a flood coming.

Enter the URL of a website @ Netdisaster and just choose a catastrophe, from things like meteors, flood, spilled coffee and mould. Nice.

Still have some free time ? Try these Optical Illusions.

Let visitors search your blog

Need a powerful internal search engine script to allow visitors to search the contents of your site? Check out these free services. You will learn how to add search to your site without any complexing programming and without paying any money.

Weblogs (or Blogs) have changed the way people surf the internet. It is perhaps the best platform to publish your thoughts to the world. Blogs could be focused on one topic or may contain totally unrelated writings. One day he may write about the lated HD-DVD technology and the next moment he may tell you how her two year old son at the milk meant for the cat.

Agreed, you are an amazing writer. But what if your visitors can’t find what you wrote about Firefox hacks few days back. Millions of bloggers exists all over the world who attract millions and millions of viewers everyday looking for breaking news, tricks ….

Blogs show around 5-10 recents posts on the main page and the rest older ones are hidden in the archives. Some blogging software support “Categories” and “Related Posts” but Google Blogger users are not that lucky.

If you’re operating a five page family site for your ancestors and present family members, then you don’t need site search. But if any site deals with several topics, adding search capability is a must requirement. Visitors can quickly find what interests them else they will just wander aimlessly through your site and leave it after just a few click never to return.

There are hundred different ways to add search to your site but I will try to mention only those that are free and hosted on the search provider. And you don’t require any rocket science to incorporate these search scripts into your site. Blogger service users may even use them as a hack to add categories just like MoveableType does. Once you add the search to your weblog, your readers will be able to search your site for specific keywords.

Enough of introduction now, let’s look at my favorite companies that provide site search:

1. Google - Search and Google are synonmous. If you want visitors to find things easily within your web pages, add Google Free site search as well as web search. Google offers tons of customization like changing logos, text colors, background URL. The only problem with Google is frequency at which Google spiders your site. If Google doesn’t index your site completely, visitors will return empty-handed even though your blog may have the content they are looking for. My personal experience says that Google doesn’t spider blogs very well.

2. Picosearch - Pico is great for small sites as the free version allows upto 100 pages to be indexed. You can start indexing manually and they send you an email with the indexing stats. But if you are into heavy blogging, read on.

3. Freefind - A very customizable product with maximum features. The free version of Freefind indexes three thousand pages or 32 MB of storage, so it suits most of the blogs. Freefind supports PDF file indexing, generates a sitemap for you and it shows complete search reports, including top keyword counts and recently performed searches. Each time your web site changes the FreeFind spider will visit your site and build an index of your pages.

4. Blogdigger - It will solve all the blog searching requirements. For best results, make sure your blog pings Blogdigger each time it is updated. I am very impressed with the Blogdigger results. They provide XML feeds for the results. Undoubtedly, Blogdigger is the best tool for searching blogs. The results contain even the recent entries and the results page is clean and simple.

5. MSN - This works very much like Google site specific search and you still remain at the mercy of the MSN spider.

6. Yahoo! - Now you can also add the Yahoo! Search box to your web site! Yahoo! reserves the right to place advertisements on all Yahoo! Search result pages. But again, make sure that Yahoo! spider crawls your website.

7. Technorati - The most popular service now allows you to add search to your site with the Technorati Searchlet! Just copy the code below and paste it into your blog template, perhaps in a nice sidebar. The searchlet is in beta. Your blog must be listed in the Technorati database and only members get to add the searchlet. This is the coolest service of all and I use it as a hack to add categories to my blogger blog. Look in the right sidebar and view the source code to see the code hack.

Now let’s get down to some coding. Almost all of them work the same way, they provide you with an HTML code snippet that usually consists of a search box and an input button. That’s all the programming knowledge you need. You add this code to your blog’s homepage to provide your readers with a quick way of searching your past posts. Believe me, it’s that simple. When a visitor searches your site, the query is sent to the search company.

Make sure that you read the terms and conditions of these search companies before incorporating them into your site. Google doesn’t want you to mess around with their logo. “Only we get to do that”. If you are using the Google logo on a web page, there must exist a minimum spacing of 25 pixels between each side of the logo and other graphic or textual elements on your web page.

Read Google Guidelines, Google Terms of Service, MSN Terms of Use, Microsoft Do’s and Don’t page, Yahoo! Terms of Service, Technorati Terms. Always good to be safe than sorry if someone decides to remove your site from their index for violation of terms.

Enough of legal talk, let’s do some coding here. Based on what service you plan to use, add the corresponding snippet to your main page or template.

Remember to replace the words “YOUR DOMAIN NAME” with your own website’s actual domain name. The above code may violate the agreement in some cases as I just try to put miniumum amount of code. Feel free to customize the HTML to your heart’s desire. You can add a style tag to the FORM element and modify the margins in CSS to get a layout you want (e.g. style=”margin-top:4px; margin-bottom:20px;”) and also play with the widths of the textbox and button. Research shows that maximum web surfers look for a search box at the top right corner of a page.

Making music on your PC

Gone are the days when making an audio recording meant buying expensive equipment or making a trip to a studio and paying professional prices. Now you can use your computer to record vocals and instruments, edit the whole lot together to create a music track and compile and burn a CD of your work, all with the minimum of fuss and expenditure.

Vnunet has an extensive guide to help you to get started from the hardware requirements and the free software you need. Making and recording music is no longer something that only those with access to a music studio or dedicated equipment can do, and the audio-recording software we have looked at in this feature means making music is even more accessible. You can then use your computer to improve the quality of the music you record or add effects that would otherwise require expensive equipment.

Ars Technica carries another guide to ripping and encoding music. The instructions contained therein will satisfy the majority of casual music listeners, without boring them to tears with details. The author attempts to cut through the BS for the newbies who don’t care about alternative audio formats and bitrate charts and other such complexities. The article is huge but that’s understandable as there’s simply so much information on ripping and encoding audio CDs.

How to get your site indexed on MSN

While MSNBot crawls billions of web pages, not every page that we crawl is indexed. For a site to be indexed, it must meet specific standards for content, design, and technical implementation. For example, if your site’s link structure does not provide links to each page on your site, MSNBot may not be able to find all of your site’s pages.

Add MSN Search Box to your site - just like Google.
Here’s how you can add MSN Search to your site to enable your visitors to search the Web or your site using MSN Search, just add the code shown here to your home page.

Submit your URL
If your site does not appear in the MSN Search results, you submit your site here.

About your site description
As the MSN Search web crawler MSNBot crawls your site, it analyzes the content on indexed pages and generates keywords to associate with each page. Then MSNBot extracts page content that is highly relevant to the keywords (often sentence segments that contain keywords or information in the description) meta tag to construct the site description displayed in search results. The page title and URL are also extracted and displayed in search results. Excellent content design and effective use of terms that target your message are the best ways to affect the site description that MSNBot extracts from your site. Effective strategies include:
1. Placing descriptive content near the top of each page.
2. Making sure each page has a clear topic and purpose.
3. Add a site description into the description meta tag

Guidelines for successful indexing
Use only well-formed HTML code in your pages. Ensure that all tags are closed, and that all links function properly. If your site contains broken links, MSNBot may not be able to index your site effectively, and people may not be able to reach all of your pages.

Full guidelines are available here. You may also be interested in Site Owner Help here.

How to make money from household clutter

Want to turn your clutter into cash? If so, join the more than 100 million people around the globe who sell their stuff on eBay, the online auction community where almost anything in the world is available. Microsoft teaches you how to Sell your stuff on eBay. Unload unwanted goods and make a little dough, but be warned-whether you’re selling or buying, eBay may be addictive.

Irene Nolan started auctioning items on eBay in 1998 and got hooked on the rush that comes from discovering that your trash may well be another person’s treasure. “I once bought four plates at a yard sale for $10 and sold them on eBay for $500. The extra income is great, and I love the thrill of the hunt.”

Getting set up to sell on eBay is quick and registration is free. But before you start auctioning off your unwanted goods, be sure you’re aware of the fees for selling and of the potential risks involved in any e-commerce transaction.

Want more evidence that eBay might just be your next best venture? Consider this: eBay vendor Colleen Corley heard Donald Trump mention on TV that the pet business in the United States is a $30 billion industry. She bought some dog doors at a liquidation sale for $12 each and sold each one on eBay for $110-a profit of more than 800 percent. Happy trading!

Ebay is also known for some Weird Ads. In another case, their Indian CEO was arrested for selling DPS MMS clips.

Google yourself often

Instead of taking Google for granted, we need to remember that criminals get the same easy access to information we get from a capable and quick search engine.

To see what the Internet knows about you, start by going to the Google site or by using the Google toolbar. Next, either type your name in quotations or, for a more refined search, type intext: (intext with a colon) immediately followed by your name in quotes. Now type your address or phone number, and Google may turn up a church or a social group directory listing. If this doesn’t surprise or outrage you, type into Google your social security number or credit card numbers.

So never put anything personal, such as your social security number on a resume, on the Internet, not even temporarily. And if you find such information on a cached Web page (a page that has been taken off a live site but still exists within Google), consult this page for more details. [Via]

Microsoft suggests Adsense

An article on Microsoft’s small-business center has some suggestions for bloggers to make money from blogs.

To my surprise, the author suggest putting Adsense or BlogAds on your blogs to generate revenue. This may be a huge embarrasment to MSN which is planning to roll out it’s own adverting program soon. But is Adsense only good for lesser-known blogs ? I thought people were quitting jobs for Adsense earnings. Also, Lockergnome, NYTimes and host of other popular sites carry GoogleAds. Jeff Wuorio may need to understand blogging better.

For lesser-known blogs, services such as Google’s AdSense or BlogAds enable bloggers to establish ad programs. AdSense’s — which lets you select several ads that are consistent with the content of your blog — pays you based on how many readers click on the ads for further information. Even better, it’s free. BlogAds, on the other hand, hooks bloggers up with would-be advertisers and levies a commission in return for any ad placements that result.

An Adobe Killer from Microsoft

Adobe may have killed the competition in online publishing by acquiring Macromedia. But Microsoft is not keeping quite. The next version of Windows will include a new document format, code-named “Metro,” to print and share documents, Microsoft said Monday. Metro appears to rival Adobe’s PostScript and PDF (portable document format) technologies.

The format, based on XML (extensible markup language), will be licensed royalty free and users will be able to open Metro files without a special client. In the demonstration, a Metro file was opened and printed from Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s Web browser.

The Metro technology is likely to go head-to-head with Adobe’s PostScript technology. “It is a potential Adobe killer,” said Richard Doherty, research director with The Envisioneering Group in Seaford, New York. “But this is just the first warning shot. Adobe could put something that is even more compelling Longhorn. [Via]

This is not the first time Adobe and PDF have been in Microsoft’s crosshairs. When Microsoft originally announced its Xdocs electronic form plans in 2002, Xdocs was seen as a threat to Adobe and PDF. Indeed, the InfoPath feature that was eventually added to Office is a competitor to Adobe’s server-based document management tools, known as LiveCycle.

Whereas Microsoft is choosing to take PDF head-on, Apple Computer took a different approach when it created Mac OS X’s print format. Apple uses PDF as its native printing format and also as an option for saving any Mac OS X file. Though it uses PDF, Apple did its own implementation of the format, using the PDF details Adobe has published.

In fact, one of the things that may help Adobe is that the company is not alone in supporting PDF. Because it published the basic details of the format, it finds itself competing against other PDF creation and management products. On Monday, for example, Arts PDF announced its latest PDF product, challenging Acrobat directly with Nitro PDF a $99 product for authoring PDF files. [Via]

Compare the privacy options of desktop search programs

Gartner had earlier warned that companies shouldn’t use the new Google Desktop Search tool because of security concerns and a lack of features. "Google Desktop Search has great potential for business use. Its security problems and lack of corporate-ready functions, however, make it unsuitable for widespread use right now."

Google was quick to react to Gartner’s report and released an updated version with better privacy settings. Anick Jesdanun compares the privacy issues of the three main desktop search programs:

Google stands out in recording Web sites you’ve visited. Say you saw an interesting article but could no longer find it on the Web. Google’s program can retrieve it from your computer, even if you had never saved it. That feature cuts both way, however: Perhaps you DON’T want your computer to remember everything you’ve ever browsed - especially if you’ve been goofing off at work.

Yahoo is a bit better than MSN - Yahoo won’t record any IM chats by default, and like Google, it lets you exclude certain file types from indexing.

All three programs handle the basics well, so your choice may ultimately come down to what e-mail and IM programs you use and whether you care about Google’s retention of deleted files.

Firefox users would love this program

Mozilla Cleaner is a cache and history cleaner for Mozilla Suite, Firefox and Thunderbird. It deletes your cache, history and temporary internet files as well as cleaning e-mail trash, recycle bin, temporary folders, clipboard, windows most recently used items and user added files and folders.

A cookie manager is also included enabling you to save selected cookies. The app works only on Windows XP and requires Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1 or above. Available for download at The Register

Version 1.42 is available as freeware on the Register site while the latest 1.61 requires payment of £2.50 through PayPal.

I don't agree with the Inquirer

In a recent article, the Inquirer mentions some “key” problems in Firefox. I am surprised to read most of them. Infact, I would prefer to call them as features:

1. Perhaps a name change to Firefox Mailer would help?
Why would the Mozilla foundation want to change the name Thunderbird which is now associated with one of the best and free email clients. Mozilla calls their browser as Firefox and not “Firefox Browser” - Firefox is a product not a company.

2. No splash screen
Let’s do a quick poll here. How may would want a splash screen which covers the screen while the program loads. And Firefox is so quick to load that displaying a splash screen for a nanosecond make little or no sense.

3. NO FTP UPLOADS.
I thought we are talking of a browser which is meant for surfing the web. You have so many free FTP clients available like Flashget which can so easily be integrated with Firefox using extensions.

4. Why deliver security fixes as “new versions”, instead of patches?.
I am no super geek to explain this but as we have always seen with Microsoft patches, they fix one problem and create many others. When bandwidth is not a problem, Firefox does the right thing by not taking any chances.

5. No “Client Customization Kit”
Hey, Firefox is free and open-source. If ISP’s or business want to customize Firefox with their own themes, bookmarks, they are free to fiddle around with the source code.

6. An INSTANT MESSENGER (coded in xul) should be integrated.
Why ? Firefox is a browser. Use it for surfing or reading RSS. Trillian/Yahoo!/MSN already have good stand-alone messengers - Use them.

Adobe Acquires Macromedia: Future of Existing Software Brands ?

Adobe Inc. will acquire Macromedia Inc. for approximately $3.4 billion. The new company will be called Adobe Systems, Inc. This has not occurred yet, and will not occur until approved by stockholders and government regulators. Until the close of transaction, the companies will continue to operate business and usual. The combined company will not be able to create a joint product roadmap until after the transaction is closed.

Macromedia Flash Paper which allows you to print any document to PDF or SWF format truly sums up the merger of two publishing giants. According to Joe, the Macromedia acquisition could extend Adobe’s reach beyond browsers and operating systems to new platforms, such as cellular phones. Macromedia has had pretty good success wooing carriers to Flash. The presence is important, because there are many business functions for which a cell phone or PDA—and not a computer—would be the primary client. Macromedia’s success with cell phone manufacturers and carriers could strengthen Adobe’s position bringing document and collaboration technologies to new clients.

What would the meger mean to the rest of us ?

• All applications will get a standard interface and help system (probably generated from Robohelp)


• Less product choices will be available after a merger than the product choices currently available


• Might see SVG [adobe.com] support in Macromedia’s Flash Player


• Adobe might introduce more choices for consumers like pro / lite versions just like they did with Adobe Creative Suite


• Adobe’s Livemotion team might now focus on Macromedia Flash. Might support for exporting Illustrator files to Flash.


• The good features of Dreamweaver may be incorporated in Golive so we get best of both the worlds.


• Similar stuff may happen with Freehand / Illustrator and Photoshop/Fireworks/ImageReady


• Adobe will become the undisputed leader in traditional printing and online publishing tools - Might expect some anti-monopoly trials against them


• Photoshop and Flash will remain the same, since neither had competition from the other company (Livemotion is alread dead)


• Macromedia Captivate to get better support for capturing audio and video with support from Adobe Premiere and Audition teams


• Adobe Acrobat would support Macromedia Flash Paper technology


• Adobe might bring the flash-video mechanism to Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0


• The fate of Director is unknown - Still it is viewed as unncessary by many Flash gurus.


• Microsoft will surely loose sleep over this merger


• Corel and Quark may see their market share slipping away

Most of Adobe’s software are general design tools, like Photoshop for 2d raster imaging, Illustrator for 2d Vector imaging, Premiere / After Effect for Video Editing and Indesign for Press + Layout. Macromedia’s portfolio is mainly for online applications, like Director, Flash, Dreamweaver, ColdFusion etc. So in most of the cases, the companies products compliment each other, not fight for the same market.

Sean Gallagher is excited about the deal. Undoubtedly, the merged Adobe-Macromedia monolith will be able to bring an impressive array of technology to bear on the problems that face people trying to create content for nearly any medium. By assimilating Macromedia, Adobe gets the Web-oriented technologies it never could get any traction with itself—like the Dreamweaver Web site design and content management environment and Flash Web media platform—and eliminates the few semi-viable competitive products left in digital imaging and illustration.

Macromedia ate Allaire, Homesite, eHelp. Now Adobe ate Macromedia. Looks like the deal was done in a very short period of time. Why would Adobe release an updated Golive CS2 if it knew that Dreamweaver MX2004 was just an inch away?

Use Hotmail to Store Files

Much like GMailFS and the Gmail Shell Extension that were discussed previously, RoamDrive allows users to store files using the free space available on their Hotmail accounts. Unlike the other two, however, RoamDrive can store files without any size restrictions and has features like automatic compression. The developers also plan on releasing a “Pro” version that supports Gmail and Yahoo Mail, and can link your Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo accounts for a massive amount of storage. [ Via ]

ed. Is it only a matter of time before email companies start cracking down on this?

Microsoft Security Update has RSS feeds

Microsoft security update e-mail would will be discontinued in July. However, you can subscribe to their RSS feed.

This feed delivers the headlines on major security update releases, which are usually released on the second Tuesday of each month. To subscribe, add this URL to your RSS reader: http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/updates.xml

The Security Newsletter for Home Users provides general notice about major new security update releases. You can preview it on the Microsoft Security at Home Web site http://www.microsof…

Don't use a public computer with desktop search

If a desktop search tool is installed, pause or disable it. Better yet, don’t use the computer. Anyone who has access to your computer can tap into your private files and Internet travels. Kim says - “Keep sensitive information out of your desktop search programs”.

Google’s Desktop Search, which runs continuously, creates a copy (or Cache) that lingers after the original is deleted. This makes it difficult — to say the least — to manage sensitive information. In addition, Google by default indexes secure Web pages. So if you shop online or manage your stocks at a Web address that begins with HTTPS:, rather than HTTP:, those pages are also saved. These pages often contain confidential information, such as credit card numbers. Further, it indexes your temporary Internet files and saves AOL Instant Messages. Google can also index password-protected Word or Excel files. And you don’t need the password to view the cached file that appears on the search results listing.

Fortunately, the latest version of Google Desktop Search is equipped with better privacy options. You can opt not to index certain file types, deselect secure Web pages, exclude file folders and specific Web sites from the search index.

In terms of security and privacy, Yahoo! desktop search program, based on X1 technology is better as they don’t retain copies of deleted files or index temporary Internet files. Unfortunately, it does index files in password-protected mail folders. [Via]

Protect your pricesless pictures from terrorists

Jacques Lowe preserved his priceless collection of photo negatives in an underground bank vault in New York but when the terrorist hit the Twin Towers, the negatives were lost forever.

There are many important things stored digitally now that, if they aren’t preserved, will simply vanish in time, our place in history is what’s at stake.

With the advent of digital cameras, some 59% of digital camera users make backup copies of their digital photos, but less than half have backups for their backups. Some use online photo sites like Shutterfly, Snapfish or EasyShare Gallery service. With P2P networks, copies of encrypted digital files would be distributed across a shared network of servers around the world

For professionals, loss of data means loss of business, loss of historic moments. A Swiss researcher’s proposal is to preserve the individual bits from the image file as a series of light and dark dots indicating the ones and zeros of the file. If properly stored, microfilm could preserve the information for 500 years or so, he says. The method could also be used to preserve music or even video information for centuries in such a way that basic technology like a microscope could be used to assemble the dots into usable data.

So the next time you take a picture, archive it on a CD, DVD, upload it to Flickr, Snapfish, share it on Kazaa, eDonkey, send it to your GMail account, upload it to Yahoo! briefcase. Atleast the terrorist won’t strike all the services at the same time. Pictures of Terrorists.

Dear Google Team - Can I ask a favor ?

Wow! You have an opportunity to make $$$ from your home videos. Google is now accepting video uploads directly from content owners. Those interested can go to https://upload.video.google.com and load their digital videos to Google Video, itself a relatively new service that, when queried, returns excerpts of close-captioning transcripts of television programs, still images from broadcasts and other programming information.

And there are enough reasons to use this program. Eventually your work will be included in Google Video, where users will be able to search, preview, play and purchase it. You may designate a price for playback of Your Authorized Content in the Uploading Form itself.

I consider myself an amateur video enthusiast and have tons of video on my computer. This new opportunity from Google, after AdSense, definitely thrills me. Free bandwidth, free hosting and free backup for life - I can’t ask for anything more. The main problem is How to upload a 50 MB WMV video files on a dialup connection ? It is almost impossible.

There must be some other option for dialup users or those who don’t have a net connection at all but still want their videos included in Video Search. How about sending the videos on a CD / DVD to Google ? This could be one of the possible alternatives to extend the reach of the video search program. Not everyone in the world has a broadband or unlimited bandwidth. In India itself, one needs to shell out a $ per minute while you are online.

Google is accepting videos of all lengths and size and practically all video formats. The Google Video upload program can be downloaded here. Just wondering what Google would call it - VideoSense? Or just VidSense?

Google Newsletter is gathering dust

Google-Friends mailing list was launched with much fanfare by Google to inform users with what’s happening at their favorite search engine. This newsletter was planned to go out approximately once every two months with updates on Google search features, business partnerships, and products in development.

The newsletter was originally hosted on Yahoogroups (or egroups) which is a main competitor to Google’s own Google Groups but later the Google-Friends mailing list was moved to Google Groups. Google still invites users to sign-up for this newsletter even though the last issue was sent a year back.

I am pretty sure that Google Friends Newsletter has died. Google is now using the more popular Google Blog to send out product information and other updates. I won’t call this a good move. Why to abandon a more popular technology like email in favor of RSS feeds. There’s is no doubt that RSS is the best thing that can happen to the web but right now, it’s only technogeeks who subscribe to RSS feeds while email is used by everyone.

Google, are you listening ? Atleast, please update your newsletter page when you are not sending any new issues. Or provide a link to your Google Blog page.

Preventing kids from pirating movies, music and software

Online piracy is the illegal copying and sharing of copyrighted materials for business or personal use. This can mean downloading music, movies, games, or software without the permission of the copyright owner as well as sharing music, movies, games, and software copies that you own. If your kids are pirating digital files, you could be subject to steep fines or other penalties, and they could be exposing your computer to viruses, spyware, and other unwanted software.

MS suggests some ways to help you prevent your kids from downloading illegally:

1. Warn your children about the risks
Your child could expose your computer to viruses, you could be fined up to $30,000 (this fine can vary by country).

2. Supervise your child’s activities on the computer
Keep the computer in a central room in your house. Specify certain times your child can and cannot use the computer and make sure they understand which activities are acceptable and which are not.

3. Give your child a limited user account
As a parent, you can give yourself an Administrator account, which allows you full control over the computer, and give your children Limited User accounts, which have restricted controls to help kids stay out of trouble.

4. Show your children how to download legally
There are many different places on the Web where you and your children can download software, movies, games, and music for free or for a low price. Consider giving your children an allowance for music, games, or other software so they won’t be tempted to download illegally.

Filehand 3.0 Desktop Search will be available soon

FileHand Search, a unique desktop search tool and winner of a 2004 Shareware Industry Association award for best utility using .Net, is preparing to release version 3.0.

Filehand will continue to be free. This again brings the obvious question - How do they plan to make money?. Actually, they will also be releasing a new API that allows any .NET application to access the Filehand lookup functions, and an ASP.NET demonstration that uses the API to provide a web accessible search engine. The API won’t be free but a free demonstration version will be available.

Filehand allows you to search files and Microsoft Outlook items. The results contain a clickable link to your document, an estimate of the relevance of the found document to your search terms, and an extract of the the document. Filehand 3.0 will feature numerous enhancements over it’s predecessor Filehand 2.0. Some of the features worth mentioning are:

• Index any file that has a supporting iFilter installed on the user’s system. - So that means, I can use Filehand to search through my huge archive of .CHM / .PDF help files as there are iFilters for almost all the file-types now.
• Optionally limit indexing to the first N Kbytes of each file.
• Save query to a file. Open the file within Windows to launch the query in Filehand Search.

You need Google-like searching for your computer! See www.filehand.com.

The following are links to free IFilter downloads for various file formats.

Archive Files (like CAB, ZIP orRAR) CHM Compiled HTML files EXE files HLP Help Files Image Files (digital photos, JPEG, etc.) MHT MIME Encapsulation of Aggregate HTML Documents MP3 PDF RTF Visio WordPerfect (Download and run both WPIFilter.exe and WPIFilter.reg) XML

MSN Desktop Search wins again

MSN Desktop Search continues to impress people. Just a couple of days back, Ars Technica reviewers rated MSN Desktop Search as their personal favorite. And now MSN seems to have found another fan - The Forbes Magazine.

Microsoft’s MSN desktop search beats its competitors hands down, primarily because of a superior user interface that integrates better with other Windows programs. Consent decree or no, Microsoft has once again managed to leverage its operating system dominance to its advantage.

MSN, by contrast, was almost shockingly intuitive for a Windows user. The results were shown in a list format, and e-mails could be sorted by sender, subject and date, just as in Outlook. It was very easy, via tabs on the desktop search, to switch between searches of documents and searches of e-mails. Like the other programs, it took the MSN program an afternoon to create an index of all the e-mail and files on my hard drive. But once the index had been created, it updated automatically in the background and searches took mere seconds.

The Forbes also reviewed desktop search tools from Yahoo! and Google. All of the desktop programs did a very nice job of digging their way through the morass. The difference came mainly in the design of the programs, and how intuitive they were. And again, the other popular alternatives like Blinkx and Copernic were not reviewed in this report.

Yahoo! 360 Invites available

Get a yahoo 360 invitation here. If you need a Yahoo! 360° invitation, please leave a comment. I guarantee that you will receive one. Great Yahoo! invite giveaway.

Yahoo! 360 is a blogging and photo sharing tool from Yahoo!. I particularly like the “Blast” feature where you write a message with a link and it pops up on your friend’s screen with your photo. Every time you sign in, you’ll automatically see the latest stuff your friends have shared.

Forrester reviews Yahoo! 360°: Central to the whole service is the concept that you want to communicate and connect with the people that you already know, rather than try to meet new people. To this end, your home page on the service shows the most recent content published by people within your network. This might be a blog post, a photo album, review, or an updated profile item. This page is constantly refreshed as the people in your network update the information on their spaces.

This fundamental concept of linking people through their updated “stuff” is what makes Yahoo! 360 unique - and inherently will drive usage of the service higher than traditional social networks. In essence, the content is being pushed to you by the service.Adding stuff is easy. All you need to know is point and click. If you already have stuff on Yahoo! that you want to share — photo albums, groups, a LAUNCHcast station, Yahoo! Local reviews — you can add them to your page in a few simple clicks.

But I will only switch to Yahoo! 360 when my blogging client w.bloggar supports it. Till then, its only Blogger. Even MSN Spaces doesn’t support w.Bloggar yet.

Update: I never realized that this Yahoo 360 Free Invite page is ranked second for 360 invite Yahoo. You can also yahoo 360 get invite now.

Check my Yahoo! blog @ http://blog.360.yahoo.com/amitprakashagarwal.

The most exhaustive Windows desktop search tools comparison

Adam Baratz has done an elaborate comparison of the popular desktop search tools here. To him, indexing is not really anything big, it already exists in Windows - the real novelty of desktop search apps can be found in their interfaces. The central design problem in these programs isn’t finding the best way to catalog your information, but finding out how to let you best traverse it.

Adam covers the more popular tools like Google Desktop, Copernic, MSN, Yahoo! Desktop Search and Ask Jeeves Desktop Search. I was a little surprised to see that there was no mention of Blinkx and Filehand which are free as well as very promising with some unique features like Smart Folders and Fly-By previews.

MSN Desktop Search remains Adam’s favourite.

MSN Desktop makes a strong first impression and continues to impress as you use it. It catalogues the most file types and has limitless possibilities for expansion. It’s easy to use, but gives power to users who desire it. A number of users have documented neat hacks, like slimming the deskbar and writing clever scripts for it. Microsoft also runs a great Wiki for getting tips and suggesting new features. While it has its own share of oddities and sore omissions (web history, please!), it comes highly recommended as is.

Adam makes a strong point - Desktop search software still has a very long way to go. Currently it is little more than a repackaging of older technology. “Desktop searching” will truly come into its own when it becomes more than just a speedier search and helps us through the morass of information that we encounter every day.

Desktop Search competition turns fierce with Blinkx 3.0

Blinkx today unveiled the newest version of its PC search software to enhance the way it finds information on the desktop and across the Internet.

The software has both a new look and new functionality. It can now search some 200 file formats. It can also index local Lotus Notes content and E-mail. Its audio/video search works particularly well because Blinkx indexes actual content using speech-to-text technology, in addition to searching close-captioned text and metadata like competing audio/video search engines.

Blinkx 3.0 features improved security, a document-preview function and the ability to index new files, such as Lotus Notes e-mail messages and attachments, says Suranga Chandratillake, the company’s founder and chief technology officer. The product recognizes more than 200 file formats, he notes. Also, Blinkx 3.0 pops up a preview of a document when the user hovers over its search result.

Both the speed at which Blinkx is upgrading its search tool and the quality of the upgrades are impressive, considering it is a small company, says Gary Stein, a Jupiter Research analyst. “They seem like a very dedicated and focused group. It shows what a small group of very smart people with the right resources can do,” Stein says.

Blinkx’s implicit query technology automatically tries to understand whatever document a user is working on and then make relevant search results available without explicit search instructions.Blinkx includes strong user authentication and respects Windows security profiles. Smart Folders, another great feature, automatically populate themselves with search results, which take the form of links to local and Internet documents.

Download Blinkx 3.0 here for free.

Adobe announces next version of Creative Suite

Adobe today announced new versions of Adobe Photoshop® CS2, Illustrator® CS2, InDesign® CS2, GoLive® CS2.

Adobe® Creative Suite 2 is a unified design environment that delivers the next level of integration in creative software. New features and tighter integration among suite components simplify creative and production tasks, enabling you to work more efficiently than ever before. Version Cue® CS2 includes enhancements in file versioning and review management, while other new features like Adobe Bridge, Adobe Stock Photos, color consistency, and unified Adobe PDF file creation offer greater productivity and collaboration.

Visit Adobe Creative Suite page.

Google Crossword - Test your Google Power!

Take a print of the Google crossword and fill it using the clues below:

Across
1. Advertise your product
6. Donate your computer’s idle time
9. Just added another Gig
10. Use Google on your mobile phone
14. Explore the world from your PC
15. Try out new Google products
16. Download APIs and open source code
18. Ask a question, set a price, get an answer
19. Shop smarter
23. View web pages in other languages
26. Search and browse mail-order catalogs
27. Search over 8 billion web pages
28. Create mailing lists and discussion groups
29. Query from your mobile phone or device
30. Express yourself online

Down
1. Earn more revenue from your website
2. Find a taxi using real time position of vehicles
3. Search through journal articles
4. Search your own computer
5. Search recent TV programs online
7. Get driving directions
8. Search a specific school’s website
11. Search for images on the web
12. Instant message your pictures to friends
13. Find, edit and share your photos
17. Browse the web by topic
18. Receive news and search results via email
20. Automatically create sets of items from a few examples
21. Add a search box to your browser
22. Get keyword suggestions in real time
24. Search thousands of news stories
25. Find local businesses and services

For answers, click here