Techspace

Google Public DNS - "What is?" and "How to?"

DNS stands for Domain Name System. Let's not delve deep in understanding the whole function of a DNS. For now, just remember this. It is a system that names all the computers connected to the internet in an hierarchical order. It is also a system to convert human-friendly addresses(domain names) like www.something.com to its computer-friendly address like 192.159.233.1. The DNS system is like a phone-book to all the devices connected to Internet. Whenever you try to connect to a website with its domain name, your computer performs a DNS look up. Without a DNS service, you will have to enter IP addresses instead of easy-to-remember Domain names. It is also the condition when your DNS server is down.

So now that you have a clear picture of what a DNS is, let me introduce you to Google Public DNS. It is yet again, a Google-brand. Google Provides you a DNS service to resolve the domain names. You need to configure your network settings to use the IP addresses 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4 as your DNS Servers. Instructions to configure are given in the link -

http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using.html

If you're wondering what's the use of Google DNS, then it is the reliability and speed. Google DNS servers are always ON. I happened to switch to Google DNS only because my default DNS was down. It has never gone down since then. It also improves the security of browsing. It's Google after all.

Happy Surfing. :)

Cool Gmail Lab features that you should enable

Here are some Gmail Lab features that have become a part of my Gmail now. Not that they are must-have features, but they do make life easier than it would be otherwise. And there is no particular order in the list here.

Mark as Read Button

There are so many mails that you don't want to open. Like notifications from facebook/gmail/twitter. The subject line itself gives you enough information that you will prefer to make it as read. Instead of selecting it from drop down menu, a "Mark as Read" Button just next to "Delete button" comes handy. Enable this features to have "Mark as Read Button".

Google Docs preview in main
With so many office documents moving around in mails, I use Google Docs - an online Document editor. With this feature enabled, you can view your attached documents in Google Docs without having to download it to the system.

Custom Keyboard Shortcuts
You can browser your Gmail using your keyboard with this feature enabled. It lets you define various actions for various keys. Like reading mails, composing them, making it archive and many more.

Inbox Preview
This is one of the best feature I loved. This features enables you to see a preview of first few mails of your inbox right when your inbox is still loading. And you can sign out if you wish to without having to completely log in to the inbox. Try this once.

Add any Gadget by URL
This features lets you add many more gadgets to your inbox. You can add all the iGoogle Gadgets. This adds a new item in your settings from where you can add other gadgets.

Old Snakey
Not something really productive for your business or mailing work, it's just the Old Snakey Game. This game to a kid is like "Hello, World!" code for a programmer. A Bonus. Didn't want to include it in this list but I still have some childhood love for it.

There are many more features to experiment at Lab. Try them all. :)

How to disable Recent Documents menu in UBUNTU?

As u all have seen, in WINDOWS we can disable recent documents menu from the START menu. But do you know how to disable that menu in UBUNTU?

Steps are as follows :--

Go to Places-->Recent Documents-->Clear Recent Documents.

Open the Terminal.(Applications-->Accessories-->Terminal)

Enter this in the terminal. rm ~/.recently-used.xbel

Followed by touch ~/.recently-used.xbel

Then sudo chattr +i ~/.recently-used.xbel. After entering this in the terminal, you will be prompted for password. Enter the password and press [Enter].

From now on, recent document list will never be displayed. I mean it will be always greyed. That means Recent Documents menu is disabled.

To re-enable Recent document menu, just open the terminal and enter this command.

sudo chattr -i ~/.recently-used.xbel

What exactly happens when u carry out steps as shown above?

We first removed the file recently-used.xbel located in the root of your Home directory by using the rm command. This file is used to store the list of documents.

Next we re-created the file using the touch command.

Then we changed the attribute of the file to make it inaccessible using the command chattr +i.

Mount Harddisk drives without Password Authentication in Ubuntu

We know that, after each and every restart of ubuntu, if we have to mount harddisk drive, Ubuntu password manager asks for password. Once or twice, we can enter password but not after each and every restart.

Is there any solution for this? Yes. Solution exits :P :) Solution is as given below.

Open the terminal.(Applications-->Accessories-->Terminal)

Paste the below code.

sudo gedit /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.devicekit.disks.policy

New windows will pop up. Search for

<description>Mount a system-internal device</description>

<description xml:lang="da">Montér en intern enhed</description>

<description xml:lang="de">Eingebautes Gerät einhängen</description>

<message>Authentication is required to mount the device</message>

<message xml:lang="da">Autorisering er påkrævet for at montere et fil system</message>

<message xml:lang="de">Zugriffsrechte werden benötigt um das Gerät einzuhängen</message>

<allow_any>no</allow_any>

<allow_inactive>no</allow_inactive>

<allow_active>auth_admin_keep</allow_active>

</defaults>

</action>

Here, u can see auth_admin_keep. Just replace "auth_admin_keep" by "yes"(without double qoutes). And save the opened file.

After this, u can mount harddisk drives without entering password. Isn't this simple and easy? :P :)

Bilbo - Best blogging client for Ubuntu

I used Live Writer to compose my blogs for all the time I was on Windows. Now when I'm on Ubuntu, only Client I had was my browser :(. That was because I wasn't very much impressed with Drivel or KBlogger.

But today I came across this client called Bilbo (now been renamed as Blogilo). It did blow me out of the world. It was better than Live Writer.

Currently featured:

A full featured WYSIWYG editor + An HTML editor

Previewing your post with your blog style! like when you are visiting it at your blog.

Support for Blogger1.0, MetaWeblog, MovableType (Wordpress supports All of these!) and Google GData (used on Blogspot.com blogs) APIs!

Support for Creating/Modifying/Deleting posts.

Support for creating drafts and scheduled posts!

Support for uploading media files to your blog (Just on supported APIs e.g. MetaWeblog and MovableType)

Support for Fetching your recent blog entries.

Support for adding Images to post from your system. It will upload them on Submitting post to blog (Just on supported APIs e.g. MetaWeblog and MovableType)

Support for saving local entries before publishing.

Saving your writing copy to prevent data loss, at configurable intervals.

Internal auto spell checker. (KDE spell checker used so most of languages are supported)

Installation is easy as you can find it in the repositories. You can download from the Ubuntu Software Center by searching for 'Bilbo' or you can also run the following command in your terminal

sudo apt-get install bilbo

Now, my search for a blogging client has ended.

Google Buzz - the new thing!

Google released its new thing - Google Buzz just two days back. With the call, "Go beyond status messages", Google buzz integrates with your gmail inbox and is yet another social networking solution by Google. As far as I see it, it is a mix of exact quantities of Twitter and Facebook with a Google Brand. With Google buzz, you can 'buzz' like you 'tweet' on twitter. The only added features come from Facebook. Like 'liking' a post or 'commenting' on one's status update.

Google Buzz is simple. It integrates with your inbox and no serious setup needed. Just a minimal completion of profile will do the job. Since it incorporates itself in one's mailbox, it will be a good push to those people who kept themselves away from Social-networking stuff.

Sharing can be private or public. Your buzzes can be either public or private. You can make your buzzes to be seen only by a particular group of people or the whole world. Though, the setting up of groups take time, it is of great importance (You can keep your corporate clients away from knowing that you like ice creams ;) ).

Another big thing that twitter lacks is implemented in Google Buzz. With Google Buzz, your updates (buzzes) can include photos, videos and texts with more than 140 characters. Meaning - no more shortened URLs. A picture is worth thousand words. ;) So I think this is another positive point of Google Buzz.

Google Buzz is not isolated. The whole concept is about unification of picasa, Google Reader, Google Mail, Blogger, Twitter and Flickr. This is truly amazing. New post in your blog, or things you shared on Reader, or updates you make on Twitter, or photos you add to Picasa/Flickr will be shown as Buzz. Just imagine what life would be if it wasn't this way. If you wanted to share a new photo that you took, then you had to upload it to flickr or picasa. Then take its link and post it on Twitter and paste it as you status update on gmail chat.

Google with Google Buzz seem desperate to beat Facebook and Twitter. But who cares, as long as their products are good. It has been only two days and it is too early to decide on anything. But I can already see people tweeting their new Google Profile's links. And trends on twitter showed me mixed opinions among people. But Google has made lot of changes to it, based on user feedbacks, since its release. People who joined late might have not noticed it. But it's given in their official Gmail Blog.

I read some articles over net and followed trends on twitter about Google Buzz. Google Buzz is definitely better than Yahoo's social integration. Google Buzz will be better than others because it will soon be there in Google OS, Google APIs, Google Chrome and everywhere. It's Google after all. Is it a threat to Facebook and Twitter? It's too early to answer that. But my bottom line goes like this "Google Buzz has no special features for people to switch to it from their existing networks on Facebook/Twitter."

What do you think of Google Buzz? Post as your comments.

gtalX - a gtalk for ubuntu

gtalkx

Its still in the version 0.0.5. And its still not something that's very friendly.

What's good?

Its simple.

You can make voice calls. (was a hard thing just a few days back).

What's bad?

You can't log out unless you quit.

You can't change your status message or icon.

What's buggy?

Don't know whether its a bug or a super power - you can see invisible people. They are shown in the list of people who are online. Though you cannot make any contact with them. :)

Download the debian package from the link here: http://sites.google.com/site/jozsefbekes/Home/gtalx

Install it by running the following commands in command line.

sudo dpkg -i gtalx_0.0.5_i386.deb

or if you have 64-bit Ubuntu then

sudo dpkg -i gtalx_0.0.5_amd64.deb

Once it is done, run

sudo apt-get -f install

To remove gtalx just type

sudo apt-get remove gtalx

Download Youtube videos in Ubuntu

You might have never imagined that it would be this simple...(with Ubuntu).

Another thing to note is that this trick works with any online video streaming service and not just youtube.

Its 4 easy steps.

1) Go to www.youtube.com on your favorite browser and search for the video you want to download.

2) Play it. Let the movie buffer to end. Don't close the page

3) Open your home folder and type "/tmp" in the address bar. You see a file of prefix "Flash".

4) Copy the file to somewhere and rename it. Now you can close your browser. It is in .flv format. Now you can use a converter to convert it.

What actually happens -

All the videos are stored on youtube server. When you click play, the video cannot be played on the server. It has to be played on your machine and hence your browser instead of playing on the server, copies the file from youtube server on to your machine(computer). It stores it in /tmp directory. /tmp directory is a temporary directory. Contents of it are deleted when they are no longer of any use. That is why I told you to keep the browser on until you copy the movie file. So the browser is not actually playing the video from server, but from your local hard disk.

It shouldn't surprise you if I say that same thing happens on Windows. Video will be downloaded somewhere in temp folder from where the browser plays it. But there are some security schemes that don't let you find the file easily. Google about it to know how to do it on windows.

So, by now you might have ascertained that you can download any video and not just youtube video.

Nokia N97 - a speed-review

Thanks to WOMworld for sending me the Nokia N97 for trailing.

Not going to bore you with lot of text here. These are the features that I try to find in a phone when I get one.

Looks -

Great. Minimal number of buttons and placed exactly where you would want them to be. But I felt it a little bulky to go around with it in pockets.

Hardware -

Not bad. Slides upwards with a thwack. Sounds like something broke. But, a very strong phone. QWERTY keyboard is beneath the screen and could be used only when slid open. Space bar on the keyboard is too small. Don't try this when you're at home. Locking/Unlocking the phone is hardware dependent. I'd prefer something in the software to lock/unlock the phone. CarlZeiss lens is covered with a sliding cover. Good protective scheme when compared to nothing for N97 mini. Touch Screen is pathetic. No match to that of iPhone's.

Widgets -

Nice. Though not an important factor, I love to keep widgets on screen. You can keep everything on your fingertips that way. N97 has a well organised widget display. It organised my life for the two week of trailing period.

Dialing a number (for which phone was actually built for - Graham Bell) (just in case you're deviated from that fact)

Very simple. But calling a number from your contact list is a little too much about burning calories. Scrolling through the list, using touch screen which is not something I liked, is a serious task.

User Interface -

Great. Nokia has always been good at providing good UIs. This phone is no different. The typical menu system. Photos and Musics are easy to manage. Applications are easy to be installed.

Speed -

Bad. The 434Mhz processor is way too slow to work with many applications open. But I found it very effective with few applications open.

Battery Backup -

Good. BP-4L battery was better than what I'd expected. Though it slogs when you use too much of WLAN. I don't often use WLAN and once fully charged battery ran for more than a day.

Camera -

Great. Too good for a phone. 5MP Carl Zeiss lens does the job. Its quick. Auto-focus and Flash light works fine. The secondary camera used for video calls is simple VGA and does its simple job.

Music -

Great. Music quality is too good. And Music Library is well organised. Scans music files from every corner of the phone and collectively shown on the screen. Supports audio formats of MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC. I loved it as a music phone.

Keyboard -

Bad. Keyboard is exposed when Nokia N97 is opened. Screen just slides itself to fix into its position. And it is not adjustable. Navigation keys for the left hand does most of the job. I am not really impressed with the rest of the layout. Spacebar is little too small. Symbols can be accessed using special button called 'sym' or by using the shift key. Needs little "getting-used-to" to do the job. The screen shifts from portrait mode to landscape mode.

Applications -

Good. In-built applications are truly awesome. It comes with inbuilt FM transmitter which can be used to play songs from your car stereo or something that has radio. Google for setup instruction for FM transmitter. There is also this Message reader which can read messages to you. It is nice. Other Apps: The usual converter and calculator, Document Viewer, Adobe PDF reader, Real Player, Youtube Videos, Bloomberg, hi5, Amazon and many more..

Storage -

Not bad. 32 mb of internal memory and expandable upto 16GB. But the processor will run short with more apps running at a time.

Nokia Maps -

Good. Needs Internet. But its quite fast.

Web -

Very Good. UI seems to lack something. But decent enough to browse around.

Ovi Store -

Sucks!

Can update cause problem?

What is UPDATE?

Ans) Update is nothing but changing/editing.

Update can be used to change the nature of behavior of legacy systems. Update make changes in files and also in the contents of the system. Update is useful for getting the most recent features.

Well, the discussion here is CAN UPDATE CAUSE PROBLEM?. My answer is YES, UPDATE CAN CAUSE PROBLEM. You may ask how and why? Here is the simple and brief explanation.

Consider, u r updating the software version of some software and when the updated version has a feature which u want but its not as good as it was before. U can say, Huh what? Yes, the updated version of software can be a problem bcoz it may be a updated version but it may not be as user friendly as it was and not much easy to handle as it was before(Bcoz of several additional features). U may think WHAT THE HELL AM I TELLING YOU? but its true. Consider one small software and u use it for some basic features and after updation, there may be several components and features which u may not use. Now,u feel YES. WHAT I AM SAYING IS TRUE. I think u may have come across these problem once or twice. But i am not here to tell about the legacy system/software updates, i want to tell one major problem which occured to me today. Disgusting. I hate updates from now on and really dont ever think of updation unless and until it is inevitable.

Here i come to main point. I use UBUNTU 9.10 KARMIC KOALA, a LINUX operating system. Update manager popped and showed UPDATES AVAILABLE-56.96MB. I thought well, after so many days, it showed for update and let me update. Updates were not available since it is a new version and all features has been included. I saw some 10-12 components which will get update and i thought oh!! Good. Nice.. :P Its good to update since it had updation of mozilla browser(though i use mozilla browser rarely i.e only for downloads which has more than 50mb, i thought of updating). And other components had some other updations and didn't give much concentration on them and clicked on update. It updated and prompted/asked for RESTART NOW or RESTART LATER. I selected RESTART NOW. That's it. That was the last time UBUNTU HAD LOGGED IN perfectly. After restart, it took me to command prompt screen and showed this error.

[Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported

For the first world, TAB lists possible command completions.Anywhere else TAB lists the possible completions of a device/filename]

sh:grub>

That's it.

I have 3 OS in my system and to search for some solutions, i logged-in from windows xp and searched all over the net but it was of no use. Completely weird update. It was an updation of GRUB and no solutions were there in net. I had no other option except re-installing it. But if i re-install, i should update all softwares and i should re-enable/change many settings as per my requirements. And, i dont have more usage since mine is 1.5gb(500c plan). Well, now i made my mind to re-install and i re-installed it. After re-installing, i felt as if i haven't used UBUNTU for a year or more. It was not in the way as it was before. To enable all settings, i struggled a lot and now i can say i have made 90% same as it was before and tomorrow morning if i update, all will be as before. Well, today i can say it gave me a MORAL. "DO NOT UPDATE TILL YOU COMPLETELY AWARE OF WHAT GONNA HAPPEN AFTER UPDATION". From today i should be more careful when i update and will not update unless and until it is essential.

Thank you.