Sunday, June 29, 2008

Mozilla THUNDERBIRD : Complete Review of Latest Version 2


Mozilla Thunderbird, just like Mozilla Firefox, is another highly successful opensource software developed by Mozilla Corp. It is a great e-mail and news client and offers RSS feed reader and a good contacts management system too. Thunderbird is safe and fast and has a great user interface, nice spam filters, quick message search, and can be customized to a large extent.

The areas where it scores over the other software offering similar functionality like MS Outlook and Windows Mail are the ease of use, better speed and a few more good features which offer better functionality. And of course the best thing is that it is free !!!


The version 2.0 was released a few months back and is available in over 35 languages. It is compatible with windows vista and has been undergoing constant updates since release as expected. Mozilla claims it to be a reloaded version more powerful than ever.

You can download the latest version of Thunderbird [presently 2.0.0.14] here:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/


I am a Gmail user and the the first impression was simply fantastic. The ease with which a new Gmail account gets created in Thunderbird 2 is worth appreciation, very unlike Windows Mail where I had to go to my Google accounts page and check out few things. AMAZINGLY all you need to do is to type in your user name and password in the account creation wizard and the client will do the rest of the required settings for you.

Here is all I had to do:

step 1 :

step 2:




And that's it :


Easyyy ... ehh ???
that’s the Gmail support it offers. It does rest of the settings by itself via POP3 access. [POP 3 access has to be enabled in gmail account setting though ! ] Moreover the default settings leave a copy of the mail on the server upon download so the mail on the server doesn’t get removed … good work. And we can customise any of the settings as per your requirement in the account manager window.

And this is what I got in windows mail when I tried to open an account in gmail. I had to visit my google account settings page to fill up this stuff:


Another great feature if you are a windows vista user is that you can get all your mail indexed in windows vista and you can find yor e-mail dire
ctly from start menu search box.

No integrated calendar??? Not a problem …
Y
es there is no inbuilt calendar in Thunderbird like the one in MS Outlook but that’s not a problem as you can download an extension called LIGHTNING which adds an integrated calendar.
Download the extension here:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/download.html

When Thunderbird 1.5 was released it promised better security, automatic updating, automatic spell checking, anti-phishing technology, and other useful features. The newer version has got even more in its arsenal. Let's take a look at the impressive list of new features in the version 2 :

Message tagging:

Message tagging is a nice little feature that allows you to add tags to individual emails using available tags or you can create your own tags too. Each tag comes has a corresponding colour so when we tag a message, it gets colorized in the mail folder. We can add multiple tags to a mail and it allows a great way of organizing the mail.



Contact management:
The address book is divided into two : first is the personal address book and the other is the collected addresses book. This allows better sorting of the addresses too. You can easily import address book entries. Auto complete results of the address while sending a mail is done according to how often you send e-mail to each recipient.

Add-ons and updates:
There are quite a few handy addons available which can furthur enhance your experience of working with Thunderbird. They can add lots of new features to thunderbird. One of the most important ones was mentioned by me above called as Lightning for adding an integrated calendar.
There is an add-on manager available [Tools ...- add on] for this purpose just like the one in Firefox. Over 170 extensions for Thunderbird are available. Thunderbird add-on can let you manage contacts better, place voice over IP calls, listen to music, keep track of birthdates all from your inbox , add mouse gestures support, dictionary search, a tool that can switch between multiple proxy configurations and a lot more !!! Really cool !!!
You can configure Thunderbird 2 to automatically download new product versions and security updates.

Themes:
We can look for themes for thunderbird and install or uninstall them using the add-on manager [Tools ... -add on]. These add to its user friendly nature even more by allowing you to change the look of the interface. Initially though, only one theme is available as the default theme.

Configuration:
Thunderbird is hugely configurable and an editor is available for this but it is definitely not a place that I would like to visit because one really needs to have some good knowledge before making any changes there.


Mail filtering:

Sorting : The message filters are easy to design and do come handy when we need to manage large volumes of mail. They give a great way to organize our mail folders.
Spam Filtering: Mozilla has updated Thunderbird’s popular junk mail folders to stay ahead of spam. Each email you receive passes through Thunderbird's leading-edge junk mail filters. Each time you mark messages as spam, Thunderbird “learns” and improves its filtering so you can spend more time reading the mail that matters. Thunderbird can also use your mail provider's spam filters to keep junk mail out of your inbox.

Find as you type:
Finds and highlights message text as you type. This speeds up the search process. It is identical to that in firefox for searching the text in the current page. Thunderbird also supports a Saved Searches feature, which is like the one available in vista explorer. A saved search is a folder that contains the results of a search you previous performed.

New mail alerts:
The notification appears in the system tray. In addition to the subject of the email, you'll see information about the sender and the part of the body text when possible. Thunderbird's notifications are usually quite a bit bigger than those offered by Outlook. The program doesn't remain in the tray to check mails once it is closed which obliges you to manually open the program to check e-mail and feeds.
A notification :

Wide support:
The version is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It supports POP, IMAP, Gmail and .Mac [on OS X] accounts for e-mail.I did write about how easy it was for me to open my new gmail account in Thunderbird. Gmail and .Mac users can access their accounts in Thunderbird by simply providing their user names and passwords.It works fine with multiple accounts of all kinds.


Security:
Phishing protection :Thunderbird protects you from email scams which try to trick users into handing over personal and confidential information by indicating when a message is a potential phishing attempt. As a second line of defense, Thunderbird warns you when you click on a link which appears to be taking you to a different Web site than the one indicated by the URL in the message.{For knowledge on phishing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing }

Thunderbird will display an information bar with a graphical red shield any time it believes the currently-selected email is an email scam. You can then tell the application the email is not a scam, or delete it. Suspicious emails are allowed to display simple text only, so they can't access your system programmatically.

{ I tried to explore the net and found out that more security features in Thunderbird include S/MIME, digital signing, message encryption, support for certificates and security devices. I do not have a clear idea of how all that works but anyhow I felt like including it here. }


Image blocking:
Remote images in the e-mail messages are blocked by default in Thunderbird 2. However you can tell mark certain addressed as trusterd and for mails from these addresses the image loads automatically.

Navigation:
Thunderbird 2 offers message history navigation that allows you to click “forward” and “back”. These back and forward buttons are provided in the interface for easier navigation while we are viewing our messages.

Finally…
Well it can obviously be difficult for a long time MS outlook user to switch to thunderbird as few of the features and few shortcuts do differ. But Thunderbird is a fully featured e-mail client with lots of extra functionality and people are working to constantly keep improving the software. The user-friendliness of Thunderbird and the fact that it is free is ensuring that lots of new users are opting for it. Lets hope the versions to come will be even better than the present one and provide lots of interesting features.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 : A personal review

Well I came across the Mozilla Firefox Browser only around an year ago and the first thing I noticed and really liked about it was its comparatively higher speed than the other available browsers. As I got acquainted with more of its features, I realized what an amazing browser it is. Thus I dumped the Internet Explorer Browser which I had been ignorantly using till then. and now I fully support the “Spread the Firefox” campaign.
Actually it is not just me but the whole world is slowly becoming a fan of this small, fast and easy to use ‘opensource’ browser which scores over its rivals in so many aspects has gained global appreciation.


The huge popularity that this browser has gained was evident when the new version 3.0 was released on the 18th of June at 10:00 PST. Mozilla had been hyping this day as the DOWNLOAD DAY for around a week and had urged the people around the globe to download the new version on the release day itself so that a new world record could be created. The response was amazing : a whopping 8 million downloads on the very first day . It is being claimed by Mozilla as a new world record for release day downloads.


And ofcourse one can download the latest version here :
Firefox 3

The servers reported serving almost 9,000 downloads a minute day on the “download day” and exceeded the first day download mark for Firefox 2 of 1.6 million after just five hours of availability for Firefox 3 ... Over 700 community launch parties were registered on http://www.mozillaparty.com You can find out the present number of downloads of firefox here

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/

I too got a taste of the latest version too. It claims to be {and is !! } even faster than the previous version and boasts of malware protection and many other features. Some of the new features which I liked are :


1. QUICK BOOKMARKING AND EASIER TO SORT BOOKMARKS :
Now we can quickly add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click on the star icon in address bar and a second click lets us file and tag them. Tags are keywords that we can associate with our bookmarks to sort them by topic so now we can quickly access our recently bookmarked and tagged pages, as well as more frequently visited pages with the new smart bookmarks folder on the bookmark toolbar.

2. AUTO-CHECK FOR ADD-ONS:
Various add-ons are available for further enhancing the firefox browser and the add-ons of the 2.0 version may not necessarily be compatible with the 3.0 version. There is no need to hunt for the add-ons anymore. Firefox now automatically checks add-on and plugins versions and will disable older, insecure versions. Earlier version we had to go to install required plugins from http://www.mozilla.org/start/1.0/addons.html and other such sites.
Users can disable individual plugins in the Add-on Manager. The Add-ons Manager (Tools > Add-ons) can now be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of Add-ons available from the community add-ons website. When you first open the Add-ons Manager, a list of recommended Add-ons is shown.

3. ONE CLICK SITE INFO:
Click the site favicon (the small icon before address) in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if your connection is protected from eavesdropping. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand. When a site uses Extended Validation SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company you're connected to.

4. IMPROVEMENTS IN TABS :
Tabs are easier to locate with the new tab scrolling and tab quick-menu. To drag a tab simply click on the tab and pull it along the tab-bar. Right click on the tab bar for a variety of cool options. You can even undo closing of a tab and Firefox will also prompt users to save tabs on exit.

5. SECURITY AND PROTECTION :
Malware Protection warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware. The content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown. Clearer and stricter error pages are used when Firefox encounters an invalid SSL certificate. To improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled. Firefox will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables.

6. NEW DOWNLOAD MANAGER:
The revised download manager makes it much easier to locate downloaded files, and you can see and search on the name of the website where a file came from. The active downloads and time remaining is always shown in the status bar as your files download.
Users can now resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting your network connection.

7. FULL PAGE ZOOM :
Zoom in : ctrl ++ ; zoom out : ctrl -- ; additionally there is a feature which allows us to zoom only the text portion.

8. FASTER :
Improvements to JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimizations have resulted in continued improvements in performance. Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases.

9. EATS UP LESSER MEMORY:
Several new technologies work together to reduce the amount of memory used by Firefox 3 over a web browsing session. Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator reduces fragmentation, hundreds of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned.


Yes it is true that some bugs have been reported for 3.0 version already. But that is and always will be the case. As a matter of fact updates are constantly made available and it keeps improving with each and every update.

One can confidently say that firefox is currently leading from front in the battle among opensource softwares and the rest. What I believe is that ultimately it is going to be the former which come out as the victors just because of the way they are spreading and gaining wide acclaims.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Blu-RAY Disc --- the next generation optical disc

Blu-ray Disc (BD) is the next-generation optical disc format and is jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), a group of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer and media manufacturers (including Apple , Dell , Hitachi , HP , JVC , LG , Mitsubishi , Panasonic , Pioneer , Philips , Samsung , Sharp , Sony , TDK and Thomson ).

The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. The format offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs and can hold up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc.

The project was originally started by SONY and initially it faced competition from a similar format of optical disc called HD DVD which was initially more popular. But this changed when Playstation 3 was launched, since every PS3 unit also functioned as a Blu-ray Disc player. By January 2007, Blu-ray discs had outsold HD DVDs. Finally, by February 2008, Toshiba announced it was pulling its support for the HD DVD format, leaving Blu Ray as the ultimate victor.

The current optical discs, i.e., the DVDs and the CDs use a red and near infrared laser [650nm to 780nm] to read and write data, the Blu-ray Disc uses a blue (technically violet) laser [405nm] instead, hence the name Blu-ray.

Despite the different type of lasers used, Blu-ray products can easily be made backwards compatible with CDs and DVDs through the use of a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical pickup unit.

The benefit of using a blue-violet laser (405nm) is that it has a shorter wavelength than a red laser (650nm), which makes it possible to focus the laser spot with even greater precision. This allows data to be packed more tightly and stored in less space, so it's possible to fit more data on the disc even though it's the same size as a CD/DVD. This together with the change of numerical aperture to 0.85 is what enables Blu-ray Discs to hold 25GB/50GB. Initially it was more prone to scratches than the normal DVD but with advances in the polymer technology this problem has also been solved.

Blu-ray is currently supported by more than 180 of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer, recording media, video game and music companies. The format also has broad support from the major movie studios as a successor to today's DVD format. In fact, seven of the eight major movie studios (Disney , Fox , Warner , Paramount , Sony , Lionsgate and MGM) have released movies in the Blu-ray format and six of them are releasing their movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format.

For information about new and upcoming Blu-ray releases, as well as what movies are currently available in the Blu-ray format check out
www.blu-ray.com/movies/ .

LATEST NEWS :
After the Blu-ray disc manufacturers have eliminated the rival HD DVD format its prices are rising gradually these days. Since the Blu-ray format is being supported by almost every major Hollywood studio, it is bound to gain popularity in the upcoming years and together with its high-storage capacity it is correctly being termed as the next generation optical disc which will offer consumers an unprecedented HD experience.
Recently Samsung released a 100GB Blu-ray Disc which is a four-layer disc compared to the normal single layered 25GB disc.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Computer programming in Hindi ???

Open source softwares are developing globally and gaining wide popularity at a brisk rate. Indian developers are playing a key role on the development of the open source software industry. The Indian developers have come up with a variety of open source software solutions which is helping millions of users in India and globally.

One such really smart desi open source software is Hindawi programming system.
Hindawi is a multilingual programming language tool. This means that using this software, we can program in languages other than English.


Hindawi is also the winner of the FOSS India awards for 2008 which clearly shows how successful it has been. [the FOSS india awards is a well recognied initiative to appreciate free and open source softwares developed by indians and the award is supported by the LINUX FOR YOU magazine ]

The users can write programs in various Indian languages including Hindi, Guajarati, Bengali, assamese etc

The great thing is the wide varieties of programming languages it supports. It allows the user to program in the equivalents of C, C++ , lex , yacc , BASIC , LOGO and even assembly and many more computer languages.

The equivalent languages are called Hindi C or Hindi assembly or bangle C correspondingly.

Moreover these equivalent languages are syntax-compatible with their traditional English counterparts and can therefore utilize the existing libraries such as glibc etc in a manner similar to the way C++ is syntax compatible to C and hence can use most of the C libraries.

After winning the FOSS '08' award, key developers of Hindawi , Abhishek Choudhary and Sweta (Karwa) Choudhary shared, "Hindawi Programming System has shattered the technological myth that full-fledged programming systems cannot be feasibly developed in non-English languages. This is evident from the flurry of activity seen towards reproducing our results globally, and especially the interest of commercial entities in doing so... Let us think of our brothers and sisters who have not been privileged enough to go to English-medium schools. Even they have a right to benefit from the ICT revolution at all levels of technology, from primary school education to robotics and super-computing in their mother tongue, without the need to master English."

download Hindawi here : http://hindawi.in/en_US/download.php


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