Norton Internet Security 2010, makes life easier!

Seriously, been using free anti virus since years, but my computer is still vulnerable & keep getting affected again & again. I don’t understand why they aren’t powerful. For me, an anti-virus software should be “Install & Forget”, it should be capable of taking care off all sorts of malicious bad software, trojans, spywares & let me concentrate on work!

Norton Internet Security 2010 does just what I wanted to. It takes care of all bad stuff & allows me to do my work peacefully. As you can see in the below screenshot, NIS has got really nice dashboard which tell you everything about current processes.

Clicking on the performance button shows how NIS is performing on your machine, how many issues it has found, details of the issues it found, memory/CPU consumption ..etc, everything plotted over a nice graph.

Elegant settings window allows you to configure NIS as per your requirements. Certain things which you might already know like scheduling scans, network settings, computer settings, web settings, everything comes under this. All these settings have a simple button which can turn ‘on’ or ‘off’ anytime .

We surf internet all the time. But, the fact is we find new sites via search engines (or I can say just Google?). NIS nicely integrates with Google search results page & shows whether the listed links are safe to visit or not. In my opinion this itself hugely reduces chance of getting infected!

With NIS you can have better understanding of installed applications. Norton scans every installed application & automatically finds out whether to trust the application or not & assigns proper access rights. Norton also tracks CPU & memory usage history of all applications!

Today, my friend’s came come with an infected thumb drive & asked me to format it since he was unable to fix it with the free anti-virus he had. I just plugged the thumb drive in, NIS automatically scanned the drive, found the threat!! I just clicked “Fix” & bingo! NIS took around 5 to 10 seconds to fix it & all the data was safe.

It just covers everything! I don’t think my PC would ever get affected with NIS installed on it! There’s still a lot of settings & configuration available, I just gone through few which impressed me.

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I have been using Windows Seven from few days. For those who (still) don’t know about Windows Seven, it’s the successor of Windows Vista. Seven looks a lot better than all other windows including XP. I am completely using it on my laptop. Seven simplifies lot of things which used to be pain before with old OSs.

On fresh installation of windows seven, with no PC Suite installed, no drivers installed, I simply connected Nokia N97 to check what happens. Voila!! Seven automatically detects the phone & gives a pop up with options to add music, browse pictures, browse files…etc. This makes life hell lot simpler!! Checkout the screenshot below (Click to Enlarge):

Well, there are already ‘n’ number of reviews out there on web about Nokia N97! So, I don’t want to go through all that again. This write up is only concentrated on Internet capabilities of N97. So, let’s start!

Browser:

When we are talking about internet, first thing comes up in mind is Browser. Nokia N97 has very powerful web browser which is capable of loading almost any website on internet. Pages render much faster compared to browser on S60 3rd edition phones. Browser comes with advanced features like “Overview” where you can see the whole web page & select any area to zoom in. User can also tap on any portion of the web page to zoom in & tap again to zoom out. Javascript/AJAX fields, dropdown box works well as in PC browser. Browser supports tabbed browsing, but my complaint about the browser remains since there is no option to open a new tab (or concurrent window). New tab open only when you are clicking on a link which open in new window (target=_blank). Overall browser experience is amazing with powerful browser & a wide display, I prefer browsing in landscape mode.

Email/Calendar/Contact Synchronization:

Though Nokia has it’s own push email service Nokia Mail, I prefer System Seven push email service for it’s simplicity. Both of them are really good in features & real time email. I configured two email IDs on Seven, one is Gmail & the other one Google Apps email. Similar to Nokia Email, Seven also provides calendar & contacts synchronization. Personally I don’t prefer to use contact synchronization since it messes up the Phonebook. But calendar sync is one amazing feature I use a lot, create an entry either on web or phone, it’s reflected everywhere.

for Business users:

It’s time to say bye to Blackberrys where business users are forced to use completely business oriented phones & not at all looking at personal life! Configuring Microsoft Exchange server is 10 minutes job! Just install MFE (Mail For Exchange) & configure server details to start using it. MFE also provides contacts & calendar synchronization. Right now N97 is not listed under supported devices for MFE, but I can see a blank MFE folder in the phone which gives a clue that MFE might be out for N97 soon. If your Outlook server provides Web Access (webmail), it can also be configured on System Seven. Users can also open attachments including MS Word, Excel & PowerPoint, edit them & send it back. Though editing requires Quick Office license, it shouldn’t be a big overhead for corporates. So, N97 fills all your requirement as a business user & also let’s you enjoy multimedia features on phone.

Facebook, Orkut:

Nokia bundles Facebook application with the phone. This app is seriously made for the phone, just perfectly fits in! Facebook app let’s you perform all the operations you do in web interface. Update status, view friends status messages, accept/decline friend requests, view photo galleries…etc. Unlike Facebook there’s no bundled app for Orkut, but you can get it by going to m.google.com/orkut on phone’s browser. Orkut app also works really well & let’s you do all stuff, but since this is not really made for N97 (J2ME App), app is not touch sensitive. You have to use navigation keys on keyboard to navigate through menus.

Twitter – Gravity:

I have been using Gravity from day 1 it got released. I must say it’s *the* best app I ever used on a Symbian device. To all who still don’t know about Gravity, it’s an S60 twitter client with hell lot of features! Gravity has a very nice, glossy user interface with options to do almost everything. I have seen lot of iPhone Twitter Apps, all of them load a new page when tapped on a tweet. But Gravity loads all the options inline with a smooth slide down effect when tapped on a Tweet, which is so convenient & reduces number of clicks to achieve certain task. It’s clear that developer of Gravity gives a lot of concentration towards usablity of the app. With additional support for other services like Twitpic, Posterous, MobyPicture, Yfrog, Instapaper, img.ly, TwitGoo, Delicious…etc Gravity makes N97 an awesome Tweeting device!

Feed Reading – Google Reader:

Feed Reading is a daily exercise for me to keep up with the latest news & trends. And there is no better option than Google reader for feed reading. Mobile version of Google Reader isn’t that great & there are no good application on Symbian platform yet for it. But there is a separate version of Google Reader for iPhones! This AJAXified iPhone version of  Google Reader can be accessed over http://google.com/reader/i . You can also perform Star, Share, Share with Note, Email operations for each feed entry. Since Nokia’s browser is also built on same platform (webkit), this version is well supported on N97.

Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, Skype – Fring:

Fring is a IM/VoIP client for Symbian phones which supports multiple protocols including Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger & Skype. Fring helps you keep in touch with friends on the move. Fring not just enables you to chat with your friends, but also let’s you make a call & talk as in Google talk or Skype. Call quality will be better when you are connected to a WiFi network since India still don’t have 3G.

So I have got enough reasons to say Nokia N97 is an ultimate internet device!

What you say!?

Though I started photo blogging long back, not shared it with anyone. www.bangalorepix.com is the photo blog I started long back. Photos posted at Bangalore Pix are live pictures. I posts them from phone itself once I take them. I am using Flickr’s post to blog feature which creates unique email ID to post pictures. Sending pictures to that ID will not only posts it to Flickr, but also specified blog. I am also using twitterfeed to post tweets about the new photo entry to Twitter.

The Big Idea:

The big idea behind this photo blog will come into picture in long run. There are drastic changes happening in Bangalore due to Bangalore Metro & few road widening projects. As I keep posting pictures of different streets, popular places of Bangalore, in few years you can see how the place was looking before & now. And that’s keep continuing! I have taken this as my lifetime project & keep posting till my end! It will be a great experience to look back at old pictures taken years ago.

Right now I am using Nokia E66 to post the pictures, but picture quality is not so good since it has 3.2 MP camera. It will be great if somebody sponsors a good camera phone (Nokia? Sony Erricson? Samsung?)

GoAnimate.com

Creating animation was always a professional job, you should be master in many tools to create one. But Go Animate, an online tool which makes easy to create animation without any expert/professional knowledge. At Go Animate you can create, share animations & watch animations created by others.

Go Animate provides you with simple interface using which you can drag & drop characters, give transition effects, background music, talk bubbles…etc. To start with, you can use available templates & modify it according to your taste. For ex: I used a template & changed the characters faces with my friends faces! Check out that animation below:

Visit Syntha Site

Want to build your own website? Don’t know what are all required for it? Don’t know anything technical about it? Syntha Site is just for you!

Syntha Site is a free service which provides you tools to design your website without any coding knowledge. It has lot of ready templates which you can select & modify for your purpose. It has very easy to use web builder with drag & drop feature which doesn’t require any coding knowledge. After you are done with building your site, Syntha Site also offers you a free subdomain & space to host it. Means that you will get yoursite.synthasite.com for free! If you want unique identity & ready to spend a bit money, you can have your own domain. You can register domain at any domain registrar like www.godaddy.com by paying around Rs.400 for a domain like yourname.com, yourcompany.com…etc. later you can easily configure it to work with Syntha Site as you web site files will be at Syntha Site. If you have your own web space, you can download your website & host it on your own hosting.

Visit www.synthasite.com to creat your own website.

Google has stopped working on Browser Sync for Firefox. That means you can’t have Google Sync to work on the latest version of Firfox, i.e, Firefox 3. For those who don’t know about Google Sync, it syncs your browsing history, bookmarks…on different installations of Firefox! If you have Firefox on two or more computers, you can sync all your browsing data by installing Google Browser Sync addon for Firefox. But, now Google has discontinued development on Browser Sync for Firefox. I think this is one of the feature which browser should have inbuilt like in opera 9.5 (latest version) has it!

Foxmarks is a Firefox plugin, a good alternative for Google Browser Sync. Similar to Google Browser Sync, Foxmarks also saves all your browser changes in it’s server. You will have to install Foxmarks plugin for Firefox, which is also available for Firefox 3! If you are using this first time, you will be guided through a wizard to create a new account. Once done, it starts syncing bookmarks in the back end. Now install this addon in all other computers which you are running Firfox & want to sync bookmarks, give your login & password which was created first time. Now changes in bookmarks you make on any computer gets reflected everywhere! Install Foxmarks from www.foxmarks.com

Usually I download lot of stuff from internet, sometimes when I want to go to bed, it says 1hour remaining. I would be in a confusion state whether to sleep & run my PC all night or wait till it completes or pause downloading & shutdown the PC. I wished if a sleep timer functionality like in TV implemented for PCs.

Though this functionality doen’t comes with Windows XP, I found a freeware which simply does that. Auto Shutdown is a freeware with which you can set sleep time & it automatically shuts down the PC at that time! This really filled my requirement, depending on download I can set a time to shutdown. When I start my PC again, I can see completed download. The sleep timer was useful for me because of downloads, you might have different requirements to set sleep timer. If you can estimate completeion time for any process running on your PC, instead of sitting in front of it until it ends, just set sleep timer.

In case downloading, several download managers like Free Download Manager comes with an option to shutdown computer after completion of downloads. For all other cases you can get Auto Shutdown at Rabid Software.

Probably this is the most asked question in Tech Bangalore comment section, “Is there any trick for free GPRS?”. I had no answer before, but got one now. My fellow blogger Rahul Bansal, who recently became full time blogger has revealed this trick on his blog Devil’s Workshop. The trick works fine for Airtel, just install Tea Shark browser on your phone & done! You need have Airtel Live Free GPRS active on your phone. You can get details here to activate that. Actually Airtel Live free GPRS allows you to browse only Airtel Live wap site & other few affiliate wap sites like Yahoo! mobile. But it was not possible to access other sites like m.gmail.com.

Airtel might be fixing this issue soon, so enjoy free gprs until then!! More details about this is posted on Devil’s Workshop. You can get the Tea Shark browser at www.teashark.com