Since our exclusivecoverage of iPhonelaunch, I was constantly receiving mails about iPhones’ launch in India. As I promised in all replies, here is major update on the topic.
Vodafone bagged the deal with Apple to sell iPhone in Australia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey. The final date is not declared yet but launch will be near the end of this year.
As per Indian market goes, which is second largest mobile market in the world with more than 261 million subscribers, this deal will be surely a major victory for Vodafone. Vodafone entered into Indian mobile market quite late considering their global presence. But with iPhone deal in the bag, they can hope to get return on their investment little earlier.
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Unlocked iPhones are doing rounds in Indian grey market from few months. They cost around INR 20000 (~ $500). But I will strongly recommend you to wait for official launch than falling for grey market iPhones. As with Apple products, one really enjoys the support they give, of course that mean paying a little more, but its worth it!
Update: Another Indian telecom operator signed deal with Apple to bring iPhone in India. This will surely affect Vodafone Sales in India but as a consumer we will have more options. Details are here…
In a smart move from orkut team, to reduce spam notifications you get in your mailbox, a new setting – Notification Filter is added to orkut’s existing settings.
With this setting you can choose to receive notifications from either:
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everyone
friends of friends
friends
groups of friends
You can also configure filters individually for email notification, orkut message-box notification and orkut pop-up notification.
Although not strong as Gmail filters, these orkut filters can provides fine-grain control over existing orkut settings.
Still one major improvement many orkut users awaiting from long time is list of online friends. It will be great if small pop-up notification window on orkut blinks whenever a friend comes online. As of now such notifications are shown only when somebody scraps you on orkut.
Update: Official site of gnubox is down from more than 3 months now. So all links now point to wayback archive pages. I have uploaded few gnubox versions I found here. If you get more, please mail them to rahul@devilsworkshop.rsites.dev6.rt.gw (October 14, 2008)
Yes, you read it right. I am not talking about using mobile to access internet on your PC. Its the opposite I am demonstrating here. So you will be able to use FREE internet on mobile. Of course, you may need to pay for internet service you use already on PC.
Now as with most mobile hacks, this is limited to symbian mobiles which includes almost all Nokia Series60 and Many Sony Ericsson phones.
Why do I need this?
Yep. I felt the same long time back and also left the idea, but our reader Manish wanted to know this. And now I am done with this I am finding this quite useful. I need internet on mobile only to update themes, games and other stuff. Downloading themes, softwares and other stuff on PC and then sending them to mobile is one option but I always find its tedious.
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This one is really better as its FREE and speed is much better than what GPRS ever offered!
How it will work?
We normally connect PC and Mobile for file transfer and data synchronization. One step ahead, we use GPRS on mobile to connect internet on PC side. All these means, two devices can connect to each other and share Internet. Only remaining possibility left to check was, can mobile dial/use/access internet on PC?
And here is the solution which will work for sure but may need some efforts…
Requirements…
A PC with internet connection. OS does not matter. Also it doesn’t matter how you connect to internet from PC.
A symbian handset with GnuBox – a free and open-source tool which will do thing on your handset.
mRouter to do things on PC side. Its optional but can save your lots of time. You can manually handle
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Now first requirement is obvious, lets take care of the remaining too…
Preparing PC side…
#using mRouter (Windows only)
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Windows user can download mRouter. Then install it on your PC and restart the machine.
Next you need to configure mRouter which is quick & easy. Tam Hanna explained it very well here.
#without mRouter
Now all major OS have internet connection sharing feature.
On windows, you need to add a new modem and attach it to COM port which is used fro Mobile-PC communication. As an example check this article for details on how to do it on Windows, Symbian Mobile & Bluetooth channel combo.
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Covering all details of other OS is not possible here. Check tutorials section below for a matching reference.
Thats it. I know it sounds a lot of work! But its worth it… 😉
I have done this on Nokia N70 and using mRouter on Windows XP machine. So I am quite sure it will work. Still if you stuck somewhere feel free to comment… 🙂
But now its time to get back to the bugs in Orkut, what keep it hot and (in)famous among bloggers and hackers.
A new bug found in Orkut album which in my experience most severe bug due to the thing it let you do. Any user can perform following actions on anyone’s album…
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Delete All photos from album
Edit image caption to anything
Change album cover
What makes it most severe is, it works with locked album. We had a hack few days back view locked album. But it was not severe like this as user could only view the images and could not change them back!
Considering scrap-all script and communities medium on orkut, it may become available to all anytime although I am disclosing technical details here.
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What the worst could happen…
If used in a program, this bug can delete millions of photos and cause complete chaos on orkut!
What to do now…
Back up your orkut album if you don’t have them offline. If you have serious concerns over privacy, please remove all photos from album as soon as possible. Locking your album will not work!
Its really foolish to rely on Orkut to fix this bug, although they will do it ASAP considering the damage it can cause to Orkut.
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Where could be problem…
A single program whose name I can not disclose here, is not validating users properly. I guess its relying on its parent page considering, direct link to it not obvious from prominent places like homepage, profile, etc.
This is really bad programming. You should never take things for granted when you are dealing with privacy.
Unfortunately, I can not post vulnerability in orkut help group as it can be misused by other readers there. 🙁
Open request to fellow bloggers…
I saw this first time 4 days back in a orkut community. Gaurav and many other bloggers choose to keep it secret. But I guess that is what delaying a fix. Likewise if you come to know about it, do not unveil the details until the bug gets fixed.
Two days back, I have posted about orkut’s low bandwidth version. I concluded that post saying, Orkut could have done better by creating a dedicated mobile version like m.orkut.com….
Now thanks to Darnell, for taking pain to actually check m.orkut.com and so discovering the mobile orkut. 🙂
You can really access orkut from mobile now by going to m.orkut.com. No need to use our old days methods anymore.
The mobile orkut is centered around individuals. It supports profiles, scrapbooks, search, friend-lists, birthday reminders, friends updates, pending friend requests, etc.
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Group features, those related to communities are completely omitted. Also you can not edit your profile from mobile.
You can still access communities on mobile to by switching to www.orkut.com, i.e. web-version. Of course, it will be slower.
The only thins surprised me is silent launch by Google. I am still confused if Orkut blog is just meant for reviewing OpenSocial Apps for orkut. In past also they did not bother to post about prominent features they launched or upgraded.
Long time back, I used to check m.orkut.com in hope for mobile orkut, but after wasting enough time, I created custom javascript bookmarks to do orkutting. That post still hold the honor of most commented post at Devils Workshop. Its little pain seeing it retire now. But as Shakespeare said, All’s Well That Ends Well.
Orkut silently launched a low-bandwidth version. Many forum sites have a lo-fi version for dial-up users. But orkut took different path and rather than giving a separate subdomain with complete redesign, a small setting is added to General Settings.
Click on show the low bandwidth version of orkut option.
Hit save changes button at the bottom. (not shown in screenshot)
Selecting show the low bandwidth version of orkut option switches your account to low bandwidth version where images in scrapbook, profile pages and users orkut homepage are disabled. Considering users spend more time on these pages this is good.
Still if you like to see communities, friendlist and other areas of orkut or any site without images, you can use imgLikeOpera, a firefox plugin, which turn on/off image loading just by clicking on a small icon in browsers status-bar. (Read more…)
Orkut could have done this better by creating a dedicated mobile version like m.orkut.com or wap.mobile.com. Although you can use Orkut from mobile, official support is always a delight. Moreover being light weight, it could have been used as a low bandwidth version itself!
Long time back we reviewed desktop, cellphone and web-based multiprotocol messengers i.e. messengers which supports multiple IM network like Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, AIM, etc.
Now in desktop category my long time favorite pidgin got serious competition from digsby which not only operates across multiple IM network and do email notification job but also makes your life easy on social networks like facebook, myspace & twitter. Surprisingly there is no donut for orkut users at this time! 🙁
One option that will surely beat other desktop IMs is compulsion to create digsby account. With this option you will have all your accounts’ information stored on digsby server.
This is good as you don’t need to re-enter multiple account info every-time you install digsby on a new machine. For people like me who uses atleast 5 PC’s in daily routine, this is something I want from long time. Also its good from security point of view as you will need to enter only digsby login info from unsecure places like public cyber-cafes!
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Other Notable Features:
Simple and clean interface. With option to change skins.
Adding accounts is too easy. You will only see field that are necessary unlike pidgin where advance options confuses you!
Better privacy control at global level as well as per account basis.
Option to hide Mobile contacts. This is good as a lot of Yahoo users are always stay online from their mobile via SMS.
The only thing I am not sure about its chat-history feature. Its there but it will be great if they maintain chat-history on server-side like IM History does.
As of now its available for Windows only. But Mac & Linux versions are also on the way. So cheer up! 🙂
By default, file sharing over Bluetooth connection is disabled in Mac OS X Leopard. Even though scanning process from cellphone shows Mac in the list, when you try to send file to Mac, you get error like “file can not be sent”.
So to enable file sending follow this…
Go to System Preferences >> Internet & Network >> Sharing.(see screenshot)
Just tick Bluetooth Sharing option. Note that, although you are getting file sharing related error, file sharing option have nothing to do with it.
Thats it! Do not waste your time on mobile forums. I already did! 😉
One of our reader Deepak Jain wants to add Adsense banner ads in his blogspot blog.
While its simple to add any HTML/Javascript code in blogspot blogs using HTML/Javascript new element, option to add such element is by default disabled in header menu.
The problem can be easily seen in following two screenshots which are taken from Layout >> Page Element panel…
A. Default Options..
B. After Enabling "Add a Page Element" Option…
Once Add a Page Element option comes there, you can edit blogs header as simply as editing sidebar. Putting Google Adsense ads in header won’t be any different than doing same in sidebar!
In past we have written about varioushacks to download videos from YouTube, Metacafe and other video sharing sites. After receiving good response to all of them, I have decided to compile a complete list of alternatives for every possible ways and here is the outcome.
We have tested more than 60 alternatives. To limit our testing efforts, we eliminated all candidates who offers trial/paid service or forces to register user. Next of course ease of use and support for multiple video sharing site has been considered. Enough chit-chat, enjoy the list… 🙂
The list is organized across different categories like web based, desktop version , etc.
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Web Based
1.KeepVid – It supports almost all popular sites like YouTube, Metacafe, etc. Have bookmarklet option to download videos in one-click. You have to rename downloaded file to add .flv extension. You can use VLC media player to play flv files. Read More…
2.Flashload – Replica of Keepvid, but also available in Deutsche language. Supports 50 video sites. Maintains list of last 20 videos downloaded on homepage.
3.videodownloadx – Same like keepvid but have option to convert video online into 12 different formats. They ask for email address in conversion option. In case you have concern about it try next..
4.vixy.net – Supports less number of site than keepvid and less number of conversion formats than videodownloadx but simplest to use. Also they don’t ask for your email address. Read More…
5.Media Converter – Supports many video sites. Conversion options gives nice compression ratio. It have too many options and wizards. Good for advance users, bad if your looking for quickie. Converter is also available for download as windows only version.
6.Zamzar – It also feature reach like Media Convertor but instead of giving their convertor away they offers online tool where you can upload existing flv videos for conversion. Good for Linux & Mac users as they don’t have desktop software to do the same.
7.kcoolonline – List of 211 video site they supports is eye-catcher. They do have a convertor but no bookmarklet option.
8.TubeG – Supports search and download from YouTube. Flagged video is available for download. Have bookmarklet as well as many interesting section to browse.
9.ilikeyoutube – Ability to search and download videos using top tags. As name suggest its only for YouTube.
10.YouTubia – YouTube only. Offers keyword based as well as user name based search option.
There are literally hundred of sites providing similar services, thanks to cost-effective web hosts like Dreamhost. Still if we missed any deserving site please let us know.
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Firefox Add-ons
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11.Video Download Helper – It is second most popular firefox addon with 234,815+ downloads. It supports adult sites. They also have dedicated tutorial section which is curtsey users of this addon only. Do I need to say more about it? 😉
12.Video Ook – Supports less number of site but better customization options. Most important feature – file renaming after video title. Yep, all you tube video get downloaded with file name get_video so this extension is
13.GreaseMonkey Script – Those who love to do it GreaseMonkey way can use this script. Its for YouTube only. It adds a direct download link on all YouTube pages as shown in image. (New To GreaseMonkey?)
14.ByWiFi – You can search, watch & download video from YouTube & Metacafe. Registration is optional but useful to track you usage history across site. It will be great if they add support for more video site. Read More..
Unfortunate I do not have more options for mobile users this time. But I will surely add in future. If you have one, please share it via comments. 🙂
Windows Users
15.Orbit Downloader – Integrates nicely with many video sharing sites. Just hover the mouse on video and a "Grab It" button will pop up immediately! Available in 30+ languages.
16.Vdownloader – It can download and convert videos from many video sharing sites, saving them in AVI or MPG format. Supports few adult sites too!
17.KeepV – It also supports download as well as conversion. Conversion to MP4 format may catch iPod users. You need to manually copy-paste video URLs – Bad integration! Requires Microsoft .NET Framework.
18.Youtube Grabber – Very lightweight, but works for YouTube only as its name suggests!
For windows we got many softwares but most of them were paid. I don’t see any reason to pay for things when there are better alternative in freewares.
Linux Users
19.Youtube-dl – This is a shell script. After installing you can use command like youtube-dl URL to download and play video automatically. Videos played using VLC player.
Again I failed to get any complete software for Linux. So personally I will go for web-based or firefox alternatives. Still if you are addicted to shell you can try the script above.
Mac OS Users
20.GetTube – Only option I found for Mac OS. Only youtube is supported as you might have guessed it. Good thing supports conversion to MP4, MOV and AVI formats.
Additionally script mentioned for Linux users can be used from terminal.
PHP Script
21.Youtube Rippin – Finally if you are a coder and this large list impressed you, you can think of starting a site using this PHP script. Moreover if you have a PHP interpreter on your system, you can run this locally. Details are here…
Thats it! here we reach the end of this is a long list. I tried to cover all possible options but to err is human and if you think any deserving candidate is missing from list, feel free to comment! 🙂
