Google OS planned and Google Beta dropped

After so many years of successfully running the Beta versions of various application, Google has removed the Beta tag. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release April 1, 2004 and the same beta release available to the general public on February 7, 2007.

In Indian context, we call it Beta Beta nahi raha!

Google took a step toward greater enterprise adoption of its hosted e-mail, document and collaboration services today by removing the "beta" tag from its Google Apps brand.

Also, Google is planning to launch its Operating System, called Chrome OS. As per official blog :

"The operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve."

Official Links:
- Google out of Beta
- Google OS announcement

Happy Birthday GMail - 5 years

Worlds best Free Mail Service - GMail turns 5 years on this April 1st, 2009. Five years ago yesterday, Gmail starting giving people a gig. What started as an internal tool for Google employees is now used by tens of millions of people around the world in 52 languages. In honor of the occasion, you may have noticed a little cake on the Gmail homepage today.

Official Link

Undo Send feature in GMail

I recollect using this feature from Microsoft Outlook earlier. GMail has introduced the "Undo Send" feature recently. This feature comes to help for those people who click on Send button and then realize some mistake in their email text (like forgetting an attachment). This feature can't pull back an email that's already gone; it just holds your message for five seconds so you have a chance to hit the panic button. And don't worry – if you close Gmail or your browser crashes in those few seconds, GMail will still send your message.

More Info at: GMail Official Blog.

Google India - Internet Bus Project

As part of its initiatives to spread awareness about Internet, Google India announced the launch of mobile Internet bus to provide the experience of worldwide web to people across Tamil Nadu.

The bus project is based on four themes - information, communication, entertainment and education, and it would have useful and informative content in English and Tamil, Google India (Research and Development) Centre Head Prasad Ram told reporters in Chennai.

The bus is designed to make a simple introduction to the Internet for a new user. With a focus on the four themes of education, information, communication, and entertainment, the Internet Bus will be loaded with useful and informative content in English and Tamil. Google will showcase how the Internet can make everyday life simple through services like search, email, social networking, maps and others.

Links:

Google Internet Bus Project Official Site

Google Internet Bus Pictures

Google Earth reaches the Ocean and Mars!

Google Earth new version 5.0 (beta) supports to view the Ocean. The Ocean floor and surface data is provided from Marine Experts. Starting from this version, Google have a much more detailed bathymetric map (the ocean floor), so you can actually drop below the surface and explore the nooks and crannies of the seafloor in 3D. While you're there you can explore thousands of data points including videos and images of ocean life, details on the best surf spots, logs of real ocean expeditions, and much more. You can fly under the surface of oceans and explore underwater terrain, such as the the Davidson Seamount. To view the surface of oceans, click View -> Water surface. To view relevant points of interest, in the Layers panel, check Ocean. You can mark locations under these water surfaces using placemarks. This version also provides the view of red planet - "Mars".

Links:

Google Earth Team Blog

Google Official Blog

Google Earth User Guide

Google Earth Viewing Sky

GTalk - Unable to Send Files

Recently, while trying to Send Files using GTalk, I received the following Error Message: "You cannot send files because User Name is using chat in Gmail or is using another chat program".

Below screenshot is after fixing the Send Files problem with Sanal Kumar. You can make out the same using the disabled color Send Files button in the fore-ground window.

Google search revealed similar problems being reported, but without any results. Some of the links, directed to the Official Google Help which mentioned that "Voice calls and file transfers are only available between users signed in to the Google Talk client."

In my case, what surpised is that I was not able to sent files to my friend Sanal, whereas he was able to send the files to me without any problem. He hinted me that he was using the chat earlier from Gmail browser and later he switched on GTalk client. This hinted us to try relogging into GTalk. Sanal closed GMail chat and also GTalk client and relogged-in to GTalk client. We tried the Send Files, but there was no success. We even suspected that this might be some issue with Firewall, but there was no such information on Google Help website.

Now, the only last option was for me to close GTalk and restart. Surprising, this helped resolving the problem! Isn't it really strange that even though I didn't use Gmail chat, but my initial chat session with Sanal was created using his GMail chat. Hence, I had to restart my GTalk client once again!!! Hope someone from GTalk team would see this post and write some justification comments.

Google Chrome caught as a Trojan Horse

Today while navigating through my Windows Explorer folders, I navigated the folder containing the ChromeSetup.exe file. Suddenly my aVast anti-virus program detected it as a Trojan ( "Win32.Midgare" ). I immediately captured its screenshot and posting it here for future reference.




Although it has not created any harm to my PC, but still I am curious to know why aVast detected it as a Trojan! Have anyone found similar problem?

Google releases its new browser - Chrome

The Innovative Company never stops innovations. Google's newest innovation is its new product, which is none other than - Chrome. Chrome is a browser, ready to enter the war of existing war of Internet Explorer and FireFox browsers.

I installed Chrome at home and tried it to browse some sites. So far not found any major innovation in it. However, found few issues - which will may make users go crazy. I will soon be adding the screenshots.


1. Installation Experience:
The setup file is 475KB, but its not the complete executable. Once you run this, it will download the remaining files and install Chrome on your PC. On my 256kbps broadband, it took around 5 minutes to complete the installation. The installation didn't ask the Location of application. I could not find it in C:\Program Files directory. From the shortcut icon, I could locate its correct path under c:\Document and Settings of the logged-in user. Here's the screen shot:

What was more surprising that after couple of site visit, this folder size grew to 61MB.

2. Look & Feel
The browser is having very simple(compact) look, without any toolbars. The tabs are located on the top and its functions are similar to IE7/Firefox. Screen shot:


3. File Downloads
Tried to download a driver file from MSI website. The file download status is shown at bottom left side of browser. There is a arrow icon to open the menu, which I found it dangerous.



As soon as you click the menu, your mouse will be on the "Cancel" option of the menu.



There are more likely chances that you may unknowingly click the Cancel button. I was the victim of this, which made me start the download from beginning.

More reviews will be added later... Also, I plan to deploy IE8 Beta and check its new features too...

Google has hosted a comic book explaining Google Chrome.

Links - Official Google Chrome news

Gmail Labs - Latest Experience by Google

Google is inviting Gmail users to participate in the testing of new features for the free messaging service. The idea behind Labs is that any engineer can go to lunch, come up with a cool idea, code it up, and ship it as a Labs feature. To tens of millions of users. No design reviews, no product analysis, and to be honest, not that much testing. Some of the Labs features will occasionally break. The 13 features include: Quick Links, Signature tweaks, Superstars, Pictures in Gchat, Hide unread count, Custom keyboard shortcuts, Mouse gestures, Random signatures, Custom date format, Muzzle, Snake game, Email addict and Fixed-width fonts. Gmail Labs was created out of the desire to get more features to users faster. Google did something similar last October when it launched Google Enterprise Labs to hasten the availability of search innovations for Google's business customers. Labs is now out to all English users (US and UK), and administrators using Google Apps can choose to enable Labs by checking the "Turn on new features" box in Domain Settings.
Links:
About Gmail Labs
Gmail Official Blog

GMail introduces Group Chat and New Emoticons

The new Gmail Seattle team is happy to announce two additions to Gmail's built-in chat capabilities: group chat and enhanced emoticons.

To start a group chat, click "Group chat" from the "Options" menu when chatting. Enter the names of the people you want to add, and, bingo, you're in your very own chat room. All the familiar features such as chat archiving and taking the chat off the record still work as well.

These features only work with the latest version of Gmail, which we are still rolling out to IE6, international and Google Apps users.

I would like to see the same features to be provided to GTalk users too in near future.

Official Link

Google Begins 'Gmail 2.0' Rollout

The new look has been made available to about 1% of all Gmail users and is being rolled out to the rest on an ongoing basis. Google on Tuesday confirmed it is giving Gmail a new look. Two prominent blogs that cover Google -- Google Blogscoped and Google Operating System -- have posted screenshots of a new Gmail interface that has been made available to a limited number of users. They're calling it "Gmail 2.0," even if Google isn't.

-Complete Article

More Links:

- Google Unofficial Blog

Gmail has a new architecture that improves the performance and the usability. Now you can use the back button in your browser and bookmark URLs from different Gmail views because the URLs change when you go to a different section. The messages are prefetched when Gmail loads so you don't have to wait too much until a message is displayed.The new contact manager has inline search, better options to delete contacts or add them to a group, the address is now structured and you can enter usernames for different IM networks. You can also export the contacts in vCard format, export the contacts from a group and print your address book so you can use it offline... More with Pics

Google's 9th Birthday

Google turns 9th on 27-Sep-2007. Google opened its doors in September 1998. The exact date when we celebrate our birthday has moved around over the years, depending on when people feel like having cake.

Its strange that Google has not provided any official news link on its Birthday. The 9th birthday image put on Google.com also does not contain any links. Usually, the logo contains link to query for the event on web.

Links:

Google Official Web Search Help

Using GTalk as FM Radio

You can listen FM is on your GTalk now ( Teen Taal 110... only hindi songs). For this you need to follow these steps:
1) add this id in ur GTalk: service@gtalk2voip.com
2) then add: 110@radio.gtalk2voip.com

After completion of these 2 steps, make a GTalk call to 110@radio.gtalk2voip.com, then you will be directly connected to teen taal FM radio station.

Orkut - now in Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu!

Recently Orkut changed its User Interface and introduced Indian language support. Viewing the orkut site in Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil or Telugu (or any one of our other 12 languages) is easy.

• Click the settings button under your profile photo (or click the blue settings link at the top of any page).


• On the general tab, choose your preferred display language from the drop-down menu at the top of the page.


• Click save changes.

Some of the translations are really funny... :-)


Click here for the Official News Link

GMail Error Code 008 while attaching files (Solved for me)

From past few days, whenever I used to attach images in GMail (using http://gmail.google.com/) and click on "Send" button, I used to get Error Code 008. Here's the screenshot of this error:

This error is popping up on my Windows XP 64 bit OS with IE 7 Browser. I even tried with FireFox 1.5.0.11, which takes very long time (almost in Hanging state) to attach a file of size 400kb.

There is a Help provided by GMail Help Center to resolve this error at this location. The solution which helped me to resolve this error is to use the GMail Secured URL - https://gmail.google.com/.

The HTTPS method helped me to solve my problem and hope the same helps others.

Gmail doesn't recognize dots (.)

Do you know that in GMail, the First.Last@gmail.com and FirstLast@gmail.com both are same?

Yes, thats true. Gmail doesn't recognize dots (.) as characters within a username. This way, you can add and remove dots to your username for desired address variations. messages sent to your.username@gmail.com and y.o.u.r.u.s.e.r.n.a.m.e@gmail.com are delivered to the same inbox, since the characters in the username are the same.

Keep in mind that hyphens (-) and underscores (_) can't be used in a Gmail address. Also, usernames are case insensitive, so it doesn't matter if you enter upper case or lower case letters.

I came to know about the above recently when I saw some mails in my Spam Folder, which didn't had the dot (.) in my eMail address.

This is what Google has to say about it.

GMail - No more waiting for someone to invite!

Yes! Its true, you no more require a GMail Invite to open Google Account. The Search Engine Leader - Google.com, officially opened its GMail to public for Free Online Accounts on Valentines day (14-Feb-2007). There's no reason you should struggle to reach the ones you love, and Gmail helps you communicate fast and easily. Gmail is available in over 40 interface languages.

Visit www.gmail.com, and click on the Sign-up link to create a New Google Account. Also checkout the Video at YouTube.

Source: Official Google Blog

GMail Storage Counter - Stopped and now Fixed

During the beginning of New Year, the GMail Storage count (appears on the Login Page of GMail), was stopped due to some interesting problem. Some people say it was a bug in the Counter program which stopped working due to change in Year :)

Read on the complete info here.

My Blogs Migrated to Blogger Beta

Good News!!! Today, I got option to get my blog migrated to Blogger Beta. I successfully migrated my Blog to the new Blogger Beta, which is linked with Google Account. Before blogger, Google has already applied the sign-on to services like writely, picasa...

Keep visiting for updates - http://kamleshrao.blogspot.com

Orkut meets GTalk

Orkut members will be able to text message and voice chat with other members of the community if they choose to communicate in that way. Google believes the new functions might add a sense of immediacy to member interaction on the social networking site. Now you can find the Orkut Friends online on your GTalk Chat and send the Orkut scraps directly from GTalk.