Mobile Google Docs Viewer

Mobile Google Docs Viewer

Google Docs Viewer, a service that lets you preview online PDFs, Word documents and PowerPoint presentations, is now available for iPhone and Android devices.

Google added some features that make the service more useful on a touchscreen device: pinch to zoom (only for iPhone and iPad), buttons for zoom and pagination.

Unfortunately for Google, iPhone's built-in PDF reader and Microsoft Office viewer are much better than Google Docs Viewer because they don't convert documents to images. Some Android phones include a document viewer based on Quickoffice, which also does a better job than Google Docs Viewer. There's also Adobe Reader for Android, probably the best Android PDF reader you can download for free.

Gmail to Use More HTML5 Features

Gmail to Use More HTML5 Features

Computer World reports that many of the upcoming Gmail features will use HTML5. Adam de Boor, a Gmail engineer, said that Google's goal is to make Gmail load in less than a second.

"If the browser supports CSS3, Gmail will render the pages using these specifications, rather than its traditional approach of using the Document Object Model (DOM). The company has found that using CSS3 can speed the rendering time by 12 percent. (...) Gmail will also make use of HTML5's database standards. Now, the e-mail service uses Google Gears to store mail for offline reading, but over time that will migrate to the HTML5 standards."

Another feature that will be added to Gmail allows users to drag attachments to the desktop. This feature is not part of HTML5, but Google says that it will encourage other browsers to use it. Right now, you can drag and drop files from the desktop to Gmail, but only if you use Firefox 3.6 or Chrome.

Adam de Boor revealed how many lines of code are in Gmail: 443,000 lines of JavaScript code written by hand.

Gmail has added many features that used to be available only in desktop mail clients: fetching email from other accounts, threading, powerful spam filters, reading messages offline. Now it's time to better integrate Gmail with the browser or the operating system and to add notifications, a simplified way to handle attachments and a better performance.

Google Chrome Tests Unified Menu

Google Chrome Tests Unified Menu

Google started to test an unified menu in the latest Chromium and Google Chrome dev builds. The new menu includes most of the options that were available in the page and tools menus.

If you use a recent Chromium build or Google Chrome dev channel, you can enable this feature by adding a command-line flag to the desktop shortcut: --new-wrench-menu.

To make the menu more compact, Google uses a single menu item for cut, copy, paste and another menu item that combines zoom options with full-screen.

Opera already uses an unified menu that replaces the menu bar, while Firefox 4 will include a single menu button. The unified menu takes up less space, it's less complex and it reduces clutter.

"The general purpose of the menubar is to contain all of the things that you want your program to do but you can't cram into the main UI. So the menubar generally ends up with a lot of stuff that isn't used very often, if at all, and yet is reproduced on every window and takes up a significant amount of real estate. It also has the tendency to become a dumping ground for new or hardly used features. Starting with Vista, and continuing with Windows 7, the menubar has been systematically removed from Windows applications built by Microsoft and other vendors. It has been replaced with alternatives like the Windows Explorer contextual strip or the Ribbon found in Office 2007," explains Mozilla's wiki.

Google OneBox for Sunrise and Sunset

Google OneBox for Sunrise and Sunset

Google shows sunrise and sunset information in a special OneBox at the top of the search results. If you type [sunrise chennai] or [sunset chennai], Google will show the time for sunrise or sunset in that location.

Google says that this feature works for almost any location. "Whether you're looking to find the best time for a morning jog or trying to plan that perfect moment for a wedding proposal, knowing exactly when the sun rises or sets can always be helpful. (...) Unlike the weather, sunrises and sunsets are quite predictable, and as a result, we don't use a data source. Instead, we calculate sunrise and sunset times based on latitude, longitude and the current time. This calculation has been of interest to astronomers and mathematicians for millennia, so they've had time to get it just right. And for most locations, it's accurate to within a single minute."

You can also type [sunset] or [sunrise] and Google should show accurate information for your location. Google has similar OneBoxes for weather and time.

Save iPhone Notes to a Gmail Account

Save iPhone Notes to a Gmail Account

Apple's iOS 4 (iPhone OS 4) added an important missing feature: a way to save your notes online. If you add an IMAP mail account like Gmail or Yahoo Mail and enable the notes feature, you can create notes that are saved to your email account.

For Gmail, Apple creates a label called Notes and saves the notes created in the Gmail section to your Gmail account. The notes can only be edited from an iPhone or iPod Touch and the changed are reflected in Gmail.




Some other new iOS 4 features that should be useful for Google users: Google Suggest in Safari's search box, an option to search the Web in Spotlight and the ability to add multiple Exchange accounts.

Google Spreadsheets Adds Format Painter

Google Spreadsheets Adds Format Painter

Google Spreadsheets added a feature that lets you copy the formatting a cell and use it for other cells. It's called "format painter", like the similar feature from Microsoft Office.

To use the format painter, select a cell that has special formatting, click on the "paint format" button from the toolbar and then select one or more cell to apply the formatting.

Microsoft offers an example to show why this feature is useful:

"Say you've written a report in Word. You like the look, especially your headings, which are 14 pt. Bookman Old Style, centered, green, and bold, with a nice subtle shadow. Fifteen minutes before you're supposed to present the report to the team, your manager asks you to add four new sections to the report. You spend thirteen minutes adding the information, and the next two wishing that you hadn't chosen such complicated formatting for your headings, since you now have to apply it to all the new ones. Using Format Painter saves you that time and duplicated effort. Instead of having to manually apply the font, font effects, centered paragraph alignment, and other formatting to each new section heading, you can quickly copy all of the formatting attributes by using one toolbar button."

Unfortunately, format painter is not available in all Google Docs applications and you can only use it in Google Spreadsheets. So much for the Google Docs consistency.

Google Voice, Available Without Invitation

Google Voice, Available Without Invitation

If you're in the US, you can now use Google Voice without asking for an invitation. Three years after acquiring GrandCentral, Google finally makes the service widely available.

"A little over a year ago, we released an early preview of Google Voice, our web-based platform for managing your communications. We introduced one number to ring all your phones, voicemail that works like email, free calls and text messages to the U.S. and Canada, low-priced international calls and more—the only catch was you had to request and receive an invite to try it out. Today, after lots of testing and tweaking, we're excited to open up Google Voice to the public, no invitation required," explains Google.

Google Voice has a lot in common with Gmail. They're both innovative communication services and they both help you manage your communication flow. Gmail has been available as an invitation-only service for about 3 years, just like Google Voice.



The next steps for Google Voice should be expanding the service's availability outside US, integrating with Gizmo5 and becoming a VoIP service, integrating with Gmail and Google Talk.

CJ, a reader of this blog, already found some signs of a future integration:

"Late last year, Google Talk appeared as an option for Phone Type when adding a new phone in the Google Voice settings. I added my Google Talk account, but could not verify it. I just left it in there unverified because I knew at some point the day would come. At some point in the past few weeks, I was able to get my Gmail Voice Chat client to ring when attempting to verify the Google Talk account in my Google Voice account, but the call always immediately failed. Now in the past two or three days I've been able to answer the call and hear the prompt to enter the verification code, but there's no way to send the verification digits. I tried generating DTMF tones and sending them through the microphone, but it doesn't work. So close!"

Distance Measurement in Google Maps Labs

Distance Measurement in Google Maps Labs

Google Maps Labs added a feature that used to be available as a mapplet: distance measurement tool. After enabling the Labs feature, you'll notice a small ruler at the bottom of the map. Click on the ruler and you'll be able to use the distance measurement tool by clicking on the map and tracing the path you want to measure.


If you click on "I'm feeling geeky", you'll be able to pick from a long list of measurement units, including light-year, parsec, PostScript points, Olympic swimming pools, American footbal fields, Persian cubits and more.

Gmail's Redesigned Contact Cards

Gmail's Redesigned Contact Cards

Gmail's contact cards, which show up when you mouse over the sender of a message or a Gmail Chat contact, have a new interface. Action buttons are displayed at the bottom of the card and you can no longer edit the name of a contact inline. When you click on the name of a contact, Gmail opens the contact manager.

Contacts cards haven't changed too much since 2007, when Google released a major Gmail update.


If you'd like to see how much Gmail has evolved since 2007, open Gmail's old version. It's surprising to see that Gmail still offers the old version, which lacks most of the features released in the past three years.

Facebook Hacking Exposed

Facebook Hacking Exposed

Learn the exact techniques Russian Hackers secretly used to hack over 1,562,241 Facebook Passwords Today! Facebook Hacking Exposed will teach you the most sought after underground Facebook password hacking techniques in an easy to understand step-by-step hands on method... Get it now! Equipped with this knowledge you will be able to defend against these same attacks and when you are targeted (and you will be) you will be able to spot them a mile away! Get it now!

Dr. Ali Jahangiri Publishes New Security Policy Cookbook Packed Full of Recipes for Security Policy Makers

Dr. Ali Jahangiri Publishes New Security Policy Cookbook Packed Full of Recipes for Security Policy Makers

New book is a unique guide for IT and security professionals to streamline their security policy formulation. Based on years of information security expertise, this cookbook provides all the ingredients needed to create easy-to-understand security policies covering areas like passwords, intruder detection and wireless networks. Dr. Ali Jahangiri, a world-renowned computer and security expert, is pleased to announce the launch of his new book The Security Policy Cookbook. Providing "recipes" for security policies in all areas, from password and Internet use policies to intruder user detection and public mailing list policies, The Security Policy Cookbook is a unique guide for IT and security professionals to streamline security policy formulation. With over 14 years of experience as a security auditor, security consultant and trainer, Dr. Ali Jahangiri brings the full force of his knowledge and expertise to bear in this exceptional book. When devising security related company policies, expertise is essential, and this book releases Dr. Jahangiri's expertise for IT professionals to tap into when developing security related rules, guidelines and recommendations. As an experienced lecturer and trainer, Dr. Jahangiri was often asked by course participants for a copy of his own personal arsenal of security policy templates. To meet this need Dr. Jahangiri painstaking researched and compiled a complete collection of security policies and published them as this cookbook. "I decided to address the need, "says Dr. Jahangiri", spending more than two years to study and bring together the contents of this book in order to create a comprehensive collection of security policy templates." Dr Jahangiri's informative guide covers a wide range of security policy areas including Antivirus Policy, Back Up and Disaster Recovery Policy, Computer Account Management, Email, Internet Access and Use Policy, Password, Portable Computing Devices, Server Hardening, System Development and Wireless Network policies. One of the unique aspects of this book is that a one time payment of $149.90, gives security policy makers access to Dr. Jahangiri's templates in a fully editable form. This means that they can be used as the starting points for the actual security policies deployed by any company with much of the hard work, research and repetition removed. The templates can be purchased from securitypolicycookbook.com. The 160 page book is available directly from the securitypolicycookbook.com web site or from Amazon.com.

Google Earth Includes a Web Browser

Google Earth Includes a Web Browser

Google Earth 5.2 no longer uses the operating system's web browser when you click on links. Google Earth comes with a WebKit-based browser, so you'll never have to leave the application to open a Wikipedia page or the website of a local business.

"Sometimes when you want more information, you may want to click through to a link to see the full Google Places page for a business, or learn more about a photographer whose photo you really enjoy. In the past, this has required opening a link in an external browser to see the full page. For Google Earth 5.2, we've added an embedded browser that lets you browse the full web. Click on a link, and the browser pane slides across the screen. When you want to return to the Earth view, just click the Back button,"explains Google.



Apparently, Google Earth uses the Qt port of WebKit (QtWebKit) and it doesn't include the V8 Javascript engine from Google Chrome. I tried to run the V8 benchmark suite in Google Earth and the result was very poor: about 10 times lower than the latest Chromium build.

As in the previous versions, Google Earth for Windows and Mac also includes a plug-in that lets you embed a Google Earth view in any web page. Google Maps is the most popular service that lets you use Google Earth in your browser. Now you can browse the Web in Google Earth and use Google Earth in a Web browser.

If you don't like the embedded browser, you can disable it by going to Tools > Options > General and checking "Show web results in external browser".

Better Gmail Multitasking in Google Chrome

Better Gmail Multitasking in Google Chrome

This is the second Chrome-only feature in Gmail, after inserting images using drag and drop. If you open the compose page or a conversation in a new window, Gmail uses some tricks to load the new page fast. The downside is that you can't close the initial Gmail tab without also closing the pop-up window.

Here's what happens if you open the compose page in a new window when you use Firefox:



When you try to close the original Gmail tab, a dialog informs you that the compose window will also be closed: "Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page?".


Gmail's blog says that Google Chrome added some code that makes the pop-up windows "long lived".

"If you're using the latest version of Google Chrome, you can now continue to work in popped out windows after you close your main window (especially handy for those of us who always like to keep an eye on our tasks). For the technically curious among you, our friends on the Chrome team made it possible to transfer the code that runs Gmail from one window to another as the window closes. When the window that hosts the code fires an unload event, we move the iframe with the code to a surviving window. Everything continues to run, including timers and outstanding requests."

The feature is part of HTML5, so it should be implemented in other browsers. Google Chrome happened to be the first browser that implemented it.

Gmail doesn't have tabs, but you can open many views in a new window by shift-clicking on a link, by clicking on the "new window" icon or link. This way, you can keep a conversation open while composing a message (shift-click on "Compose mail" or Shift+c), open Gmail search results in new windows (shift-click on the results), reply to a message in a new window (shift-click on "Reply" or Shift+r).

Login Guide for IRCTC (irctc.co.in) New Beta Version Website

Login Guide for IRCTC (irctc.co.in) New Beta Version Website

A subsidiary of the Indian Railways, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) handles the catering, tourism and online ticketing operations of the railways. IRCTC is famous for changing the face of railway ticketing in India. In 2003, with about six lakh registered users, the IRCTC website had become one of the largest and the fastest growing e-commerce websites in the Asia-Pacific region within a short span of its going online. New IRCTC website has drop down navigation, which provides proper information. User guides, Enquiries, General information, Agents, Special offers, IRCTC Zone are the navigation of IRCTC website. This navigation provides information about ticket booking, ticket canceling, browser setting, reservation inquiry, free tickets/gift, etc. You can also get facilities like book hotels, flights, tourist trains, rail packages,holidays, Buddhist train and more.

Screenshot of home page of www.irctc.co.in

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd provides online passenger reservation system. A beta version of the revamped website has been launched. This version is claimed to be more user-friendly and efficient. Director Consulting, BroadVision Asia Pacific Region, Subir Agrawal said, “The new interface is intended to increase the number of visitors who book rail tickets using the site.” The website is being looked after by BroadVision. He said, “We observed that out of the total number of visitors to the IRCTC only 45 per cent book tickets. Our aim is to increase this number of visitors by making the process more interactive and easy.” Anyone can book tickets because for instant booking, there is no need of login/register that is the new steps taken in the website.

For enabling more features in the website, the team is using Web 2.0 platforms and Ajax. The new website would have drop-down options and offer more information on the same web page. Agrawal added, “One need not put a separate request for the train, seats, availability and fare. The intelligent enquiry software would help getting the required information from a single request to central server and that in return bring down the load on the servers.”

The department would have more powerful servers to take up the loads especially during the peak hours of booking season and timings, apart from this. For BroadVision, one of the biggest challenges is server loads, which freezes the systems for minutes during booking the tickets especially at 8 am.

“The number of bookings on an average had been increasing multifold compared to the servers/infrastructure. These bookings and enquiry request are 6-7 times higher during the peak hours than the rest of the day. So while the existing infrastructure is well equipped to handle the daylong traffic, it is the peak hour traffic that clogs servers,” according to Subir Agrawal.

“The average number of booking done in a day is around 3 lakh in comparison to a thousand booking done some years ago,” shared by him. According to him, “New-age technologies like virtualization are already being tested, but even they have their limitation,” and “The best suit would be if we could get more 40-50 servers just for the peak hours to share the load, but none of the systems integrators today provide such facility on rent or any other ways.”

Central Reservation System (CRS) maintained by Indian Railways, the transaction gateway (maintained by respective banks) and finally the provider of web applications (BroadVision) are three key elements that come into play while booking. Subir Agrawal added, “The three need to collaborate together to get the best solution forward. IRCTC statistics suggest that in a month the success rate on transaction for bookings done by credit cards is around 72-75 per cent, while in case of net banking/debit card, it is around 67-70 per cent.” In the country, IRCTC is the most crowded website.

Login at New Beta Version of IRCTC Website:

Screenshot of login page of www.irctc.co.in

For logging in, visit at www.irctc.co.in/cgi-bin/beta.dll/irctc/services/home.do. You will see the “login” section at the left hand side of the homepage. Enter your username and password then click on “login” option. If you have forgotten your password then click on “forgot password” option and follow the instructions.

The inside view is completely changed with new icons. Quick links like Booking history, Print Tickets, Cancellation, Refunds, Shubh yatra and file TDR are visible on first page after login. You will find some important announcement and notice from IRCTC under the quick links section.

They have created fast loading menu and java script based search facility in New version. When you plan for the journey, just enter two stations, date and class. It will show you list of all trains with their respective classes. When you select any class of particular train, you will get full details like fair, train number, train type, distance and availability.

If you are new at IRCTC, then click on “sign-up” option. Enter your username, password, security question, your answer, first name, last name, gender, marital status, date of birth, occupation, e-mail ID, mobile, nationality, address, city, state. Pin/zip, country, phone number then click on “submit” option.

Source: http://www.irctc.co.in/cgi-bin/beta.dll/irctc/services/home.do

Google's Special Results for the Football World Cup

Google started to show a special OneBox for the FIFA World Cup, the international football tournament that will start Friday in South Africa. If you search for "world cup", you can see a list of the teams and the upcoming matches.

At the bottom of the page, Google replaced "Goooooooooogle" with "Gooooooooooal!", at least for the first page of search results.


Google Street View is now available for South Africa and you can see the 10 World Cup stadiums in a gallery. Google Earth links to 3D models of the stadiums and the 9 cities that host the World Cup.

Spelling Corrections in Google Suggest

Spelling Corrections in Google Suggest

Google Suggest has already been detecting misspellings and showing suggestions that include the properly spelled keywords, but now the mistakes are easier to spot. If you type a misspelled query, Google Suggest includes the "did you mean" label.

"These spelling suggestions already exist on the results page, but by moving them to an earlier point in the search process, we hope we've made it faster and easier to get to the results you're looking for. Right now, this feature is offered only for google.com in English, but we're working to roll this out internationally in the near future," explains Google.


A Wall Street Journal article listed some of the most commonly misspelled words in Google and other search engines: "Criagslist" instead of "Craigslist", "Facebok" instead of "Facebook", "definately", "definetly" or "definatly" instead of "definitely", "stilletos" or "stillettos" instead of "stilettos", "mischevious" and "mischievious" instead of "mischievous". Yahoo's most misspelled word of 2010 so far was Eyjafjallajokull, the famous volcano in Iceland that erupted this year.

Decrypting the RLZ Parameter

Decrypting the RLZ Parameter

If you install a Google software that lets you perform searches, you'll notice that Google search URLs include a new parameter called RLZ, which has a cryptic value. Google has open-sourced the RLZ library and we can now decrypt the value sent to Google every time you search.


"Client applications with the RLZ library can use explicit cohort tagging to manage promotion analysis. A client application with a particular tag can transmit that tag as it chooses for payments and analysis purposes. As an example, the RLZ parameter "rlz=1T4ABCD_enUS202" indicates the client application is Toolbar version 4, distributed with Abcd software bundle, English version, to a US user in December 2006. This empowers computation of metrics broken down into useful dimensions," explains Google.

"T4" is a codename for Google Toolbar 4 for Internet Explorer, but Google uses many other values: "C" for Google Chrome, "D" for Google Desktop, "B" for Google Toolbar for Firefox, "U" for Google Pack. "ADBR" is a code that identifies the distribution channel. "This correlates to how the user got the software (ie. they downloaded it by itself vs. it came pre-installed on their new computer vs. it came with a partner's software)." "c" is a value that tells Google if someone was already a Google user.

The library sends Google two other interesting values: install cohort (the country and week of the user's installation event) and first search cohort (the country and week of the user's first Google search). The week is measured as the number of weeks since Feb 3, 2003. For this example, "US239" informs Google that the user performed a search from the US in September 2007.

It's interesting to notice that Google measures the success of a campaign that promotes Google Toolbar, Google Chrome or other Google software by counting the number of Google searches.

Add Background Images to Google's Homepage

Add Background Images to Google's Homepage

Google's homepage has always been simple and uncluttered. Those who wanted to customize the homepage with gadgets and themes had to switch to iGoogle, the personalized Google homepage. Lately, Google's homepage has changed a lot: the search box is bigger, there's a fade-in animation and a new logo, doodles are more interactive.

Inspired by Ask.com's themes and Bing's wallpapers, Google will allow users to add a background image to the Google homepage. "We're introducing a new feature that brings a whole new level of personalization to Google by letting you add a favorite photo or image to the background of the Google homepage. You can choose a photo from your computer, your own Picasa Web Album or a public gallery hosted by Picasa which includes a selection of beautiful photos," explains Marissa Mayer.



Google says that the new feature will be gradually released in the US and it will soon be available outside US. A lot of people use Google as their homepage and many would like to customize the homepage. I'm not sure it's a good idea to add visual clutter to the Google homepage and to make it load slower, but iGoogle, Bing and Ask.com have a lot of happy users.

Tip: to see other customized Google homepages, check the #mygooglepage Twitter hashtag.

How to book Train Tickets Faster in IRCTC website (Hacking)

Book Train Tickets with IRCTC very faaastttt

[Update 3/6/2010: Updated the script to handle availability URL change by IRCTC developers. If you've already installed the script, uninstall it (Tools->Greasemonkey->ManageUserScripts, select AJAXAvailability and click Uninstall), and install the updated script from the same location

(http://senthilthecoder.com/software/irctcscripts/ajaxavailability.user.js)] (If you use chrome browser,just click on the link above and it will automatically installs the extension)

For those of you who have not heard about Greasemonkey, it is a Firefox extension that "allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript.". IRCTC (http://www.irctc.co.in/) is Indian Railways's website for booking tickets. While a huge improvement over standing in queue at railway stations, I would not consider it to be a well designed site - it doesn't stand up to heavy user load, and the interface is not very user friendly. For one, the HTML is absolutely nasty, with multiple tags, multiple elements with the same id, etc.. For what I think is a bandwidth strapped site, the HTML has lots and lots of unnecessary whitespace and commented out HTML and it doesn't even use gzip encoding.

Enough ranting about that - Greasemonkey can't help there. What it can do is help manipulate the UI. My first target was the "Plan My Travel" page. After entering the source and destination stations, date of travel etc. and hitting "Find Trains", the page shows the list of trains that run between the stations on that day. So far, so good. Now, to book tickets on a train, the user selects a train and hits "Book Ticket". However, the user would typically have to check availability of tickets before proceeding to book them. The page makes it frustratingly difficult to do that - checking availability for a train takes two clicks, and worse, the availability information shows up on a new window, forcing the user to switch back and forth between the windows.

I decided to write a Greasemonkey script to show availability information right alongside the list of trains. I did not want to slow down loading of the page though, so I decided to do AJAX style dynamic loading of availability information. Here's how the page looks after enabling the script.

Notice how the new column blends in seamlessly with the rest of the page.

For the technically inclined, the script works by first adding a column to the train details table. It uses a XPath expression to get the list of train numbers from the HTML content and then queries availability information from the server by generating the same query string that a click on the "Show Availability" button generates. The difference is that it does it automatically for all trains in the page and that it uses GM_xmlhttpRequest to do the query asynchronously - which means that the script queries availability for trains (almost) simultaneously.

From here, it's fairly simple - another XPath expression "screen scrapes" the availability string from the HTML content returned by the server and there is some code to update the cell's contents with the string. The script handles failures also - for HTTP failures, it retries the request and for other kind of failures, it shows a "Query Failed" link, which, when clicked, shows the actual error in a messagebox (another XPath expression takes care of scraping the error text).

To install the script, install Greasemonkey first (if you haven't already), navigate tohttp://senthilthecoder.com/software/irctcscripts/ajaxavailability.user.js and click Install. The next time you visit IRCTC's website and go to the "Plan My Travel" page, the script gets loaded and runs automatically.

While you're at it, you might also find SortItOut, a script for sorting the availability table (shown above), useful.

Hope you guys find the scripts useful.