Windows 1.0 to 8.0

1985 Windows 1.0



The First Version of Microsoft Windows, Windows 1.0, with simple applications and the concept of multitasking on PC

1987 Windows 2.0



The Second Version of Windows, Windows 2.0 with some fixes and the Control Panel.

1988 Windows 2.1



The Second Version of Windows with some additions, and some fixes, Windows 2.1, the Paint software is seen in this one!

1990 Windows 3.0



The Third Version of Windows, Windows 3.0, featuring the File Manager and Program Manager, replacing the old MS DOS based File and Program Managers.

1992 Windows 3.1




The later released upgraded version of Windows 3.0, which had support for 32-bit Disk Access, Personalization options and had the Minesweeper game for the first time.

1995 Windows 95



Windows 95, the changed look, the new interface and the beginning of the form of Windows which we see now. Enhanced Graphics and better Communication Programs.

1998 Windows 98



Windows 98, one of the most successful versions of Windows till now, this version of Windows can still be seen in some PCs even today. With Extended Softwares, better Performance, this Version was the first milestone in the path of the development of Windows.

2000 Windows ME



Windows ME or Windows Millenium Edition, though not a very popular version of Windows, but still it had some better tools and performance than the previous ones in some cases.

2001 Windows XP



Windows XP, the Daddy of all versions of Windows, the most popular version of windows even today. Windows XP is still used today because of its unmatched performance, tools and interface. This has been the best version of Windows till the arrival of Windows 7.

2006 Windows Vista



Windows Vista, though it didn’t go so well in the public, but still its a good version of Windows specially for the interface the Windows Aero™ Effect, making the Window Transparency work like magic.

2009 Windows 7



Windows 7, the best version of Windows till date. With the new and advanced features such as the Superbar, this version of Windows created another milestone for Microsoft after Windows 98 and Windows XP. Windows 7 features an unbeatable user interface, and powerful tools that makes it the best among the rest.

2012 Windows 8




Windows 8, to be released in the late 2012. The interface of Windows 8 as seen at the D9 Conference. A better version of Windows as proposed by Microsoft, with the changed User Interface.

No More Offline Gmail in Google Chrome

No More Offline Gmail in Google Chrome

Chrome 12, the upcoming version of Google's browser which is likely to be released today, removes a useful feature: the built-in Gears plugin. While most Google services dropped support for Gears and removed offline access, Gears is still being used in Gmail. Google no longer maintains Gears, which is now legacy software, and focuses on implementing offline support using HTML5.


But why remove Gears support without implementing the features using HTML5 first? Google says that you'll only need to wait for a few weeks or you can still older versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer and mail client such as Thunderbird or Outlook.

"The new Gmail Offline capability is targeted for delivery as a Chrome browser web app this summer. As we move the Gmail Offline capability to a Chrome web app, we will deprecate the Google Gears-based Gmail Offline. This coincides with the version 12 release of the Google Chrome browser which no longer supports Gears. As a result, Google Gears-based Gmail Offline will no longer work with the Chrome browser as of Tuesday May 24, 2011. Google Gears-based Gmail Offline will continue to work in Internet Explorer 8 and Mozilla Firefox 3.6," explains Google.

It's not the best thing to do after convincing users to switch to Chrome and use Web apps, but it's just a temporary issue. If the HTML5 offline Gmail wasn't ready to be released, removing Gears from Chrome could have been delayed.

{ via François }

Google Tests Extended Flight OneBox

Google Tests Extended Flight OneBox

Google started to test a more advanced OneBox for flight-related searches. Right now, when you search for [flights from London to Barcelona] Google links to services like Expedia, Orbitz or Kayak. The OneBox is useful, but it doesn't show a list of flights.


After acquiring ITA Software, Google has access to a lot more information about flights and no longer have to send users to services like Expedia. Google can even provide information when you enter a vague query like [flights to Barcelona].

Here's the experimental flight OneBox, as spotted by Richard from SEO Gadget:


When you click "expand all non-stop routes to Barcelona", Google shows a very long list of cities. It's probably the biggest and most overwhelming Google OneBox. Maybe a drop-down would've been more useful.


After selecting one of the cities, Google sends you to a new search results page that shows a long list of flights.


It's nice to have all this information at your fingertips, but it's too overwhelming and these kinds of details aren't suited for an OneBox. Richard also noticed that "you get to data, with no call to action. I think this means most folks would be forced to repeat their search again on a flight provider."

Hopefully, Google will launch a Flight Search service that will also include the brilliant visualizations developed by ITA Software and the OneBox will just be a gateway to the new service.

{ Thanks, Richard. }

Google eBooks Integrates with Google Dictionary, Google Translate and Google Search

Google eBooks Integrates with Google Dictionary, Google Translate and Google Search

Google's eBook Reader for the Web added a contextual menu that lets you define, translate and search for a selected word or text. "To select text in a Google eBook within the Web Reader, double-click or highlight it with your mouse and a pop-up menu opens with the following options: Define, Translate, Search Book, Search Google and Search Wikipedia," explains the Google Books blog.


Definitions are obtained from Google Dictionary, while translation is powered by Google Translate. If you click "Search Book", Google shows a list of all the instances in which the selected text appears in the book.




These features aren't available yet in the Google Books apps for Android and iPhone.

7 Google Features Only Available in Google Chrome

7 Google Features Only Available in Google Chrome

Google Chrome is at the forefront of the new technologies and Google services are the first to use them. Here are some examples of features only available in Google Chrome:

1. Native printing in Google Docs. You no longer have to download PDF files and use Adobe Reader or a similar PDF reader to print documents. Google implemented a W3C working draft from 2006.

2. Uploading folders in Google Docs. While you can install a Java applet in other browsers to upload folders, Chrome is the only browser that supports this feature natively.


3. Voice Input in Google Translate. The latest Chrome version supports the HTML Speech API, which provides speech recognition and input to web pages. The first Google service that supports this feature is Google Translate, but it's also tested for Google Web Search. Instead of typing your query or the text you want to translate, you can speak into your computer's microphone.

4 & 5. Desktop notifications in Gmail and Google Calendar. It's a really useful feature that replaces the annoying pop-up notification in Google Calendar and shows an unobtrusive notification when you receive a new message.


6. Open PDF attachments in Gmail using the built-in PDF reader, instead of Google Docs Viewer. It's not clear why Google doesn't detect Adobe Reader's plug-in to use a more full-featured PDF reader.

7. Drag and drop Gmail attachments to your desktop. Instead of clicking the "download" link, you can drag the file icon to your desktop.

Google Image Search in SSL

Google Image Search in SSL

Probably the most important missing feature in Google SSL Search was image search. Now this feature is available, but there's a drawback: the page that shows a bigger image preview doesn't use SSL.


Google's encrypted flavor supports most of the features of the regular Google site. The left side of the navigation bar is still missing, you can't use Google Instant and the Wonder Wheel, but hopefully these features will be added in the near future.

Google Chrome has recently implemented a feature called SSL False Start which "reduces the latency of a SSL handshake by 30%". SSL sites load slower and one of the reasons is that SSL handshakes are more CPU intensive, use more network round-trips and more packets.

Google Calendar Adds Event Colors

Google Calendar Adds Event Colors

Google Calendar still doesn't offer support for labels, but you can now pick a color for each event. By default, each event inherits the calendar's color, but you can change it by clicking the event and using the small drop-down displayed next to the event's title.

"Color Coded Events lets you assign specific colors to certain events: put pink on your daughter's soccer practice or make your lunch dates red. It's a great way to stay organized, keep track of recurring events, and add a little flair to your calendar. Color coding is private to you and anybody who can edit your calendar," explains Google.



If you want even more options, go to Google Calendar Labs and enable "Event flair" to be able to add icons to your events.

{ Thanks, Brahm. }

Google's Humans.txt File

Google's Humans.txt File

Google has a robots.txt file that lists all paths that can't be crawled by Web spiders, but there's also a humans.txt file which tries to show that Google is not all about bots and algorithms.


"Google is built by a large team of engineers, designers, researchers, robots, and others in many different sites across the globe. It is updated continuously, and built with more tools and technologies than we can shake a stick at. If you'd like to help us out, see google.com/jobs."

Google's Tim Bray linked to this text file and the Google Jobs Twitter account made it more popular.

YouTube's robots.txt file has recently added a humorous comment: "Created in the distant future (the year 2000) after the robotic uprising of the mid 90's which wiped out all humans."

{ via Blogoscoped Forum }

Google Talk and AIM to Become Interoperable

Google Talk and AIM to Become Interoperable

When you log in to your AIM account in Gmail, you get a message from AOL that links to this page.

In the next few days, Google and AOL are working together to change the way you connect to AIM buddies within Gmail. After this change, Gmail and AIM users can talk directly to each other without having to log into both services (you will no longer be able to log into AIM within Gmail's "Chat" section).

It's nice to know that AIM and Gmail Chat (Google Talk) will finally become interoperable and the Gmail integration will no longer be necessary. Back in 2005, Google and AOL announced that "Google Talk users and AIM users will be able to communicate with one another" and two years later Gmail Chat integrated with AIM, but they didn't become interoperable.

{ Thanks, Josh. }

Google Tests a New Search Interface

Google Tests a New Search Interface

Many users noticed a new interface for Google's search results pages that tries to better separate results. There's a lot of space between the results, but that's not useful when you try to find the best answer for your query.


Huffington Post notices that "the new design looks less cluttered. Rows of text are spaced farther apart and text colors are more muted than previous versions." TechCrunch calls the new interface "ugly" and less useful because "it actually gives you much less information on the screen. This will require users to do more scrolling and paging through results to find what they're looking for."

Links are no longer underlined and one of the experiments uses dotted lines to separate results.


Fortunately. the new interface is still an experiment.

{ Thanks, John, Silviu, James, Ken, Steve and Josh. }

New vulnerabilities at smallurl.ru

New vulnerabilities at smallurl.ru

Thanks: http://websecurity.com.ua/4439/

11.02.2011

XSS:

• alert (document.cookie)
• interesting

XSS + MouseOverJacking:

• alert (document.cookie)

Redirector:

http://smallurl.ru/anonym/?http://websecurity.com.ua

This redirector is not the primary functionality of this redirection services, where the URL is stored in the database and can be verified. In this case it is open redirector, which the administration has no control over the service (and permits anonymous redirection).

These vulnerabilities have not been fixed.

Google's Shift From Search Results to Answers

Google's Shift From Search Results to Answers

Google's post about the European Commission antitrust investigation reveals two important things about the Google search engine: the goal is to answer user queries and "the only constant is change".

"Sometimes the best, most relevant answer to a query is our traditional 'ten blue links', and sometimes it is a news article, sports score, stock quote, video, or a map. Today, when you type in 'weather in London' or '15 grams in ounces' you get the answers directly (often before you even hit Enter). In the future, we will need to answer much more complex questions just as fast and as clearly."

Universal Search and the integrated search experience that combines results from different search engines will make it even more difficult to understand Google's algorithms and to find unadulterated web search results. Instant Search will force Google to provide more instant answers and to treat web pages as sources of information. It's the subtle difference between an answer:


... and a potentially useful search result:


The difference between showing links to reviews and showing a clever summary based on sentiment analysis:


Google's conclusion is that the "ten blue links" will soon be a thing of the past and search results will become more dynamic:

"Our results are continuing to evolve from a list of websites to something far more dynamic. Today there's real-time content, automatically translated content, local content (especially important for mobile devices), images, videos, books, and a whole lot more. Users can search by voice - and in a variety of languages. And we've developed new ad formats such as product listing ads and new pricing models such as cost-per-action. We cannot predict where search and online advertising will be headed, but we know for sure that they won't stay the same. By staying focused on innovation we can continue to make search even better - for the benefit of users everywhere."

Google Earth 6: Better Street View and 3D Trees

Google Earth 6: Better Street View and 3D Trees

Google Earth 6 doesn't have too many new features. You can now use Street View just like in Google Maps by dragging the pegman icon. "To view street-level imagery for a specific location, zoom into an area at an altitude of approximately 500km. You will see a pegman icon appear at the top right below the navigation controls. Click and drag the icon across the 3D viewer. A blue border will appear around roads that have street-level imagery available," explains Google.

Another new feature is the "3D Trees" layer that can be enabled from the "3D Buildings" section. Google Earth includes 3D models for city parks (San Francisco, Chicago, Tokio, Athens) and remote forests (Amazon Forest).

Historical imagery is now more accessible: just click on the date of the oldest imagery in the status bar and you'll be able to see all the historical images that are available for the same location.

Google Earth 6 also adds ground-level navigation that lets you explore 3D buildings and 3D trees, 3D measurements for heights and widths of buildings and a much better Tour Recorder that improves motion fidelity.

Google SSL Secure Search

Google SSL Secure Search

With Google search over SSL, you can have an end-to-end encrypted search solution between your computer and Google. This secured channel helps protect your search terms and your search results pages from being intercepted by a third party. This provides you with a more secure and private search experience.

To use search over SSL, visit https://encrypted.google.com each time you perform a search. Note that only Google web search is available over SSL, so other search products like Google Images and Google Maps are not currently available over SSL. When you're searching over SSL, these properties may not appear in the left panel.

What is SSL?
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a protocol that helps provide secure Internet communications for services like web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, and other data transfers. When you search over SSL, your search queries and search traffic are encrypted so they can't be read by any intermediary party such as employers and internet service providers (ISPs).

Coming Soon in Google Docs: Third Party Apps, Cloud Printing and Sync

Coming Soon in Google Docs: Third Party Apps, Cloud Printing and Sync

Google Docs' source code includes a message that reveals some important upcoming features: "Coming soon: Third party applications, cloud printers, and sync devices".

Cloud printing is a project that will enable applications on any device to print documents. "This goal is accomplished through the use of a cloud print service. Apps no longer rely on the local operating system (and drivers) to print. Instead, apps (whether they be a native desktop/mobile app or a web app) use Google Cloud Print to submit and manage print jobs." Google says that printers "are treated in much the same way as documents are in Google Docs". Cloud Print will be implemented in Google Chrome and Google Chrome OS, so it will probably launched in the coming weeks.

If you can synchronize your calendar, your contacts or your mail, why not synchronize the documents stored in Google Docs? That's one of the most important missing features from Google Docs. Google already offers some APIs for uploading and downloading files, but they're limited to documents, spreadsheets and presentations if you don't use Google Apps Premier Edition.

Google Docs has applications for editing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and for viewing PDF files, but what about other file types? There's no photo editor, no video editor, no application for editing PDF files or for extracting files from archives. Third party applications could solve some of these issues and make Google Docs even more useful.

Google Music Search India

Google Music Search India

Google launched a new music service, this time for India. Google Music India helps you find Hindi songs and play them in your browser. Google aggregates the results from 3 partner sites: in.com, Saavn and Saregama, but it doesn't offer too many additional features.

"Google Music Search (India) Labs licenses meta-data of thousands of songs owned or licensed by partners to make them searchable on Internet. Once you search and find the music you want, our partners stream the music directly from their websites to your computer," explains the FAQ.



The US version of the service is similar and it focuses on finding music. Most of the audio previews are from iLike, a MySpace service. There's also a Chinese Google Music, which is less restrictive: it lets you find songs, play them and even download them for free.

Google plans to launch a music store for Android. "Rubin, Google's vice president of engineering, hopes to have the service up and running by Christmas," according tosome sources.

Google URL Shortener Adds Stats and Web Interface

Google URL Shortener Adds Stats and Web Interface

Google's URL Shortener has been used by Google services like FeedBurner, Google News, Blogger to share links on Twitter. Google didn't provide a web interface for the service, but third-party sites managed to fill the void.

Now you can go to goo.gl, paste any web address and get a short URL. Google also shows stats for any short URL generated using the service: append ".info" to the address and you'll see the number of clicks, a list of traffic sources and some aggregate information about visitors. Here's an example: http://goo.gl/l6MS.info.



If you sign in to a Google account, Google will save a list of recently generated URLs. Another advantage is that Google will always generate unique URLs when you are logged in, so that the stats are more useful.

Google's URL shortener still doesn't have an official API and it doesn't offer all the features that are available at bit.ly (most notably, you can't customize URLs), but it works well. "We've had near 100% uptime since our initial launch, and we've worked behind the scenes to make goo.gl even stabler and more robust," mentions Google's social blog. Google also added automatic spam detection and doubled the service's speed.

If you use Google Chrome, install goo.gl URL Shortener, an unofficial extension that generates short URLs and copies them to the clipboard. For Firefox, there's a similar extension called goo.gl lite.

Google Phone Gallery

Google Phone Gallery

As previously promised, Google Nexus One's site has been replaced by a gallery of Android phones. "The Google Phone Gallery features a selection of Android-powered phones currently available. All the phones in the gallery include Google Search, Android Market, and Google Mobile services such as Google Search, Gmail, and Google Maps,"explains Google.

You can restrict the phones to a carrier or manufacturer, compare them and buy the phones from third-party stores. The list is not comprehensive and the search box is not very useful.


"Here at Google, we're thrilled with the global adoption of Android and with the high quality of devices that are coming to market around the world. Since there are so many great phones, we wanted to make the selection process a little easier for people who are in the market for a new one. Google Phone Gallery [is] a showcase of Android-powered devices that deliver the best Google experience today," says Google's Ben Serridge.

Nexus One was a great reference Android phone better suited for developers and technology enthusiasts. Google's branding didn't help the phone because Google didn't manage explain why the phone was special. Probably not many people cared that the phone was sold unlocked, it was easy to root, had a stock Android interface and it was updated by Google. Hopefully, Google will do a better job at showcasing other devices.

Gmail Voice and Video Chat for Linux

Gmail Voice and Video Chat for Linux:

After two years of waiting, Gmail's plug-in for voice and video chat is finally available for Linux users. "Voice and video chat for Linux supports Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux distributions, and RPM support will be coming soon," says Tristan Schmelcher, from Google.


Justin Uberti says that adding Linux support was really difficult. "This release required significant engineering to develop an all-new video rendering solution and an all-new PulseAudio-based audio handler, along with work to support 64-bit and countless webcam compatibility tests. We spent a lot of effort to make it fully feature-complete, with all the same goodies as the Windows and Mac versions, and we're happy to now support Google voice and video now on all major desktop platforms."

Now that video chat is available on Windows, Mac and Linux, when will it be ported to Android?

How Google Translate Works

How Google Translate Works:

Google uploaded a video that explains how Google's machine translation service works. It's fascinating to see how much Google Translate has improved in the past 4 years andhow many Google services use it.

Here's the full text of the video:

"Google Translate is a free tool that enables you to translate sentences, documents and even whole websites instantly. But how exactly does it work? While it may seem like we have a room full of bilingual elves working for us, in fact all of our translations come from computers. These computers use a process called 'statistical machine translation' -- which is just a fancy way to say that our computers generate translations based on patterns found in large amounts of text.

But let's take a step back. If you want to teach someone a new language you might start by teaching them vocabulary words and grammatical rules that explain how to construct sentences. A computer can learn foreign language the same way - by referring to vocabulary and a set of rules. But languages are complicated and, as any language learner can tell you, there are exceptions to almost any rule. When you try to capture all of these exceptions, and exceptions to the exceptions, in a computer program, the translation quality begins to break down. Google Translate takes a different approach.

Instead of trying to teach our computers all the rules of a language, we let our computers discover the rules for themselves. They do this by analyzing millions and millions of documents that have already been translated by human translators. These translated texts come from books, organizations like the UN and websites from all around the world. Our computers scan these texts looking for statistically significant patterns -- that is to say, patterns between the translation and the original text that are unlikely to occur by chance. Once the computer finds a pattern, it can use this pattern to translate similar texts in the future. When you repeat this process billions of times you end up with billions of patterns and one very smart computer program. For some languages however we have fewer translated documents available and therefore fewer patterns that our software has detected. This is why our translation quality will vary by language and language pair. We know our translations aren't always perfect but by constantly providing new translated texts we can make our computers smarter and our translations better. So next time you translate a sentence or webpage with Google Translate, think about those millions of documents and billions of patterns that ultimately led to your translation - and all of it happening in the blink of an eye."