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Search Yahoo and Google simultaneously! Just search Google as normal and get results from both engines displayed on a single page. Twice the number of comprehensive and relevant results!
What is Mindset? A new twist on search that uses machine learning technology to give you a choice: View Yahoo! Search results sorted according to whether they are more commercial or more informational (i.e., from academic, non-commercial, or research-oriented sources).
Sometimes you want to buy stuff and sometimes you just want to do research. In a typical search page, results point to commercial pages that are mixed together with non-commercial pages, so it's harder to find the type of information you're looking for. Mindset is our attempt to help solve that problem.
Through the use of machine learning for text classification, we try to classify each web page in the top 100 search results for a query. Then we sort those results according to the preference you set. Mindset uses an intuitive slider in the interface, so you can set the bias for commercial vs. non-commercial results. Often, we come across a web page that hasn't been classified yet. In those cases, Mindset tries to classify that web page in the background, so it'll be classified along with the rest of the results next time you do the same query.
When using Mindset, please bear in mind it's not a finished product. We think of it more as a technology demo and an ongoing research project. We want to determine whether: a) the underlying technology is effective and b) you like it. That's why we're very keen to know what you think and invite you to discuss it on our Mindset forums.
Believe it.. this is true. Microsoft is giving away Its latest Products Windows Vista and Office 2007 for free. Its not a trial version or with limited features, its Full license versions of Windows Vista and Office 2007. Surprised!!!! Visit: http://www.powertogether.com to know more...
Now every page created in Google Page Creator can be easily accessed from a mobile phone, as Google redirects it to the trans-coded version, the same way it does with the search results. When you try to add a photo to Google Page Creator, you'll can see options. You can now crop a photo, rotate it, change the brightness, mix it with another photo, change the contrast, reduce the colors or sharpen the photo. Basically you can apply simple effects from your browser.
You can now upload videos directly from your phone or PDA to YouTube. All you need is a mobile device that can take video and send MMS messages, and an Internet access or data plan from your service provider. It currently support uploads from Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon.
To get started, click on "Create Mobile Profile." Login, or create an account if you don't already have one. Once you're logged in, you'll create a mobile profile to set up the default information for your videos, and then our system will generate the email address where you should send them. This address will be unique to you and your profile, and you can have up to two profiles.
Also Verizon Wireless said on Tuesday that it would deliver selected video clips from YouTube to cell phones starting in December in a bid to increase subscriptions to its mobile media service.
Jigsaw is an online business contact marketplace where marketers, recruiters, and sales professionals can get fresh and accurate business contact information. Members of Jigsaw provide a few pieces to the collaborative puzzle (business contacts), and then Jigsaw assembles them for the benefit of the community.
Jigsaw's mission is to map every business organization on the planet, contact by contact and keep them current through a collaborative effort. The resulting database will help business people perform their jobs more efficiently and strategically.
Jigsaw was founded by veteran sales executives, Jim Fowler and Garth Moulton. The company is located in San Mateo, California and is funded by El Dorado Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, and Austin Ventures.
How does Jigsaw work?
Jigsaw is all about Business Contacts!
Looking for a specific contact in a company you know?
Prospecting for new contacts across an industry?
Jigsaw is for you!
Jigsaw contacts are purchased with points.
You can earn points by:
Adding Contacts** (5 Points+)
Correcting Contacts (5 Points+)
Referring others (125 Points)
** All contacts are added anonymously.
Each business contact contains:
Company name, Individual's name, position, address, phone number, and email.
Jigsaw is a self-correcting system
The continuous data contributions made by the Jigsaw community provide collaborative oversight to ensure the accuracy and growth of the Jigsaw marketplace. If you find a contact that is incorrect and you update it you will receive points. So, you actually earn points if you get incorrect data. This keeps Jigsaws data up to date and free of inaccurate contact information
Different levels of participation at Jigsaw
Jigsaw has two choices for participation:
Pay $25 a month or add 25 contacts per month. If you need more information, sign up for a free trial with ten contacts to get you started.
NetBeans is giving its free NetBeans worldTour CD that includes the NetBeans IDE 5.5, NetBeans Mobility Pack 5.5, NetBeans Profiler 5.5 and Sun Java System Application Server 9.0_1 Platform Edition.
Note: The Japanese and Simplified Chinese CD contains localized versions of NetBeans IDE 5.0, NetBeans Mobility Pack 5.0, NetBeans Profiler 5.0 and Sun Java System Application Server 8.2 Platform Edition. Localized versions of NetBeans 5.5 are expected to be available in mid December.
The NetBeans worldTour CD will be published and updated as major enhancements and new releases become available. Get NetBeans CD
RTX, developer of wireless communication has introduces the Dualphone 3088, which can be used as a normal telephone as well as for calling via Skype — without a PC. The new Dualphone helps people to save money on their phone bill and gives them more flexibility when using Skype.
The Dualphone 3088 will be available at RTX's distribution partners and at www.dualphone.net. The product will be also be available at selected European retailers and at the Skype Online Store from December 1, 2006 at a recommended retail price of EUR 159, including VAT.
PDF2EXE is a FREEWARE program to quickly convert PDF to EXE, making PDF readable on any computer without Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat software installed. The conversion from PDF to EXE preserves the look and feel of the original document.
8 Reasons why you should choose PDF2EXE Software
Compress, encrypt PDF document
Set password for the converted EXE file
Disable conversion from PDF to TXT, EXE to TXT
Disable printing of PDF file
Launch slide show after initialization
Disable conversion from EXE to image formats
Disable document properties
Prevent generated EXE from modification
With PDF2EXE, you can distribute your Adobe PDF files to your customers, share PDF documents with your friends without worrying about whether they can read it or not. PDF2EXE users can have more control over PDF files.
No Distribution Royalties for the generated EXE files.
Yahoo has introduced its Food Portal and Food Search. Yahoo! Food offers meal plans, recipes, and advice from food experts including Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray, and Wolfgang Puck, local dining guides, party tips. Yahoo offers its users thousands of recipes, advice from regional celebrity chefs, video cooking guides and easy-to-use Web tools to help cooks answer the daily question: What's for dinner?
The Web media giant is looking to create a new lifestyle business in a category that, while well-established in Internet terms, is largely fragmented among food industry players and niche recipe sites, with few big independent media players.
Yahoo Food (http://food.yahoo.com/) will be served up to the U.S. market initially. Early in 2007, it aims to move into other English-speaking countries like Australia, Britain and Canada, then expand into other global markets, officials said.
Microsoft, AOL, CA, CNET Networks, Verizon and Yahoo! support TRUSTe’s efforts to provide market incentives and enforcement
San Francisco, CA– November 3, 2006 – Today, TRUSTe and sponsors representing leading content and search providers, anti-spyware vendors and online advertisers announced that software publishers may begin submitting requests to join the Trusted Download Program, a program to certify consumer downloadable software programs. The Trusted Download Program aims to provide market incentives for adware and trackware companies to clearly and unavoidably communicate key functionalities and obtain informed consumer consent prior to download.
“Consumers want control and transparency over the collection and use of their personal information,” said Peter Cullen, chief privacy strategist, Microsoft Corp. “TRUSTe’s Trusted Download Beta Program will help software developers empower consumers with this kind of control. Microsoft is pleased to join other technology industry leaders in supporting this important effort.”
“TRUSTe brought together the industry to solve a vexing consumer trust issue. Trusted Download is a comprehensive program that will not only require consumer consent for downloads and rigorous software testing but also accountability for affiliate networks,” said Fran Maier, executive director and president of TRUSTe. “With the opening of the application process, TRUSTe is now requiring any sealholders that produce adware or trackware to submit their software applications to the Program in order to renew their TRUSTe seal licenses.”
"The confusing online advertising environment has led companies to advertise through channels with which they would not want their brand associated," said Ari Schwartz, deputy director, Center for Democracy and Technology. "Advertisers now can demand that their brand advertising is displayed only in software that is certified by Trusted Download. This is clearly a giant leap forward for transparency."
The Trusted Download Program will include publication of a “whitelist” of certified applications. The whitelist, which is expected to be publicly available in December, will be used by companies beginning with program sponsors such as AOL, CA, CNET Networks, Microsoft, Verizon and Yahoo!, as a tool to help make business decisions about advertising, partnering or distributing software products. This aims to provide attractive market incentives to adware and other software providers to meet the requirements and earn certification.
To be placed on the whitelist, adware and trackware must prominently disclose the types of advertising that will be displayed, personal information that will be tracked and user settings that may be altered, as well as obtain user opt-in consent for the download. An easy uninstall with clear instructions must be provided, and advertisements must be labeled with the name of the adware program. Certified adware must maintain separate advertising inventory for users of certified applications. To move legacy users to certified advertising inventory they must obtain new opt-in consent.
The complete set of program requirements, and additional information on the certification criteria, program elements, FAQs and sponsor roles, is available on the Trusted Download website at www.trusteddownload.com.
About TRUSTe TRUSTe helps identify trustworthy online organizations through its Web Privacy and Email Privacy Seals and resolves thousands of individual privacy disputes each year. An independent, non-profit organization celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2007, TRUSTe runs the world’s largest privacy seal program, with more than 2,000 Web sites certified, including the major internet portals and leading brands such as IBM, Oracle, Intuit and eBay. Through its Trusted Download Program, TRUSTe develops standards for non-intrusive downloads that demonstrate consumer choice. TRUSTe also provides accreditation, monitoring and oversight for email with the Email Privacy Seal Program, and for Return Path’s SenderScore Certified Program. To learn more, visit www.truste.org.
Topica to Offer TRUSTe's Email Privacy Seal Program to its Customers
Topica Inc., a leading provider of online lead generation and conversion solutions, today announced a partnership agreement with TRUSTe, a non-profit organization committed to online privacy. Using TRUSTe's "We Don't Spam" seal, an email privacy seal program and certification, qualified Topica customers can ensure their online visitors that they are adhering to TRUSTe's privacy standards, which exceed CAN-SPAM requirements. This improved user confidence can help grow subscriber lists by 7% or more based on pre-launch testing by TRUSTe.
TRUSTe's "We Don't Spam" seal is posted at the point of email collection - the online subscribe form - to reassure subscribers to qualified Topica customer lists that the company will honor the privacy of email subscribers. Qualification for the program involves a rigorous review process, including a review of the sender's email reputation and history, an extensive self-assessment of email practices by the sender, and an analysis by TRUSTe. Businesses that display this seal must agree to TRUSTe's alternative dispute resolution process, which allows TRUSTe to initiate a negotiation between the individual complainant and the company.
This best practices program will be introduced to Topica's customers via the company's Customer Success Management team and through a web-based seminar on Tuesday, December 12, 10 a.m. PST. This webinar is open to all businesses interested in learning more.
"We are excited to offer the TRUSTe Email Privacy Seal to our customers," said Britta Meyer, vice president of Marketing and Customer Success. "The program benefits our small and mid-sized customers, who may not have mass brand recognition, by communicating to online visitors that they can be trusted when submitting information. This agreement reinforces Topica's commitment to promoting, following and, most importantly, exceeding best practices and CAN-SPAM standards."
"As publishers of targeted consumer and business information, Topica's customers are the ideal participants in TRUSTe's Email Privacy Seal program, said Colin O'Malley, TRUSTe's director of product development. "In combination with relevant and timely content, offering consumers reassurance at the point of collection is the fastest route to increasing email acquisition for online marketers."
Topica helps small and medium-sized companies acquire new leads, convert those leads into customers, and grow their businesses. Topica currently serves over 4000 clients in 20 countries, including eHobbies, Toywiz.com, and divisions of leading organizations, such as IBM, Corp. and Hachette Publications. Firmly committed to permission-based emailing, Topica is a member of TRUSTe, the Email Services Provider Coalition of the NAI (National Advertising Initiative), and the Internet Alliance. All Topica Solutions are 100% compliant with state and federal privacy, permission and anti-spam legislation. Topica is privately held and backed by investors including TLCom, Ltd., Highland Capital Partners, and August Capital. For more information visit: www.topica.com.
About TRUSTe
TRUSTe helps consumers and businesses identify trustworthy online organizations through its Web Privacy and Email Privacy Seals and resolves thousands of individual privacy disputes each year. An independent, nonprofit organization celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2007, TRUSTe runs the world's largest privacy seal program, with more than 2,400 Web sites certified, including the major internet portals and leading brands such as AOL, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Intuit and eBay. Through its Trusted Download Program, TRUSTe develops standards for non-intrusive downloads that demonstrate consumer choice. TRUSTe also provides accreditation, monitoring and oversight for email with the Email Privacy Seal Program, and for Return Path's SenderScore Certified Program. To learn more visit www.truste.org.
We have some big news to share today. McAfee is launching an enhanced, premium version of our safe search tool called SiteAdvisor Plus.
SiteAdvisor Plus extends and enhances our core safe search and safe surfing functionality in three ways: by adding link checking to instant messages and e-mail, by adding a protected mode that shields PCs from interacting with risky sites, and by adding real-time anti-phishing protection.
What’s New
Link Checker: McAfee SiteAdvisor Plus checks links embedded in e-mail and instant messages, warning consumers before they make a bad click decision. Worldwide, more than 170 billion e-mails and more than 14 billion instant messages are sent per day. In today’s world of drive-by attacks, during which a single click can ruin a computer, it’s important for consumers to know in advance whether a link contained in an e-mail or IM is safe or not.
McAfee SiteAdvisor Plus supports a broad range of instant messaging and e-mail platforms including Yahoo! Messenger (Y!M), Windows Live Messenger (MSM), Google Talk, Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo! Mail and Microsoft Live Mail (Hotmail), and Gmail. Support for AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and AOL Mail is under development.
Protected Mode: Protected Mode enforces SiteAdvisor’s safety ratings by redirecting consumers to a safe page anytime their computer is about to interact with a risky site, whether through searching, browsing, instant messaging or e-mailing. This feature provides critical protection for heavy Internet users, households that share computers with younger or less Web-savvy users, or anyone who desires “load and go” protection. Protected Mode is password protected, enabling parents or other computer administrators to control this feature.
Protected Mode grays out risky results
Advanced Phishing/Scam Detection: McAfee SiteAdvisor Plus combines advanced, real-time “phishing” detection with its one-of-a-kind site database to detect and provide early warnings against scam sites that can compromise consumers’ identities and ruin their computers. This is a critical benefit, since scam and phishing sites now use increasingly sophisticated technology and social engineering tactics to fool even the most savvy consumers.
Real-time anti-phishing uses SiteAdvisor's white list to improve accuracy
How Much Does It Cost?
SiteAdvisor Plus offers a household pack (for 3 computers) for $49.99 and a 1-user option for $24.99. Both subscriptions are good for a year and include all the new features.
Where Can You Buy It?
SiteAdvisor Plus is available on the McAfee site starting Tuesday, November 7.
What’s Next for SiteAdvisor Plus?
Adding link checking support for AIM is a top short-term priority. Integration with the AIM client presents some significant engineering challenges and we felt it was better to offer instant messaging protection now to the tens of millions of consumers who use other popular instant messaging clients rather than wait.
Also a top priority: support for Firefox. Again, we made the call that it was better to offer SiteAdvisor Plus to our many Internet Explorer users who can benefit from added protection now.
What’s Staying the Same
SiteAdvisor’s basic version will remain free and will keep the same features it currently has. Our commitment to accuracy will continue as will our transparency about our test results. More than 250 million times per day, McAfee customers ask for our site ratings to help them make better Web safety decisions. We’ve worked hard to earn that trust and reliance and will continue to work to make it safer to search, browse and transact on the Web.
Earlier, AOL posted a list of 20 million search queries made by 650,000 of its users. In response to consumer outcry (Examples: 1,2,3,4,5) , AOL removed the posting -- but not before identities were revealed, privacies compromised, and embarrassing revelations made.
As if it couldn't get any worse than AOL users’ loss of privacy, these users also turned out to be searching for some of the most dangerous words on the internet. Let us explain.
Last week, Lee Gomes of the Wall Street Journal pointed out that "free" was the most commonly used word in search queries. The popularity of the word "free" underscores our assessment of the risks of web search. Our study of The Safety of Search Engines found that search terms containing the word "free" were among the most dangerous queries, often returning a very high percentage of risky results. For example, the most dangerous search term in our study was "free screensavers." On average, across the five top search engines, 57% of search results for "free screensavers" were rated red or yellow by SiteAdvisor. Yahoo! returned 72% risky results. "Free ringtones" was the seventh most dangerous search term with 35% risky results.
The following table shows 13 search terms containing the word "free" that we found to be amongst the 5% most dangerous terms.
Often, so-called "free" items are anything but free. Free screensaver and games sites are notorious for bundling spyware and adware with downloads. In our tests, downloads on aaascreensavers.com and totallyfunfreegames.com, for example, included unrelated programs from WhenU and Zango. Free e-card sites often share users' e-mail addresses with third parties and can lead to a never-ending influx of spam. After submitting our e-mail address to e-card site funnyreign.com, for example, we received 1,075 spammy e-mails per week as result. Ringtone sites frequently lure consumers with misleading offers of free tones that ultimately lead to automatic enrollment in paid subscriptions. There are even sites that charge users for free programs. Freedownloadhq.com charges $37.95 for the free browser FireFox. They claim to offer technical support, but our review found their customer service to be severely lacking.
Gomes' analysis of AOL's search data also finds dangerous terms like "lyrics" and "music" to be among the most popular search queries. Our study found that search terms containing the words "lyrics" or "music" returned results that were 16% risky on average and even higher for some terms. For example, searching Google for "mp3 music download" returned 35% risky results. Unsafe lyrics and music sites are often plagued with nasty bundled downloads, risky ActiveX controls, and deceptive sales offers.
The correlation of search term popularity and search term riskiness illustrates how malicious activity tends to follow and exploit consumer behavior. Users demand "free," and bad actors flock to fill corresponding search results with their deceptive offerings. All too often, users don't realize the detrimental consequences of these sites until their systems crash from spyware or their inboxes become choked with spam.
But even though results for popular search terms are frequently riddled with scammers, our ratings show that there are safe sites in even the most dangerous categories. See our listings of safe screensaver sites, safe games sites, safe p2p sites and safe giveaway sites. With McAfee SiteAdvisor, users can find freebies that are truly free.
IBM is aiming advanced analytics at fraudulent claims in the property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry. According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, at least 10 percent of all insurance claims are either inflated or outright fraudulent. Consequently, the industry pays out as much as $30 billion in fraudulent claims each year.
Given the impact this fraud and abuse has on business and consumers, IBM designed its Loss Analysis and Warning Solution to help protect P&C insurance companies from illegal, unethical, or undesirable activities by policyholders, service providers and employees. The solution uses a combination of data mining technology, data visualization techniques and a powerful software engine.
Insurance companies can use the resulting information to detect unusual or suspicious behaviors such as inflated or unnecessary payouts, misuse by agents of policy discounts and unusual claims charges and billing practices from service providers such as repair shops, doctors and hospitals. The solution identifies normal behavior in these “peer” groups and makes comparisons to identify unusual behavior. For example it would flag an auto repair shop that was charging for towing on nearly all repairs, while other shops had towing charges less than 20 percent of the time.
November 21, 2006 - Solving the world's problems doesn't come easy. But recently, hundreds of young delegates from the United Nations' member countries got a little help from Sun Microsystems.
The mission of the delegates to the UN Global Youth Leadership Summit in New York was to address the challenges posed by some the world's most difficult problems - extreme hunger and poverty, environmental sustainability, and maternal and child health care in the developing and developed world.
As the sole corporate sponsor and technology partner for the UN Youth Summit series, Sun offered the delegates a platform for networking during and after the event, and provided training on technology-enabled collaboration, blogging, and communications.
"We are excited to partner again with Sun Microsystems so that youth leaders from around the world can learn how technology can help accelerate progress toward the challenges that face the world," said Dr. Djibril Diallo, director of the UN New York Office of Sport for Development and Peace and chair of the UN Youth Summit series.
To aid the young men and women in understanding how new technologies could help them improve their work, collaborate with peers, and maintain connections, a group of seasoned professionals, including more than 30 volunteers based in the New York City area, volunteered their time and talents to represent Sun at the Summit.
One Volunteer's Story
Ann McDermott, a Sun technical specialist based in New York, where she serves customers in the Financial Services sector, was one of them. Ann managed her Wall Street customers during the day and gave up nights and weekends to lead the technical engagement with the UN Global Youth Leadership Summit. She architected the network infrastructure that Sun mobilized for this initiative and oversaw its implementation.
For McDermott, architecting and managing the network access in the Global Village at the Summit was the biggest challenge. The Village was in the middle of a security-cleared UN plaza, creating a host of logistical and other issues. "I've spent an entire career developing my technical credentials. It was a great opportunity to be able to make that the focus of my volunteer work," said McDermott.
Mentoring in the Participation Age
Sun also offered a first-time mentoring program for the youth delegates, matching them up with Sun employees around the world with business, technological, or personal expertise in areas that could benefit the delegates' home-country projects. Hundreds of volunteers from 15 countries have stepped forward to participate in this volunteer initiative, which anchors the interaction between the mentor and the youth delegate on the network. The online environment will provide a venue for matching mentors and delegates and for managing and conducting the mentor relationship throughout the year.
Supported by a network-based infrastructure delivered by Sun's collaborator, Triple Creek, the Sun volunteers and the youth delegates were paired off in one-on-one relationships. Over the course of the year-long program, the volunteers will share private sector disciplines and best practices around building community, fueling momentum, creating impact, and measuring results.
“ At Sun, we understand that the Participation Age is built on a model of networked human beings who share, interact, and solve problems. We're proud to have our best and brightest engaged in one-on-one mentoring relationships with the distinguished young people brought forward by the UN Global Youth Leadership Summit. ”
— Ingrid Van Den Hoogen, senior vice president of Brand and Global Communications at Sun
Share the Opportunity
Sun's support of the UN Global Youth Leadership Summit is part of its "Share the Opportunity" initiative, a global effort to help support participation in social change. Sun believes that sharing and collaboration in the Participation Age will help all participants from across the world grow and prosper.
Sun's Share the Opportunity initiative has also included work with U2's Bono and global campaigns to Make Poverty History, including the ONE Campaign, Oxfam, and others.
If your office doesn’t let you install messengers and/or chat during work hours, then you probably shouldn’t do so, but if you still feel the insatiable urge to do so, these web-based messengers are here for your aid. Some of these are popular and may already be blocked in most of the firms.
Meebo Meebo is simply the best web-based instant messenger I have ever used. Not only does it look clean, polished and very true Windows application-like, it also behaves exactly like one, courtesy of some really detailed JavaScript, XHTML and CSS. It also makes full use of AJAX, so it never feels like a website. Meebo is a perfect example of Web 2.0 and is the benchmark for all competing services. It runs inside just one browser window or tab, spawning multiple DIV-based conversation windows that don’t take up any extra taskbar space or memory, but you can pop a window out of the browser if you want to. The only problem with Meebo is that its interface looks exactly like some of the older, cleaner versions of Yahoo! Messenger and it doesn’t change even when you’re connected to MSN/Windows Live Messenger or something else.
Meebo lets you connect to MSN/Windows Live Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk and also Jabber. Meebo also has a universal Meebo login option which saves all your account passwords, so you don’t have to enter four or five passwords every time you visit the site. Passwords are encrypted before sending them to the servers for logging in.
eBuddy Formerly called e-Messenger, eBuddy was one of the first web-based messengers online. Consequently, it hasn’t changed much – it still uses regular old school HTML frames, tables and page refreshes. It doesn’t run in a single window, instead, using popups for contact lists as well as conversations.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, it makes you sign in to each messenger service separately, popping up a window for each service. There’s no universal login concept on eBuddy, which means you’ll have to type in five logins and passwords everytime you want to go online and chat.
eBuddy does MSN/Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger, all in both classic as well as There is no Google Talk, Jabber or ICQ support here – not that anybody still uses ICQ.
eBuddy does redeem itself by offering a mobile-friendly service accessible on mob.ebuddy.com.
ILoveIM ILoveIM is half way between eBuddy and Meebo. It uses a bit of new web techniques and AJAX, using just one browser window for the contact list as well as conversation windows which are DIV-based and floating (i.e. you can move them around the page), but it only does one messenger service at one go. You’ll have to open multiple browser windows or tabs and login to each service separately. Moreover, it doesn’t look as pretty as Meebo.
ILoveIM supports MSN/Windows Live Messenger in classic as well as the new form, AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger. Once again, no Google Talk, Jabber or ICQ.
Kool IM Kool IM comes right after Meebo in terms of functionality, but it’s the most unpopular of the lot, and there’s a few reasons why. Like Meebo, it let’s you login to all the popular messenger services – MSN/Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk—at the same time. It does, however, pop out the actual contact list window, and each conversation gets its own window, but this may be convenient to those who are used to conventional instant messengers that each take up a task bar item, but not to those who prefer to tuck away all their conversations in one window for easy dismissal. It looks quite nice, but beyond that, it’s a very basic messenger. It doesn’t support smileys!
Messages Sur Le Net 2 Go This relatively unknown service only does MSN/Windows Live Messenger, and that too, via a Java applet. This one is also basic, supporting no smileys or colors in the conversation window or even the contact list window, which is devoid of any icons. MSN2Go claims to have HTTP proxy support, which is nice, but this is only important because it’s a Java application. The other services work within the browser, so they automatically take your HTTP proxy. But since it’s so unpopular, you might just be able to get this one working if your office sysadmin has blocked everything else.
MessengerFX MessengerFX is like Meebo, again, but it only does MSN/Windows Live Messenger. It makes very good use of new web techniques and AJAX, including movable windows and sound alerts. It looks decent enough, but the typography and CSS is a little rough around the edges and there are way too many Google ads all over the pages. They aren’t intrusive, but they’re still littered all over.
The next bunch of clients are original offered by the same people who made the software, not by some third-party users. Naturally, each of them will only support their own messenger.
MSN Web Messenger This should need no introduction. MSN Web Messenger is the original, official web-based client for MSN Messenger. It looks and feels almost exactly like MSN Messenger 7.x, including all icons, smileys and window trims. The main contact list window pops out on its own, and each conversation window also pops out. But even though the web-based client looks just like the original client, it doesn’t offer features that competing web-based messengers offer, such as being able to right click a user in the contact list for more options (i.e. viewing his or her profile). The other issue with MSN Web Messenger is that, since it’s the official alternative, it’s probably already blocked by your office sysadmin.
Yahoo! Web Messenger Yeah, it still exists, but it doesn’t seem like there's a lot of work going on over this project – it’s still quite dated and uses Java. It does smileys, but no IMvironments, of course. It looks okay, quite similar to the old clients that didn’t come with a lot of completely unnecessary stuff that the recent versions come with. And what’s funny is that Meebo looks more like Yahoo! Messenger than this original web-based messenger!
To use Yahoo! Web Messenger, visit the Yahoo! Messenger website and find the ‘Launch Web Messenger’ link hidden away around the bottom of the page.
AIM Express Not many of us have an AOL Instant Messenger account or even the need to have one, so not many sysadmins would feel the need to go and block AIM, at least in India. But if you’re one of the few AIM screen name holders, you’re in luck, as AIM Express is AOL’s official, original web-based client for their instant messenger. I had some trouble logging into it while I was writing this, so I couldn’t take a screenshot, but I’ll try it again later.
ICQ2Go People still use ICQ? No, not in India. At least I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who uses ICQ today. But why leave the list incomplete? ICQ2Go is the official web-based client for ICQ, one of the first instant messengers in the world. The client, being completely Flash-based, gives it full application-like flexibility, including fancy window sliding effects and all the original sounds that we’ve grown up with. ICQ2Go offers a good amount of settings, almost like the full ICQ application, and it also is SMS-enabled, if anyone still uses that feature.
Google Talk in GMail This is actually the 11th item in this list of top '10' web-based instant messengers, and it’s also the most popular and utilized one, but I didn’t feel it right to include somewhat obscure links like MSN2Go and exclude Google Talk in Gmail.
MSN has re-launched its online radio service, backed by popular internet radio service, Pandora.com. MSN Radio now also has a music recommendation engine, which allows users to create custom radio stations and discover more artistes and songs, according to the users' taste in music. Moreover, users who have already signed up with Pandora's free internet radio, are now automatically on MSN Radio, along with the customized radio stations they created on Pandora.
This deal will give Pandora millions of new listeners, along with a branded platform. In turn, it may give MSN Radio a much-needed boost in online radio to rival No. 1 Clear Channel and No. 2 , Yahoo! Launchcast. An MSN representative reportedly said that the Pandora deal is designed to improve MSN Radio by replacing the old MSN Radio, as well as MSN's former premium radio service, while still allowing users to pay to get MSN Radio without ads. Pandora was launched last November and already has 1.1 million monthly visitors, according to research firm ComScore. In contrast, MSN Radio's monthly visitors dropped 9 percent to 2.5 million from October 2005 to October 2006.
Protected Mode grays out risky results
Real-time anti-phishing uses SiteAdvisor's white list to improve accuracy
