How to prevent Web pages from Caching on the Client browser?

Today I was confronted by a strange problem which I needed to find a solution to. I needed to prevent a single web page in a web application for caching at the Client's Browser.

This situation would frequently arise when you have a web page displaying some real time data like Banking information, log-in details, etc.

So I finally found a simple solution to add a single attribute in the asp.net web page to help it from NOT caching.

<meta equiv="pragma" content="no-cache">

iPhones in France to be available with Orange

Apple has just announced that Orange will be the Wireless Carrier to support the iPhone's release on the 29th of November.

It has took sometime for Apple to come up with a deal along with Orange. Looks like this decision was taken due to the legislation problems in France that demanded from Wireless Carriers to unlock handsets after six months, at the users' request. It's a great task for Apple to keep the iPhone locked, it's rather surprising to see that they have given in to allow the sale of unlocked handsets.

I guess that France is the next location for Geeks to travel in order to buy a Legitimate iPhone that'll work with all carriers and without any OS changes. Don't you think that the Geek travel will increase to France just for this one reason apart from Soccer.

It's almost too good to be true. One thing that leaves a shadow of doubt over the iPhone's release in France is the fact that a price for the unlocked version has not been revealed yet. The locked version, however, will be available for USD 400, starting with November 29.

How to make your Elevator to go Non-Stop to any Floor you wish?

I found this very cool video which explains how you can make any(90%) Elevators in the world to go Non-Stop to any floor you wish to go.

The trick seems to be in Pushing the Button of the floor you wish to go and also the Close Button's simultaneously. This is a very cool trick as often we are struck in every other floor!!

Give it a try.

Now you can easily Configure Outlook 2007 to access Gmail using IMAP

If you'd like to access your Gmail Account from a mail client like Outlook 2007 and not from the gmail website then you have some news to cheerish on - Google has finally implemented IMAP support in Gmail! So you can now easily control the messages in your gmail account straight from your desktop.

For those of you who don't know what IMAP is all about - IMAP actually stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. It creates a permanent connection between your computer and the Mail Server (your Gmail account). The main advantage is that every time you delete a message using your client it is also automatically removed from the web server (Your Gmail account). The other cool thing is that you can use most of the Gmail features such as 'Report as spam' and even 'Star' special messages straight from Outlook (or other email client) with all the actions getting automatically applied on your account.

The list of Clients that Gmail's IMAP is compatible with are:

• Outlook Express (on Windows)
• Outlook 2003 (on Windows)
• Outlook 2007 (on Windows)
• Apple Mail
• Windows Mail
• Thunderbird 2.0

To check whether the IMAP function was already implemented into your account or not, login using your username and password, click on 'Settings' and go over to 'Forwarding and POP/IMAP'. In case the IMAP function is not already there for you, the tab is named only 'Forwarding and POP'.

To enable IMAP in your Gmail account:

1. Log in to your Gmail account.
2. Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page.
3. Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
4. Select Enable IMAP.
5. Click Save Changes.

How to easily Resize your Windows Vista Partition? Partition your C Drive

There are many products in the market like the legendary Partition Magic - but although it claims to work with Windows Vista, but the fact is that it doesn't does the job that well. So you may be wondering how to resize your existing partitions like c: , d: drives without losing any data. I'll help you out today to do just that and also without the need for any costly programs. I'll explain to you how Windows Vista can be used to manage your partition resizing with it's inbuilt tools.

Here are the easy steps to follow:

• Hit the Vista Start Button.
• Right click on Computer and select Manage.
• If you happen to get an User Account Control[UAC] dialog now - just click Continue(Vista's Inbuilt protection has kicked in).
• On the left pane, expand the Storage category and click on Disk Management.
• Now, you'll find all the partitions of your computer listed out. Right click on the partition you'd like to modify(Lets say d:).
• Select the option Extend Volume or Shrink Volume(Extend - to increase the size or Shrink to reduce the size) of the selected partition.

That's it - you're done. You have now successfully resized your existing Windows Vista Partition.

How to easily Speed Up your Firefox in 4 Simple Steps

Many of you have been asking me how to increase their browsing speeds with BSNL , MTNL, Airtel, Tata Indicom, Reliance , Sify , etc Broadband connections. As usual I have a trick up my sleeves to increase the speed your Firefox performance.

The below steps will hold good only if you have a Broadband connection - else it will make your browsing much slower. Let's now have a look at the simple 4 steps.

First of all Type “about:config” into the address bar in Firefox and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries and make the necessary changes.

You will need to enable Pipelining in Firefox. Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several request at once, which will substantially speed up your page loading times.

Alter the entries as follows:
1. Change “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
2. Change “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
3. Also, change “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to a number like 40. This in turn means that Firefox will make 40 requests at once.
4. Finally right-click anywhere in Firefox and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives - so we ask it not to wait even a second!!

You’ll now see that the webpages in Firefox load MUCH faster now!

How to configure "Open All in Tabs" in Firefox without closing existing tabs?

From the past few months I have been using Firefox and have completely removed Flock for my general browsing. But I was facing one big problem with Firefox - When I used to click on "Open All in Tabs" in a bookmark folder, it closes all the existing tabs.

I was wondering to find a fix for this and today I found it.

Here's how you can disable it.

1. Open a blank tab, and type about:config in the address bar.
2. Find the browser.tabs.LoadFolderAndReplace setting, and double click it to change it to false.

This will keep it from killing all the tabs you already have open. You will have to restart firefox to get it to take effect.

Got a Sony Ericsson K810i - The Cybershot Phone

I got a brand new Sony Ericsson k810i (The Cybershot Phone) about 2 weeks back and have been enjoying using it.

Well, let me give you a brief history of my love for Sony Ericsson phone - it all started 5-6years back with the T610 that my dad got me. Till then I was snubbed in the world of Nokia with the Nokia 6150(was a pioneer with IR support at that time and a legendary long antennae) and later Nokia 8310(a sleek and small phone - good battery support). But once I was introduced to the facinating world of Sony Ericsson - I never looked back(very truly).

My first SE phone T610 was an awesome handset for that time with cool features like bluetooth and a decent camera. Also, the ability to have your customized themes made it look afresh every few days. Later I got a k700i which I used (very rashly) for more than 2-3years and till the last day I had it in my hand - it performed like a star. The only problem used to be with the joystick acting funny during the monsoon's. Well, I don't want to bore you with the past - let's have a peek into my new Cybershot phone.

The Sony Ericsson K810i is called a Cybershot phone due to the powerful 3.2 Mega Pixel camera that it hosts. The camera is truly awesome and I love each snap that it takes. It has an in-build Image Stabilizer that results in truly flawless images. I have a Sony 8.2 Mega Pixel Camera for personal use but the images produced with my phone are pretty good to print too.

My handset came with a whooping 2GB M2 memory card - but I have already consumed almost 75% of it. I have put in many movies and transferred my song collections. Also, I have huge collection of mobile games - something to the tune of 200+ (not kidding).

Well, I'll keep you posted on the cool features of this wonderful gadget in the coming days.

Here are a few images taken from this phone (Click to enlarge the images).

How to display Date and Time (both) in the System Tray?

If you would like the date in the System Tray along with the time, right-click on the Taskbar (ensure that Lock the Taskbar is deselected) then drag the top edge of the Taskbar upward until it snaps to twice its normal height.

The clock displays three lines rather than one, showing the current time, the day of the week, and the current date. I found this accidentally and guess it helps someone out there.

How to display the Address Bar on the Desktop?

One of Internet Explorer's most powerful hidden tools is a universal command line, where you can launch programs, open folders; go to web sites, and more.

Here's how that can be done easily. Right-click on the Taskbar (ensure that Lock the Taskbar is deselected) and select Toolbars > Address. When the Address box shows up on your Toolbar, click and hold on the word Address and drag it to the top of the Desktop. Right-click on it and select Always on Top.

Now, when you maximize applications, they'll expand between your Address bar at the top and you Taskbar at the bottom.

Instant Eyedropper :: Easily Identifies colors on the web

Instant Eyedropper is a completely free desktop application that lets you identify any specific color on the web with a single click. The Best feature is that it automatically paste's to the clipboard the HTML color code of any pixel on the screen with just a single mouse click.

Supported color formats:

• HTML
• HEX
• Delphi Hex
• Visual Basic Hex
• RGB
• HSB

Something of particular note with this tool is that it allows you to ZOOM to the elements to copy exactly the color you are looking for, this is especially useful when you try to get a color within an image.

It is a fairly lightweight application(415KB) . So give it a try today!!

How to easily Add Dummy Text in Word Files?

Did you know that a simple programming language comes built into Microsoft Word. One Word Basic command can fill a page with dummy type.

Give this a try.

1. Open a new document, type =rand(x,y) in which x and y represent the number of paragraphs and sentences per paragraph respectively (valid for numbers between 0 and 200).

2. Press Enter, and you'll see the sentence "The quick brown fox jumped over the fence" repeated y times per paragraph in x number of paragraphs.

BioniX :: A Freeware Auto Wallpaper changer

BioniX Wallpaper is a cool Free Wallpaper Changer that supports JPG, GIF, BMP, ICO, EMF image files. This program lets you set the time interval at which your deskop wallpaper will be changed.

You can chose it between one second and a few years - time elapse gap. Also, the wallpaper manager has "don't disturb user" mode (through "automatic shut down" option): images will be changed automatically when Windows starts, then the program will close without user intervention. Like Winamp, it gives you the posibility to gather images from all over the hardisk in one playlist, without changing their physical location.

The images can be stored in different directories, on different harddisks, even on different computers. Also, you can make multiple tematic playlists and switch between them whenever you want to.

Download this cool Freeware here.

US Airways to accept PayPal as means of Payment

After Northwest Airlines which allowed its customers to use PayPal as a payment method for sometime now. It seems that another American Carrier - US Airways will follow suit.

US Airways has said that a popular request among its customers was now fulfilled with the ability to purchase airfare using the online payment service. US Airways will also promote PayPal through the "travel tools" section of its Web site.

Paypal is by far one of the safest methods to make purchases online, and estimates put out say that it currently counts about 153 million accounts worldwide (including me).

CNN IBN :: The Coolest news channel :: Live Streaming Feed for free

Rajdeep Sardesai has been a name to reckon with in Journalism for the past decade.The blue-eyed boy of NDTV raised a few eyebrows when he left them to start his own news channel.Few could have foreseen that he would tie up with one of the best news channels in the world and give even the best a run for his money.

Rajdeep says that his channel is built on the age old ethic that editorial sovereignty is inviolable and calls his channel ’journalist driven’. he has managed to conjure up a good team of professionals handpicked for the job. Anubha Bhosle, Sagorika Ghose and several others provide credibilty to the channel. He is also backed by the sound experience of TV 18’s news gathering techniques and infrastructure which provides a huge back up of sorts for the newsdesk apart from CNN’s huge eminent and extensive news network that provides global news to the Indian subscribers.

Also, CNN IBN has been one of the few Indian News Channels to allow a Live News Feed to be available online. You can access the feed via this link. The one pre-requisite is that you have Windows Media Player installed in your PC.

Consolidated List of Customer Support Contacts for Sony Ericsson

Here is a complete list of Sony Ericsson customer support numbers around the world. You'll never know when you'll need any of these numbers to reach for support.

Americas
United States : 1-866-766-9374
Brazil : 4001-0444
Canada : 1-866-766-9374
Chile : 123-0020-0656
Venezuela : 0-800-100-2250

Asia and Pacific
Australia : 1-300 650 050
China : 4008100000
Hong Kong : 8203 8863
India : Bangalore 080 - 57505555
India : Mumbai 022 - 56995555
India : General 39011111 (Any city)
Indonesia : 021-2701388
Malaysia : 03-78809800
New Zealand: 0800-100150
Philippines : 02-6351860
Singapore : 67440733
Taiwan : 02-25625511
Thailand : 02-2483030

Europe
Austria : 0810 200245
Belgium : 02-745 16 1
Croatia : 062 000 000
Czech Republic : 844 550 055
Denmark : 33 31 28 28
Finland : 09-299 2000
France : 0 825 383 383
Germany : 0180 534 2020
Greece : 801-11-810 810
Greece : (Mobile) 210-89 91 919
Hungary : 01 437 7300
Ireland : 1850 545 888
Italy : 6.48895206
Netherlands : 0900 899 8318
Norway : 815 00 840
Poland : 0 22 6916200
Portugal : 808 204 466
Romania : (+4021) 401 0401
Russia : 095 7870986
Slovakia : 02-5443 6443
Spain : 902 180 576
Sweden : 013-24 45 00
Switzerland : 0848 824 040
Turkey : 0212 473 77 77
United Kingdom : 08705 23 7237 Also -- 0208 7625800

Middle-East and Africa
Central Africa : +27 112589023
United Arab Emirates : 43 919880
South Africa : 0861 632222

Sony:
Sony Europe PR Office: press@eu.sony.com
Sony Europe Head of PR: Miss Maria Heavey
Sony UK general enquiry line: 08705111999
Sony UK Press Office: 01932816417
Sony UK Head of Press Office: Miss Emma Cross

Hope this rather extensive list helps you!

How to easily Change the Default File Location in Windows?

You can have Word, Excel, and PowerPoint open automatically into a folder you specify instead of the My Documents folder. To change the default file location, follow these steps for Word, Excel, or PowerPoint:
1. Choose Tools > Options.
2. In the Options dialog box, do one of the following:

• In Word, select the File Locations tab. In the File Types list, select Documents and then click Modify. In the Modify Location dialog box, navigate to the folder you’d like Word to use and click OK
• In Excel, select the General tab. Type the path name of the location you’d like to use as a default in the Default File Location text box
• In PowerPoint, select the Save tab. Type the path name of the location you’d like to use as a default in the Default File Location text box

3. Click OK in the Options dialog box to apply the changes.

How to create Custom Keyword Shortcuts in Windows easily?

With Microsoft Windows you can create shortcuts to documents, folders, and applications and place them on your desktop for easy access. But if you who want to avoid the mouse whenever possible, you can also launch these shortcuts using the Windows Run dialog box and a keyword you define.

Here’s how:

1. Create a folder for your keyword shortcuts (this is where you will drag and drop any newly created desktop-icon shortcuts). For example, my shortcuts are stored under C:\Documents and Settings\[Windows User ID]\My Documents\MyShortcuts .
2. Navigate to any program in the Start Menu (like Microsoft Word), right-click its icon and choose Send to Desktop (Create Shortcut).
3. Drag the new Microsoft Word shortcut from your desktop to the shortcuts folder you set up, rename the shortcut by selecting it, pressing F2, and typing wrd. Repeat steps 2–3 for any documents or folders you’d like to open via custom keywords .

Samsung FPT5084 Television and its Competitors

Which television is better clearly depends on your needs. The latest offering is called the FPT5084 from the Samsung stable. It is a full HD 1080p Television and has an anti glare screen so if you have alot of windows or lights on when you watch TV they will not effect the picture.

It's special screen uses glass to absorb lots of glare. Its Ultra FilterBright anti-reflection filter is one light bulb that shines onto a color wheel with mirrors to give you your picture. When the signal goes into the gas the millions of bubbles light up according the the signal and heat. Single bubbles can and will burn out after time.

That is why you hear the word image burn. When one image is left on the television for an extended period of time the gas bubbles producing that picture can overheat and burn up. If you are just watching tv and movie watcher Plasmas are great depending on the brand. The Samsung FPT5084 and many other brands like Pioneer , Sony Bravia can be reviewed here - They have a wonderful collection and side by side reviews with prices and specs across brands and technologies.

How to Modify Word Shortcut / Context Menus easily?

Word allows you to modify the Shortcut menus which appear when you right-click on an item within your document. As an example of the process you can follow to make changes, try these steps (assumes you want to change the Shortcut menu that appears when you right-click on text within your document):

1. Choose Tools > Customize. Make sure the Toolbars tab is selected
2. Scroll through the list of toolbars, and select the Shortcut Menus item. A floating Shortcut Menus toolbar appears. The toolbar has three items on it. These items represent the three categories of Shortcut menus used by Word
3. Click on Text, then choose Text from the drop-down list. This displays the actual Shortcut menu that appears when you right-click on text within your document
4. Within the Customize dialog box, click on the Commands tab
5. Using the Categories list, choose the type of item you want to add to the Shortcut menu. This modifies the commands listed in the Commands list
6. Drag items from the Commands list to the position where you want them to appear on the Shortcut menu
7. To rename an item on the Shortcut menu, right-click on it and specify the name. Similarly, to delete an item on the Shortcut menu, drag the item off the menu
8. Repeat steps 5 through 7 to continue modifying the menu
9. Close the Shortcut Menus toolbar. Click Close in the Customize dialog box when you are done.

Wasn't that really easy :)