How to try Microsoft Office Web Apps immediately?

I think everybody here has heard about Microsoft Office Web Apps. If not? then see this little video.

Microsoft Office Web Apps is a free online version of Microsoft Office that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and the OneNote Web App.

With Microsoft Office web apps, you can edit any document from you computer and as this works in browser you can even edit Office files from a MAC!

How to Sign-up for Office Web Apps

1. Create a new Windows Live ID (Sign Up link) if you don’t have one or if you use a country other than US as this requires you to be from US.
2. When you are signing up, make sure you select “US” for the Country field else you are not allowed to use this program. You can use NY for State field and 10001 for the ZIP code
3. Once your Live ID is setup, just click here, accept the license agreement and see the magic, the Office Web Apps Technical Preview will be activated for your Live ID.IF you don’t understand this step Go to Step 5.
4. If you fail with Step 3 then see this else you can continue. Go to SkyDrive, upload any dummy Word file like me to the Documents folder and you will see an invite to join the Office Web Apps programs.



5. After clicking that link, accept the license by clicking “Accept“. A new menu entry will be displayed in the header called New. Now click on it to open a new submenu with options to create a new Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, Microsoft Word document, Microsoft Excel workbook or Microsoft OneNote notebook.



6. Now enjoy your Microsoft Office WebApps.

*source

Microsoft Reinvents Hotmail with New Features, The biggest makeover in history, My opinion- "Google will lose on grounds of webmail soon!"

Microsoft has announced a huge slew of upgrades to Hotmail to make it more competitive with Gmail, and we have to admit the list is impressive.

With 343 million users, Hotmail is still the top e-mail service provider. Gmail () is much smaller, with approximately 150 million users as of September 2009.

Gmail has been adding features relentlessly in the past couple of years, however, and the sleek integration with other Google () services has made it the fastest growing webmail. And just like many other Google services, it also happens to generate the most buzz in the media.

Among the new Hotmail features are Hotmail Highlights, which gives you a quick overview of what’s new in your inbox organized by source, such as e-mail contacts or social contacts from Facebook () or Twitter (). This reminds me of the way Windows () 7 “simplifies” the control panel and many other Windows features. Still, this new view is definitely clean and simple, and I’m sure many users will get used to it quickly.

The Sweep function is touted as a simpler alternative to e-mail filtering, enabling you to quickly organize the e-mails that aren’t exactly spam, but that you don’t want at the top of your inbox. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s simpler than Gmail’s filtering options.

The new Hotmail is also integrated with Office Web Apps, meaning that you can edit documents directly from your inbox. You can also store the documents and photos you send on Microsoft SkyDrive, which means you don’t have to worry about size constraints because your documents reside in the cloud.

Microsoft also took document integration a step further when it comes to consuming content. If you receive a video from Hulu () or YouTube (), you can view it right there in the inbox. If you receive attached photos, you can see them in the form of a nifty slideshow, provided you have Silverlight installed.

Finally, Microsoft mentions some other features it hasn’t discussed in detail, including: enhanced account protection, full-session SSL, multiple e-mail accounts, subfolders, contact management and ever-growing storage. All in all, you could say it’s a catchup effort, but we’ll give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt and call it a complete overhaul. It’ll be hard to steal users away from Gmail — which still has dozens of minor features that Hotmail doesn’t (just check the Labs) — but Hotmail will most likely be a worthy competitor after the new version is launched this summer (July- August).

New symbol for Indian Rupee!

Dharmalingam Udaya Kumar was booked to fly to Guwahati on Thursday morning. On Friday he was to start his new job as assistant professor in the department of design at the Indian Institute of Technology in Guwahati. He was leaving the IIT Mumbai campus where he spent five years earning a PhD in industrial design—the first doctorate to be awarded in the discipline in India.

The calls started pouring in early Thursday morning. He had won a nationwide contest run by the government to design a symbol for the Indian rupee. A symbol he designed, incorporating elements of Devanagari and Roman scripts, had been chosen to represent India’s growing economy and its currency. It would be incorporated in Unicode, computer keyboards will have a dedicated key for the symbol and it will come to be seen and recognised around the world. A designer gets to create a currency symbol just once in a nation’s life.

But there are no plans to introduce the symbol in new currency notes immediately.

"There will be no change (in currency notes) overnight. It will be a long drawn process," a senior Reserve Bank of Indian (RBI) official told HT.

"My design is based on the tricolour with two lines at the top and white space in between. I wanted the symbol for the rupee to represent the Indian flag," said Kumar.

The new symbol had been designed keeping in mind the ease with which it can be incorporated into the existing software systems.

Google loses some search traffic to Yahoo and Bing

Search engine Google lost a little ground in search engine traffic in June to both Yahoo and Microsoft sites, but the tech behemoth has nowhere to go but down.

Google has a market share of 62.6 percent, down from 63.7 in May, according to ComScore. Both Yahoo and Microsoft's sites including its flagship search tool, Bing, saw gains, each increasing their numbers from 18.3 to 18.9 percent and 12.1 to 12.7 percent, respectively, from May to June. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

Yet all three search engines experienced growth year over year, with Bing leading the pack at 77 percent volume growth last year. Google grew 12.7 percent.

As numbers go, the data isn't amazingly good or bad, it's simply pointing out the fact that when a company holds the majority of anything — be it fast-food restaurants or search engines — it is in danger of losing its hold on the market.

At close to 63 percent, Google is the undisputed leader in search engine traffic, but with about 10 years on the scene it's likely at saturation point — or it has as many users as it's going to get unless something revolutionary happens. Microsoft's Bing, a newcomer which uses the computational search tool Wolfram Alpha, is an antidote to Google's all-seeing algorithm. Refining search results doesn't seem to be Google's strong suit.

Bing also has plenty of money behind it to keep at Google's heels. Microsoft's Steve Ballmer stated in 2008 that his company is dedicating five years to building a better site:

The company told its shareholders recently that it was prepared to lose "5 to 10 percent of total operating income for several years" to improve its position in search, Ballmer said.

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Marketplace

And since Microsoft started with a smaller market share it's easy to show a percentage rise quickly, any rise from 62.6 percent is likely to be a small in comparison. Yahoo, which still holds onto almost 19 percent of market share, has dropped from around 23 percent in 2007, but still apparently has some loyal users. (You can argue that both Microsoft and Yahoo are benefitting from Bing, since Yahoo now uses Bing to power its search.)

Both Bing and Yahoo are gaming the system a little by supplying extra links that count in its click total:

UBS analysts Brian Pitz and Brian Fitzgerald note that a big driver for the market share gains at Yahoo and Bing were the use of contextual searches — searches tied to slide shows and other material in which the search results are offered without specifically being requested. Excluding contextually driven searches, the UBS analysts note, Yahoo gained 10 basis points of market share, and Microsoft 20 basis points.

ComScore reported it will retool how it compiles data to exclude contextually-driven searches in August. Also since both are content sites with both original and user-generated material to read, watch or comment on, comparing the two with Google isn't quite the same, either. True, Google News is one of the most well-known news aggregators, but it takes pride in saying it will never be a media producer.

Google will likely lead Internet searches for the rest of the decade or until users want a different experience in a search. But expect that to happen only at a fraction of a percent at a time.

*source

Past days log...

Today was a heavy hearted day for me. Mixed feelings on their extreme proximity. Today I got the news of my bestest chum getting his first job. I can't express my happiness & love on that moment. That I say truly. (I wish you loads of success ahead, as you read this!) But simultaneously I felt my stomach churned to feel the very next moment, that I am alone, now I am left alone, to fight this battle, to get the first job! This feeling is still eating me as I write this blog down. Job is the most important priority as for now, as I am graduate (B.Tech) now. And to top up that worry, now is the fear of being left alone!! :( Family is with me, as always, but I feel worried myself. I was gone out for just 4-5 days for my cousin bro's marriage, & the company came on those days only, what a bad luck, they didn't even had any exam only one interview was enough. I feel I was not given the chance, destiny played unfair, all joys of marriage are dissolved now, I am in deep shit now. :-((
Yeah the battle had to be fought alone, but still I am fearing inside...

I don't know what woul come ahead...

Which job I would get...

How long I'll have to wait...

What struggles lies ahead...

Can't write more, I am broken now :'-( ...

Leaving all on God...

Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button - What is it?

One of the most notable objects on the Google Web search is the I'm Feeling Lucky button.

Ordinarily when you type in a key phrase in a Google search, you press the search button, (you can also just press return or enter on your keyboard) and Google returns a results page that shows multiple Web sites matching your search phrase. The I'm Feeling Lucky button skips the search results page and goes directly to the first ranked page for that search phrase.

If you type "white house" in the search box and press I'm Feeling Lucky, you'll go straight to www.whitehouse.gov. If you type "apple" into the search box and press I'm Feeling Lucky, you'll go directly to Apple Computer's Web site.

I'm Feeling Lucky is handy if you're fairly confident that the first result in the search engine is going to be exactly the page you want to find. It saves time and clicking to just go to the page with the first click. Using the I'm Feeling Lucky button is also a common way for people to jokingly point out Google bombs. It adds an element of surprise to the joke.
Mystery Countdown Ticker

As of December 2009, pressing the I'm Feeling Lucky button without putting anything in the search box will yield a countdown ticker. There's no official announcement or explanation for the countdown, but it seems to be a simple New Year's ticker.
Lucky in Other Google Tools

Google Toolbar has an I'm Feeling Lucky search built in, which works the same way as the regular Google search.

Picasa also has an I'm Feeling Lucky button, but in Picasa's case, the button automatically applies enhancement filters and adjustments to an image.