Jessica Beil is most dangerous celeb in cyberspace

If you are thinking of searching for wallpapers and videos of Jessica Beil online then think again. Hollywood actress Jessica Beil has topped the list of most dangerous celeb to search online. According to McAfee's third annual report which lists Hollywood's most "dangerous" online celebrities, fans searching online for Beil will have a one-in-five chance of hitting a web site with malware.

"Cybercriminals are star watchers too--they latch onto popular celebrities to encourage the download of malicious software in disguise. Consumers' obsession with celebrity news and culture is harmless in theory, but one bad download can cause a lot of damage to a computer," said Jeff Green, Senior Vice President of McAfee Avert Labs. McAfee found that searching for photos, videos, wallpaper and screensavers of celebrities in the list can be harmful to the health of computer. Cyber criminals know that Hollywood actresses (and a few actors) are most searched on internet and hence offer free stuff just to spread malware.

Other celebrities that follow the list after Jessica Beil include singer Beyonce at No. 2, 'Friends' star Jennifer Aniston at No. 3 and football hero Tom Brady at No. 4. Singer Jessica Simpson is on No. 5 and is followed by Gisele Bundchen, Miley Cyrus, Megan Fox, Angelina Jolie and Ashley Tisdale. Last year, the list was topped by Brad Pitt who has slipped to number 10 this year. Surprisingly, Pitt and Brady are the only male celeb in the top 10. McAfee was surprised to find U.S President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama ranked so low at 34th and 39th, respectively.

The report shows that hackers use pop culture trends to spread viruses and malicious software. "They really are smart. They can spot a trend as well as anyone else can - as well as Paris Hilton can," said Shane Keats, a research analyst at McAfee.

Nokia to take on Apple, Dell with new Booklet 3G

Nokia started as a computer company in 1980's but sold the business in 1991 to focus on mobile phones. Now after two decades Nokia is all set to launch its booklet called "Booklet 3G" to broaden its product range to survive the tough competition in the declining mobile market.

Nokia is facing tough competition in the mobile market as many new players are now entering in the scene. Dell, Acer and Hewlett Packard (HP) are all interested to launch products in the mobile category. There are many speculations that Apple will soon be launching a tablet-type touch screen by next year. Nokia plans to take on these competitors in their own backyard with the launch of its Booklet 3G.

This booklet will mostly be mistaken for a netbook but it focuses on on-the-go networking. It is powered by a Windows operating system (not clear yet if it is Windows 7) and has a 10-inch color screen. It has both 3G and GPS functionality, as well as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when there's a network available. It will also have access to Nokia Music store and Ovi maps. Nokia claims that the Booklet will run for 12 hours on a battery charge.

"A growing number of people want the computing power of a PC with the full benefits of mobility. Nokia has a long and rich heritage in mobility, and with the outstanding battery life, premium design and all-day, always-on connectivity, we will create something quite compelling," said Kai Oistamo, Nokia's Executive Vice-President for devices to Telegraph.

Nokia will mostly give further details about pricing early next month at Nokia World '09 in Stuttgart. It is expected that the booklet will be expensive and will be in the range of $700 to $1000.

Men smart while working with smarter women

"Man smart, Woman smarter", the catchy number sung by Harry Belafonte years ago may not be music for all men. According to a survey, 62 percent men are smarter while working alongside bold and aggressive women.

Conceptualized by TV channel CNN-IBN and conducted in several cities including Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Patna, Bhopal, Pune, Kochi and Surat, the poll has taken views of men and women in the age group 18-50. "It's a fact that women are more smart, informative and decisive and men are undoubtedly insecure. And I don't have any qualms in accepting that it becomes a pain most of the times working with such women because they constantly tend to circumcise your male ego knowingly or unknowingly," Ateet Aggarwal, a banker, told IANS.

"It becomes intolerable sometimes because at the end of the day there are huge ego hassles," he added.

Mumbai-based Chitresh Sinha agreed with Aggarwal and said: "When men work with women it's usually about proving themselves. It's a natural feeling and when you have a bold, aggressive woman working with you, it becomes much harder for men to prove themselves."

Adding to this, Zubin Kaul, a software professional, said: "I find it really uncomfortable to work with a female boss who is biased against men. They have this feeling that men are good for nothing and they look for opportunities to pull you down."

If we look at today's scenario - we have women at the top posts in every industry playing the lead role of a perfect boss to perfection. Some men feel that a female boss behaves like a "mad woman" if she is single.

"I had this bad experience of having a female boss who was single. She had no life of her own and wanted the staff to be in office till very late. She used to get these mood swings very often that it was very difficult to deal with her," recollected Randeep Singh.

"And things are very difficult to handle when it comes to dealing with a female boss. You just can't argue with them because you don't know how they will behave. Sometimes they are so adamant to prove themselves right that they refuse to even listen to your ideas," he added.

While some men find it really uncomfortable to work with bold women, PR executive Ankur Talwar has no problems working with aggressive women, but he feels that women "sometimes get hyper".

"I think women are great co-workers but at times they just get too hyper or emotional about a situation unnecessarily, which could have been dealt with a cool mind. Their reactions are always very surprising," explained Talwar.

In spite of the possibilities of having ego clashes and regular confrontations, mediaperson Biswadip Mitra doesn't mind working with tough female bosses, "as long as they don't violate office decorum".

"Honestly, I don't mind tough women as my boss or colleague as long as they do not violate office decorum or hurl insults. Simply because I am not used to insulting others. I can differ in my opinions, but there can be sober ways to express it," explained Mitra.

Yahoo Mail still king, Gmail to catch up soon

Yahoo mail continues to be the most popular web mail service, while Google's Gmail which is the fastest growing email service, has surpassed AOL to become the third most visited email service.

As per comScore's latest figures in July, Yahoo added almost 20 million users last year, growing its share of the market by 22 percent from 87.2 million users to 106.2 million users in June. Gmail with its climbing growth rate is on track to pass Windows Live Hotmail, which is the second most widely used email with 47.1 million users, up three percent from last year. In the July 2008 to July 2009 period, Gmail grew at a growth rate of 46 percent with 37 million unique visitors. On the other hand, during the same period AOL's monthly visitor total declined by 19 percent from 45.1 million to 36.4 million.

It's tough competition with all these services stepping up their marketing efforts and making noteworthy upgrades. For instance, Hotmail added the feature of offline access through standard email programmes. Gmail however has been gaining, thanks to its constant upgradation and enhancement. Google apart from getting corporations, organizations and schools to adopt its web services for their own e-mail, scheduling and productivity needs, has also been encouraging businesses to start using Google Apps, which includes Gmail as well as online applications like Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Sites, and Google Video.

Microsoft Word sales banned for patent violation

A Texas judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling its Microsoft Word application in its current form, as the software contains technology which violates a patent held by a third party.

Judge Leonard Davis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled in favor of i4i, a Canadian technology firm that claimed Microsoft violated its intellectual-property rights for custom XML in Word 2003 and Word 2007. The judge has issued a permanent order which prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the U. S. any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML.

Toronto-based i4i, which develops "collaborative content solutions," holds patent number 5,787,449. The company had originally sued Microsoft for patent violation in 2007 alleging that Microsoft has violated the 449 patent.

"We're not seeking to stop Microsoft's business and we're not seeking to interfere with all the users of Word out there," said Loudon Owen, Chairman, i4i.

Microsoft will pay $240 million in damages to i4i, plus court costs and interest.

"We are disappointed by the court's ruling. We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid. We will appeal the verdict," said Kevin Kutz, Microsoft spokesman.

Microsoft is also prohibited from providing technical support for infringing products sold after the injunction takes effect, or from "testing, demonstrating, or marketing the ability of the infringing and future Word products to open an XML file containing custom XML."

The judge informed that the injunction does not apply to versions of Word that open an XML file as plain text or which apply a transform that removes all custom XML elements, possibly paving the way for Microsoft to issue a patch that rectifies the problem.

I4i has about 30 employees and has been operational since 1993, has products in use by a number of large companies, including pharmaceutical names such as Amgen, Bayer and Biogen.

The new search engine is here: Caffeine

Google has unveiled the preview version of Caffeine, a new search engine technology which promises to "push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions."

The new search engine is the redeployment of the computing network that Google uses to connect searchers and results. The search engine can change how the company ranks in its search engine. The companies will have to change their Search Engine Optimization(SEO) to protect their Google ranking.

Google is not changing the user interface as part of the Caffeine update. So the average user is not likely to be surprised by the way results appear. The update does not affect the ranking of ads on the search engine.

"For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google's web search, it's the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions," wrote the company blog.

"Google makes constant changes to its search algorithms and infrastructure, but such a change in this magnitude has not been done since 2006," said Matt Cutts, Principal Engineer, Google.

The search page is identical to the classic, clean Google web page.

Google is opening a web developer preview to collect the feedback regarding how Caffeine performs compared to its current search engine and is not looking for comparisons to offerings from rival internet firms.

Microsoft has been praising the momentum of its recently-launched Bing search engine and is believed to take long term approach for closing the gap with Google. Microsoft has also announced a tie-up with Yahoo. Google has a two-third share in the search engine market, as Yahoo stands second and Microsoft at third in a search engine market.

Blonde Jokes

1. A Blonde suspects her boyfriend of cheating on her, so She goes out and buys a gun. She goes to his apartment unexpectedly and sure enough, she opens the door and finds him in the arms of a redhead.

Well, the blonde is angry, She opens her purse to take out the gun but as she does so, she is overcome with grief. She takes the gun and puts it to her head.

The boyfriend yells "No, honey, don't do it." The blond replies "Shut up, you're next."

2. I knew a blonde that was so stupid that.......

* she called me to get my phone number.

* she spent 20 minutes looking at the orange juice box because it said "concentrate."

* she put lipstick on her forehead because she wanted to make up her mind.

*she tried to put M&M's in alphabetical order.

*she sent me a fax with a stamp on it.

*she tried to drown a fish.

*she thought a quarterback was a refund.

*she got locked in a grocery store and starved to death.

*she tripped over a cordless phone.

*she took a ruler to bed to see how long she slept.

*she asked for a price check at the Dollar Store.

*she studied for a blood test.

*she thought Meow Mix was a CD for cats.

*when she heard that 90% of all crimes occur around the home, she moved.

*when she missed the 44 bus, she took the 22 bus twice instead.

*when she took you to the airport and saw a sign that said "Airport Left" she turned around and went home

3. A store that sells husbands has just opened in New York City , where a

woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the

entrance is a description of how the store operates. You may visit

the store ONLY ONCE!



There are six floors and the attributes of the men increase as the

shopper ascends the flights. There is, however, a catch . . .. you

may choose any man from a particular floor, or you may choose to go

up a floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building !!


So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband

On the first floor the sign on the door reads: Floor 1 - These men

have jobs.



The second floor sign reads: Floor 2 - These men have jobs

and love kids.



The third floor sign reads: Floor 3 - These men have jobs,

love kids, and are extremely good looking. "Wow," she thinks,

but feels compelled to keep going.



She goes to the fourth floor and sign reads: Floor 4 - These men

have jobs, love kids, are drop- dead good looking and

help with the housework "Oh, mercy me!" she exclaims, "I can hardly

stand it!"



Still, she goes to the fifth floor and sign reads: Floor 5 - These

men have jobs, love kids, are drop- dead gorgeous,

help with the housework, and have a strong romantic streak.



She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor and the

sign reads:



Floor 6 - You are visitor 4,363,012 to this floor. There are no men

on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are

impossible to please! Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

Watch your step as you exit the building, and have a nice day!

4. A beautiful "Mallu" female( from the heart of Kerala) went for a job interview for the post of a SECRETARY and also said she is good at english. When the manager saw the Mallu's colorful attire, gold, well oiled uncombed jet black hair, his mind was screaming "NOT THIS WOMAN".

Nevertheless, he still had to entertain the Mallu. So he told her "If you could form a sentence using the words that I give you, then maybe I will give you a chance! The words are GREEN, PINK, YELLOW, BLUE, WHITE, PURPLE and BLACK".

The enthusiastic Mallu lady thought for a while and said :
"I hear the phone GREEN GREEN GREEN, then I go and PINK up the phone, I say YELLOW....BLUE'S that? WHITE did you say? Aiye, wrong number....Don't PURPLELY disturb people and don't call BLACK, ok? Thank You."

The Manager fainted........

Pootham Pootham!!

Hi...check this one!! Got it from a site...Just 4 fun only..not for hurting anybody!!

Bharat Sanchar eyes 760 cities for 3G services

State-run telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) plans to provide third generation (3G) mobile services in 760 cities in the first phase with an initial investment of Rs.2,700 crore, parliament was informed on Thursday.

"BSNL has already launched 3G services in 111 cities till date as part of first phase," Minister of State Gurudas Kamat said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.

The first phase of rollout will be completed by 2010-11, Kamat said.

The other state-owned operator, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL), has launched 3G services in Mumbai and Delhi and is in the process of adding 750,000 lines of 3G in both cities, he said.

3G services will enable high end services like video telephony, high speed mobile broadband, mobile TV and a number of other value added services.

Currently, BSNL has total 7,295 3G subscribers while MTNL has about 400 subscribers recorded till May.

Google launches a major offensive against Microsoft

The clash between Microsoft and Google has turned more intense. First, Google announced its first operating system, Chrome. Then Microsoft announced the new version of Office with major cloud applications support. To increase its presence in the search engine market, Microsoft recently announced its deal to take over Yahoo's search business. Now, Google has announced the launch of its new promotional campaign called 'Going Google.'

The main target of 'Going Google' campaign is to topple Microsoft's hold in office applications. Google will soon launch a series of advertisements which will boast why some 3,000 organizations are signing up to use Google applications each day. Google claims that so far over 1.75 million businesses, schools and organizations have signed up to use the various combinations of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and the other Google apps. Currently, Microsoft Office has the highest market share for office related applications. Google is trying to be proactive in telling people why its solution is better than Microsoft Office.

Google will be heavily investing in the 'Going Google' campaign and it plans to advertise through billboards on four major U.S. highways that will give a new message about Google apps everyday for a month. The billboards will be placed on the 101 in San Francisco, the West Side Highway in New York, the Ike in Chicago, and Mass Pike in Boston.

Google is also attempting to use Twitter platform to spread the 'Going Google' message. At the bottom of its blog post on the matter, Google urges people who use its apps to 'Tweet your story' and provides a link to auto-populate a tweet with the #gonegoogle hashtag. You can also follow the GoogleAtWork Twitter account to follow the Gone Google stories.

Google also plans to use 'Spread the Word' campaign, which will be similar to Mozilla's campaign to promote Firefox. Google will also try to use the conventional way of sending fliers and pre-populated emails to promote its 'Going Google' campaign.

Hackers crash Facebook and Twitter !

Bangalore: Facebook and Twitter were attacked by hackers with denial-of-service attack on August 6. In a denial-of-service attack a Web site or server is bombarded with more traffic than it can handle, effectively causing online congestion. Such attacks are done from multiple computers and usually hackers send malware data to the target site in unison. After initial denial of any such attack, both Facebook and Twitter have now acknowledged attack on their site by denial-of-service attack.

In a blog hosted on an unaffected server, Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone acknowledged the attack. "Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways, and in this case, Twitter for intended customers or users. We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we continue to defend and later investigate," he added.

Twitter had declared their scaling problems in early 2007. And as much as the great Twitter outages of 2007 and 2008 frustrated users, these outages are much more serious. Twitter has come a long way since 2007 as 45 million people worldwide now rely on Twitter as a communication platform. They will have to scale if they really want to be the 'Pulse of the Planet.'

Facebook issued an early statement on its site saying that, "Earlier this morning, Facebook encountered network issues related to an apparent distributed denial-of-service attack that resulted in degraded service for some users. No user data was at risk and we have restored full access to the site for most users. We're continuing to monitor the situation to ensure that users have the fast and reliable experience they've come to expect from Facebook." As compared to Twitter, Facebook and Google were able to minimize any impact to their sites along with sites such as Blogger, YouTube and other Google Sites.

Pingdom, a site that tracks server uptime, states that Twitter was offline for about two and a half hours. Last time, Twitter was down due to unplanned downtime was on May 30 this year due to a software error. Denial-of-service attacks are becoming common nowadays. According to Information week, Gawker Media sites and AT&T were hit with it earlier this week. Last week, Internet Systems Consortium warned that BIND 9, the most common domain name server, contained a vulnerability that could be exploited to crash the server, leading to a denial-of-service. The company said that the vulnerability is actively being exploited and it urged users of the software to update immediately.

Amongst all this commotion an interesting piece of news has emerged. A pro-Georgian blogger with accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal and Google's Blogger and YouTube was targeted in a denial-of-service attack that led to the site-wide outage at Twitter and problems at the other sites, according to a Facebook executive. "It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him to keep his voice from being heard. We're actively investigating the source of the attacks and we hope to be able to find out the individuals involved in the back end and to take action against them if we can," said Max Kelly, Chief Security Officer at Facebook to CNET. The blogger whose account was attacked uses the account name 'Cyxymu' (the name of a town in the Republic of Georgia). Kelly declined to speculate on whether Russian nationalists were behind the attack.