IRCTC – Indian Railways reservation website has a new look

If you live in India there is very good chance that you might have used IRCTC – Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation website. Website navigation used to be poor.IRCTC portal’s look and feel are revamped.Some of the functionalities are enhanced too. I liked new “Plan your trip” menu. Previously you were suppose to choose “class of travel” on the first screen. So, in case, you wanted to query “availability status” in 3 AC and  Sleep class, you were supposed to do 2 query from scratch. Also, it didn’t help when a particular train doesn’t have that class. Now, “class of travel” is not a criteria on first screen,based on arrival and destination station,it shows all trains with available “class of travel”.

It’s much better than earlier interface.what you say?

class-of-travel

how to disable autorun feature to stop being infected from USB virus and malware

As per a study by Pandalabs 25% of worms are specially targeted to spread through USB storage devices.I think in India, scenario is worse,most of the cybercafés and home computers are inadequately secured.USB connected devices spread virus and worm from one computer to another.

How it works

autorun.inf is text file in Windows that is used by autorun and autoplay feature of the Windows. The file should be kept in root of the volume.This file specifies which file to run automatically when volume is available on Windows machine.Crooks modify this file to automatically run malware on USB drive and corrupt the computer.

 

What to do?

  • disable auto-run feature on system to stop being infected from USB virus.This is useful just in case your computer is not up-to-date with antivirus and antimalware software
  • create a blank directory named autorun.inf on your USB drive, this will help in case you use your USB drive on multiple computers like cybercafe,home and office.

How to disable auto-run feature on Windows XP professional

Microsoft have a group policy editor in Windows XP professional.Group policy editor can be used to disable auto run feature.Login as a user who has administrative privileges.

  •   At “start” –> “Run” –> gpedit.msc .It will open group policy editor.

disable-auto-run-start-gpedit

  • Under Computer Configuration, expand “Administrative Templates”-> Double click on “System” – > In the right pane look for setting “Turnoff auto play”.Double click it.

disable-auto-run-locate-setting

  • Now choose “Enabled” and from drop down “Turn of autoplay on:”, choose “All drives”.Click okay.All done.

disbale-autorun-all-drives

How to disable auto-run feature on Windows 7 or Windows XP home 

You will need to edit registry settings of these operating system.Follow Microsoft directions.

Disabling auto run feature will prevent your computer from being corrupted by USB malwares, which rely on auto run feature.However, Its good idea to secure your USB drive as well so that autorun.inf based malware may not use your USB drive to spread these viruses and malwares.

On a good Windows system,which is virus free, insert your USB drive.Explore your USB drive and look for any autorun.inf file.If found,delete it.Now create a blank folder and name it to autorun.inf in root of USB drive file system. Now, whenever you will take your USB drive to cyber cafe , the infected computers may still copy malware on USB drive but they can’t write to autorun.inf. Hence, your USB drive will be not used to spread autorun.inf based virus and malware.

Notepad replacement Notepad++ Review

Notepad is probably most basic application included with all versions of Windows.Notepad is a simple text editor.On Windows if you are looking for something better than Notepad, you may choose WordPad for text editing.There are certain features that are not available in Wordpad, like tabbed document support.Also, Wordpad purpose is more likely basic word processor where you can make text bold italic etc.But if you are just looking for a text editor which do much more than Notepad.Its Notepad++,it is free and open source as well.

For casual programmers who modify code this is must to have,it support syntax highlighting of almost all available language.A good tool to modify your html or php files.It support tabbed documents.Some of the other features of Notepad++ are

  • Auto completion
  • Line numbering
  • Regular expression support
  • Find and replace in multiple files support – To search for string or literal in files in certain directory,its useful tool
  • Show all characters support – It help you see control characters like – new line character etc as well.
  • UTF-8 support to edit even files in Hindi
  • Column Editor – If you want to add certain text before each column of certain number before each column, this feature is useful
  • Indent support
  • Block select mode- where you can select columns instead of row and use column editor if you need.

Overall a must have text editor for everyone.A right replacement for your notepad.You may download Notepad+= from their website.

Facebook overtakes Orkut in India

Recently, Facebook crossed 500 million user threshold globally.Although, Orkut was never popular than Facebook in USA,however, Brazil and India were two stronghold of Orkut. Recently, Facebook overtook Orkut in India.

Alexa was showing this for sometime.Alexa is popular among webmasters to find rank of their website in the world or in specific country.Its free to use.Alexa top websites in India shows Facebook at number 3 position and Orkut at number 7 position.

On 25th of August Comscore reported that Facebook is now number one social networking site in India.Comscore’s data is considered more reliable among investor communities.Comscore  data excludes visit from public computers such as internet cafes and access from mobile phones. When ever I visit a internet cafe I found Orkut opened on many computers. Orkut seems still favorite among internet cafe users.Comscore has reported total unique visitors, aged 15+, accessing internet from home or work for Facebook as 208,73,000 while for Orkut 198,71,000.Percentage growth of Facebook is 179% while that of Orkut is 16% only, from last year.In my opinion if you include access from mobile phones Facebook may have a wide lead.As a few mobile operators have provided free Facebook access or access plan for Facebook in recent month.

Personally, in last one year I have seen almost all my friends are now available on Facebook. So, Brazil in only prominent country where Orkut still have dominance.This is another reason for Google to come with new social networking site, and their are rumors as well that Google is building “Google Me” to counter Facebook in social networking business.For time being “All is well” for Facebook.

How to know when someone unfriend you on Facebook.

Facebook has a feature, when you add someone as a friend, it is being shown to everyone in your list.However, it doesn’t tell you when someone removes you from his/her friend list. Earlier there was an application named “Unfriender”, which use to do the job of notifying you when someone removes you from his/her friend list. Facebook seems to have banned “Unfriender” application.

There is another new application which let you know when someone removes you from his/her friend list.Application name is “Unfriend Detector”. You may install it from this url.Additionally, you may choose to get notified by an email when someone “unfriend” you. However, it won’t tell you about the friends who have removed you their list before you installed this application.It only works if someone removes you from his/her list after application is installed.

What to expect in new social network from Google.

There are a lot of buzz that Google is building a a new social network “Google Me” to counter Facebook.Since 500 million people are on Facebook,there are little incentive for users to make a switch.What Google can possibly do to make the switch? PC World, has a story on it. Highlights from the article.

  • Before Google Me – Orkut,Buzz and Wave – These services haven’t managed to reach critical mass but some of their features may be part of Google Me.
  • Privacy – Facebook users have a lot of privacy concern, Google can address it.
  • Games,Gifts and Third-Party Apps
  • Finding your niche – Article suggests to start with Google Me will have to cater a niche and initially even Facebook catered for American college.
  • More user control – More user control to personalize it.

Read complete article on PCWorld.

Convert webpage,doc,docx,xls or anything to PDF using PDFcreator virtual printer

There are numerous tool available online and offline to convert a particular type of document to PDF.People love PDF because it give sense of inactive document.Also, it is easy to carry PDF for reading purpose.I convert a lot of web pages to PDF just to carry it in my USB drive for printing purpose.

PDFcreator is an open source virtual printer which converts  anything like webpage,doc,docx, xls,text file to PDF.It installs as a virtual printer.So if you want to convert a something to PDF all you need to print it using PDFcreator virtual printer

How to procure and install PDFcreator

You can get the software from source forge, http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ .Download the software,you will need to have administrative privilege to install it.Also, if you choose all default settings at install time, besides installing PDFcreator virtual printer installer, it also installs PDFForge toolbar for Internet Explorer and Firefox.PDFforgetoolbar also redirects all 404 error pages and DNS error to mybrowserbar.com. I don’t like it,so you may choose to deselect these add-on install at the install time.

Installation

  • start installer, first screen is “choose language” – default is English
  • Next screen - “welcome to PDFcreator setup wizard”,click next
  • Next screen - “License Agreement”
  • Next screen - “Type of Installation” – leave default, Standard Installation
  • Next screen - “Printer name” – leave default
  • Next screen “Select Destination Location”, by default it is c:\program files\PDFCreator, modify it if you want.
  • Next Screen - “PDFcreator Browser Add on” - “Set Yahoo! as my default search engine and notify me of changes” is checked.Uncheck it.Please refer image

browser-add-on

  • Next screen - “Select Components” - “PDFCreator browser add on for Internet explorer and Firefox” checked, Uncheck it.Please refer image

select-componets

  • You may choose default setting on subsequent screens.
  • PDFCreator will be installed as a printer named “PDFCReator” and you can access it from any program using “print” menu.

print driver

Did you find this utility useful? please share.

Installing/Creating Ubuntu Linux in Windows using VMware Image

Use cases :

  • You are a Windows user who want to experiment with Linux desktop version.
  • You have used Linux in past and love some of tools/utilities on Linux.You can have a virtual Linux environment.
  • You are domainer and do a lot of whois query possibly automated using shell scripting,but prefer Windows as primary OS.
  • You love perl scripting and want to enhance your skill on perl or shell scripting.
  • You want safe virus free environment for browsing.
  • There can be number of user case where although you need Primary desktop on Windows but want to have access to Linux as well.

Solutions

  • You can have more than one machine one for Windows one for Linux.
  • You can have have dual boot machine. Problem with dual boot is you have to decide at boot time which operating system you want to use.
  • Third option is running Windows as primary OS and using a virtual machine to run Linux.Virtual machine solutions come from a few companies,however most popular solution is from VMware.

Proposed Solution

  • Install Vmware player from VMWare and use existing Virtual appliance based on Ubuntu.

Steps

  • Go to Vmware and download VMWare player for Windows.You will have to register with Vmware for that. https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/?p=player&lp=default . Installation is pretty standard as any Windows install.You will have to login as an account which has administrative privilege on your Windows machine.
  • Next download VMware virtual appliance/image from a location.I used http://chrysaor.info/?page=images&filter=Ubuntu . Chrysaor.info maintains up to date VMWare images of Ubuntu. Choose latest one, while writing this blog version Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop VMware image is latest. Download size is 1.1 Gb and download is via torrent. So you will need a torrent client.
  • Downloaded file is in tgz format.You will need an unzip utility to unzip this file,7-zip does the work.You should have at least 8 Gb of space free to download the zip and unzip it.Once you unzip downloaded file it will create a tar file (file with .tar extension).You will again have to use 7-zip to untar it in some folder.Once files are untared you may delete .tar file to save space.
  • Now start VMware player and choose “open a virtual machine” and browse to the location where you have extracted the file.Choose ubuntu1004desktop.vmx file and open it.
  • You may customize memory etc.by default it the image allocates 500 Mb of RAM.
  • Once you added the Ubuntu image to VMware player you may change memory allocation etc using edit virtual machine settings.
  • You are all done, now you need to start Ubuntu 10.x desktop as guest OS on Windows.Click on Virtual machine just added  and then click “play virtual machine”.
  • When you start virtual machine it may prompt you to download “vmware tools for linux”, you may choose “remind me later”.
  • Now Ubuntu 10.x is booting,after a few seconds it will stop at login page, a user is displayed with user name “user”.Password for user “user” is “chrysaor.info”.You may change the password after you login.root user password is not set,once you login you terminal to set root password using command “sudo passwd root”.Alternatively, you may use sudo command to perform actions as root.

ubuntu-login

In case,you you face any difficulty post in comments.

Extracting unzip gzip tar bzip tgz etc on Windows using 7 zip

If you use Windows you must be aware of Winzip utility.Winzip is not free and after evaluation version it forces you to wait for sometime before you may use it. Also, Winzip doesn’t  support all type of encrypted files zipped on Unix platform. There are cases where one have to Unzip files on Windows compressed on Unix system.Unix system typically uses tar,bzip2,gzip,tgz format to zip files.
7-zip is free open source alternative which supports files even compressed on Unix system.7-zip provides command line interface as well as GUI based File manager.7-zip supports packing/unpacking of 7z,zip,gzip,bzip2 and tar files.7-zip also support unpacking only of arj,cam,chm,cpio,deb,dmg,hfs,iso,lzh,lzma,msi,nsis,rar,rpm,udf,wim,xar and z files.
I am using 7-zip and I am very happy with this.Please share your experience.You may download 7-zip from http://www.7-zip.org/ website.

Broadband in Bihar and Jharkhand a nightmare.

There are lack of internet penetration in Bihar and Jharkhand. Major problem is high internet cost and very unreliable services.Even for people who want to pay the premium the services are highly unreliable.

BSNL Broad band in Bihar and Jharkhand : BSNL is national broadband ISP which provides broadband services using DSL technology.While I used to stay in Gurgaon,I found BSNL DSL services were excellent there.While in Patna, BSNL is good when it works.Sometime 3-4 day outage in not uncommon.If you want to build a business around web like blogging or website building it hurts.

Worldphone of Sify connection using franchises in Bihar and Jharkhand :  Worldphone and Sify provides broadband services by their franchises.They provide service using two modes, first by RJ45 cable from their location to your computer or by installing a wireless device at the roof of your building and pulling a RJ45 cable from aforesaid device to your computer.Installation charges in either case is high.I used service from worldphone using one of their franchise and service was horrible.For most part of the day their was no or very low connectivity.

MTS Mblaze Mobile broadband in Bihar and Jharkhand – MTS has launched a service based on CDMA network which they claim can attain a download speed upto 3.1 Mbps.Entry level device cost is around 2000 Rs and unlimited fair use based plan is 999 Rs per month.I recently used this service at Ranchi.It was horrible experience.Service was disconnecting every other minute.Customer care had satisfactory explanation of the situation.

Tata Indicom Photon plus mobile Broadband in Bihar and Jharkhand : It is CDMA based technology. One has to buy USB based access device from Tata Indicom.There plans are costly and your mileage may vary.if you are in area where they have good coverage(signal strength) your connection will be good and reliable.I know a person who is satisfied with their service at Patna.

Their are few other options also.But in General its tough to get affordable and reliable Broadband connection in Bihar and Jharkhand.

It’s now or never,Develop your Hindi .COM IDN now!

You have invested on Hindi IDN waiting for it to go prime before you start developing or selling it to right buyer,if this is your strategy it won’t work.Accept the fact that Hindi IDNs or for that matter Indian IDNs are different that Chinese or Russian IDN. Except parked domains and minisites, no one have ever visited a real IDN.com Hindi site.Except domainers no one knows about it.Well, people will know about .com Hindi IDN one day that may be your point! Unless a at least few hundred Hindi IDN.com is developed right now it may not happen.
To put my point, I will use IDN.भारत for proposed Indian version of IDN.IDN and IDN.कॉम for aliased version of Hindi IDN.com.
What may happen if Hindi IND.भारत is released and Hindi IDN.com domains remains  undeveloped
  1. .com is King because of first usage of .com. All major companies adopted it. dotCom boom marketed this TLD as they all almost opted for it.Millions of dollars (or should I say billion)were spent on indirect marketing of .com TLD. But, consider a scenario when Hindi IDN.com are not developed and Hindi IDN.भारत is released. The competitor of IDN.भारत will be IDN.कॉम aliased version of IDN.com TLD.Given a choice that I have to type complete domain name in Hindi including the TLD part भारत or कॉम, both extension will be new for me..com will no more remain .com it will become कॉम.Someone needs to market this “new” .com(कॉम) extension.
  2. If Hindi tld.com remains undeveloped the first site(if it is very big) or first few site which goes online  may set the trend of कॉम or भारत choice.You may say that .com(कॉम) may be used for global content and .भारत will for local content.That may not happen as almost all Hindi tld will be targeted for Indian, Hindi speaking population.In sense,they will be true competitor.
  3. Also keep in mind,if company like Google ever opt for IDN Hindi domain,they may choose .भारत.So if you wait,you are on mercy of outcome of early adopters.
  4. Also, keep in mind, millions of native users are not online because language do have barrier for them,there are a lot of house wives in India who do have Internet(computer) at home but don’t simply use it because they don’t know English.Adoption of Hindi in general and Hindi IDN in particular will open door for many millions of internet user in coming decade.For them .com won’t matter as well.
  5. Even for Bilingual users (who will form initial user base for Hindi IDN based websites.) it would be easy to remember complete name including after .(dot) in Hindi(devnagri) unless they are used to type in domain name in Hindi (devnagri) and and they can form a habit to type .com in roman(it’s some work as you have to change keyboard layout) after first part of the domain.Unless, this window of opportunity is capitalized  to get attention of these user (which is now, before release of country level IDN..भारत), advantage of being .com will be lost.
  6. On bright side to see this is, that even .net investor will be at par with .com if none of them is developed soon. Because,after aliasing both will be “new” extension.
  7. Adult domain may still survive even if Hindi IDN.com is not developed now,because Indian registry doesn’t permit use of domain for adult content.So, if Hindi IDN .com left undeveloped your only hope will be if someone develops few popular adult sites and make .com or कॉम competitive.
I have not invested in Hindi .com  IDN, a lot but I do have 4 Hindi IDN.com. 3 are one letter .com which are better left undeveloped. I am planning to register my 5th one soon (yes, I have decided the name) and develop it.That’s means I will develop 20% of my portfolio, are you committing to develop at least 10% of your portfolio?


Compare features and prices of different version of Windows 7 in India

Microsoft Windows 7 comes in 4 flavor in India. Microsoft Windows 7 Home Basic, Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, Microsoft Windows 7 Professional,Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate.Microsoft Windows 7 Home Basic is only available in emerging economies and not in developed nations.
Version Feature Price excluding Tax
on 27 July 2010
Windows 7 Home Basic Standard Feature Rs 5,200.00
Windows 7 Home Premium Windows 7 Home Basic Feature + Windows Media Center + HomeGroup Rs 6,500.00
Windows 7 Professional Windows 7 Home Premium Feature + Windows XP mode + Domain Join + Backup on home or business network Rs 10,000.00
Windows 7 Ultimate
Windows 7 Professional + BitLocker + Switch between 35 languages Rs 10,550.00
If you are a home user and looking for Windows 7 on your PC you may choose between first 2 versions. If you don’t care about Windows Media Center to watch,rewind and record TV (You will need TV tuner card in your computer).Windows 7 Home basic will do all other stuff for you.
HomeGroup is new feature in Windows 7 Home Premium and above to share different media files over network among Windows  7 computers. Even you have more than two Windows 7 computers at home you can still network using Windows workgroup.So, there is not much value addition from Windows 7 Home Basic to Windows 7 Home Premium unless you watch TV on your computer.
For people who need to run Windows XP productivity software on Windows 7 you have no choice but to buy Windows 7 professional at least.
If you wants to use Windows  in English and Hindi on same install but just login on and login off,You may consider buying Windows 7 Ultimate.35 languages to switch between supported by Windows 7 ultimate are
* Arabic
* Brazilian Portuguese
* Bulgarian
* Chinese – Simplified
* Chinese – Traditional – Hong Kong
* Croatian
* Czech
* Danish
* Dutch
* English
* Estonian
* Finnish
* French
* German
* Greek
* Hebrew
* Hindi
* Hungarian
* Italian
* Japanese
* Korean
* Lithuanian
* Norwegian
* Polish
* Portuguese
* Romanian
* Russian
* Serbian Latin
* Slovak
* Slovenian
* Spanish
* Swedish
* Thai
* Turkish
* Ukrainian
Price source


How to Hide Facebook friends list

By default, Facebook shows your friend list to whole world. Many people don’t want to show their friend list to public.Business man may not want to show his contacts to whole world. There are other scenario as well, some people want to protect their friend list from stalker.Facebook has made visibility of friend list very granular.You can make your friend list visible to everyone (Default),restrict them to friend of friends or friends.You may even hide from everyone (yes!face book have included this feature).You may choose to hide friend  list from specific person as well.

How to restrict Facebook Friend list visible to friends only

  1. Click on Account menu ---> Click on Privacy Settings sub menu

    facebook-privacy-settings

  2. It will open Privacy Settings page.Under Basic directory Information section, click on link “view settings”

    facebook-view-settings 

  3. It will open “Choose Your Privacy Settings” ----> “Basic Directory Information”. Under section “See my friend list”.You may choose among everyone,friends,friends of friends,customize. Choose “Friends” option if you would like to restrict it with friends only.facebook-basic-directory-information
  4. If you are too paranoid you may chose customize option. It allows you to restrict with one additional option “Only Me”.In case,you choose this option friend list would be hidden from everyone.On this screen you may choose to “Hide this from” as well." You may use hide this from to selectively hide it from chosen people.

facebook-friendlist-custom

Its important to understand these settings are for human only.For the application you have given access permission to you account they always have this info.



35$ Laptop Video at You Tube

Video of 35$ Laptop which was reported in last post .

Another Video

Report says 2 GB RAM.Its actually 2 GB Flash.


India unveils 1500 Rs - 30$ Laptop (notebook)-Picture

You might have heard about 100$ laptop project.They call it one laptop per child.India has come up with its own lower cost solution.Indian HRD minister unveiled a low cost access cum computing device. The price of device expected to be around 1500 Rs. (30-35$).This will be available to students through educational institutions by 2011.

The device runs on Linux and it won’t have hard drive but flash as storage.Device is expected to support

  • Video web conferencing facility
  • multimedia content viewer like  jpeg,.pdf,.png
  • Zip unzip utility
  • Internet browser with flash plug-in and javascript support
  • Productivity suite and computational software such as Open office,Scilab
  • Wireless communication I assume wifi driver
  • Remote device management capability
  • It says cloud computing option,I assume it means ability to work as cloud computing client.(Browser?)
  • Multimedia input-output interface

SIBAL COMPUTING DEVICE

Government has setup under National Mission on Education through Information and Technology (NMEICT) to provide connectivity in Universities and colleges.They are also creating high quality educational web based and video content.This access device will help them to leverage this.

My thoughts:As cloud computing is growing with fast pace a connected access device will be more than enough to provide productivity suite to students.Also, as a few million student will start using Linux  in their college days thanks to this device,adoption of Linux will go more mainstream in India in coming year.As for students who will pass out from these institutions can work with Cloud and Linux access, device a bad thing for Microsoft (?).

Also, India should be part of 100$ laptop project.As they are open for ideas to globally reduce cost of computing for students.

Sources

Low Cost access –Cum-Computing Device Unveiled by Shri Kapil Sibal



Google Introduces policy management in Google Apps

Google Apps introduced user policy management for organization.Administrators can now divide users in organizational group and control access to user group for specific application. Organizational Group Sales can have access to Gtalk while Organizational Group Development would not have access to Gtalk.
For companies which already have active directory or LDAP.Google Apps directory sync will mirror this.
Currently, this is supported from Google APPS next generation Control Panel. This feature is starting to roll out to Premier and Education edition users at no additional charge. I checked with one of domain I have with Google Apps,its not enabled for the domain.Probably, Google may change this for not Premier users.They have not said anything in their blog about it,


Official Google Enterprise Blog: Introducing user policy management for Google Apps

View the Income Tax Credit Statement (Form 26AS) online free

Indian tax payers are privileged that they can view their Income Tax Credit statement online. Such facility is not even available to American tax payers.What is contained in Income Tax Credit statement viz form 26AS -
  • Details of tax deducted on behalf of the taxpayer by deductors
  • Details of tax collected on behalf of the taxpayer by collectors
  • Advance tax/self assessment tax/regular assessment tax, etc. deposited by the taxpayers (PAN holders)
  • Tax refund detail if any
Currently there are three ways to view your Income Tax Credit Statement – Form 26AS online
  1. Bye Registering at TIN-NSDL – That was first method introduced to view Tax Credit Statement online. The method is cumbersome and not exactly free.Step you need to complete at TIN-NSDL to view your tax credit statement are as follow
    1. Online Registration of Pan
    2. Verification of identity and authorization of PAN by TIN-FC – If,PAN holder selects a TIN FC to visit at his place for authorization, it will cost 100 Rupees.In case, PAN holder personally visits a TIN-FC of his choice for authorization it will cost you 15 rupees.Money probably is not an issue here but offline work makes the process cumbersome.
    3. View tax credit online
  2. Using online facility of your Bank - To provide this facility to net banking account holder, bank should get registered them self with National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL).Currently following banks have this facility.You should be able to view Form 26AS from online banking of these banks
    1. Citibank N.A.
    2. Corporation Bank
    3. IDBI Bank Limited
    4. Indian Overseas Bank
    5. State Bank of India
    6. Union Bank of India
  3. Registering for online tax filing – If your bank is not in the list, don’t be disappointed.Income Tax efiling portal allows a PAN car holder to register for efiling of the tax return. They have included the facility to view income tax credit statement online in “My Account” menu. Its not necessary to do efiling to avail the feature. Just register yourself with Income Tax efiling portal and you are all set.To register with them you will need following information.
    1. Pan card number
    2. Date of birth
    3. Your name
    4. Email address and some more info.
Once the account is activated you can log into portal and view Income Tax credit statement for free online.If this information was useful to you let your friends know as well.

Indian Railway PNR status on mobile via SMS using Google service

You might have used Indian Railways website to check your PNR status.Chances are you might have used 139 to find your PNR status as well.Google has a awesome service which lets you enquire about PNR status via SMS. It’s quick an instantaneous. Good thing about it is there is no premium charge or roaming charge associated with it.Only local sms charge applicable on your carrier will be applicable.

The number is 9773300000. No need to prefix 0 or +91. Send your 10 digit PNR number to this number you will receive PNR status.

You can even track your status. When your status is wait listed or RAC. You don’t have to send SMS every now an then.You may activate tracking of the PNR number as well.Google will update you as and when there is change, till date of your journey  date. To activate PNR tracking do the following.

  1. Send PNR to 9773300000.
  2. When you receive status of PNR, reply to SMS by sending “ON”.You are all set, as and when PNR status will change Google will update you.
  3. For some reason if you want to stop receiving status update for the PNR, just send “OFF” to 9773300000.

Google transliteration IME offline standalone installer hack : Install IME tool on computers not connected to internet

If you use Google transliteration IME, you must be loving it. For people whose English is primary language on internet but also want to work in language supported by Google transliteration IME,this is an awesome tool. From Google’s website
“Google Transliteration IME is currently available for 19 different languages - Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, Farsi (Persian), Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Punjabi, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian, Tamil, Telugu, Tigrinya and Urdu.”
For people who are not aware of Google transliteration based IME, try Google Transliterate online tool. Online tool enables you to write in language of choice say Hindi when you have internet connection. Also, it transliterate only when you press space key on keyboard.While IME (Input Method Editor) suggests words in dictionary for every key pressed and works weather you are online or offline.Google Transliteration IME is becoming popular as we speak.
There is a problem
Google wants you to install Google transliteration IME in language of your choice only if you are connected to internet. Currently, installer downloads a wrapper stub executable. When you execute this file it downloads latest installer which let you install IME and deletes it after installation is successful. By doing this Google wants to make sure one always gets latest copy. But there is huge problem with  this approach.There are lot of computers which are not online. Particularly this is true for developing country like India.People are looking for this tool to install on their computer but Google doesn’t have standalone offline installer of Google Transliteration IME tool.Situation is also not good when you have to install the IME tool on multiple computer in the network as well.
Solution
Since actual transliteration IME installer is downloaded on to your computer by stub down loader, if you can locate the file you should be able to use it to install on a computer that is not connected on internet.In following paragraph it will be illustrated how to achieve this.For this tutorial to work you have to login on your Windows machine as a user who have administrative privilege on your computer. I will use Hindi transliteration IME installer,as an example you should be able to use it for other supported languages as well. Tutorial has two parts common steps and different methods to find actual installer on your machine.
Common steps:
  1. Download Google transliteration IME for your language. For Hindi 32 bit, selected option would be
              google-ime-choose-language
  2. Save the file when prompted. It will download a file name googlehindiinputsetup.exe. For me on July 16, 2010 downloaded file size was 554 KB (567,624 bytes). 
    .google-ime-save-file
  3. Locate googleinputsetup.exe and start the installer by double clicking it.Make sure you are still connected to internet.
  4. Based on you security setting on Windows machine, you may get a security warning, “do you want to run this file?” Click on Run.google-hindi-input-security-warning
  5. Installer will connect to internet and would start downloading actual installer
    google-hindiinput-downloading
  6. After download finishes, Google stub installer starts actual installer. First screen is End User License agreement.
google-hindiinput-eula
Please don’t click next as we don’t want to install it this way. Now we need to find out location for actual installer on Windows machine.
Method 1 to locate Google transliteration IME offline installer
  1. Try to find out Google installed software directory. If you have installed any of other Google product before,find the directory of the install. On my computer Google products are installed under c:\Program Files\google, I will refer this directory for next steps.
  2. Browse to directory under  c:\Program Files\google and locate C:\Program Files\Google\Update\Download.
  3. You should see a directory (or more than one) with a very long name. This directory name will start with { and ends with }.Directory name will consists of four dashes (-) in it. In my PC directory name is {0FF3CE40-F329-483C-A3F5-03BFCC07A90C}.
  4. Go into directory specified in step 3 above and you should be able to locate a file named googlehindiinputsetup.exe. The name of file is same as that of stub installer however size is bigger. On my machine size of this file is 3.18 MB (3,337,200 bytes). That’s it, you found the offline transliteration IME for Hindi.Use it the way you need.Copy it to machines you need to install Google IME.Process should be same for other languages.
google-ime-offline-installer
Method 2 using Windows Registry
  1. If for some reason you couldn’t able to locate the directory where Google software are installed, you should use windows registry editor to locate the offline standalone IME installer.
  2. Type “regedit” on command prompt, it will open registry editor.
  3. From menu Edit—>Find, search for Key MUIcache.
     MUIcache search
  4. It will search for first occurrence of MUIcache key in registry and would highlight it.Do a right click on MUIcache and press export.
    MUIcache-export
  5. Export the MUIcache branch of registry in text file.In this example MUIcache.txt
    MUIcache export as text
  6. Open MUIcache.txt in a text editor, like notepad and search for term \Update\Download\.
    update-download
  7. Eureka!! You found he complete path of standalone Hindi IME installer.Copy the file on a PC on which you would like to install.
  8. There can be many alternative way to achieve this, I illustrated 2 approaches. Hope it will help you in installing Google transliteration in a language of your choice.Did it work for you?
  9.  

Indian rupee gets its symbol : What is next

You might have already read it, Indian cabinet has approved symbol for Indian currency, Rupee.The new symbol, designed by Bombay IIT Mumbai post-graduate D Udaya Kumar.

rupee-symbol

What is next for this symbol : Indian government will request Unicode Consortium to allocate new character in unicode for this symbol.It will take six month to a year to get this character incorporated by consortium.Once Unicode consortium assign unicode character for the symbol. Software vendors(including Operating System vendors) will incorporate this symbol by providing a key combination to access it for input. Hardware vendors may map this character on keyboard for easy access.Printer manufacturer may have to tweak their embedded software to recognize this symbol and Optical character recognition software  may have to take care of this symbol as well.

So, we can hope that after a year or two this symbol will be ready for prime time.



Domain Name for Dummies : How to make money from domain

Domain name is an address by which you identify a website on internet. Technically speaking all address on internet is in form for numbers like 201.21.31.1. However, it would be difficult for human being to remember these numbers. So, concept of domain names cam into picture where some name like example.com is registered and in turn resolve to number like 201.21.31.1.For example you can visit Google by typing http://209.85.231.104/ in your address bar in internet browser. As you may see it is much easier to do it by typing http://www.google.com .

Structure of a domain name : Domain name may look like example.com or google.co.in. In example.com, .com part is known as Top Level Domain (TLD), and example would be second level domain. While in Google.co.in .co.in is second level domain and Google is third level domain. .com and .co.in are also known as domain extension. There are some global domain extension like .com,.net,.org,.info,.biz etc. Some extensions are country specific like .in and .co.in are India specific, .co.uk are for United Kingdom, .cn for China.

Global Top level domain : Global top level domains which ends in extension .com,.net,.org,.info,.biz etc regulated by ICANN. You may be able to register a top level domain from any of the ICANN accredited registrar or their resellers.Any one in this world can register a Global top level domain name.

Country level domain extensions : Every country in this world have a top level domain suffix.This is being assigned by IANA. Each country in turn have a registry which formulates policy related to country domain names. They also appoint registrar to register domain in their behalf.Some country do have restriction on who can register the said country domain name.You should get acquainted with policies of specific country before you decide to register a country specific domain name.

How much you need to Pay to Register a domain name : This varies extension to extension as well as registrar to registrar.However you should be able to register a domain for 1 year in less than 10$ for most of the domains.This is the domain cost which you would have to pay each year.This is cost of domain in primary market.

There is secondary market for domain : Meaningful domain names are internet real estate some of them are highly sought after that enhances its valuation. Others, bring traffic which can be monetized. Hence, if you come up with a domain that is no longer available to register you may buy it from existing owner. In this case you may have to pay a “premium” for that domain. Acquisition of domain from other domain owners is called acquiring it from secondary market. Why someone pays premium to acquire a domain?

  1. Brand Some names are just more memorable than other. For example, dog.com, gives extra edge to owners than anyone else selling dog supplies. Anyone visiting dog.com may find what they expected. These domains have high resale value. Chances that you may find such name at registration cost is negligible in .com. Such names are even may not be available in most of the extensions. 
  2. Keywords domain : Search engine optimization professionals are looking for key words domain in any category.People do searches on internet. now suppose a few thousands are looking for solar panels.Then solarpanels.com, solarpanels.in would have value. As it is highly probable that content related to solar panels will be placed in top position in search engine results. Google have a few tools which you may use to do keywords research.People have already done a lot of keyword research, so chances on an unregistered Good keyword is low. But it won’t hurt and to do some search and learn.
    • – This will help you in researching keywords that was being searched globally and a particular local market.It also shows advertisers competition for that particular keyword and related searches. If a domain name contains exact keywords and competition is high it has good value for SEO professionals. SEO (Search engine optimization professional) can use these name to create a website.These domain names are valuable.
    • Google Search Bases Keyword tool – This will help you find exact searches of a keyword and their advertisers bid.If it is 2-3 word keyword and have adequate search volume and good advertiser bid a .com domain would be lucrative.
  3. Type in Traffic domains : There are a few domains which people type in their browser address bar and expect a website. Such domains are called type-in traffic domain. These domains are valuable because people can place Pay Per Click advertisement  on such domains (also known as PPC) and make money. Question is how you find a type-in domain? Generally, generic and good keyword .com domains do attract natural traffic. This is also true for some of the country code tlds.From personal experience, I found Indians are typing .co.in for popular terms and as well as .in and .org.in sometime.How to find a domain with traffic, well it comes with experience, however, you may use Alexa.com as well. on http://www.alexa.com click on siteinfo and put a domain name you want to verify the rank for, like rrb.net.in. It shows some traffic rank, however low, it may be. There is a good chance that that domain name have traffic. It doesn’t mean domains which doesn’t have alexa rank may not have traffic at all.Now, if you have a domain name with traffic there are many providers who allow you to park and monetize your domain. I prefer Sedo.com.
  4. Residual Traffic – There are many expired domain that are associated  with an old website.It do happen everyday that a website owner lost interest or forgotten to renew the domain and domain expires. These domains do have back links. If you register such name you may get traffic for sometime. However, some sustainable residual traffic based on back link is sustained for a long period.These domains do have value as well.
  5. Also remember all the domain traffic are not equal, some keyword may pay you more than dollar per click and some may pay just 1 cent. It also depends on geographical location of visitor. A click from USA will generally worth more than a click from India.

               Hopefully, you must have got idea about why domains have value. If you have not entered in domain business consider many fact before making it a a source of income. First, if you have good budget you may acquire domains in secondary market and this article is not for you. But if you have low budget and can only acquire domains from primary market (means only at registration fee) then keep reading on. First thing first, if you come across a news that domain such that sex.com, business.com etc are sold in multi million dollars, don’t get over excited. Such domains in .com version are long gone. Also, .com is most sought after extension because everyone knows .com. There are paid tools who let you catch expired domains in global TLDs. However, if two or more people are looking for same name you have to bid in auction so that will cost you more that just registration fees.

If you are new domainer look for alternative extensions as well. I am doing on and off domaining since 2001. I didn’t have much info about PPC and traffic domains till 2006. I have sold few domain names maximum I have got is 3500$.So I am not a big guy in this field. However, I found .co.in and .in brings good traffic. Now, I make 400$ to 450$ a month from parked domains.My cost of renewing domain is around 1000$/per year, it includes domain I am just renewing on speculation.Points to note is most of my traffic is Indian and Indian click doesn’t pay you much.

So, my point is if you can find out a way to get good traffic name or good keyword name you may still do good and earn some income from domaining. There are people who are dealing with expired domain in alternative extensions, where big players are not involved.They are registering good domains at just registering cost it self. So yes, you can still make money in domaining by either speculating on right domains or registering traffic domains to your benefit.You questions, comments?



Windows XP service pack 2 end of support : Upgrade to Service pack 3 IMMEDIATELY

Windows XP Service pack 2 end of support date has come.Officially support will end on 13th July 2010.Windows XP was released on 17th September 2004.While Windows Vista and Windows 7 are in market many people and organization still use Windows XP.What it means to Windows XP SP2 users is you will no longer receive security updates and patches if you are on on Service pack 2.It means you are vulnerable to viruses,malware and hacking attempt for any new security threat that is found later.If you have automatic updates turned on chances are you are on Windows XP service pack 3 already.
How to check windows XP service pack
Go to “Run” in Start menu and type “winver.exe” a window will popup.In version line you can see if it is service pack 2 or service pack 3.
windows-xp-service-pack
If you are still running on Windows XP service pack 2, please upgrade immediately to service pack 3.
Please go to Microsoft Windows XP Service pack 3 download website and get it immediately. The requirement for service pack 3 is
  • Supported Operating Systems: Windows XP Home Edition ; Windows XP Professional Edition ; Windows XP Service Pack 1; Windows XP Service Pack 2
I am interested to know, are you  still using Windows XP?


Search for coupon near you using iGoogle Gadget for Google Coupons

iGoogle is Google interface where you may add RSS feeds from your favorite blog with Google search box.It might be your default Google page or you access it using link http://www.iGoogle.com. A few days back I noticed Google has added an iGoogle searchable local coupon feed based on location you provide. There is not enough inventory if you choose a location in India.However, choosing a USA based location shows you local deals on hotels,pizza,pubs,car repair, limo service, free lesson and what not. inventory has increased in last 4-5 days.What it does is it searches Google maps for businesses near your location that has special offers.

If http://www.igoogle.com doesn’t shows a widget named coupon for you here is how you may add it. Click on following link

And click Google coupons for iGoogle.It will try to detect your location and if can’t it may ask you to provide location information. If you are USA based you may choose your zip code like 08863 while people in India might try city name Delhi,India.

 

google-coupon-location

“Save” it.It will provides you a searchable interface with Coupon feed in your area.A nice utility hope soon it will have enough inventory in India as well.Did you like it? Did it show enough coupon inventory in your area? If you like the story share with other people.

google-coupon-promotions

Keywords : Google Coupon, Google Coupon codes,Local coupons



1and1 hosting review I have a complaint

When I was in USA I choose 1and1 promotional plan and jumped to 1and1 hosting.I even promoted them on one of my website.I am not a big time webmaster, didn’t care about how their customer support behaves (never got an answer from support@1and1.com). I used to like SSH access which they provide.

I moved to India, a few days back I asked them to change my country to India as one can’t change country from control panel.They asked me fill account change form and send them with driving license.

Hi There,
1. I am attaching account change request form.Kindly see new address under
"New Owner".Also, please manually change my country in account panel,as
I can't change country.
2.My driving license is enclosed.
Once you change country name in my account.please let me know.
Thanks and Regards,


Couple of days passed, no action what so ever from 1and1.com side.So I sent two reminders.Then guess what, what I got.









Dear Axxxxx xxxxxxx, (Customer ID: xxxxxxxx)

Hi, unfortunately we cannot change this account to an indian account
because we cannot change the card on file to Indian payment. You will
need to order a new account with your Indian details and an Indian card.
We have set termination on this contract for 30 days. Please order a new
account with your Indian details if you wish to remain a 1&1 customer.
Thank you.
--
Sincerely,
Security Team
1&1 Internet, Inc.


The payment option was Paypal,And card was never came in question.Also, note here instead of asking anything about payment they did onside cancellation. I replied to that email couple of days back but have not heard from them.









Hi There,
I am amazed.Payment mode is no more card on file but Paypal.I have forwarded
you scan document of account change and Indian driving license to prove my
credibility.This was the document you have asked earlier as well. If you
have to terminate why not just create an Indian account and move my settings,
files and domain under that account. Its hard to believe it is so difficult.
Particularly, in control panel it explicitly says contact customer care
for change of country.Why suddenly you people realized it can't be done?Why
you earlier informed it can be done after I send those document?I need an
answer for all these?I am in IT I may move again to USA for that
sake UK,each time do I have to cancel my account and create a new one?That's
what are you saying?I need answer for this and a solution not termination
notice.Please advice,
Thanks and Regards,


When I searched for 1and1 hosting complaints internet I felt guilty for why not checking this earlier.They are one of biggest and worst hosting company. Customer care sucks and never reply, when you contact abuse team they do reply but with robotic answer.What the worst they have done that locked my account probably,because I can’t login into my account.so my review of 1and1 hosting is avoid at any cost.

Spam in Gmail

Gmail has excellent spam filter.I use Gmail as my primary contact.I receive huge number of spam, because email from one of my primary domain is forwarded to Gmail account.The domain has been set as “catchall” email address as well.I use this email id for mostly domain registration.Since this means this mail id is exposed to whole world and spammers alike,getting huge number of spam is not a surprise.It didn’t bother me too much as Gmail catches all of them pretty well.However, since yesterday some smart spammer is spamming my mail id. I tried to mark those as “spam”,but not much success.I am still getting mails from the same spammer.Sender name is all of the spam is “BestMaleMeds On-line”. Sender email id is different each time and subject invariably start with word “Customer”.Then there are a long junk message with randomly selected word in message body.There are images and hyperlinks as well.Images are blocked by Gmail by default. When I did further investigation found

  1. Urls and links to images in different message points website different websites.
  2. These websites are possibly hacked.
  3. When I used Wget to get content of link, ALL messages brings same html page with following code.
    <head><script>location = 'http://thesuperviagra.com/';</script></head>

  4. It seems some Viagra site is being promoted with hacked websites and spam emails.Google filter is probably  failing because-spammer are using different sender email id each time, embedding links from different websites each time and generating random subject line and body text.Probably Google can figure out spam by sender’s name “BestMaleMeds On-line”.
  5. I previously reported how my websites were hacked with possibly a unpatched Adobe Acrobat hole that lead to Filezilla password being stolen.
  6. Following are images of my inbox and one particular email. Google should come up with an algorithm to recognize random text as junk and spam.

spam-in-gmail


random-text-spam-in-gmail



Windows Live Writer Review as offline blog editor

Windows Live writer is a feature rich offline blog editor.Best part is its free and comes from Microsoft.First thing first, why to use an offline blog editor.There are many reasons to do that.

  1. I use Blogger for this blog, The editor at blogger is not easy if you have to create well formatted post, it becomes a pain.Try adding image in your blog using blogger, It doesn’t create link to the image.So, if image is big, a reader can’t just click and see full size image.
  2. It is easy to create ordered list and un ordered list in Windows Live writer.You can even create nested unordered list inside and ordered list.
  3. In Windows Live editor you may choose hyperlinks attributes easily like nofollow,open in new windows etc
  4. With WYSIWYG editor its easy to put a html table in your blog.
  5. You use add source code or consol output in you blog it has plug-in to help you format it better.
  6. When you are creating a long post it is hard to edit and maintain it in Blogger default editor.
  7. You cann’t track word count in Blogger default editor,Windows live writer helps you track word count as you type.

I used Windows live editor, for my last post having more than 2200+ words, I didn’t have to edit html source for more than couple times.Also, if you plan to edit html source itself,it is much easier to do in Windows live writer.Best part is that its free and do have some productive plugging you may choose to enhance your blogging experience. When I blog with Windows Live editor all I have to concentrate on content and not worry too much about formatting. Did you find this review helpful?



How to hack Gmail password and how to secure Gmail account

No I am not going to tell you how to hack Gmail account or Orkut account. I found on Google “How to hack Gmail password” is one of most searched topic on internet “how to” search.It implies that there are a large number of people who are trying to hack Gmail or Orkut account. I host a few websites since last 8 years and my hosting account been hacked three times already.It’s true that hacking a hosting account is quite different from hacking a Gmail account.But why I mentioned is because once you are hacked you feel the pain.And believe me if your Gmail account is hacked it will bring horror to you. Because most likely its primary contact email id for you and there are so many services linked to your Gmail id like Blogger, Adsense,Adwords,Google sites,Orkut, Google Apps etc list is quite impressive for being your account a target.A potential hacker can have two intention first, either hackers wants to monitor your email communication or take away account from you totally.
In coming paragraph you will get familiar with few common techniques used by hacker to hack your online accounts in common and Gmail account in particular.After that I am going to tell you what to do or not to do to protect your account and best practices to safeguard your Gmail.I will conclude with what should you do if your Gmail account is hacked.

Common hacking modes for Gmail account

  1. KeyloggerKeylogger is a software which is installed on a system to log key pressed. There are commercially available key logger in the market as well as a hacker may introduce a keylogger via Trojan, infected USB device etc. Key loggers can be installed on a system in a rootkit mode where you can’t see it in Windows taskbar.Additionally, these keyloggers can be configured to send log file using mail via SMTP.
  2. PhishingPhishing is most common method, to hack online passwords. In phishing a hacker sends email with link of a similar page you may see while logging to Gmail,however it would be not hosted by Gmail servers.Most likely, the link of Phishing site will be again on some hacked website.As soon as you enter login and password in such page hackers gets your password.
  3. Firefox Saved Password – If you have accessed your Gmail account on shared computer or a friend’s PC and saved password offered by Firefox, this can be read using Firefox Tools –>Options—>Security—>Saved Password screen.All one has to do is click on “show password”.
  4. Using simple security question is Gmail account – Google offers 5 default question and 6th option is to have your question. Five default questions in Gmail account are

    • What is your primary frequent flyer number – This question is good only if you have one.
    • What is your library card number – This is the info many will have access to,not good at all.
    • What was your first phone number – Again this is more or less a public information, people can do “people search” to find out all your numbers, possibly one of those is your first phone number
    • What was your first teacher’s name – Anyone who has studied with you or if someone has done social engineering  to find it out can guess it with some effort.
    • What is your father’s middle name – Again very weak hint.
                  Google should consider to make more secure default security questions.
  5. Getting password from less secured websites – Many people have habit to use single password everywhere Gmail, forum, small websites etc.Most of the website keeps your password in encrypted format. These password can’t be reverse engineered practically. But some of the website keeps password in clear text. How you can know if a website is preserving password in clear text.. When you choose forgot password option in websites that offers you to tell your password are for sure keeping your password in clear text.Generally, if a password is not saved in clear text website will give you option to reset password and would not send you your password. Now, suppose you share same password with a website that saves password in clear text as with Gmail account password,chances are someone who has access to user database on that website may steal Gmail password as well.
  6. Man in the middle attack – A hacker can intercept your communication between browser and Gmail servers using packet sniffers.They in turn can read “Session Id” used for a particular communication. Once a hacker succeed in doing that he can use your Gmail account without knowing your password.This kind of attack is possible in public wi-fi hotspot or if you have unsecured wi-fi setup at your home.

 10 Best Practices to protect your Gmail account

  1. Update your software and antivirus program – You should update your OS, programs like MS office, Firfox, Adobe acrobat reader etc to keep it updated with current version. This will secure your from known vulnerability in software. Hackers do target a security vulnerability once it is known. Also, use a decent antivirus, there are so many options available in market but few are better than others.
  2. Don’t open files sent to you by unknown source – Hackers may install key logger etc by sending you executables, pdf  file etc. So never open these files.
  3. Don’t install cracks etc from website or torrent – Cracks available on internet and torrents are full of spyware, keylogger etc. Unless you know what you are doing never use those files. They install spyware and root kits on your system.
  4. Secure yourself from Phishing attacks – When you get a link in email or Orkut or Facebook, make sure it is from genuine source.A hacker might send you link to something and ask you for login/password of Gmail.Site look and feel would be same as Gmail login screen but it will be not hosted at Google servers. Whenever you enter critical information like login/password, Credit card,Bank account etc make sure you check the address bar in your web browser. Its possible a page which looks similar to Gmail might be coming from something like following:
     http://www.example.com/scripts/website/gmail/image/login/gethim/login.php or even bigger address.You are warned not to put your login password etc in these websites.
  5. Don’t save password in Firefox – This is particularly true if you are using a shared computer. Also, in case you are using a cyber cafe make sure you never saved password for your Gmail.
  6. Create your own security question is Gmail – As illustrated earlier Gmail default security question can be guessed with some effort. It is highly recommended to create your own security question whose answer is known to you only.This will be helpful in resetting your password if hacker has not modified your security question.For an example if you like banana just have a security question “fruit” and not your “favorite fruit”. Google have guidelines for security questions as well.

    Picking a good security question and answer:
    • Choose a question only you know the answer to - make sure the question isn't associated with your password.
    • Pick a question that can't be answered through research (for example, avoid your mother's maiden name, your birth date, your first or last name, your social security number, your phone number, your pet's name, etc.).
    • Make sure your answer is memorable, but not easy to guess. Use an answer that is a complete sentence for even more security.
  7. Have a different password on other websites – You might be visiting forums, dating sites, job sites etc. Don’t have same password on those sites with that of Gmail.This will protect you from your Gmail password, it will be safe even if database of those sites are hacked given they save password in clear text.
  8. Enable https on you Gmail account – A man in middle attacker may intercept your session id and access Gmail account. Enable https option in your Gmail. This may slow down your Gmail a little bit. So if you are using a slow dialup connection you may not like it. But if you access your Gmail from wi-fi hot spot its recommended you turn it on. Also, if you access your Gmail mostly on broadband you not feel the difference. To enable https access use following instructions.

    • Log in into your Gmail account
    • Click on the link “settings” – You will find it at the top right hand side of the page once you logged in.
    • On “General” tab look for the section “Browser Connection”
    • Check radio button “Always use https”
    • Go at the bottom of the page and look for button “Save changes”
    • Click on “Save Changes”
  9. Have alternative email and mobile number on your account – Google have option to have alternative email address and phone number in your account. Please do configure it and have a email id which has a different password and you don’t access it often.However, these options are only good to reset the password if hacker has not touched your alternative email id and mobile number. It’s entirely possible that hackers have got your password but they have not changed it but just monitoring you. You may change (configure) these setting by accessing following link              https://www.google.com/accounts/UpdateAccountRecoveryOptions?hl=en
  10. Forward your some of the important mails at another email account – Preventive measures are good. If you have not deleted your old emails send your some of the mails to a different email id. The mail you should choose to forward is the mail you got from Gmail when you signed up.The mail you get from Orkut when you signed up.THIS IS MUST DO FOR EVERYONE.This will be useful if you Gmail ever gets hacked.Better safe than sorry.

How to know that your Gmail account is compromised

  1. Password is no more working – When a hacker changes the compromised account’s password, your password will not work.You will know instantaneously as you can’t login. However, when hacker is just monitoring you he may not change the password.
  2. How to know that account is compromised when password is working -

    • Some of your mails are read even when you have not read it
    • Go to “settings” –> “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” – In the “Forwarding” section does “Forward a copy of incoming mail to” is configured to some mail id of not yours? It means account is hacked.Change password immediately.
    • Does POP/IMAP is enabled and “POP is enabled for all mail that has arrived since DATE”.Where date field is not blank even if you are not using POP.
    • At the bottom of Gmail page, Gmail gives you last account activity information. If you have something like below,it normal.It says you di d something with your Gmail 2 hours ago on this computer.
              gmail-last-account-activity
    • Now Let’s see what is different in picture below. It says account is open in 1 other location whose public IP is 118.95.14.91.That is suspicious unless you have opened another Gmail session on a different machine or Gmail in another browser.Even if it says last account activity at 8.8.8.8 or some think like that, you may check it if you opened the account from office or other location.Generally if you are using an ISP the first 2 portion of dotted IP Address will remain same.This will change if you are using it from office at day time and at home in evening.
                      gmail-last-account-activity-2mintutes            
    • How to do an IP address lookup and find where my Gmail has been accessed from? There are sites which shows your IP address on internet.I will use http://www.4321.in website for further explanation.Go to the website, below the main widget in page, it will have string like “NQ Client Info - IP: 118.95.14.91 - OS: win xp - Browser: fx 3.6.3”.Where 118.95.14.91 is my IP visible on internet. This IP address belongs to my ISP. To query more about this IP address.Click on the “tab” ,” whois IP”.By default it will fill the text box with IP address you have accessed. Now click on > button.For me it brings like following information.I am copying pasting first few line here.It shows IP belongs to organization SIFYNET. They are my ISP. So I am satisfied.
% [whois.apnic.net node-2]
% Whois data copyright terms    http://www.apnic.net/db/dbcopyright.html

inetnum:      118.94.0.0 - 118.95.255.255
netname:      SIFYNET
descr:        Sify Limited
descr:        Chennai, India
country:      IN
admin-c:      HS51-AP
tech-c:       HS51-AP
remarks:
remarks:      -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
remarks:      This object can only be updated by APNIC hostmasters.
remarks:      To update this object, please contact APNIC
remarks:      hostmasters and include your organisation's account
remarks:      name in the subject line.
remarks:      -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
changed:      hm-changed@apnic.net 20070827
mnt-by:       APNIC-HM
mnt-lower:    MAINT-IN-SIFY
status:       ALLOCATED PORTABLE
source:       APNIC
    • No suppose IP address last accessed or open at other location belongs to someone on different ISP or in a different country, I have reason to believe that my account is compromised.What should I do in these situations, I should run a virus/malware scan on my computer and change my password and security questions immediately.
    • Now Google has even provided a better solution.In the images shown above there is a link called “details”.Go Gmail pagea dn at the bottom try to locate it and click it.For me it brings following information.First column always says browser, as I only access Gmail from web. I am safe. If you see other access method like POP3 while you don’t use POP3 you are compromised.If you see different IP addresses in second column,try to do lookup as explained earlier using http://www.4321.in .Google has a good guide about how to use this information. Last activity information.gmail-account-activity


    • Google sends suspicious account activity alert as well.I have not seen it so far,but have you got one?





What to do after account is hacked

  1. Account is hacked you do have access to your Gmail account – Run a spyware and virus scan on your computer.Once its complete, change password and security question of the account.
  2. Account is hacked and hacker has changed the password – This will be useful when hacker has changed your password but not security question or secondary email address in your account. Follow the link.
  3. Account is hacked and hacker is changed secondary email as well as security questions – In these situation the email forwarded to secondary accounts will be useful.Remember, I have recommended “Forward your some of the important mails at another email account”.You will be asked when you signed up for account.When you activated the 4 different services on Google.Use this link to request Google for assistance.
            So how was that?Did you find this post useful? Did I miss something then please point it out.If you like this post please refer to you friends,it will help them to keep their Gmail secure.Please be safe!
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