Google Health coming soon

Google’s entry into the online health records space. At the time of writing the site isn’t allowing logins, but it does include this text:

With Google Health, you can:
* Build online health profiles that belong to you
* Download medical records from doctors and pharmacies
* Get personalized health guidance and relevant news
* Find qualified doctors and connect to time-saving services
* Share selected information with family or caregivers

The other thing to note is the logo (we’ve included it in this post), it would appear that Google Health is going straight to Beta and not through Google Labs.

Google Health has been hampered by chronic fatigue syndrome in terms of its development, with the site being rumored to launch originally in May 2006. Microsoft even beat Google in the space, having launched its own online health product in October 2007.

Outlook Fix: Attach Zip Files to Outgoing E-Mail

The easy workarounds are, first, you can manually open the folder containing the Zip file, then drag it to the new e-mail window. That accomplishes the same thing as selecting a file with the attach tool. Second, you can do the following:

* In Windows XP, click Start > Run, then type Command and hit Enter. In Vista, click Start, type Command and hit Enter.
* Type regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll
* Wait for a confirmation box to appear. Click OK, then type Exit into the Command window to close it.

Now Outlook should show your Zip files like a good little e-mail client.

Improve Firefox's Responsiveness While a Page is Loading

If Firefox is too unresponsive for your tastes when it's loading a new web page, enter about:config into your address bar and then add the content.switch.threshold setting (which isn't there by default). Right-click the page and select New -> Integer, name it content.switch.threshold, and give it a value of 1000000. The catch is that Firefox will take slightly longer to load pages, but while it's loading you'll be able to scroll the already-loaded content more easily.

When Some Specific Websites Do Not Open On Your Computer

Your computer is connected to the Internet and you can reach most websites just fine but there’s a problem when you try to open some particular website(s).

Though that website is unreachable from your computer, it is definitely not down because you are able to access the same website from another computer at home.

Facing a similar problem ? Here’s how to diagnose and fix the issue:

Fix 1: Check your Windows HOSTS file - Make sure there’s no entry in the hosts file that maps the website’s address to localhost or an incorrect IP address like 127.0.0.1 - it is a possibility if you have imported some third-party hosts file.

cmd /k notepad c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Fix 2: Find Faults in the Pipeline - Paypal website may be up and running but it is possible that the real problem lies with a router that is between you and the computer hosting the Paypal website. Do a traceroute and check for messages like “Request Timed Out” - they will help you find the location of the breakdown.

Type the following command in the Run Window:

cmd /k tracert www.paypal.com - remember to replace Paypal with address of the website that is unreachable.

Fix 3: Clear DNS Cache - The DNS cache keeps a record of sites that you have recently visited on your computer. If that gets corrupted, you may have issues opening sites that were previously accessible without problems.

Type cmd /k ipconfig /displaydns in the Run window to see the cache entries. If that unreachable website is listed in the cache, type cmd /k ipconfig /flushdns to clear the cache.

Fix 4: Website May Be Blocked - The chances are rare but it is possible that access to some particular website may be have been restricted by the Office firewall. To test this, send an email to www@web2mail.com with the problematic website URL in the subject field. If the website is up, you will get a text copy of the web page in an email message.

Fix 5: Suspend the Anti-Virus and Firewall - If you are running an external software firewall or anti-virus program (like Norton, ZoneAlarm, etc), exit and restart the web browser. Is the problem solved now ?

When nothing works, open 192.168.1.1 and reboot the modem. If that fails, restart your computer and as a final step, call your ISP support.

Become a Celebrity: Put Your Face on Magazine Covers and CNN

Want to see yourself on CNN news, BoingBoing or the front cover of all top magazines like TIME, Wired, Cosmopolitan, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, etc.

Try these fake magazine cover creation tools:

1. MagMyPic - Just upload your picture and this service will instantly put that on the cover of TIME, Rolling Stone, Fortune, People, Maxim, Vogue and other popular magazines. The service is quick but you have no control over the text appearing on the magazine cover.

2. Condenet.com - This is an excellent service for creating a personalized Wired Magazine Cover - you can pick your own picture, tag lines and even control the placement of various elements using simple drag-n-drop. You also get a printable version of the Wired magazine cover.

3. U.R.Celeb - This is an excellent Windows software to create fake magazine cover image on the desktop. Unlike MagMyPic, this software offers you tons of control - you can change the magazine headlines, resize photos and the branding is non-obtrusive.

Supports CNN Breaking News, TIME, Vogue, PlayBoy and other popular magazines.

4. BoingBoing - It’s tough to get BoingBoing editors to link to your blog but with this post generator, you can create your own BoingBoing story. Stuff in a few words and your BoingBoing Story is ready.

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of 2007

Downloads on Mininova
1 Transformers (569.259)
2 Knocked Up (509.314)
3 Shooter (399.960)
4 Pirates Of The.Caribbean At World’s End (379.749)
5 Ratatouille (359.904)
6 300 (358.226)
7 Next (354.044)
8 Hot Fuzz (352.905)
9 The Bourne Ultimatum (336.326)
10 Zodiac (334.699)

Firefox & IE Prompt You To Remember Passwords - Do You Say Yes ?

When you type a password into any web form, both Internet Explorer and Firefox prompt whether you would like them to remember your password.

If that’s a personal computer, chances are high that you will click Yes and the password is then saved in the web browser.

This “Remember Me” option in web browsers is useful but it actually puts your login credentials at serious risk especially in Firefox.

View stored passwords in Internet Explorer:

Though IE stores your passwords in encrypted form in the Windows Registry database, anyone can easily view your passwords using a free 35kb tool called IE PassView.

The tool automatically displays a list all auto-complete entries saved inside IE. See screenshot.

View stored passwords in Firefox:

With Firefox, it gets much simpler and anyone who knows how to use a mouse can see all your passwords stored inside Firefox.

The route is Tools -> Options -> Security -> Show Passwords. And there you have all the passwords that you ever asked Firefox to remember for you.

Even that short visit to a nearby coffee vending machine could leak your identity as all it takes is few seconds for anyone to view your secret passwords.

To keep yourself safe, uncheck “Prompt me to save passwords” in Internet Explorer and “Set Master Password” in Firefox.

Windows Internet Explorer 8

Microsoft will release the first beta of Internet Explorer 8 in the first half of 2008 that will have full support for web standards. And the new browser will be known as “Windows Internet Explorer 8?. Website designers will be able to write websites based on standards, insert a flag that tells IE to render in IE8 standards mode, and IE will then switch its rendering engine to use this new mode. Thus IE8 won’t break the layout of existing websites coded for previous versions of IE (IE7 or IE6, for example). They’ll behave in exactly the same way in IE8 unless website designers opt-in to IE8 standards mode by placing a simple tag at the head of their HTML document. It is not immediately clear if Windows IE8 will be available for Windows 2000 and XP versions.

How to Open Password Protected PDF Documents

There are sometimes genuine reasons to unlock or crack a password protected PDF file. You have the legal right to open the encrypted PDF document but forgot the password like in the case below.

Say one of your former colleague created some critical sales reports in PDF format but he is not working with the company anymore. In his absence, you have no option but to crack the PDF password in order to open, read or print these PDF files.

There are basically two types of PDF protection - the original PDF creator can either restrict opening the PDF file itself or he can restrict others from modifying, printing or copying text and graphics from the PDF file. Here are a few possible workarounds:

When there are Copying or Printing Restrictions..

Say you want to print a couple of pages from the PDF document but the document settings won't let you do that.

Open the document in Acrobat Reader or Foxit and capture the PDF page as an image using any free screen capture software. If there are multiple pages, you may try SnagIt since it can autoscroll and capture multiple pages of the document in one-go.

If you want to copy just a portion of text from some PDF page, use a screen capture tool with OCR features (like Kleptomania, Capture Text discussed here)

Alternatively, you can invest in commercial solutions like Advanced PDF Password Recovery from ElcomSoft and PDF Password Remover from Very PDF.

(These utilities may not recover the password for you - they'll just remove the restrictions from the password protected file)

When there are Document Opening Restrictions..

This is a very tricky case and there's no straight-forward solution to read PDF documents that are password-protected at the Open level.

The software will use methods like Brute Force, Key Search and Dictionary Attack to guess the password. They will try to use all possible character combinations as the password and so the process might take hours or even days and would really depend on your computer's processing power.
Advanced PDF Password Recovery Professional edition from ElcomSoft is a recommended option. When (if) the password is found, the program shows it, as well as the number of passwords which have been tested, and the program speed.

Legal Issues: - you maybe surprised to learn that these PDF password cracking software are absolutely legal and Microsoft even awarded ElcomSoft a Gold Certified Partner status.