Ever faced with a situation wherein you were trying all measures to get back you stolen laptop or PC? LocatePC comes to your rescue.

The software runs unobtrusively on your computer, with no icons, popups or saved emails. And the thief who has stolen your laptop, will not even know that LocatePC is running. As soon as the thief connects it to the Internet, it gives out a message to the mail id you have provided thus helping you map out your laptop. Working with LocatePC is simple. We will guide you here on how to install and work with this software.

The software runs on Windows Vista/XP/Me/98. Log in to your system and connect it to Internet. Remember LocatePC does not support HTTP proxy servers, mail servers that use SSL or SPA or IMAP (including Gmail and Hotmail), or email accounts that only work when the PC is connected to a specific ISP. Download the software from http://www.iconico.com/locatePC/index.aspx and install it.

Configure you email by clicking on “Settings” in the main “Console” menu. You need a POP email account for LocatePC to send you email. You can create one from AOL, Gawab, Bluebottle or @inMail24. Next, click on “Email message” under “Settings” menu and enter the mail id which is not your regular one, you can use your friend’s id.

Now go to “Email schedule” and set when you want to get an alert from LocatePC. The “Settings” menu also has an “Advanced” menu, that you shouldn’t normally need to change. It includes options such as, trace route, show reported IP address, etc. Now try an IP change. You will be greeted with an email with informationlike the IP address of the thief.

Give me a missed call when you are leaving for the cafe and I will see you there.” Doesn’t this sound familiar? We never let go of an opportunity to save money on our calls, and the best way to do this is to resort to missed calls. This is a convenient method to convey a mutually understood message, and saves cash too!

A recent Sri Lankan study titled Teleuse@BOP 08-09 conducted by the Asian ICT thinktank Lirneasia and reported by The Times of India says that giving missed calls is an Indian trait.

Giving a missed call may also mean that the person who gets it is to call back. Off late, “giving a missed call” has become a common phrase amongst people, and the habit may soon replace our good old SMS.

What could be the reason behind the tendency of the Indian populace to give missed calls? With the Telecom giants slashing rates
as days go by and handsets getting cheaper, owning a mobile phone is not a distant dream for many. As recently reported , about 40 percent of the future 250 million Indian wireless subscribers will be from the rural areas. This clearly signifies that India’s booming mobile telephony sector will continue its steady upward march with a major share of its growth originating from the rural areas.

Do you guys agree that giving missed calls is a habit unique to Indians? Is giving a missed call your way of saving money too? Do you think that if telecom companies further slash tariff rates and mobiles become cheaper, Indians would drop the habit? Let me know your thoughts on the issue in our comments section below.

Despite criticism that Windows Vista came in too many versions, Microsoft is moving ahead with plans to offer just as many editions of Windows 7.

Although the software maker will offer at least six distinct versions of the new operating system, Microsoft said to expect almost all PCs sold in the U.S. to come with either the Home Premium or Professional editions of the operating system.

“We’re going to focus on two versions,” Microsoft Senior Vice President Bill Veghte said in an interview, noting that those two versions will likely account for 80 percent of Windows 7 sales.

Still, versions of Windows 7 will include: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. Unlike with Vista, however, the Home Basic version will be sold only in emerging markets.

So, if Microsoft is going to focus on two, why bother with all of the other versions? Veghte says it comes down to the fact that there are just so many places in which Windows is sold.

For emerging markets, for example, Microsoft needs to have lower-priced versions. As a result, Microsoft plans the severely limited Windows 7 Starter as well as the bare bones, but relatively full-featured home basic version. Volume license customers will be able to get an enterprise version that includes BitLocker encryption and a couple of other enterprise-only features. For consumers who really want access to those features, there will again be an Ultimate version of the operating system.

That’s not to say Microsoft is doing everything the same with Windows 7. Veghte said that Microsoft learned some important lessons from Vista.

One specific criticism with the Vista packages was the fact that there were features in Home Premium that weren’t in the pricier Vista Business edition. With Windows 7, each higher-priced version will be a superset of the other versions. For example, the Professional version of Windows 7 includes Windows Media Center.

Also, Microsoft will make it easier to move from one version to another. With Vista, Microsoft introduced the notion of being able to easily upgrade from one version to another, though a special upgrade disk was needed. Windows 7, despite its many versions, will actually come as a single piece of code, or image. That means all the features will come loaded onto a Windows 7 PC, ready to be unlocked with an upgrade product key.

As for the specific versions, Windows 7 Starter has some of the key features of WIndows 7, such as the new taskbar, but not the live thumbnail previews. It is also limited to three applications running at a time and will have limitations on the kinds of screen resolutions and processors it will support.

Home Basic, which will be sold only in emerging markets, removes the screen size, processor, and open application limits and adds support for Internet connection sharing and the new sensor and location-based features. However, Home Basic lacks such things as multitouch support or the Aero interface. DVD playback and Windows Media Center are also found in the Home Premium and Professional editions, but not in Basic or Starter.

The ability to use presentation mode or join a domain are two examples of features that are found in Windows 7 Professional, but not in any of the home versions. Finally, you’ll need either Ultimate or Enterprise for a few features, such as DirectAccess, BitLocker, or booting from a virtual hard drive.

Regardless of the rationale, having so many versions of Windows 7–not to mention any additional versions mandated by antitrust regulators around the world–will certainly open Microsoft up to additional criticism and probably some mocking from the folks in Cupertino.

To some degree, the customization is necessary. After all, while Apple may boast of only having one version–it essentially targets only the high end of the consumer market–the segment served by Home Premium.

However, the need for an Ultimate version, particularly now that the Professional version will have Media Center and other consumer features, seems somewhat dubious.

Contuinuing with the features of Windows 7, I would like to add three more to it.

1. Libraries: Both Windows and OS X have special folders for storing documents, images, music, videos, etc. But don’t you just hate it when you fill up your hard drive with music, having to move all MP3s to a larger drive and then re-route the Music folder to this new location? Not anymore. In Windows 7, you simply add a new location to your Music folder. The Library feature allows your MP3s to reside on any number of internal, external and network locations, while they appear to reside inside the Music folder. Better yet, the new Federated Search enables you to search Libraries, too, so you can easily locate media files across multiple locations. A fantastic new feature.

2. Play To and Windows Media Center: Windows has become better multimedia center than any other OS till date. The Jump To feature enables you to send video and audio output from one PC to a network-enabled media player, home stereo and even other PCs on the network – a trivial and tremendously useful feature any other OS still lacks. More importantly, Windows Media Center, which now looks much more attractive thanks to more eligible fonts and has become much more useful due to the addition of Internet TV and the ability to customize its start menu.

3. Device Stage: Windows 7 brings a new feature that shows all the features and documents relating you hardware in a single window. Connect your mobile phone and it appears in Windows Explorer. Click on it and a window comes up with vendor-branded background (if a vendor supports this feature) that might show basic information about the cellphone, its capabilities, links to its manual and the latest driver, in addition to advanced features like syncing capabilities, copying videos and images from a device, setting ringtones, etc. Just like it is the case with Vista, you have to search down through various system features and applications to access different capabilities of a device. Before Windows 7, we never thought there was a better way of doing this. Device Stage not only feels right, it is a better approach to assemble your key hardware in one place

So Just start using Windows 7, and discover the Ultimate thing from it.

I would appreciate your comments, before and after using the Windows 7.

I have started using the Windows 7. I am one of the many users who did not go to Windows Vista from Windows XP and continued using it till date. I swear this is very much fast than Windows XP. I like this OS beacuse of its numerous features like Taskbar, able to Administer settings at the deepest level, a new snipping tool, professional looking inbuilt applications like Word Pad and Paint, its touch capabality and many more still being discovered as being used. I shall discuss some of them here and some later on. To start with touch and taskbar.

1. Multi-Touch: It seems that Windows 7, will become the first consumer OS to bring multi-touch capability to the masses after all. We were afraid Microsoft will try to sell Windows 7 on the multi-touch pitch alone but are, in fact, pleasantly surprised with the implementation. There is an on-screen virtual keyboard and gestures for common mouse actions, like dragging and right-clicking, that work throughout Windows 7 and applications like Paint and Microsoft Earth. Click on a taskbar icon to reveal the Jump List or draw a “b” in Internet Explorer 8 to go backwards. Gestures are tied into mouse navigation calls, so any Windows application will be able to support multi-touch right away. Windows 7 is multi-touch on desktops done right and Microsoft should be credited for that.

2. Windows 7 taskbar: The Dock in any other OS means business, but the new, taller taskbar in Windows 7 has nifty features, like live thumbnails that fan out in a row when you hover the mouse pointer over an application icon in the taskbar. Thumbnails are created not only for the windows an application has opened, but for tabs as well. Hover over the Internet Explorer 8 icon and the thumbnails show all opened tabs. When you hover over a thumbnail, you get a full-sized screenshot of a window or a tab without switching the application. Task thumbnails enable faster task switching and more efficient windows management than the Dock + Expose combo in any other OS. Like it or not, I believe the new taskbar in Windows 7 is a whole step ahead of the Dock in any other  OS.

According to a Springboard Research report released Tuesday, the Indian IT market will not be as severely affected by the downturn as economies in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific markets such as Japan and Korea.

In fact, IT spending in India will still expand by 14.1 percent in 2009, albeit at a slower rate than the 18.1 percent growth it clocked last year, the research firm predicted.

Verticals such as retails and real estate will see the largest cuts in IT budgets, Springboard noted, while telecommunications will see some growth from the anticipated arrival of 3G this year.

After a series of delays, India is expected to conduct its first 3G spectrum auction this year, though the country’s Cabinet last week said a ministerial panel is currently looking to resolve several related issues, such as deciding on the base auction price.

However, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), which are both India state-owned enterprises or Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), were given 3G spectrum last year ahead of private telecommunication services providers. Both operators will be required to pay the same license fee when the auction is finalized.

MTNL recently launched its 3G mobile services in selected areas in New Delhi.

The top 10 trends Springboard believes will shape India’s IT market this year:

1. Arrival of 3G will unlock enormous opportunities for IT vendors.

2. Cost concerns will drive key focus on IT infrastructure consolidation.

3. Economic pressures will drive SMBs toward outsourcing and software-as-a-service.

4. Startups and smaller businesses will become more important accounts for IT vendors.

5. Virtualization will gain traction in medium- and large-sized enterprises.

6. IT outsourcing will be seen as a catalyst to HR (human resource) retention and cost reductions during this economic downturn.

7. The media and entertainment industry will transform further with new technologies.

8. Online advertising markets to gain momentum with the emergence of niche social networking sites and regional portals. 9. The public sector will buoy IT spending.

10. Green IT will be fueled by cost-efficiency benefits.

Microsoft officials said late last week they already have more than enough beta testers for Windows 7, but still are extending the cut-off date for downloads of the beta release.

Microsoft had a rocky start to its Windows 7 beta due to insufficient server capacity. To make amends to frustrated wanna-be testers, Microsoft extended the number of beta copies available for the two-week download period, slated to end on January 24. On January 23, company officials said they had decided to extend the beta download date until February 10.

More details from last week’s post to the Windows Team blog:

“Product keys for the Windows 7 Beta will continue to be available. So if you have the Windows 7 Beta but didn’t get a product key you will be able to do so even after February 12th.

“MSDN and TechNet Subscribers will continue to have access to the Windows 7 Beta bits throughout the Windows 7 Beta phase. The above dates do not apply to MSDN and TechNet Subscribers.”

The expiration date on the Windows 7 beta is August 1, 2009. A release candidate is expected to go to go out to select testers before that date. Many company watchers, partners and customer are expecting Microsoft to release to manufacturing the final Windows 7 build in the third quarter of 2009.

On January 26, Microsoft made available to the public for download a near-final test build of its Internet Explorer (IE) 8 browser.

The IE 8 Release Candidate (RC) 1 is the last public build Microsoft expects to deliver before releasing the final version of the product, which will be available as a standalone download and part of Windows 7. (Microsoft will continue to make smaller private builds of the browser available to select testers in the coming weeks/months.)

Microsoft has made the IE 8 RC1 bits for 32-bit Vista, 64-bit Vista and Windows XP available on its Download Center for anyone interested in trying out the newest browser build.

The RC 1 build includes performance tweaks, compatibility enhancers and a few other fairly minor changes to the Beta 2 version of the product Microsoft made available to testers last summer. Microsoft officials are calling the IE 8 RC 1 build “platform-complete,” meaning that developers and users should expect no more programming- or user-interface changes in the product from here on out.

What’s changed since Beta 2?

The compatibility list enhancements: Microsoft is going to provide users who want it with a list of 2,000 sites that will automatically be viewed by default in compatibility view without users having to press the compatibility view button. (Microsoft will update this list every two months to reflect sites that are updated to be compatible with IE 8, officials said).

A new ClickJacking prevention option: Developers will be able to add a tage in a page header that will help detect and prevent click-jacking. According to Microsoft, IE 8 “will detect sites that insert the tag and give users a new error screen indicating that the content host has chosen not to allow their content to be framed, while giving users the option to open the content in a new window.”

Changes to the Smart Address bar: Besides matching URLs in a user’s site history the bar now also better matches titles in their history and favorites.
Other changes include performance tweaks that will speed up page loading; changes to the Instant Search Box (to include a “quick pick menu” at the bottom, so users can toggle between their favorite search suggestions from different search providers); full support for CSS 2.1; and a renaming of InPrivate Blocking (part of “porn mode”) to InPrivate Filtering.

With IE 8 RC1, users can manually adjust the threshold between 3 and 30 in InPrivate Filtering settings. A full list of what’s changed in IE 8 since the beta is here.

As Microsoft acknowledged recently, IE 8 RC1 won’t work on the Windows 7 Beta; Windows 7 testers who want to try the RC need to run it in a virtual machine.

Yahoo plans to discontinue its Briefcase service, which allows people to store files online for free.

The service will be shut down on March 30, the company said on Wednesday. Yahoo is warning users to retrieve or delete their documents before that date.

Briefcase, which offered 30MB of online storage, was launched almost 10 years ago. However, “usage has been significantly declining over the years, as users outgrew the need for Yahoo Briefcase and turned to offerings with much more storage and enhanced sharing capabilities”, the company said in a statement.

There are now many alternative online storage services to Briefcase. Notable rivals include Microsoft’s SkyDrive, a Windows Live service that offers 25GB of free storage.

There are also signs that Google may be preparing a free online storage product called GDrive. Recent reports have pointed to a reference to GDrive in an online, recently updated file associated with its Google Pack bundle of free software, which includes Chrome and Picasa. The file text says that GDrive “provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents [and] allows you to access your files from anywhere, any time and from any device — be it from your desktop, web browser or mobile phone”.

Microsoft officials on January 30 reiterated that there will be no public Beta 2 of Windows 7 and the next milestone will be the Release Candidate (RC) test build of the operating system.

On the “Engineering Windows 7″ blog, Windows development chief Steven Sinofsky reiterated what officials stated less plainly at the Professional Developers Conference last year: There will be just one beta of Windows 7.

Sinofsky emphasized in his new post that Microsoft is not sharing any new ship date targets for Windows 7. As has been known for a while now, Microsoft’s delivery plan for Windows 7 is to deliver a public beta, an RC (it’s not clear at this point if that will be public or private) and then release to manufacturing (RTM). The RC will be”Windows 7 as we intend to ship it,” Sinofsky blogged. More about the RC from his post:

“We will continue to listen to feedback and telemetry with the focus on addressing only the most critical issues that arise. We will be very clear in communicating any changes that have a visible impact on the product. This release allows the whole ecosystem to reach a known state together and make sure that we are all ready together for the Release to Manufacturing. Once we get to RC, the whole ecosystem is in “dress rehearsal” mode for the next steps.”

Microsoft’s “official” response when asked for a ship-date target for Windows 7 remains three years after Vista’s general availability date (which was January 29, 2007). Many customers and partners believe Microsoft is continuing to target Q3 of this year as its RTM date.