Microsoft Bing

If you are tired of being clueless while listening to your friends talk about the latest buzz in the tech world, here are some things that will get you up to date and help you sound like a pro.

What is Bing ?

A web search engine by Microsoft, which is a replacement for Live Search; it went fully online on June 03, 2009.

It was being touted as the 'Google Killer' prior to it's release. Bing tries to save you time and the number of clicks to search the net. If you type the name of a store or a place, Bing will give preference to locations closest to you. Unlike Google, image search gets you a page that contains all the results on the same screen.

Users still feels it's hard for any search engine to outdo Google. They also have doubts if it ensures better search results. Indian netizens won't find explicit images and videos on it either! However, Bing has accumulated 34,000 fans on Facebook already.

Apple iPhone 3G S

WHAT IS IT: Apple announced a third version of the iPhone, dubbed the iPhone 3G S (the S stands for speed) recently. This new version has several updates over the iPhone 3G model.

WHAT MAKES IT COOL: Apple boasts that you can load Web pages and launch apps twice as fast as the previous model. It also promises improved 3D graphics for games (including he super awesome Doom) as well as improved battery life. Plus, it may come with a price cut.

YOUR VERDICT: Although the new 3-mega pixel camera is an improvement over the 2-mega pixel one, user feel it pales in comparison to other superior camera phones flooding the market. But then, owning an iPhone has always been as much about showing off as it is a utility -- that alone get youngsters hooked.

Registry Tweaks to Enhance Your Windows XPerience

You may ask yourselves, why should this article be any different from all those tweaking tutorials around the Internet or, better yet, why should you read this when you can install a program that does it all for you? Here's why: this article will help you make important changes to your system with just two windows opened: this one and a notepad. That's all! No need to click your way through dozens of windows, no need to go through the risk of pushing the wrong button and crashing your operating system. 

Furthermore, you don't have to pay a single cent! Why pay for a program to do what you yourselves can do in just a few seconds? And last but not least, you will be able to choose from a list only the tweaks that you're interested in and then apply them on any computer, at any time with just a double-click. Tweaking can hardly get any easier than that! Think how cool that would be, especially after reinstalling Windows.

Let's start by creating the file that will do all the magic. Right-click on your desktop, create a new text document and name it tweaks.reg. Windows will ask if you're sure that you want to change the file extension – click Yes. Right-click the file and choose Edit: a blank notepad window will appear. There are two things you must keep in mind: first of all, for the magic to work your text document must start with 'Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00'. Secondly, later on, be very patient when copying something to paste it in your document. If you copy an incomplete text, the tweak will not work and you might alter other system settings. 

As for the pieces of advice that will make your work easier when creating the tweaking file, just keep in mind two things: remember the purpose of each line (you can use comment lines in which you can write whatever you like as long as they start with a semicolon) and, of course, know that there's no problem in leaving a few lines empty between each tweak, to help you differentiate them. 

Now here's a list of system tweaks for you to choose from. The idea is quite simple: I'll provide a few lines (the tweak) and a short explanation for what they do. If you're interested in seeing the tweak applied to your computer, all you have to do is paste the lines at the bottom (no, you can't paste them anywhere you like) of your tweaks.reg file. 

To make sure I've got your attention, in this article I’ll post optimizations that are either impossible to apply in a conventional way (from Windows Explorer or Control Panel, for example) or possible, but pretty tedious, so getting your hands dirty in less known parts of Windows would normally be necessary in order to apply them.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer]

"NoLowDiskSpaceChecks"=dword:00000001

It will deactivate the annoying "Low Disk Space" message that appears in your system tray each time one of your drives is almost full.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/policies/system]

"NoInternetOpenWith"=dword:00000001

This baby will remove the window that always pops up when you try opening a file that is not assigned to a program, asking you if you wish to go online and find out which program you should use to open that type of file. After applying this patch, you’ll see just the Open With window.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/CabinetState]

"Use Search Asst"="no"

I don't know about you, but I'm a big fan of the old, classic search, without any "assistants." So if you don't like the Windows XP default search interface and prefer the classic from its predecessors, just add these lines to your tweaks.reg file.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Sound]

"Beep"="no"

"ExtendedSounds"="no"

If you haven't got the chance to install a sound driver, you've surely noticed the annoying beeps made by your motherboard each time an alert window pops up. After applying this tweak, you won't need to worry about these beeps anymore.

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/lnkfile]

"IsShortcut"=-

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/piffile]

"IsShortCut"=-

Add this tweak to your list if you don't want your Windows XP to constantly add the shortcut arrow each time you create a shortcut.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current/Version/Explorer/Advanced]

"ShowInfoTip"=dword:00000000

If you find the tool tips containing information displayed by Windows when hovering a file with your mouse rather bothersome, adding this optimization to your tweaks.reg file will help you get rid of them.

I'll stop here and be back soon to continue my list with a lot more interesting tweaks in a future article. So all you have to do now is save the contents of the tweaks.reg window, close it and then double-click it. Windows will ask if you wish to add the information stored in tweaks.reg to your registry. If you're sure you've followed each step correctly, go right ahead and press Yes. 

In the meantime, if you know any other cool tweaks or had problems creating the tweaks file, just post a comment to this article and have your say.

Sims 3 Manages to Sell Over 1.4 Million Copies in the First Week

Electronic Arts has a lot of best-selling franchises, with the likes of Need for Speed or its famed sports series, Madden or FIFA. But none of them have a longer-lasting appeal and the opportunity to generate further income through add-ons like its Sims franchise.

In further testimony to the popularity that the life simulator enjoys all over the world, the company has just announced that the third numbered iteration in the series, The Sims 3, has sold over 1.4 million copies for the PC and Mac platforms all around the world. This number is even more impressive as it has been achieved in just one week since it was released in stores.

A big factor in the popularity that the game has enjoyed, and in large part in the piracy problem it has been going through since before it was officially released, is the much softer DRM measures that were taken for it. Gone is the infamous SecuROM system, which is replaced by a simple disc check in order for people to play the game, thus eliminating a lot of problems for both EA and the end-users, unlike what happened with Spore last year.

“We feel like this is a good, time-proven solution that makes it easy for you to play the game without DRM methods that feel overly invasive or leave you concerned about authorization server access in the distant future,” the company said in a statement.

The title, created by the team on Electronic Arts' Redwood Shores campus, has also earned some very positive reviews from gaming critics and specialists and is certain to keep on selling for quite some time now, given the proven track record of any Sims release. Look forward to our review at the end of this week.

Possible Extra-Galactic planet detected.

"Using a technique called pixel-lensing, a group of astronomers in Italy may have detected a planet orbiting another star. But this planet is unique among the 300-plus exoplanets discovered so far, as it and its parent star are in another galaxy. The Andromeda Galaxy, to be exact. Technically, the star in M31 was found to have a companion about 6 times the mass of Jupiter, so it could be either a brown dwarf or a planet. But either way, this is a remarkable feat, to find an object of that size in another galaxy."

Microsoft Windows 7 Launch Date Presumably Revealed.

Several computer manufacturers have revealed that Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 7 next-generation operating system (OS) will be released officially on the 23^rd of October, 2009, if there are no changes in the plans.

“23^rd October is the date the Windows 7 will be available. There is a 30 day upgrade time so that customers don’t wait to buy a new computer, so if you buy during that 30 day period, you’ll get a free upgrade to Windows 7,” said Robert Watkins, managing director of Acer UK.

Earlier this year other makers of computers pointed at September – October timeframe for Windows 7 release, but the exact date has not been revealed so far.

It is widely known that Microsoft has been working hard to improve user interface as well as performance in Windows 7 and make the new OS much more user friendly overall. Many reviewers and early adopters agree that Microsoft has succeeded in improving its desktop OS dramatically. Microsoft Windows 7 will also bring numerous further improvements, including DirectX 11 application programming interface, as well as support for touch-based input.

Many computer makers as well as hardware designers expect the launch Windows 7 to catalyze end-users to buy new personal computers and spur sales of modern technology, which will boost revenues and profits of the tech sector that suffers from the global economic crisis.

Acer said that its all-in-one Z5600 machine with touch-screen display was specifically designed for Windows 7 OS.