Top 10 tips for Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer has been a part of the Windows operating system for ages now. It received a fair bit of flak as well, but things really have improved, since the last couple of versions. Internet Explorer 9 - the latest public release offers a whole bunch of features and performance. If you haven’t tried it yet or if you had given it up, here’s time to give it a second chance. Head over to our download page and get yourself a copy of IE9 now.

Change the default search engine

Every browser has a default search engine that it uses. In the case of Microsoft, it’s Bing. Now Bing maybe a decent search engine, but most of us are used to Google as our default search engine. Here’s a quick way to make Google your search engine. To do this, click on the search icon dropdown in the address bar.

Making Google your default search engine

Click on the Add button and IE will load a bunch of add-ons. Look for Search add-ons and you’ll be able to find your favorite search engines there. Choose Google and click on the Add to Internet Explorer button to add it. You also get the option to make it your default search provider.

Pin your favourite sites (i.e Tech2) using IE9

Bookmarks are old now, the easier and quicker way to access your favorite web sites is to pin them. For example, now you can pin Tech2 to your taskbar and quicky access it right from your desktop. It involves dragging and dropping a tab from IE9 to your Windows 7 taskbar. You can findmore details here.

Enabling private browsing mode on IE9 startup

When your PC is being used by many users, it’s easy to leave traces of your browsing history on it. Browsers these days have a private browsing features that ensures that no no files and history of browsing is left back on the computer. Now, with Internet Explorer 9, you can choose to start the browser in this mode, so it’s easier to access. A shortcut can be placed on the Start menu or the desktop, depending on what is more convenient to you.

To do this, all you need to do is create a new Internet Explorer 9 shortcut. Right click on the desktop, click on New > Shortcut. Click on Browse and navigate to the Internet Explorer, which is usually in the Program Files folder. Enter the location as “C:Program FilesInternet Exploreriexplore.exe” -private. Click on Next and enter a name for the shortcut. Double clicking this new icon should launch Internet Explorer in the private mode.

Using IE9 as a feed reader

Using RSS feeds are an easy way of getting quick news updates from your favourite sites. For example, Tech2 uses RSS feeds and you can use the RSS feeds reading feature in Internet Explorer 9 to get the latest updates. To subscribe to a feed, simply click on the RSS link or icon on a particular site.

The built-in RSS feed reader on IE9

A page with all the latest feeds should appear. Click on the Subscribe to this feed to add the RSS feed to your list. The list of feeds will appear under the Favourites menu on the right top of the screen. You can also change the properties of the feed to refresh automatically after a set interval.

The Pirate Bay goes down for some upgrades

The Pirate Bay was down for a bit and while some might have thought that they were being shut down, they were actually down for some upgrades. Some other bits of information were released, like hosting the site in the sky. You heard that, The Pirate Bay, once the world’s most popular torrent hosting site and now the world’s largest Magnet link serving site is experimenting with something new. File hosting and torrent hosting sites have come under attack by the media industry and law enforcement agencies around the world. The Pirate Bay wants to redirect traffic to places that aren’t accessible and that is in the air. In a recent blog post on the site, Mr. Spock of The Pirate Bay talks about sending drones kilometres up in the air. The influence it seems comes from the Raspberry Pi, a portable ARM-based computing device that has been in the news recently for its low-power and compact design.

Not sinking, just updating hardware

The site hopes that to shut down their service, agencies will have to send aircrafts to take down their servers. The hope is that some day, there will be 100Mbps nodes placed at a distance of 50km from each other. Of course, all these plans are just being thought of, at the moment and nothing has been finalized, just yet. There have been several sites that have been shut down, off late. For example, Megaupload and its sister sites were taken down and the owners of the site were arrested. There’s also been reactions from other similar sites on the web, since then. For example, Rapidshare decided to cap the download speeds of their free users to just 30KB/s.

The Pirate Bay, itself has made a few changes over the past few months. The first move was to make Magnet links the default mode of downloading. Recently, they even disabled all the torrents links from the site except for downloads with a few peers. India isn’t far behind as far as taking action against pirate sites are concerned. Recently, a Kolkota court ordered ISPs to have more than a hundred pirated music sites to be blocked.

NEWS / SMARTPHONES Blurry cam image of supposed Samsung Galaxy S III spotted online

Not too long ago; yesterday, to be precise, an official looking render of the much awaited Samsung Galaxy S III had surfaced. This led the Internet to go wild with claims that this is what Samsung may actually reveal as the Galaxy S III. The image that surfaced yesterday was in-line with designs that have been expected to feature with this handset and unlike fans with Photoshop on their PCs, the image looked genuine. The picture of the handset that popped up yesterday featured an edge-to-edge display, a loudspeaker placed at the bottom of the bezel, a front-facing camera and a camera shutter button at the side. What seemed to come across as the most definite confirmation that the image could be the real deal was that it had a watermark of a PR company who has a track record of handling Samsung products. A few short hours later, another image of the highly anticipated handset has surfaced once more, this time, however, it is a blurry cam image of the handset that was captured in the wild.

First blurry cam image of the S III surfaces

According to a report by PhoneArena, the image has surfaced through the same medium, Reddit, and it has been posted by a person who claims to be a friend of a Samsung employee. The image in itself is not the best one available, as the flash ruins most of what can be told of the image. But the tipster was kind enough to detail some of the specifications that can found on this device. The source states, “the Samsung Galaxy S III will have a 4.7 inch screen that is characterized as being a Super AMOLED Plus screen with HD. Under the hood will be a quad-core Exynos 4412 processor. There will be 2GB of RAM aboard along with a 12MP camera (with flash). A 2250mAh battery will be powering the device and the whole phone is just 8mm thin.” The tipster goes on to add that Samsung is considering offering the Galaxy S III with Android 4.0 installed and TouchWiz on top of it as well as giving the user the option to toggle between the latter and a stock Android 4.0 experience. Also, the unit will have a ceramic “micro arc oxidation” back.

With the launch date looming close, we expect more details of this handset to surface. Let us know your reactions about the latest information of the Galaxy S III in the comments below.