BrowserMob Launches Monitoring Tool For Website Health

BrowserMob, an on-demand performance and load testing software service, is launching a new monitoring tool that lets you measure the performance of your website over time, and alert you of problems. BroswerMob, which is a cloud-based service, is designed to help lower-trafficked websites (i.e. websites with less than one million visitors each month) prepare for potentially high traffic situations, such as a launch. BrowserMob presented its sites testing product at TechCrunch’s Cloud Computing Roundtable in February.

The monitoring tool checks your website from multiple locations in the cloud, using ta variety of browsers, captures screen shots of your website whenever it detects an error and notifies you immediately when these problems take place. The technology also detects problems outside of your firewall (ad vendor problems, issues with external widgets, etc.).

Patrick Lightbody, the founder of BrowserMob, says that he started the business because he found that there wasn’t a low-cost alternative for startups and SMBs which wanted to test out their sites for traffic and track performance. BrowserMob’s monitoring service is free for low-volume monitoring (the tool will check the site every hour) and starts at $30 per month for more in-depth coverage.

Though BrowserMob is focused on the smaller sites, the startup, which launched in 2008, has some big-name clients, such as Evite. Competitors to BrowserMob include Keynote Systems and AlertSite.

Steve Jobs Back

Yes guys you heard me right, Steve Jobs is back. Wait a minute even i am back blogging after a long break.

Well anyhow lets go back to the topic, When the Apple event started today, its CEO Steve Jobs took the stage to a really long standing ovation. In his opening remark he talked about the importance of organ donation. He noted that he now has the liver of a person in their mid - 20s who died in a car crash. Since organ donation was the reason that Jobs is alive today, he urged everyone to think about organ donation.

After that jobs thanked Tim Cook and the Apple's executive team who kept the Apple's ship sailing in his absence. Then it was time for Jobs to quickly move into some impressive statistics. Here are a handful of them:

iPhone

• 30 million iPhone have now been sold worldwide in a little over 2 years.
• There are now over 75,000 apps in the App Store
• There have now been some 1.8 billion App Store downlaods
• The 3.1 update for iPhone and iPod touch is launching today.

iTunes

• iTunes is now the #1 music retailer in the world
• 8.5 billion songs have been downloaded from iTunes
• There are now 100,000,000 accounts on iTunes, making it one of the largest stores on the web.

Chatbots try to impersonate humans - and fail

Alan Turing once said that “if, during text-based conversation, a machine is indistinguishable from a human, then it could be said to be ‘thinking’, and therefore could be attributed with intelligence”. This became known as the Turing test and yesterday five chatbots tried to pass the test. They failed spectacularly.

Every year since 1990, the Loebner Prize has been held to determine if there is a computer bot out there which is indistinguishable from a human being. The top prize of a gold medal and $100,000 is still waiting for the inventor of a computer bot which is indistinguishable from that of a human. So far, no one has won but people have won the bronze medal and $2000 for the prize of most human-like.

The winner yesterday was Elbot and I’ve been trying him out. He answered my questions quite well. When I asked him if he had feelings, he responded : “I think I have feelings. I cried when they killed the robot in Terminator“!

There’s no sound card in the website so everything is text-based. The Loebner judges decided though that he was only 25% accurate. So he didn’t even come remotely close to passing Turing’s test.

I think we can safely say that the possibility of something like Skynet, Terminator and cyborgs are probably a long way off. I don’t see Elbot taking over the world, do you?

iPhone 3G will be launched in India on August 18

Oh Finally we get the news that iPhone 3G will released in Indian on August 18. Vodafone will launch the iPhone 3G first on the 18th of August. And after 15 days you can also get it from Airtel too.
Pricing and other essentials are still unknown. But will update you ASAP.........

Email large files using Docstoc OneClick

DocStoc OneClick, the new app allows you to right click any documents on your desktop have them automatically uploaded to Docstoc, where a link is generated and inserted into a new message in your default email client (Gmail my case). OneClick also lets you simultaneously upload multiple files, grab embed code, and add other meta data your documents.

How to Use:

Step 1: Download Docstoc OneClick and Create a Profile on Docstoc

Step 2: Select the documents (.doc, .pdf, .xls, .ppt) you want to send in an email (you can select multiple documents). The documents can be up to 50MBs each.

Step 3: Right click and select “Email as Private” or “Email as Public”. “Email as Private” stores your files privately on Docstoc so no other users can access them without the secret URL link. “Email as Public” will publically display the document you send via email, and they can be accessed via docstoc and search engines.

Step 4: An email is auto-generated using your default email client. You can simply add the recipient(s) e-mail address(es).

Step 5: Your documents will be uploaded and processed in the background. Make sure not to close the OneClick application in your system tray.

Step 6: You will have a backup copy of your documents that you can access anytime by visiting your “my documents” on Docstoc.

Monitor the uptime of your websites with Uptime Scout

Uptime Scout is a new windows Utitlity which helps you ti monitors the Uptime of your website or Blog. Integrio Uptime Scout is a small tray application that allows you to monitor the availability of your website(s) and immediately notifies you if the website (or the server) goes down. The Integrio Uptime Scout monitors your websites in an interval that can be specified between 30 seconds to 30 minutes and logs any failure to connect to it. The log can be useful to create a uptime statistic for your website which can be used to decided if it is time to change the hoster.
Uptime Scout supports different notification methods, such as popup messages, sound alerts and email. Alert notifications can also trigger execution of user defined commands or a third-party application.

[Download Uptime Scout]

Free anti-spyware tool

FreeFixer is an anti-spyware tool helping you to delete potentially unwanted software, such as trojans, adware, spyware, worms and rootkits. It can also help you to remove home page hijacking and detect programs that use hiding techniques. FreeFixer scans your machine where unwanted software has a record of appearing or leaving traces. The scan locations include the your home page setting, your browser plug-in, the HOSTS file, processes, etc.
FreeFixer does not know which the bad files and settings are, so the scan result will contain many items you want to keep and perhaps some that you want to delete. It is up to you to decide. Please be careful! If you remove a legitimate file you may damage your computer.

Download Freefixer

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Improve your PC's performance

1. Defragment.

Defragmenting is a process that organizes contents of a hard drive to store files closer together. It also attempts to create more free space. After completing, you should notice immediate improvements in your computer’s speed and start up time. Defragmenting is free and can be done very easily using the following steps on an XP computer.

For Windows XP; Go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragment.

2. Anti – Virus

There are a lot of viruses on the internet and internet users need to protect themselves. Viruses can do harm to your computer and data, and they can slow down your system. This is why it’s important to regularly update your anti-virus program, and perform regular scans. However you must keep in mind it is not beneficial to install too many anti-virus programs. These programs can be helpful but the main problem is they take a lot of power to run, and you will be slowing down your PC unnecessarily. Always try to stay with one program at a time, and uninstall any others you are not using.

3. Delete Unnecessary Files

Freeing up space can improve the speed of your PC. Delete all the files you have downloaded and no longer want. Then remember to empty the recycle bin. Try a disk cleanup, which is located in system tools (same place as defragment). This will delete temporary internet files, empty the recycle bin for you etc. Lastly, you may want to download and install a program called CCleaner, it is free and is great for clearing internet history etc.

4. Uninstall Unused Programs

Most people install a lot of programs over time. If not used, these become a waste of space. Scroll through these often and uninstall the ones you do not plan to use in the near future.

For Windows XP; Go to Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs.

5. Disable Auto-Starting Programs

Disabling automatic opening of programs on startup will assist in a smoother startup of your PC. Nobody likes to turn on their computer and have to wait for it to open up programs and start doing virus scans. It is best to go into the options of a particular program and disable it to open at startup.