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If you are one of those who prefer to use IE over other browsers like Firefox, or the only reason that you switched to firefox was the lack of power tools and add-on’s in IE, think again. Here in this post i give out few addon’s that are not only comparable to firefox’s ones, but also are better in some sense.

The addons that I recommend are:

1. IE Developer Tools: The IE Developer Tool’s provides lots of features for exploring and understanding web-pages. In essence it is more or less like Firebug for Firefox browser. It allows your to view, edit, debug and monitor XHTML, CSS and JavaScript in any webpage. Personally as of today, while writing this post, i like the IE Developer Toolbar more than Firebug. Just try it, you’ll find out why!!!
2. ieSpell: ieSpell is a free Internet Explorer browser extension that spell checks text input boxes on a webpage. It should come in particularly handy for users who do a lot of web-based text entry (e.g. web mails, forums, blogs, diaries). Even if your web application already includes spell checking functionality, you might still want to install this utility because it is definitely much faster than a server-side solution. Plus you get to store and use your personal word list across all your applications, instead of maintaining separate ones on each application.
3. Fiddler: Fiddler is a Web Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP Traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler is designed to be much simpler than using NetMon or Achilles, and includes a simple but powerful JScript.NET event-based scripting subsystem.
4. Inline Search: Inline Search is an extremely useful free add-on for Internet Explorer that mimics Firefox’s search behavior. It turns searching in a web page into a non modal research experience coupled with a find as you type facility. It integrates flawlessly into IE (version 5.5 or above), giving it that little extra that makes you a lot more efficient when you are looking for a specific piece of information.
5. Adblock Pro: Adblock Pro is a small, effective, and intelligent ad blocker for IE & IE7. It can remove annoying ads of website without human intervention and features a smart engine that can identify possible ads and remove them even before you can see them. Adblock Pro can block annoying pop-ups, banner Ads, flying Ads, flash Ads, inline text ads and other Internet Ad annoyances. It not only eliminates the annoyances, but also improves your surfing speed as well. 
6. IE7 Pro: IE7 Pro is the most desired addon for Internet Explorer. It host a plethora of features to make IE more useful and friendlier. It includes most of the addons mentioned previously. It has an inbuilt spell checker, an Inline Search, Ad Blocker, support for Greasemonkey User Scripts, and a mini Download Manager called MiniDM, IE Faster to customize pre-fetching so as to make the maximum use of the bandwidth.
7. FoxyTunes: FoxyTunes lets you listen to music while you surf. It allows you to control most media players and find covers, lyrics and more with just a click in the browser. iTunes, Winamp, and Windows Media Player, among others, are supported.

There are many other great addons available on the web, but ask anyone and you’ll see that this list covers some of the best of the best. I personally use these, as I need to check my pages on both IE and Firefox.

Don’t just browse, empower yourself. Have Fun Browsing.

Keep hearing this new buzzword a lot? yet have no idea what does that mean to you any way? keep reading..

What is Cloud Computing?
Debate is still going on to decide on a definition for the term, yet put in simple sense, it is the ability to use the Internet to allow people to access technology-enabled services.

(Image Source:http://www.infoworld.com/archives/t.jsp?N=s&V=97481&source=fssr)

Advantages of cloud computing?
Some of the advantages that comes to mind are:

• High availability of resources.
• Easy Scalability
• Easy license management
• Easy management of hardware and software.

What exactly that would mean to us?

This concept could be easily understood by an old school student as it follows the dumb terminal model, the difference however is that it is at a much higher level, basically at a global level.

1. It means that all technology enabled services, be it hardware or software would be available in a central location. User(end users like you and me, and even enterprises), would no longer need to buy expensive hardware and upgrade it every few years, instead they just need some terminal/devices to interact with the cloud.
2. On a security point of view, users would no longer be bothered about software patches and upgrades, they would always have the latest available to them. The engineers maintaining the cloud database would take care of the rest. So no more windows updates or driver updates . It would easily take care of zero-day attacks and anti-virus updates etc.
3. High availability of resources would make sure that jobs are executed based on priority. Say you need to do a job that would require 100hrs of a CPU power, with cloud computing’s vast resource, you could hire 100 computers for an hour and get your job done. It may be a bit more expensive, but hey, you got to save 99hrs rite??
4. This concept could also mean that software licenses could be bought and sold. Once a user buys a software, he could use it for certain timeframe and then resell it(called First sale Rights), which is currently not an option.
5. Again no need to buy expensive one time hardware for certain use(like more RAM or high processing power for a particular job).  You can easily rent that for a certain amount of time.
6. Data in cloud means you have access to your data 24/7/365. Data would not be tied to any particular set of hardware like PC’s and mobiles, rather any device tagged to you would be able to use the data(depending on the type of data-device) Eg. You can buy songs which is stored in the cloud in your home directory, which could be played by your mp3 player, or maybe through your car’s stereo, or maybe the PC itself or even the mobile phone. Just one copy of data and any device could access it.

Cloud computing is still in its infancy. Major organizations like Google, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon etc are betting on it. Amazon has already launched its version of cloud computing architecture. Microsoft is still working with their Live Mesh, while Google and IBM have joined hands to create the greatest datacenter on the planet.

I remember seeing an awesomely kool looking video of Longhorn(now Vista) back in 2002-2003. It had features and GUI enough to push back Apple way behind the current game. For those who are not getting even a slightest idea check the video below.

[ youtube=http://youtube.com/w/?v=Tf29haATORQ]

So where are the features showcased during PDC-2003? Why Microsoft had to settle for something less and name it Vista? And why the features that resembles Mac? Why, Microsoft Why? What happened to Longhorn concept?Well, I’m still searching for the answer. Few points that come to my mind are:

• Business Strategy.

It could be Microsoft’s business strategy to first commercialize Vista, a rip-off of the longhorn concept, get the jargons Aero, Yukon, Avalon etc. out, and then release the main product. It could be like releasing Windows 2000 first and then XP(which is built over 2000).

• People not ready for it.

This could be partially true. If you remember Tablet-PC, which was popularized by Microsoft way back in 1993. There wasn’t much appreciation from the general public and Microsoft had to wait for almost a decade for it to get commercialize.

• Microsoft is still working on it.

The initial promise of Microsoft of a new File System, called WinFS was pulled off from Vista due to several reasons. Microsoft has to throughly test the whole new OS after integrating all the features. WinFS wouldn’t have finished by the deadline set for Vista’s release.

• More features = More resources

Well, I don’t need to explain much. Vista itself needs around 2Gb to work smoothly(512Mb minimum, but will minimum work for us?). A high level of UI presentation would mean a lot more that 4GB of RAM that the current 32-bit architecture won’t support.(Ahh i remember my old days when i begged my dad for 8Mb of RAM ).

• Not enough usage.

Yep, seriously, this could also be a reason. These features may look awesome to some, but for some it would be a time waster. There are a lot of people who change their start menu to the way old Win95/98/2k style and don’t prefer the xp/vista style. They feel comfortable in their old style zone. Pumping in all the frills may not be the update that they are looking for.

Well, all’s well that end’s well, i believe that Microsoft is not dropping the Longhorn concept, and would bring it back in the upcoming Windows7/Vienna.
What you say?