TechNama

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and BusinesWeek have recently revealed a list of 50 most innovative companies based on a survey done by BCG. BCG sent a questionnaire to top executives all around the world out of which 2700 responded anonymously with their opinion. They were asked to mention companies that consistently offer innovative products, customer experiences, business models, or processes. Those who mentioned their own employers were not considered. Apart from executives’ opinions financial performance of the companies was also gauged to determine the final results. Here are the first 20 finalists of most innovative companies:

2009 Rank	2008 Rank	Company	HQ Country
1	1	APPLE	U.S.
2	2	GOOGLE	U.S.
3	3	TOYOTA MOTOR	Japan
4	5	MICROSOFT	U.S.
5	7	NINTENDO	Japan
6	12	IBM	U.S.
7	15	HEWLETT-PACKARD	U.S.
8	13	RESEARCH IN MOTION	Canada
9	10	NOKIA	Finland
10	23	WAL-MART STORES	U.S.
11	11	AMAZON.COM	U.S.
12	8	PROCTER & GAMBLE	U.S.
13	6	TATA GROUP	India
14	9	SONY	Japan
15	19	RELIANCE INDUSTRIES	India
16	26	SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS	South Korea
17	4	GENERAL ELECTRIC	U.S.
18	NR	VOLKSWAGEN	Germany
19	30	MCDONALDS	U.S.
20	14	BMW	Germany

[Data from BusinessWeek]

To be honest, i will not claim i am a fan of Ubuntu and that i have installed it on my home or personal pc but since i observed that there is a lot of our users taking interest in our articles with the key word of “Linux” or “Ubuntu” so i decided to find some cool Ubuntu/Gnome themes and make them available for our readers. I must confess i love cool themes, wallpapers and other things that feels good on the user eyes. We have also earlier compiled a list of 37 Best Windows 7 Themes for our readers.

These themes are taken from Gnome look and you can see their screenshot and find the downland link next to it. If you come across any other cool themes, feel free to let us know and we will make theme available here so that everyone can benefit from them.

Apotheosis Ubuntu Theme (Download)

Moomex Ubuntu Theme (Download)

Elegant Brit (Download)

Blue Joy (Download)

Darker Ice Murrina (Download)

Willibex Theme (Download)

BluBuntu Auroroa (Download)

Mesmerized Theme (Download)

Tigirs Ubuntu Theme (Download)

Orange Door Hinge (Download)

Hardy Theme 2.0 (Download)

Fedora Dark (Download)

Ice Orange (Download)

GSM GTK Theme (Download)

Softice (Download)

Human Chrome (Download)

Effin2 (Download)

Coal and Glass Ubuntu Theme (Download)

Blue Space Theme (Download)

Glow (Download)

Fawn Theme (Download)

BlueMan Theme (Download)

Clearbloodline Ubuntu Theme (Download)

ClearLooksMetallico (Download)

Shiftie July (Download)

ColorBit Theme (Download)

Kith V1.0 Ubuntu Theme (Download)

Chris Ubuntu Theme (Download)

Mira Theme (Download)

Shiki Colors Theme (Download)

Creamy Linux Theme (Download)

Carbon Fibre Ubuntu Theme (Download)

Raport Slickness Remix (Download)

Gaia Nova Theme (Download)

OverGlossed Theme (Download)

Gilouche Posh Theme (Download)

GrayWin Theme (Download)

TechNix Theme (Download)

Dyne 2.0 Theme (Download)

Mac4Lin Ver GTK Metacity (Download)

Murrina Inspirat (Download)

Bruzd Nodoka (Download)

XNTricity Theme (Download)

Halflight Theme (Download)

Moomex-Ultimatum Theme (Download)

Nimbus Vista Ubuntu Theme (Download)

Cobra Theme (Download

NoName Peace Theme (Download)

Blue Junior Theme (Download)

Murrina Limelight Ubuntu Theme (Download)

Tekhs Silver Blue Theme (Download)

Kore Gnome Theme (Download)

Orange Linsta Black Plastic (Download)

Glasa/Glasa Pro Theme (Download)

Darklce 0.3 Theme (Download)

Royale Ubuntu Theme (Download)

Neon Theme (Download)

Laza Ubuntu Theme (Download)

Rinsei Theme (Download)

AquaLooks Theme (Download)

Bamboo Zen Theme (Download)

Murrina Chrome (Download)

Thanks to Mohtasham. If you encounter any problem in its installation, visit this page.

Many a times you get frustrated when your system hangs or lingers on so slowly and the prime reason for this is that there are too many processes running and you don’t have enough control with Windows Task Manager. While in the midst of development or you’re about to finish with your Photoshop you seriously can not to afford to loose any data just because of the shitty hang process. What you could have done here? Probably free up some resources; atleast you won’t be needing many network related services that are eating up your resources. But how would you do it since Windows Task Manager isn’t the ultimate answer… as it doesn’t allow me to suspend or pause a particular process and then resume it when I am done with memory or CPU extensive work.

The good answer to such a problem is “Process Hacker” (download Process Hacker). Process Hacker open source feature-packed great tool for altering and manipulating processes and services on your computer. After succesfully setting up this tool you can terminate, suspend, resume, restart and prioritize processes. Processes are highlighted to provide additional information such as whether they are elevated or in a job.

Here are features that need appreciation:

• You can customize the tree view and sort the columns
• Get detailed performance graphs. While you take your mouse to any peak of the graph it show info for which process or service has created that peak and how much percent it has utilized of CPU and memory
• A complete list of Processes, Services and Network services giving ultimate control to terminate, start, stop, pause and resume them
• You can check performance of each individual process along with its thread listing and stacks with dbghelp symbols, token information, module and mapped file information, virtual memory map and environment variables
• You can find hidden processes running in the background and  even kill them as well.

There are many more features that you can find on its website. Now I will take you through the screenshot tour of Process Hacker:

PS: Note that previously we posted on how to analyze svchost.exe with svchost process analyzer; this process hacker can be used as a better substitute since it has many features. Good luck with your procees killing

ZeroTrace is a portable app to scan history and cookies and then remove (delete) them instantly.  It can be downloaded in a zip file of a size of 478kb. So its really very easy to carry it with you all the time in your portable drive. The app can be really handy tool if you are using computer on some public system and don’t want to leave your traces. The app simply shred the files containing your traces so no one can recover it with any recovery tools. So you don’t have to worry about your privacy anymore when ever and where ever you want to use public computers.

The ZeroTrace do not need any long installation procedures like majority of other software’s. You can instantly run it from any source and it will list all the details of the cookies from web browsing, web cache, history of different applications, record of recent activity on windows etc. The app can be used to permanently delete all the history and remove all the traces.

Summary of features of ZeroTrace

* Scans all Cookies
* Delete all or select cookies
* History Chooser
* Deletes IE URL History
* Deletes IE Cache History
* Deletes Windows Media Player History
* Clears Start / Run Menu
* Clears Start / Recent Documents
* AOL 2 – 6 Cache Removal
* Netscape Browser Cache removal
* Empties recycle bin
* Add Directory and file removal
* Advanced File Shredding
* Easy Layout

New Features includes clearing of

* Google Chrome cache
* Mozilla Firefox Cache
* QuickTime Cache
* Google Search Cache
* Adobe Flash Player Cache
* WinDVD Player Cache
* Faster File Removal
Below are the screen shots of the software taken from AT.  To download ZeroTrace click here.

[via DanceMammal]

Trackle is the Cool, Smart and Innovative competitor of Google Alerts, Yotify and Alerts.com.  Trackle is personalized web scout that can help cull the web for any topic and bring the latest information to you. The diverse range of information that it can track makes it a very unique site. Trackle can track the crime in your neighborhood, update you on the latest price of any item on the Internet and alert you when your favourite iTune, books or movies are available. Not only this, there are few dozens of categories that you can chose and trackle for updates.

Trackle out perform its rivals in the sheer amount of categories it can track and maintain a very organized alert system. Trackle will ensure that there is no repetition of alerts and hence the precious time of its users is not wasted by duplicate alerts. The tracklets can be created by giving any keywords to a single group of tracklets.

I created my tracklet for the key word of TechNama to keep an eye on the websites and blogs that discuss us. I have been using Google Alerts but i think the Trackle interface is much friendly then the other traditional rivals. The amazing thing about Trickle is that it can give you alerts through a variety of modes including e mail and SMS. Users can enable an sms based alert to get notified while being on the go.

Now a one negative point of Trackle. The additional features will not be applicable to you if you are residing outside US. So a person like me can sit back and relax and wait for the Trackle team to provide the same services in the other regions of the world.

Trackle was founded by Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur Pavan Nigam and technology executive Naveen Saxea. Nigam was the founder of Healtheon (a health care start-up that merged with WebMD in 1999) and Cendura (a start-up that was acquired by Computer Associates in 2006). Trackle. Trackle has received seed funding by NEA (New Enterprise Associates) and other angel investors.

Trackle plans to make it the essential alert system for the web. They plan to get it sticked on all the websites and users can click it to get the alerts for the site just like the traditional RSS links. Since the alerts are in real time and offers variety of other functionalities, we see a strong potential in the idea.

What’s your take on Trackle? Do you think it can outsmart others like Google Alerts and Yotify?

How many times you have been thinking to switch from old software but you couldn’t find any alternative? Now there is an alternative to what you have been thinking. Whether you’re bored with your software or your software just sucks and you can not change it just because you don’t know its alternative or you’re just trying to get a feel for what’s out there, AlternativeTo is a handy service for finding software alternatives.

You can find a good list of options or alternatives for online web apps, windows, Mac or Linux programs. Apart from filtering down by these platforms you can always search or look for “Most Likes” to check out which alternatives are most popular and may work for you as well. If you have a good alternative for a software, you can also suggest to improve it.

Interestingly the alternativeness (or whatever you call it) is based on the likeness it ihas received from users. For example when I checked alternatives of Photoshop it was showing GIMP as the first alternative and the prime reason was people had most likes for this than any other alternative so it was placed on top. Okay – this is cool way and people can decide the alternative based on their experience so thumbs up!

Do share your experiance with us if you happen to test any alternative from alternativeto.

Imaginative mindsets are working these days to come out with anything that make appeal to the eyes. iPhone has been one of the new epicenter surrounded by creativity.

I came across these new wood inspired docks for iPhone so i decided to cover them on my blog.  First one is the trunk shaped iPhone docking system while the second one is simple wooden iPhone dock. The device is compatible with iphone 3g and all ipod devices(except the shuffle). So now you can avoid the typical looks of the iPhone charger on  your table and replace it with this stylish and yet natural gadget. The docs are priced at $10.
Tree Trunk iPhone Dock

The second one is the simple wood inspired iPhone Dock

[via ETSY]

Hand crafted beautifully designed mini helmets are the perfect small geek items to fill the extra space on your desk. Each one is created entirely by hand, chrome plated and constructed from real steel. Every piece comes with a solid wood stand for display. They are available in three different historical designs i.e medieval Maximillian helm, the Roman Centurion helmet with plume, or the LOTR inspired Knights helm.
They are available at a price of $15

[via ThinkGeek]

Transformer Tigatron can now transform itself into a USB flash drive.  The USB comes with a 2GB memory and is compatible with both Windows and MAC platforms.

Details Specs:
OS: Windows 2000 / XP / Vista & Mac
Interface: USB 1.1 / 2.0
Speed: 480 mpbs USB 2.0 / 12 mpbs USB 1.1
Memory: 2 GBThe device is available for $50 at GS4U

I am always on the backfoot when it comes to handing out my personal USB or external HDD to my colleagues or even nearest of my friends since my data is lying open there and any one can just copy or view it. If you face similar situation like me you can consider TrueCrypt which is a light and open source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux. TrueCrypt has been downloaded 10,114,479 times; wow it’s popular! Why were we missing it yet.

So how does it work? TrueCrypt creates an Encrypted Virtual Disk (EVD) within a file and mounts it as a real disk. So when you put some data in to EVD it is automatically encrypted on the fly. On-the-fly encryption means that data is automatically encrypted or decrypted right before it is loaded or saved, without any user intervention. Data stored on encrypted disk can only be read if you provide authorization password. You can not even make hunch that which file it may be since entire file system is encrypted (e.g., file names, folder names, contents of every file, free space, meta data, etc).

Let’s come to the point…how actually it encrypts/decrypts the data…does it save something into my hard disk? Well if you have porn movies that you don’t want your office admins to see make an EVD, put your .avi or  .mpeg files there and be safe . You won’t be caught. Once you store it in EVD it will be completely encrypted and now that nobody is around you and you want to see the movie give your password and open the EVD. Now double click to open your video file. System will open media player to show your video. TrueCrypt decrypts and passes on video data chunks to RAM which is then played by media player.

Well, to conclude i would say that it is one of the best encrypting/decrypting open source tools and requires some thumbs up!

Here are the screenshots for TrueCrypt:

Are you all working hard with building your vocabulary to appear in SAT, GRE or ACT? Here is your chance to do it innovatively with Wordahead.com. If you learn something in a fun way, that remains forever in your memory and this is what wordahead aims to do for potential vocab learners. WordAhead, a free video vocabulary website offers an innovative method to help students learn and remember difficult English words.

Basically the words are described using audio/visual cues with the help of short, simple and fun multimedia clips. The multimedia clips contain pictures or illustrations with audio commentary giving pronunciation and contextual explanation of the word. It would have been more compelling if the characters inside the illustrations were animated; either i am missing to find animations or am asking too much from wordahead team:). The attention span for learners has been kept in mind while producing clips so you won’t see any longer videos. And hey teachers can also benefit from this by just showing some interesting clips to their students or assigning them to make an interesting clip for a word and then upload it. After the review, if video is approved it appears in video section and even if it gets more popular it can enter in to ’studyroom’.

Wordahead gives you a daily dose of one word to learn a new word every day. You can subscribe to their feed or if you like Youtube more than any thing, you can see wrodahead videos on youtube channel. Last but not the least when we asked about what’s coming ahead on wordahead from their team here is what they say:

Currently we have over 660 Vocabulary videos on the website, however, new videos are added regularly. Our goal is to upload several thousand videos in the coming months. WordAhead team is also working to make the Study Room more interactive and customizable. Users especially teachers will be able to create their own wordlists in accordance with the level of their students. These lists will then be shared with the students. We plan to add vocabulary quizzes for self assessment as well. WordAhead also plans to make our educational material available for offline use as well in the form of flashcards, DVD etc.

Well, we wish good luck to the Wordahead team for their plans. And yea, students or just for fun learners if any of you happen to test wordahead, do share your experience with us.

Here is a wordahead video from their youtube channel:

Skype has just released Skype 4.1 Beta for Windows. The beta version of Skype 4.1 offer some new features which are discussed below one by one.

1) Screen Sharing Option: Skype has introduced this new option in its 4.1 beta version.  Through Skype screen sharing option, users can share their screen with other Skype users on a one on one basis. This means that screen sharing is not allowed for multiple users or on a group. The screen sharing option is also restricted through one way of sharing only. Users can not simulatenously share their screen with each other. To use this feature, press “Share” button in the IM area or via the “Call menu”. The screen sharing was already available in Mac version.

2) Accessibility: Skype 4.1 beta offers improved keyboard navigation. It also added support for visually impaired users, using screen reading software such as JAWS

3) Improved Contacts Importing Option: It has also added Gmail and AOL to the list from where you can import your contacts.

4) Birthday Reminders: The new Skype 4.1 will alert you when its the birthday of any of your contacts. The reminder is usually given at midnight.

Beside these four features, improvements were made into color scheme, toolbars, send contacts, installer and overall improvement in password rules for enhanced security.

To download Skype Beta 4.1 click here.  To read the detail Release Notes for Skype 4.1 Beta for Windows, click here.

Seems sleek and stylish computers is fast becoming a necessity and every vendor is following the demands of the consumers. Keeping with this new trend, Lenovo has introduced its latest Lenovo IdeaCentre C300 all-in-one desktop. Lenovo new machine is stuffed with netbook like specs and priced at only $450, much lower priced then its rival All in One desktop of Dell lebeled Dell Studio One  ($700)

Lenovo C300 comes with a 20-inch 16:9 aspect ratio display. It is equipped with Intel Atom 230 paired with Intel 945GC chipset and integrated graphics. This all-in-one C300 can hold up to 2GB DDR2 667MHz memory and 160-640GB storage. For operating system, Lenovo offers option between Windows XP, Windows Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium. Since the specs are not super charged, we will recommend you to use Windows XP on it and you can later think about Windows 7 as well when it is avaialble. The compact IdeaCentre C300 has connectivity being taken care of by Ethernet port and an optional WiFi 802.11 a/b/g. For removable media, C300 offers Firewire port, six USB ports, 6-in-1 card reader and built-in DVD writer/player. With a built-in 1.3 megapixel cam, C300 offers two audio ports and packs in USB mouse and PS/2 keyboard.

And yes the Lenovo C300 IdeaCentre will be available in July, 2009

Since there are so many version of every software that sometimes it gets difficult to find a universal reader for all the file formats. The need for such software is even greater for text filled documents. Word Reader has solved this problem as it can be used to read most of the text related documents. Word Reader is an easy-to-use Free Word Reader,You can read MicroSoft Word 2007 (*.DOCX), MicroSoft Word 97-2003(*.DOC), Hyper Text Markup Language (*.Htm,*.Html), Plain Text Format (*.TXT), Rich Text Format (*.RTF). it is a multilingual software, including English, Chinese, German, French, Italian, Japanese and Very user-friendly interface and easy to use. Very quick in read speed and no quality is lost!

System Requirements
Word Reader has been designed to work with Microsoft Windows 98, ME, NT4, 2000, 2003, XP, Vista or  Windows 7.

Do keep in mind that it can only read and not edit the document. Its is more like Adobe Reader.  The best thing come at the last and its the fact that the software is free to use.

To Download Word Reader, click here

Bharti and MTN are in serious negotiations for a possible $20 billion dollars merger. A year ago both companies cancelled their attempted merger after the political sensitivies arising in South Africa, the home country of MTN. This time both companies are negotiating a complex deal in which Bharti would get 49% shareholding in MTN while MTN will get 36% shareholding in Bharti. The complete merger will be done in the  second stage. The resulting company would be the world third biggest telecom operator since China Mobile and Vodaphone are the first two operators on the list.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharti, said “We are delighted at the prospect of developing a partnership with MTN to create an emerging market telecom powerhouse. Both companies would stand to gain significant benefits from sharing each other’s best practices in addition to savings emanating from enhanced scale. We see real power in the combination and we will work hard to unleash it for all our shareholders. This opportunity also represents a first of its kind in developing an Indian-African initiative that would serve as a shining example of South-South cooperation.”

According to a press release by Bharti, the discussion would revolve around the following principle elements:

• MTN would acquire approximately a 25% post-transaction economic interest in Bharti for an effective consideration of approximately USD 2.9 billion in cash and newly issued shares of MTN equal to approximately 25% of the currently issued share capital of MTN.
• Bharti would acquire approximately 36% of the currently issued share capital of MTN from MTN shareholders for a consideration comprising ZAR 86.00 in cash and 0.5 newly issued Bharti shares in the form of Global Depository Receipts (“GDRs”) for every MTN share acquired which, in combination with MTN shares issued in part settlement of MTN’s acquisition of approximately a 25% post-transaction economic interest in Bharti, would take Bharti’s stake to 49% of the enlarged capital of MTN. Each GDR would be equivalent to one share in Bharti and would be listed on the securities exchange operated by JSE Limited, South Africa.
• Bharti would have substantial participatory and governance rights in MTN enabling it to fully consolidate the accounts of MTN
• MTN’s economic interest in Bharti would be equity accounted and would have appropriate representation on the Bharti Board

The transaction, if completed, would give a much needed boost to Bharti, whose home country India will soon reach its maturity. The possible Merger would also give access to Bharti in markets like Iran and Africa, where there is immense potential for growth.

[via Bharti airtel Press Release]