But over the past few months, Google has also been secretly testing a new UI and look for the Google Search engine, which has essentially not changed much since its inception. Do you want to be one among the secret testers, to have a sneak peak of the new design?

To get this Hack Attack to work for you, you need to be using the international version of Google i.e. http://google.com/ncr and not the localized version that you are redirected to usually.

Once you are at the Google Homepage, copy the following text and paste it in the address bar as it is…

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com”);

Once you are done, press enter and reload the Google Homepage. You Should now be looking at an all new design for the homepage. Perform a search and you’ll see a new search results page with an always visible Sidebar.

So Do you like the new look? I do quite like it, at least the sidebar is useful to perform searches more rapidly. But I’m not quite sure if it will be well received by all the people because it is quite a departure from the Google we are all used. However they could tone down the Blue a bit because at times I feel am at the MSN of yesteryears rather than Google.

Or you never know Google may never release it in the wild…

However if you aren’t a fan of the new design, you can remove the corresponding cookie from your browser. Here’s how its done in Chrome

Leave your comments, as to what you feel about the new Design?

Via Google Blogoscoped | Google Caffeine Update | Image Credit : ientu

I’m one of the few kind who has more fonts on his system than any other type of stuff. Call me a font addict, but I love trying out the different fonts to see how it looks. Case in point, I’ve spent over 80 permutations and combinations of fonts for the business card that I’m designing for myself.

Everyday I come across fonts that are lovely and I want to try them out. But it isn’t all that easy to find which find the artist or designer has used. Earlier I’d drop the designer an email politely asking if he could share the fonts with me. Well not anymore, thanks to an awesome new service called WhatTheFont that makes finding the font used in a particular image a task of the past. In a few clicks you can download/purchase the font for your personal use.

WhatTheFont is a site that lets you upload a logo or any other image that contains text and shows you a list of fonts that are likely to be used in that image. WhatTheFont supports some common image formats like GIF, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, but you can’t upload images bigger than 360 x 275 pixels.

After uploading an image, you may need to enter the corresponding letters from the text, since the system can’t always detect them accurately. In the example below, the site recognized the font used in Google’s logo: Catull

The only thing that I don’t like about the service, is that after it detects the font correctly the only way you can get the font is by purchasing it. In my opinion an option to download the fonts for free would be nice too.

This would be definitely be a tool that I’ll be using regularly. Maybe one day I’ll finish off designing my business card

Via Sizlopedia

I keep trying variety of registry tricks everyday, and install and uninstall numerous applications that demand a restart whenever I install them. To get away with boring restart process I normally kill Explorer.exe from the task manager and wait for it to restart automagically. But the problem is that the Task Manager method is like forcibly killing the process instead of terminating it cleanly.

Luckily there is a hidden option in both Windows XP and Windows Vista Start Menu that will allow you to terminate and restart Explorer.exe cleanly. As you can see in the screenshot above there’s a hidden option in the start menu to cleanly terminate Explorer.exe. Follow these steps to get that option visible and cleanly terminated Explorer.exe.

Click the Start button. Press and hold the CTRL and SHIFT keys, and right-click on an empty area in the Start menu. You’ll see a Popup menu containing the two options namely Exit Explorer and Properties. Alternatively you could get the above Popup menu by holding the CTRL and SHIFT keys and then right-clicking on the Start menu power button itself.

After selecting the Exit Explorer command, the shell (Start menu, Taskbar and the Desktop) will exit and the other applications will continue to run normally. You need to manually start a new Explorer.exe process by launching Task Manager. Use the CTRL+SHIFT+ESC key sequence to launch Task Manager. From the File menu of Task Manager, choose New Task (Run…), type Explorer.exe and press ENTER.

And you should now be looking at a clean shiny new Explorer process running at full speed. This way of restarting Explorer is a much safer process and has been recommended by Microsoft itself. Please let us know how this works for you in the comments.

If you are a Windows XP user there is a similar hack described by Microsoft employee Jeff. Have a look at that as well.

Credit : Aaron Margosis

Like other web apps that are designed for the iPhone interface, Google Reader fits very well in Firefox (and other browsers) sidebar.

Looks nice isn’t it? Adding one to your own Firefox is simple. Just follow these steps..

• Open the Bookmarks Manager (Bookmarks/Organize Bookmarks)
• If you are using Firefox 2, then in the File menu select New bookmark and in Firefox 3, press Organize in the toolbar and select New bookmark
• Enter a name, http://www.google.com/reader/i/ for location, and ensure to check Load this bookmark in the sidebar.
• Press Save Changes and now you can select the bookmark to load Google Reader in the sidebar.

Here are some more services which work very well with Firefox Sidebar. To use any of these follow the instruction as above, and just replace the location URL when required. 

• Facebook Chat, use the location as http://www.facebook.com/presence/popout.php
• Netvibes Mobile, use the location as http://iphone.netvibes.com/
• Zoho Mobile, use the location as http://mini.zoho.com/
• Facebook for iPhone, use the location as http://iphone.facebook.com/

Know about some more cool services that work well in the Firefox sidebar. Drop in your comments so that everyone can know about it..

photo credit: RossinaBossioB

Music sharing has been of the most common file sharing activities on the internet. There are many ways you could find the music you were looking for by using tools like Limewire, BitTorrent etc.. But most times nothing beats a Google search does it? Yes you heard that right.. Google may as well be your best friend if you are looking to find music freely on the Internet.

Just follow the instructions below, and you will be on your way to find the music that you otherwise won’t find on P2P networks. The hack simply involves the major search engines revealing their vast indexes to you so that you can find what you are looking for.

I’m going to give some modified special search strings that will help you find hidden stuff from Google, Yahoo and MSN.

How to Accomplish the Hack

Click on the links below for your favorite search engine. Modify the details according to your liking (for example replace Linkin Park with Radiohead or just the song name). Change the “wma/mp3″ tag to other format such as “ogg” if you wish to download the music in other not so popular formats.

• Google

“parent directory” mp3 OR wma OR ogg OR wav Linkin Park -html -htm -download -links

• Yahoo Search

“parent directory” AND (Linkin AND Park) AND (mp3 OR wma OR ogg) AND NOT(”download”) AND NOT(”links”)

• MSN Search

“parent directory” AND (Linkin AND Park) AND (mp3 OR wma OR ogg) AND NOT(”download”) AND NOT(”links”)

Using the major search engines should help you find any kind of music you are looking for, but there other alternative music only search engines also available that deserve a mention. Check out Alltheweb Audio (mp3), mp3realm and espew

So that was it. I hope this guide will help you find the music you have been looking for quite some time now.. Have a musical day ahead. Do drop in a comment with the song/artist/band that you found with this hack!

Special Credit to Blog Anything

• Rename the Start Button

Yep, rename the Start Button using this little trick. It’s perfect for a little show-off. Most of your friends will be quite surprised that you could actually do it.

• Use a keyboard launcher

I’m a keyboard junkie and I use Launchy on Windows and Gnome Do on Ubuntu to start programs. The instant appearance of the Launchy window never fails to amuse them. They don’t really know that you could actually launch programs without using the mouse.

• Use Linux

We learn Linux at school – but mostly we deal with theories, and nobody has experienced Linux yet at school. Boot into Linux, deal with the commands. Turn on Compiz Fusion. They’ll probably ask you if it’s Vista and say “Linux has GUI? I thought it only works with commands”. Watch their jaws drop in astonishment.

• Docks

There was a time when I used to try a lot of interface makeovers for Windows, and tried a lot of Mac OS resembling enhancements like Docks for Windows. Everybody was quite overwhelmed by the look. You can try the FlyakiteOSX transformation pack as well.

• Customized Firefox

Well, about this one, I will have to say that the default Firefox Web Browser doesn’t impress friends much (since the default Firefox interface is not-so alien). However, with something like PicLens and TabEffect, you could really make for a good show off.

That was all I could remember. I’m sure Daily Apps readers will have something even mor funnier to say. Please share your ideas and stories in the comments!

This is a guest post by Shankar Ganesh, a 16 year old Blogger and Freelance Writer from India, who writes about computers and software at Killer Tech Tips. Please subscribe to his blog for more such interesting articles!

Mr. GEOrge HOTz did it again. He’s discovered an exploit that will allow you to unlock your brand new iPhone, thats factory fresh with the latest 1.1.3 firmware and the 4.6 bootloader. Unlocking your iPhone isn’t all that difficult, but I’d suggest you wait for more refined releases in the future.

But if you are one of those who’ve been waiting forever for this unlock to come out. If you can’t wait any longer, then read on and follow the instructions below to unlock your iPhone in just about 15 minutes or so.

P.S : I Take no responsibility if something goes wrong for you, whatever you do is at your own risk.

Alright then, here are the steps that you need to follow. Hang on there, it isn’t all that difficult for sure, and I can assure the result of this is gonna be very sweet.

Make sure you grab a cup pf coffee, to give you company while you do the impossible

• Downgrade your iPhone to firmware 1.1.1. Jailbreak and Oktoprep to 1.1.2.
• Once you have your Jailbroken 1.1.2 iPhone, you should probably have the phone features rendered useless.
• Open Installer.app and install OpenSSH and vt-100 on your iPhone (Under System).
• Connect via WiFi to your iPhone via WinSCP.
• Copy all the files (gunlock, ICE04.02.13_G.fls and secpac) to /usr/bin.
• Set permissions of gunlock to 0755 in WinSCP
• Put iPhone in Airplane mode (IMPORTANT!)
• Execute the following commands in Terminal:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.CommCenter.plist

cd /usr/bin

./gunlock secpack ICE04.02.13_G.fls

launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.CommCenter.plist

• Restart iPhone.
• Now you should have a fully functional iPhone with firmware 1.1.2.
• Now Upgrade your iPhone to firmware 1.1.3 Using this method. Please don’t upgrade using iTunes.
• Voila! You Now have a fully unlocked iPhone with firmware 1.1.3.

Hmm wasn’t that easy. It takes less than 15minutes if you get things right straightaway, but your mileage may vary. The only problem currently is that, Google Maps location feature doesn’t work. Other than you have a fully functional iPhone.

Thanks to GeoHot for coming up with the exploit. You can download all the required files for the hack from here and here.

Tip 1 : Get Rid of the 3D Dock

Well if you don’t like the 3D Dock and you want to get rid of it altogether then Open Terminal.app and execute the following commands,

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock

This will get you the standard Dock that you have got used to. Well here is a screenshot of the dock that you will get after this hack.

Tip 2 : Get those Triangular Indicators back on the Dock

If you are a Mac Oldie, I am sure you have got accustomed to the tiny triangular indicators on the Dock and now that Leopard has done away with them, you want it back. Well this isn’t too hard at all. All you need to do is follow this well written tutorial from Mike.

Read : Leopard Dock with black triangle

Turns out that you need to just replace 3 files in the System, so it isn’t super hard to do..

Tip 3 : Get rid of the Menu Bar Transparency

Well this has to be the easiest of all. Just Download this file and install it on your Mac. When you run it choose Toggle Level to set the transparency to what ever you want. Sweet! isn’t it!

So I hope you enjoyed reading these small but helpful tips. Is there anything else about Leopard that you don’t like. then drop us a comment!

• 1. Windows XP boasts of how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to run and type systeminfo and you can see a lot of nice data about your Windows installation.
• 2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run… and type gpedit.msc then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care — some may stop your computer behaving as you wish.
• 3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter ‘rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation’ in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That’s it — just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that’s not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.
• 4. Windows XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word ‘hide’ and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.
• 5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include ‘eventcreate’ and ‘eventtriggers’ for creating and watching system events, ‘typeperf’ for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and ‘schtasks’ for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options — they’re all far too baroque to go into here.
• 6. XP has IP version 6 support — the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type ‘ipv6 install’ into Run… (it’s OK, it won’t ruin your existing network setup) and then ‘ipv6 /?’ at the command line to find out more. If you don’t know what IPv6 is, don’t worry and don’t bother.
• 7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using ‘taskkill /pid’ and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’, which will also tell you a lot about what’s going on in your system.
• 8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you’ve got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files well alone by typing ‘regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll’ at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can put things back as they were by typing ‘regsvr32 zipfldr.dll’.
• 9. XP has ClearType — Microsoft’s anti-aliasing font display technology — but doesn’t have it enabled by default. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.
• 10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who’s using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your chum’s real IP address — they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com, and get them to make sure that they’ve got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.
• 11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As… and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.
• 12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might slip the bonds of sanity before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.
• 13. You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run… from the start menu and type ‘control userpasswords2′, which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatic Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.
• 14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options… and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.
• 15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can’t see the LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You’ll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic.
• 16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.
• 17. You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By… Show In Groups.
• 18. Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks — if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn’t, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.
• 19. Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.

So this is it.. I hope that these tips are useful to you all.. Some of these tips are what i have discovered by accident and the rest are thanks to a variety of sources on the internet.