Today,when i signed on to yahoo mail , there was a surprise for me.. It carried me to a well layed out screen asking for confirmation on trying Yahoo Beta Mail service.!! WOW!! Atlast they selected me for a trial.

Yahoo mail beta was launced on last agust or something and i enrolled for a beta testing on december, after their second beta release.And it took’em 3 months to approve me!! Any way, I’m in now. So its my 3rd beta testing in a week after Yahoo messenger 7.5 Beta and Internet Explorer 7 Beta.
Yahoo Mail Beta has a Gmail like AJAX interface now.That is it preloads everything including your mails,and when you click on the mail from inbox, it shows the content in a tab with out blocking inbox view.Its just like using Outbox.

It has a new way to add RSS feeds into your mail folder. For me, it’s nothing shocking. I already pull RSS feeds into Outlook folders and read them in exactly this way. But it’s nice for those who want this feature in a web-based email system.By default, if you click the Add button next to your All RSS Feeds folder, a window pops-up where you’re offered to enter feeds from places like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, News.com, Salon, Digital Photography Review and — of course — the neo999.com. OK, I joke about that last one. We don’t make that cut. But if you want this site or anything not listed, you can paste the feed into the Address box at the bottom of the Add window.

What’s very, very nice is that if you already have a My Yahoo account with feeds added, Yahoo Mail automatically lists those feeds within your All RSS Feeds folder. Great foresight on that, Yahoo!.Have multiple feeds? Each feed gets its own subfolder within the All RSS Feeds folder. You can click on a subfolder and read posts just for that feed.

Yahoo Beta Mail features drag-and-drop folder operations, multiple tabs, and more.That is, you can drag a mail from inbox to your spam folder or any other folder.Its simple!

And the Multiple tabs.. Tabs as i said in my last post is one of my favorite feature! It adds to the usability.In Yahoo Mail Beta ,you have the tab feature.If you are viewing inbox and suddenly want to compose a message,you can do it without closing inbox.Just click the compose button and a new tab is opened within the yahoo mail interface! Something that i wanted in Gmail.

Now, i wanted to test yahoo beta on IE beta.. But yahoo beta still doesnt support IE7 .:(

So, everything is fine till now,and i found some glitches.Something which can annoy you to the very extend if you are a hardcore mailer like me.

# I can’t view or sort by whether read/unread status.

# I used to be able to attach multiple files in one go … now I have to do it one at a time.

# There used to be an advanced search that allowed me to narrow down results. It seems to be missing.

In the old Yahoo Mail I used to set my items per page setting to the maximum — 200. The page would still load quick and I could scroll through the topmost 200 emails quickly and easily (and use Ctrl-F, like I mentioned above). The new Yahoo Mail doesn’t have “pages”, it’s just one giant page that loads as I scroll. There’s two problems with this: One, the load time is slow so instead of getting 200 at a time like I used to, I get one screen’s worth, and everytime the scroll bar moves just a bit, it reloads. The other is that my inbox has 3000 Messages. This makes the scrollbar very tiny, dragging it just a pixel seems to change the view in an unknown amount. Did I just skip 10 message, or 100? I don’t know. Both of these aspects add up to making it not just difficult, but impossible to visually scan a folder, even when it has as few as 75 emails in it. This
is a huge loss.

It is in no way shape or form, better than gmail except for its tabbed structure. Gmail is a MUCH better online email service. Nothing really compares to gmail as of yet even with yahoo’s new offering..The new yahoo mail beta acts and looks like a computer application, but its code is much slower than Gmail. It may get better in its final release.

So for now, Gmail is the best!

Microsoft has released a second beta version of IE7 which includes new features like the long awaited tabbed browsing.It supports RSS feed with enclosure unlike IE6 that only displayed the text in an RSS feed.I usually use FireFox as i am fedup with IE6.But now, i wanted to try IE7 with tabbed browsing(the part i like most in FireFox) . I installed the browser and then it asks for a check on “Genuine Window”. I was using a PIRATED copy and it confirmed my version as a GENUINE ONE!! After a restart IE7 was ready for a try.

First i opened Google and a nice looking pop up asked me for setting google as the default search engine for IE. Well, i downloaded the file(13.5 kb) and installed google engine .

Another option in IE7 is to check for Phishing sites.We can turn it on or off..If its on, every address is checked with microsoft Phishing DataBase.
When i checked IE7 with my own site (www.neo999.com) the site was rendered shortly after chekin with microsoft phishing DataBase.It takes a little bit time to check with DB..

Check that indication(marked in red) for phishing check.It takes a bit extra time for this check,and so i turned it off.
IE7 support multi tabbed browsing.Unlike in firefox there is a small button next to the latest tab for opening a new tab.

I heard from somewhere that IE7 can show previews of tabs when you hover mouse over it..But i cant find such an option in my beta copy.

Now the stress test.
Even though it uses less memory, opening multiple tabs costs too much cpu power..

Here i opened 4 tabs in a single IE7 window and look at the cpu utilization.I dont know why Explorer.exe is also taking this much cpu power.And now what? yea..as usual .. A CRASH!!! Lesson 1: Never test a microsot product for stability!

Another important feature in IE7 is the integrated feed reade..Its pretty good.. My server was down at the time of test (PHP rebuild or something..so i cant check it on my blog..so i checked it with Duttan ‘s blog )

Clean and simple..I liked it very much..
You also have the advantage of being able to have “multiple” home pages and you can select anyone you want, more or less like a mini favourites.
They have also implemented a nice print preview and you can zoom in and out of any page.Microsoft now has an addon shop for IE7 where you can find lots of pluggins for IE7

IE7 is far far better than IE6 and have much more features than Firefox 2.0 .But its not stable.Final version may fix it up.

Gotta love this. Two juicy Google-related pieces

* Via Paul Stamatiou, TechCrunch is carrying screenshots of the new Google Calendar application, provisionally known as CL2.
* Now, Google have bought Writely, the web-based word processor. Shrewd move, Writely is a very popular Web 2.0 app. Nothing I’d like more than to log on to it with my Google account details.

Now, is it just me, or does this lend serious weight to the argument that Google is planning it’s own OS? Let’s face it, with Gmail, a calender application and now a word processor, all they need now is a spreadsheet program and something to manage tasks and that’s Microsoft Office effectively replaced.

And guess what, interoperability issues (in documents) would fly out the window, because everyone would be using (X)HTML. And platform would be irrelevant, because it runs via your browser! Of course, you’d be completely screwed if you ever lost your Internet connection…..

I’m not going to go down the “Microsoft should be quaking in their boots” route, but since Office is a bread and butter product for Microsoft, an essentially free alternative via the web is an attractive proposition. It might also be attractive to those millions out there currently using hacked versions of Office!

So here is your yahoo messenger 7.5 Beta Direct download link. It comes with a superb feature(Not so good for indians ) Pc – to – phone calls.at low rates (here again Not for indians).Some key features in new yahoo 7.5 beta are :- Make PC-to-Phone calls(at ridiculously low rates). Start using your computer to “Phone Out” to regular phones and mobile phones. You’ll love the convenience and sound quality. PC-to-phone calls to the U.S. and over 30 countries for 2¢ a minute or less. Give your PC its very own phone number. While sitting comfortably at your computer, let friends “Phone In” using regular and mobile phones. For under $2.50 per month, choose a phone number in a variety of area codes and countries around the world. Plus while you’re on the road, your telephone number stays the same. Making calls and sending IMs has never been simpler. The new Yahoo! Messenger with Voice has made it even easier to connect with friends. With the Contact Search Bar, just start typing a name or number from your Yahoo! Address Book and we’ll finish up. Now take look at these tariff rates ….

Destination Rate/minute

France, Mobile $0.150

India $0.120

India, Ahmadabad $0.120

India, Andhra Pradesh $0.120

India, Bangalore $0.099

India, Bombay $0.099

India, Hyderabad $0.099

India, Madras $0.099

India, Mobile $0.120

India, New Delhi $0.120

India, Punjab $0.120

Japan $0.019

Pakistan $0.190

Pakistan Mobile $0.190

United Arab Emirates $0.190

UK $0.015

UK, London $0.010

UK, Mobile $0.170

USA $0.010

Now compare Indian Prices…We have to pay as much as 5Rs/min for a mobile call..Thats too much !

You can check the complete list @ http://voice.yahoo.com/phone_rates.php

Now,another good news from yahoo .As said in one of my posts couple of months ago, Yahoo and MSN are going to share their user lists.That is by signing on to yahoo you can see your MSN buddies and vice versa.So, Two global IM communities are connecting each other.It is supposed to roll out by mid 2006.It’s a wonderful bridge that makes staying in touch easier and more enjoyable for everyone.

If you are testing your new website layout or tweaking something , you might be reloading your website pages again-n-again. And if these pages contain Google Ads, each time your reload your page, you make a request to Google Ads Server for a new set of ads. Certainly Google is unaware that you are testing your website and it might even penalize your account for “click-fraud” since the IP requesting ads remains same.And if in the worst-case scenario, you might accidently click on your own ads. And these extra “ad impressions” will also chance your CTR data.Thats exactly what happened to my adsense account and now it got cancelled.And I was forced to use chitika.Now if you have and adsense account and you earning from it,Never ever try any fraud tricks to get more money.Once your account get cancelled ,its really really hard to get a new one.Even if you change your webpage url and email id.More over i think google guys are now more strict in approving adsense registration requests.

One simple way to avoid this serious problem is to remove the Adsense code altogether from your page before testing. But this may not be the best solution as your Google Ads are an important part of your layout. So here are a few simple but effective workarounds:

1. Instead of using Adsense code, add a static graphic (jpg image) with the same dimesions as your adsense code. (Google itself provides static images of various ad formats.)

2. Modify the value of google_ad_client to something like “pub-googleIamTesting”

3. Add another line to Google Adsense code google_adtest = “on”; Don’t forget the semicolon.

4. Though there is no official comment, it is safer to remove the google_ad_channel variable.

Or contact Google Adsense Team with your query. Google folks are very quick to respond. Google AdSense policies require that websites displaying Google ads be active and not under construction. When your site is complete and active, you may add the AdSense ad code.

PS: An adsense account in your site is worthier than 3 chitika/yahoo accounts.. Because ,no matter how hard you work,you are never gonna earn more than your adsense from chitika or yahoo.