If you are a Windows user the main problem you will face with removable storage and internet is Viruses. There are millions of viruses out there and thousands of new viruses coming out every day. Even if you are a Mac or Linux user still you are not 100% safe. There are lots of viruses that attack those OS as well.

Now you might stand up and say “Hey! I have a virus guard installed”. Yeah, that’s good. But does it solve the problem completely? Most of the virus guards come with a price tag and free versions have not-so-good virus signature database. Sometimes one virus guard is detecting a suspicious file as a virus while the other says it’s safe. If you are going online you will have to face this frequently.

However, still there is a no concrete solution the above problems. But there are some good solutions out there. VirusTotal is a free online virus scanning application while is letting you scan files as well as web URLs. The best part is, VirusTotal checks your file or URL using many Anti-virus services and their virus databases.

How to Use VirusTotal?

Web Interface

• Identify suspicious file or web URL.
• If it’s a file upload it to VirusTotal using up-loader in Main page.

• If is a web page change the preference to “Scan a URL” using link below the scan button. This work both ways.
• Then click Scan.
• Once you click scan it will take you to Scanning details page. There you can see VirusTotal is checking your file or URL using many services.
• If you take a closer look in to the list of services you will notice many of the popular Anti-virus Programs also there such as Avast, AVG, BitDefender, Kaspersky, McAfee, NOD32, and Symantec. Using VirusTotal is like using all those Anti-virus applications at the same time.

Desktop Client

Uploading files through a web interface is not that good way to handle viruses and suspicious files. Therefore VirusTotal has released a desktop client which you can directly upload already running applications to VirusTotal and scan them.

This will give you an extra advantage which is you can scan already running processes and their related files using VirusTotal.

• Download VirusTotal desktop application.
• Install it and it will take only few clicks.
• Open the application from the desktop shortcut. It will give you below window.

• There you can see a list of processes which are already running on your computer.
• You can select a process and check the file for viruses.
• You can always upload any file for scanning using the button Select file(s) and upload.
• Same as in web interface this accept web URL as well.

Public API

If you are a programmer and your program need an online anti-virus solution VirusTotal is there for you. From here you can read the VirusTotal API documentation and start your experiment.

Pros and Cons

The most interesting part I see in VirusTotal is that it’s checking our files and URLs against many virus databases from many Anti-virus services. Because of that there is a lesser probability to have false negatives. Providing the desktop client and public API, they have opened the doors for us to use this service without going to their web site. All these come for free.

However, VirusTotal can’t perform entire anti-virus operations same as locally installed anti-virus application. There is no way for us to have Automatic protection like feature with this. In order to scan file or URL we have to manually submit it to the service. Even after detecting as a virus, only thing you can do is delete the file manually, not clean it and reuse. And there is an upload file limit which is 32MB.

Wrap Up

VirusTotal is thinking out of the box in anti-virus applications. They offer it all for free yet integrating many of paid services having the objective of providing reliable service. If you are a techy person, this will be a good solution for you. Whenever you notice something suspicious you can check it for virus using web interface or desktop application. If you are a non-techy person, better to stick to installed automated anti-virus applications.

Finally, I don’t recommend you to use this as your primary anti-virus application since there is no automated files and URL scanning. You can use VirusTotal if you face a difficult situation with your anti-virus application.

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Google Book Search is a specialized search engine provided by Google. This is searching given keyword inside the books which are published as “Real paper Books”. And this is like simulations of a traditional real life book store where uses can browse for books, read a little bit and purchase them if you like it.

Access

To locate Google Book Search you can go to main navigation bar in Google home page. After you get a search result you can change it to a book search too. After all you can Google for Book search too.

Layout

Bookshelf

This is a newly added feature in to Google Book Search. In there you can bookmark and organize the books you reading. For that there is a link named “My Library” at the top right corner of the main page. There you can categorize books in to various category including Favorites, Reading now, To read, Have read and, Reviewed. There is a button to create a new book shelf as well. Using that you can have multiple book shelves and it help you to organize your books in a better way.

Browse Subjects

This section located at the left column of the page. This helps users to narrow down their search in to a specific category.

My Library

This is a Graphical representation of your book shelves. You can locate this at the top of main content are of the home page.

Categories

There are various categories in the main content are and this will help user to optimize and get the exact result of the book search. You can click on the arrows displayed at the sides to view more books in each category.

Usage

You can enter a Key word in a search box and hit Search Books button to initiate a book search. The search result will contain Book which having the key word in its content. You can control the view of the search result in the left column option. In there you can choose the way you want to see books and what kind of previews you looking for.

Once you click on a specific book it will take you to the page which contains all the details about the book. In there you will be able to see a preview of the book if it’s allowed. In addition to that you can see rating and reviews about the book. At the left columns there will be a links to online book stores to buy a hard copy of this book.

Right below the thumbnail image of the book there will be a drop down menu to add this to your book shelf. Once you add the book will be displayed in your Book shelf view at the main page.

Advantages

In the case someone need to find about a specific content in a Book, he has to dig in to the book and read everything to find it. Sometimes index may helps, but still it will take lots of time to find the right book. With Google book search you can find the exact book and the exact page which having your desired content. Sometimes you may be able to read the book online or may be a part of it. If you really want to have a hard copy you can buy it too. In normal situation we cannot find a given word or content inside a paper book without reading everything. Google book search will make the life easier for research student, professors and many more.

Technology

The technology behind the Google book search is very simple, yet smart. As the first step the developers should scan the books and store them as a text format most probably PDF. For that they may use Optical character recognition. After that they can search a given keyword inside the PDF file. In the web page using JAVAScrip it highlights the area of the search content to make it easier for the user. According to the preview access user will be able to read the book online as well.

Google Book Search API

You can add your own Book search in your web site. For that Google Code provides all the instruction and technology. Click Here to read more about Google Book search API. Using this you can embed a book preview to your web site or add a custom search.

References

• (n.d.). Retrieved January 2010, from Newyorker.com: http://www.newyorker.com/images/2007/02/05/p465/070205_r15903_p465.jpg

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• Featured in Home
• Filled under Internet
• Tagged with Book, Google, Search

Google toolbar is a plug-in developed by Google for the most popular web browser Mozilla Firefox. It’s providing set of comprehensive features for the user to give them beyond traditional browsing experience. It will appear below the bookmark tool bar and will contain quick access to various features including quick access buttons, social media sharing, Google Sidewiki, Google Bookmarks, Google translate, AutoFill and many others. In addition to that it provides a search box which is highly customizable according to the user’s requirement. It help the users to manage the web history is an easy way and those features will appear once the new browser tab opens.

Getting Started

Install

Google Toolbar is proving highly user-friendly installation process which is totally automated. Visit this URL using your Firefox browser to install the Google Toolbar. In order to install you have to have Firefox 2+ version and Windows XP Service pack 2+ version. Click the button ‘Install Google Toolbar’ to proceed with the installation process. In the next page click ‘Agree and Install’. As a security measure Firefox blocks third party installation script. Due to that you might have to ‘Allow’ the installation explicitly. In the next pop-up window click install and then Firefox will do the rest for you. Finally click ‘Restart Firefox’ to make the Google toolbar activated.

Configure

After you restart Firefox Google tool bar will be displayed just below the bookmark toolbar with default configuration. To get the maximum result out of the plug-in you can do some configurations. In order to do that, you can click on the ‘Adjust Google Toolbar Options’ button in the right side of the Toolbar. In the ‘Google Toolbar Options’ window you can do various changes. Most importantly you can select from where your search suggestions should come from in search tab. In the same tab you can select Gmail as your default search engine if you like. In the tab ‘Tools’ you can select what you need to appear on the toolbar according to your requirement. Google PageRank and Google bookmarks would be a good selection in here. In the sharing tab you can select the social networks where you share content while you can add quick access buttons in the next tab ‘Buttons’. The tab ‘Layout’ is giving you an option how Google toolbar should appear in Firefox. In here ‘replace Firefox search box’ would be a appropriate selection. Next tab is very important why there you can add your personal information to work with the AutoFill functionality.

Features

Search

You can sign in to Google by clicking the ‘Sign in’ button at the right side of the Google Tool bar. They you can access your configured semantic search by typing your desired keyword in the search box at the right side of the Firefox main tool bar (Assuming you selected the option ’Replace Firefox search box’). When you are typing keywords it will give you suggestions according to the geographical target you gave in the configurations. In addition to that it will give you your frequently search results from your web history and Google personalized suggestions for you according to your search interests. You can clear your search history by clicking ‘Clear Search history’ in the dropdown menu in search box. In the case you need to change the default search engine you can click the drop down button next to search box and select desired search engine out of that list. Once you enter the search query the result will appear in the Firefox tab. The list of keywords entered will be displayed on the toolbar and by clicking on them you can highlight them one by one. There is a toggle highlighting button to highlight all the keywords in the page.

Tools

In the left side of the tool bar there are set of buttons which will help you to access important web resources with just one click. You can always configure the behaviour of those buttons by accessing ‘Google toolbar options’ or directly by clicking ‘Add Buttons and Widgets’. The icon of Gmail will show you whether you have any new emails if you are logged in to Google. Using the share button you can submit the currently browsing content to your Social network or Social Bookmarking site. The list of social network can be edited by clicking ‘settings’ at the end of dropdown menu. The next button is SideWiki. It’s an interesting feature introduced by Google where users can writer wiki entries about the currently browsing page and every one will be able to read those. This will be helpful to get a idea about the quality of the page. Additionally there is a space to display ‘Google PageRank’ of the currently browsing page which is a also a page content quality rank.

Google Bookmarks

Google Bookmark is a very easy way to manage your Bookmarks and access them from anywhere in the globe. Previously there was no way to add a Google bookmark without accessing its web interface. But with Google toolbar you can bookmark currently browsing page with just one click on the button ‘Bookmark this page’ and as long as you are logged in to your Google account. By clicking the dropdown button ‘Bookmark’ you can access all your bookmarks. In the same dropdown menu you can access and manage your bookmarks in Google bookmarks web interface by clicking ‘Manage all’. In addition to that it provides facility to bookmark all the tabs with one click. If you feel like your bookmarks are not updated try clicking ‘Refresh’

Google Translate

Google translate is a exceptional web based service provided by Google. You can enter a phrase to the web interface and get it translated to various languages with one click. In order to make the process even easier Google toolbar has a translation component which can translate the currently browsing page with one click right on the same page. In order to proceed with this you can click on ‘Translate button’ and it will give dropdown message. Once you click translate in there you can select the desired language and get the page translated within few seconds. You can go back to original by clicking the button ‘Show original’. This is one of the most important and interesting feature in Google Toolbar.

AutoFill

While you browsing web there are so many data entry forms to fill specially in registrations. You can fill those forms with one click using this feature AutoFill. In order to do that you have to enter your personal details in the form in AutoFill section Google Toolbar Options. In addition you can find this from the dropdown menu in AutoFill button. In the case you need to manage different sets of information you can use profiles for that. Most importantly you can save your credit card details also in here. In order to provide security to your financial details you can add a password for that.

Additional Notes

Google toolbar is providing wonderful combination of features and facilities in order to give a wonderful browsing experience to the user. However there is no official release of Google toolbar for Google developed browser Chrome. Google chrome is the fastest browser and lots of internet users are waiting to use Google toolbar on Chrome. Let’s have a hope that Google will develop their Toolbar for Chrome as well. The Google toolbar having frequent updates and they will be notified to the user by Firefox. The updating process is totally automated and it only requires user’s conformation. Install Google toolbar now and have a nice browsing experience.

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• Featured in Home
• Filled under Tutorials
• Tagged with Firefox, Google, Toolbar