France Wide Web Minitel is Shutdown

Online banking, online booking and many more online things spread around the world because of internet. But would you believe, in 1978 there’s a network for online things in France?  It is called France-Wide-Web and also called “Minitel”.

In earlier days, the purpose of this Minitel is to do banking, shopping, connect to air and rail service departments and also connect with cable TV services etc in online by using a keyboard and monitor. This was very successful at that time and this was the best communication network before originate internet.  Monitor, key board, modem and the telephone connection are the main part of Minitel network. Transaction media is telephone lines and only “Text” will be visible in the monitor. Once you ordered a Minitel system it comes with the telephone and connection.

Best features of this Minitel,

• Order the needed things from shopping store.
• Booked the air and train tickets.
• Find any telephone number from online telephone directory.
• Do online banking.
• Credit card payments.
• Email box

I think you can’t imagine this kind of facilities in 1978, but Frenchmen got the chance to do work from online and in 1982 whole country covered by this Minitel network. At that time Minitel is one of the greatest technical equipment for whole world because there’s no internet at that time.

Some of the countries copied this Minitel and constructed their own networks using Minitel technology,

• British – Prestel
• Germany – BTX
• Canada – Alex Tel
• South Africa – Bel tel
• USA – Community Link
• Italy – Video Tel

After spreading the internet around the world, most of the countries are shutdown the Minitel systems.  But French people not shutdown it and keep using this Minitel after the internet comes. Even in 2010 Minitel earned like 30 Million Euros with 10 Million users.  

In 2012 June 30^th is the last day of Minitel and the owners of Minitel decided to shutdown this network. Some reasons for this decision is,

• Further extension for Minitel is really hard
• Internet more flexible than Minitel
• The users count getting lower and lower

As internet users, we cannot forget the origin of online works Minitel. The Minitel technology is historical and good bye Minitel.

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What is Windows Automatic Updates ?

If you have a genuine windows operating system, in time to time you can see there is a message displays that “Restart your computer to finish installing important updates” (You should have to turn on the automatic updates for this).

What is this “Windows Automatic Updates” and how it works? This is a common problem for computer users. Windows Automatic Updates Includes,

• Error fixes of the operating system.
• New extensions of the operating system.
• Automatic updates Increase the immunity to viruses.
• Automatic updates ensure that new software compatibility to operating system.

Most of the older versions of windows do not compatible to the latest software programs.  If you want to run those applications, what you can do is install the latest version of windows or turn on the automatic windows updates. Note that; most importantly please ensure that your computer has genuine windows operating system to use automatic updates. And it is highly recommend turning on automatic updates always. 

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Google Desktop Instant Access to All Google Products

This is one of the latest products that the Google published. This is very useful tool for internet surfers that uses internet a lot. After install the Google desktop tool, it will display in the sidebar of the desktop.  

Feature of Google Desktop

• You can load any Google products like Gmail, G talk, Google search, Google Plus etc.
• A brief view of your Gmail, it will shows a part of the title in the emails.
• Also you can add your favorite websites and latest updates of those sites. Images will not show.
• Double pressing of CTRL button will enable the Google Search. (For this feature it is not essential to add sidebar, just need Google Desktop install and run).
• The latest previous searched term will not get erase from the search bar. You do have to do it manually.
• Also you can add, time, date, photo slider, calendar widgets to this Google Desktop bar.
• For your own safety, log off from Google if you go out from the computer.

Download Google Desktop

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