Web World

Vista drivers are comaptible with windows 7. Install any Windows 7 32 bit n Install Vista drivers for the same.

Get the drivers from here

You don't need a driver if it's a printer. Windows 7 inbuilt drivers will work.

Vista drivers are comaptible with windows 7. Install any Windows 7 32 bit n Install Vista drivers for the same.

Get the drivers from here

You don't need a driver if it's a printer. Windows 7 inbuilt drivers will work.

Most people think they're inputting numbers when it's actual letters you're using. When you type in the password on a BlackBerry it will default to using letters. If you want numbers you have to hold the ALT key then hit the key with number.

It's a samll problem which nobody knows......for eg in case you think your passward should be 12345 you will type the same but it will take 'wersd' do when it ask's for device password and ur password in '224466' please type 'eessff' problem solved.

Gomplayer plays all file types, including mp4 movie files.
Furthermore you can make screen captures of the movie you are watching.
To do so, just right click on player then Control Panel (F7).
With the little window you can now make your screenshot

It's been a while since i last visited the forums. Anyway, We (Me and Nitesh Narayan Lal) as a project have developed this software named Mobremote which allows u to execute commands on your computer sent via a text message from your cellphone.

This is a free software, so i thought it would be better for everyone to know about it (especially members of Exbii)

Visit:
http://www.mobremote.com

for more details and to download the software.

If u like our software, please hit the "LIKE" button on our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/mobremote

1: Use any efile explorer like SELEQ or FE Explorer
2: Open SELEQ/FE Explorer and go to Root C:
3: Options and FIND, write MMCSTORE press OK
4: Send this file by Bluetooth or Infraread to your PC
5: Rename the file MMCSTORE to MMCSTORE.TXT
6: Open the file and the password off the MMC are there
OR
Download this file "MMCPwd" - http://mihd.net/bv7zsd (you can find the password using some other applications but it may take longer to find)
Install it, then just click on the left soft key, and there will be an option called restore, click on it, and that will give you your password
Type that password in the 'Remove Password' place in the Memory option thing.

Google TV, an ambitious project to bring Google's powerful search tools and targeted advertisement to the television screens of America (and eventually the UK), has been something of a commercial dud.

Logitech's Revue set-top box, the first Google TV device to hit the market just short of one year ago has dropped in price by a whopping 60% to try to spur consumer adoption.

In its first quarter earnings call at the end of July, Logitech said Revue sales were "slightly negative" because customers were returning them in droves. The company said it would endure the financial hit from a lower-priced Revue to "remove price as a barrier to broad customer adoption."

Sony, Google TV's other top-tier partner, has slashed its prices for Google TV equipment too, but has a much rosier outlook on the situation.

Part of the optimism for the platform comes from its nascent ability to run Android apps, and consumer tech companies have been jockeying to get a strong TV-based app ecosystem in place for years.

So it's a big deal that Google this week released a preview of the Google TV add-on for the Android SDK, which will let developers port their Android apps over to Google TV.

With the add-on, developers will be able to set up a Google TV emulator (in Linux with KVM only), and build apps with a "10-foot UI" and D-pad navigation scheme.

"These are still early days for Google TV, and this release is another step in providing developer tools for the big screen. While the number of apps available on TV will initially be small, we expect that through this early release of the add-on you'll be able to bring optimized TV apps into the ecosystem more quickly," Google TV Product Manager Ambarish Kenghe said on Monday.

Allegra had been searching for an internship while taking some time off from studies at Brown University. Up until recently he had continued to develop the website that thousands have used over the past few years to jailbreak their iOS devices. It appears in the end, however, that he felt like he had to move on.

"It's been really, really fun, but it's also been a while and I've been getting bored," he tweeted. "So, the week after next I will be starting an internship with Apple."

Obviously with Allegra working with the company whose products he's tried to hack for the past several years, Jailbreakme.com would likely be discontinued. It's not too much to expect that some of the first things he'd do in Cupertino is help close the holes he's exploited over the years.

It's a huge blow to the jailbreaking community too -- losing what could be considered one of its most effective hackers.

The practice of hiring those that hack you has been going on for years in the industry. Essentially the thinking is this: since they've been spending so much time exploiting your code, you might as well pay them to do it internally so that you'll be able to catch holes in your software before it is publicly released.

Allegra isn't the first hacker hire for Apple: two months ago the company hired Peter Hajas, who developed the jailbroken app MobileNotifier. It was thought that Hajas helped develop the refined notification system which has become a major part of iOS 5.

Malware detection has been improved with some interesting new technologies. Perhaps the most useful of these allows Titanium 2012 products to detect applications that have been packed (encrypted), in an effort to bypass your defenses; once the file has been unpacked, it’s then scanned in real time using file-based signatures, which greatly improves the chance of detection.

Elsewhere, a new Fake AV Cleaner focuses on malware that poses as legitimate security software; proactive botnet detection can uncover even previously unknown botnets and other network threats; and a new Social Network Security module visually identifies safe and malicious links in Facebook, Twitter and Myspace.

Some features previously available in the high-end Titanium Maximum Security suite are now also available in the mainstream Titanium Internet Security. Every Titanium suite now includes the System Tuner, for instance, which optimizes your PC by cleaning up the Registry, hard drive and more.

Titanium Internet Security users now get 2GB of online storage space, courtesy of Trend Micro SafeSync (though Titanium Maximum Security provides a 10GB account).

And there are smaller but still welcome additions throughout the package, including the ability to preserve your privacy by cleaning up cookies, Internet histories, and securely deleting confidential files.

Perhaps the most significant addition, though, is the new Mobile Protection feature which is available with Titanium Maximum Security only. This provides further security software for up to three mobile devices: Android, Symbian, iOS or Windows-based gadgets are supported.

As with previous editions, Titanium 2012 is available in three main varieties: Titanium Antivirus Plus 2012 provides the core antivirus engine, and blocks malicious links; Titanium Internet Security 2012 is the mainstream security suite, and adds a spam filter, parental controls, firewall options, identity theft protection and more; and Titanium Maximum Security 2012 adds social networking protection, wireless hotspot authentication, file encryption, mobile protection and more. And if any you’d like to explore any of this further, trial versions of each package are available now.

Over 70,000 people tuned in to watch the launch event live via satellite. The Empire State Building in New York City was even lit up with the Windows 95 logo. Fields in England were also painted with the logo so it could be seen from the air. In Poland, journalists were taken in a submarine to experience "a world without Windows."

The launch was a hit. 20 national magazine cover stories, 13,000 newspaper stories, 800 radio news spots and 2,000 television news segments all covered the arrival of Windows 95, which would usher in a new era in computing.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Windows 95 and relive the excitement, we have collected stories from those who where there to experience the events first hand:

"Windows 95 was launched in a big white tent on the suburban Microsoft campus east of Seattle. The tent held about 1,500 people; some 300 were journalists. I sat with a pack of them, all identifiable by their press badges and shopping bags full of free software.

"At the end of the show, the backdrop was yanked away, revealing two bleachers full of the Windows 95 software team. They were in four groups, each of which wore t-shirts of a single color. The whole created the four-paned window that is the Win95 logo. Then -- kaboom! -- the stage split in half, a way-cool thing to happen. We were supposed to exit through the divided stage and into an aisle between the two bleachers.

"As we trooped out, the software developers began to chant. One bleacher yelled, "Windows!"; the other, "95!" "Windows!" "95!" Anyone who has been to a high school football game gets the idea. As the press filed out, it joined the cry: "Windows! 95!" - Charles C. Mann, Inc.

Microsoft disclosed at TechEd 2006 in Sydney Thursday that 32-bit versions of Windows Vista would never support high-definition protected content, including HD DVD and Blu-ray movies. The new formats will require 64-bit systems running the x64 edition of Vista.

The news, first reported by Australian tech publication APC Magazine, may come as a surprise to many Windows users looking to take advantage of the high-definition support with their current hardware. For example, Intel's Core Solo and Core Duo chips -- included in many laptops -- are not 64-bit compatible.

Microsoft attempted to downplay the issue, claiming that by the time HD DVD and Blu-ray had widespread adoption, so would 64-bit systems. The problem, however, is that even with 64-bit processors from Intel and AMD arriving on the market, 64-bit drivers are still few and far between.

x64 editions of Windows require drivers that are signed by Microsoft, which means they have undergone extensive testing. The process is costly for manufacturers, and even common hardware devices such as wireless network cards still lack proper drivers. In turn, few manufacturers ship PCs running the 64-bit operating system.

Microsoft says it had to leave unsigned driver support in 32-bit versions of Vista due to application compatibility problems. Consumers would encounter the same errors and non-working hardware with Vista as they do on x64 editions now if the change was made.

This issue is the core reasoning behind Microsoft disabling the high-definition playback functionality. 32-bit versions of Windows allow unsigned code to be run in kernel mode, which means a piece of software could effectively bypass any copy protection on the discs.

Media companies pushed Microsoft on the matter and asked the Redmond company not to enable playback on 32-bit Windows, said senior program manager Steve Riley during a TechEd session. Riley added that the disc formats themselves would work fine, and only commercially produced movies would fail to play.

Remembering Windows XP The Great Operating system... Shutting down For ever..

Ten years ago today, Aug. 24, 2001, in Redmond Washington, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Jim Allchin, then vice president of the platforms group, officially released to manufacturing Windows XP. The RTM marked a huge achievement for Microsoft, which finally had a consumer operating system based on the NT kernel. Windows XP marked the end of the DOS/Windows 9x legacy and the beginning of a new lineage of Microsoft operating systems, continuing the path paved by Windows 2000 some 18 months earlier.

Dark clouds hung over Windows XP, however. In April 2000, US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered Microsoft to be broken into separate desktop software and operating systems companies. A year later, an appeals court rescinded the breakup order but returned the case to a new judge. Some kind of penalty awaited Microsoft.

Meanwhile, the United States was griped in recession, following the dot-com collapse and Enron debacle. PC sales plummeted. If Microsoft was looking for about the worst time conceivable to launch Windows XP, this was it. Gartner sales projections for Windows XP were downright glum, for example.

Microsoft's Pride

But on this sunny day, one where stereotypical Seattle rain threatened to ruin festivities, those dark clouds seemed distant. Gates and Allchin gathered with other Microsoft employees, OEM partners and loads of journalists (Bloggers? Forbid! Not in 2001!) -- there was the ceremonial signing of gold code, placed in a briefcase and flown off by helicopter. Gates and Allchin looked hopeful during the RTM event, like proud fathers sending children off to the first day of school.

Timing was not coincidental. Microsoft had drawn a straight line from August 24 to September 24 to October 25 -- the latter two dates, respectively, when the first Windows XP PCs would go on sale and the software would officially launch in a big gala. That's right, new XP PCs preceded the official release by a month.

Microsoft and its partners planned to spend $1 billion promoting Windows XP. There would be multiple launch events around the globe, with the main one in New York City.

But darker clouds loomed unseen. On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists flew highjacked jetliners into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers and into the US Pentagon. The collective American psyche entered a period of shock and mourning. An economy already ravaged by recession tumbled into despair. Microsoft couldn't respectively or in any way conceivably continue the big Windows XP launch event as planned.

Event organizers wisely chose to keep New York as the launch venue. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani welcomed Microsoft warmly. The city needed something to cheer the gloom, and revenues and tax sales dollars couldn't hurt either. So Giuliani joined Gates on Oct. 25, 2001, to officially launch Windows XP. There was a muted and respectful celebration. Microsoft's most important operating system ever debuted in the midst of uncertainty -- about America's future, the state of its economy and even Microsoft's fate before US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.

A Reliable, Workhorse

Windows XP wasn't an exceptional operating system so much as a reliable one. Particularly after the release of Service Pack 2, which was more of a new release than an update, XP found its place as the world's workhorse operating system. SP2 appeared in early August 2004, nearly four years after Windows XP RTM.

"Old Reliable" brought tremendous stability to the PC marketplace. No Microsoft operating system stayed in service so long without a replacement. Two-and-a-half years would pass before successor Windows Vista launched, in separate November 2006 and January 2007 events. By then, Windows XP was so widely used, so widely supported by applications, peripherals and other third-party products, Vista struggled to find support from anybody.

Microsoft made architectural changes that required developers to adapt their applications, but few seemed interested. Why should they? Windows XP's install base was enormous -- the OS paid the bills. Windows Vista was a marketing disaster, and for many reasons, but one of the most overlooked is Windows XP's success. The operating system had achieved the so-called "good enough" threshold, which coupled with the stable ecosystem created a competitive barrier for Vista like earlier Windows versions posed to other developers' operating systems. How ironic!

When Windows 7 shipped in September 2009, more than 80 percent of Microsoft's desktop OS install base was on XP. A stunning achievement.

All this started 10 years ago today.

Of these, obviously Windows XP has the weakest security, by far, and Windows XP has the biggest marketshare, too. Globally close to half of all computers still run XP.

And today, Windows XP is ten years old.

Ten years is an eternity in this business. So it's no wonder XP's security architecture is not up to date.

As a result, attackers right now would be stupid to spend their time and money targetting any other operating system. That makes no sense as long as they have this huge, easy low hanging fruit.

Obviously XP is going away. As we can see from this chart, Windows 7 will pass XP in the near future and will become the most common operating system.

And when XP's marketshare drops low enough, attackers need to start looking around. Some will focus on Windows 7. Others will look at OS X, Android, iOS and so on.

The attackers have never had it so good. The easiest target is also the most common target. This can't change quick enough.

Do a good deed today. Uninstall an XP.

All web browsers now feature a search option at the top of the program window, and many have reduced the address bar and search box into a single entity. This is the case with Firefox, creating the unashamedly name Awesome Bar. Combining searching and URL typing into a single location not only reduces clutter, but also helps to keep things intuitive. If you would like to take things a little further, AwesomeBar HD is a free Firefox extension that grants you control over your searches.

Now, rather than just typing in a search term and pressing Enter, the extension makes it possible to construct powerful custom searches using a range of different search engines. Start to type a search term into the Awesome Bar and a series of labels will appear. These cover common search topic such as news, books, weather and many more. Rather than searching the entire web for your chosen term, click one of the tags to limit your search to this topic.

Each topic has a web site or search engine that is used for customised searches by default. In the case of the news category, for example, the CNN web site is the AwesomeBar HD’s first port of call. However, from the pop-up menu that appears when selecting the category, it is also possible to opt to use a different site or search engine – such as BBC news or the New York Times. This is the case for each category that is available.

List of well known google web applications popular now a days

Android
Chrome
Chrome OS
Gmail
Google Alerts
Google Analytics
Google Apps (for email hosting)
Google Blog Search
Google Books
Google Buzz
Google Calendar
Google Contacts
Google Checkout
Google Docs
Google Finance
Google Goggles
Google Earth
Google Image Search
Google Maps
Google News
Google Reader
Google Search
Google Sync
Google Scholar
Google Talk
Google Translate
Google TV
Google Voice
Google Webmaster Tools
Nexus S
YouTube

It's been just about six months since Microsoft rolled out the first limited beta of Office 365, and now the company is releasing the public beta just about six months before the product's anticipated final launch.

Two different plans are available in the Office 365 beta: Plan E3, which is designed for larger, IT-based organizations, and Plan P1, which is best suited for small businesses and organizations with 25 or fewer employees and no IT support. Though it can be scaled to larger organizations, Office 365 is meant to be a replacement for Office Live Small Business.

A new addition to the public beta is the Office 365 Marketplace. As the name suggests, this is an "app store" for Office 365 partner apps and services. When it goes live today, it will have 100 apps and 400 professional services available.

Sign-ups for the Office365 public beta take place at Office365.com, and 38 global regions are open to participate: United States, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong SAR, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United Kingdom.

OS X Lion detailMicrosoft CEO Steve Ballmer has let the cat out of the bag -- again. Microsoft's biggest breacher of new product information calls the next big operating system "Windows 8" and reveals that it's coming "next year." Ballmer has done this kind of thing before, causing massive, collective PR staff heart failure and rapid response along the lines: "that's not what he meant." I wonder what the excuse for Ballmer's big mouth will be this time.
Ballmer made the missives rather oft-handely earlier today to Microsoft Developer Forum attendees in Tokyo. In context, he speaks about the present: "We're obviously hard at work on the next version of Windows. Windows 7 PCs will sell over 350 million units this year. We've done a lot in Windows 7 to improve customer satisfaction. We have a brand new user interface. We've added touch, and ink, and speech."
He then progresses to the future: "As we look forward to the next generation of Windows systems, which will come out next year, there's a whole lot more coming. As we progress through the year, you ought to expect to hear a lot about Windows 8. Windows 8 slates, tablets, PCs, a variety of different form factors."
Ballmer's timing on the slip, if it can be called that, is interesting. Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference opens on June 6 in San Francisco, where Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" will be major focus. Ballmer's slip and Sinofsky's D9 appearance are sure to generate Windows 8 buzz and rumors before WWDC. Apple's policy is never to discuss new products before they're announced, which would be good for Microsoft being the buzz child for the next week or so.

While Windows has enormous PC market share, many people perceive Microsoft and the operating system to be in decline. Also, Apple is the news media's and Wall Street's love child of the moment. The slightest thing Apple becomes enormous buzz. Look at all the nitpicking rumors about the most picayune features supposedly coming with iPhone 5. I'm surprised no one has speculated about a special toilet mode so people can talk in the loo without callers knowing. Can you imagine Apple CEO Steve Jobs doing a "one more thing" pitch about that and the specially designed noise-cancelling microphones to dampen the room's echo and cut out flushing and other sounds.

Apple and Microsoft will both be looking to woo as many developers to their platforms as possible -- not just desktop operating systems, but the mobile stuff, too. In perhaps yet another preemptive marketing move, Microsoft is holding a Windows Phone event tomorrow morning in New York. Oh yeah, Ballmer shot off his mouth about that, too, formerly calling the update, codename "Mango," Windows Phone 7.5.

"The relationship with developers is the most fundamental relationship between Microsoft and its customers," Ballmer says, in Tokyo today. "You're it. You write the programs, the applications that really turn on all of our customers to the power of information technology, whether you're writing for the phone or the Xbox, the PC, or the tablet, your work is the work of our industry. And our No. 1 goal in life is to support the developers, developers, developers here in Japan and across the world."

Apple will make similar pitch in two weeks to its developers. The difference: Microsoft is aggressively getting out in front of Apple discussing new features in Windows Phone and Windows 8, but the next versions of iOS and Mac OS X are scheduled to ship first. The mobile operating system also is expected this year and before the first Windows 7.5 handsets ship. Which position would you rather have? First to marketing or first to market?

"Windows 7 PCs will sell over 350 million units this year," Ballmer asserts. Mac shipments are likely to be 14 million to 16 million, based on recent quarterly growth rates. By the numbers, Apple could ship Lion a dozen years before Windows 8 and still not make much dent in Windows PC shipments like these. But Lion isn't a lonely beast. It stands alongside iOS devices, which helped propel Apple revenue from $13.5 billion in calendar first quarter 2010 to $26.7 billion by year's end. Income rose from $3.1 billion to $6 billion. In calendar first quarter 2011, Apple revenue and income exceeded Microsoft's. So by a different measure, Apple could conceivably continue its phenomenal growth bolstered by getting to market first.

But none of this really answers the question posed in the headline, because the future is uncertain in a highly competitive market. But it's fun, and often useful, to conjecture and debate. So I ask you to answer in comments the question: With Mac OS X Lion coming this summer, is 2012 too late for Windows 8?

Samsung is throwing a party for 400 readers in San Francisco to preview the new Galaxy Tab 10.1, and we would like to invite you to attend. Oh, did we forget to mention the door prizes? Samsung will give away five Tabs and five Galaxy S smartphones.

At the least, you can get your grubby little hands on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 before the tablet goes on sale. But, please, leave your iPad at home. We can't be responsible for any, ah, accidents that might occur during the Tab preview event.
We now have a complete list of all the goodies Samsung is giving away. Along with five Tab 10.1s, you'll also have a chance to win a Samsung Infuse 4G, two Droid Charges, and two Samsung Nexus S 4Gs. There also will be 400 media hub vouchers, allowing you to rent or buy $25 worth of TV programming or movies for your select Samsung device. There's more: 400 Samsung branded Tab/Digi cleaners.

Just eight days before the D9 conference kicks off in Rancho Palo Verdes, Calif., Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft Windows & Windows Live president, has agreed to participate. Talk about booking gigs at the last minute. Speakers for a conference of this calibre typically book many months in advance. Could it be Sinofsky has something important to say about Windows 8?
Microsoft already is gearing up for the operating system's launch. Today, in remarks made during the Microsoft Developer Forum in Tokyo, CEO Steve Ballmer described the next version as "Windows 8." Ballmer told attendees: "As we look forward to the next generation of Windows systems, which will come out next year, there's a whole lot more coming. As we progress through the year, you ought to expect to hear a lot about Windows 8. Windows 8 slates, tablets, PCs, a variety of different form factors."Windows 7's D6 Debut

Three years ago, at D6, Microsoft gave the first big sneak peak of Windows 7. Given that Microsoft is now on a 3 to 3.5 year development cycle for Windows, timing is about right for a splashy Windows 8 debut -- that and today's Ballmer confirmation of 2012 release.

During D6, Julie Larson-Green, Microsoft's corporate veep for Windows Experience, showed new user-interface elements, including multitouch capabilities. Larson-Green led the team that revamped the Office UI with the ribbon motif.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer described the demoed features as the "smallest snippet of Windows 7." What looked like big features then really turned out to be "smallest snippet" later on. Apple's iPhone, launched less than a year earlier, had made multitouch all the rage. But touch has yet to really take off on Windows -- for many reasons, exhaustion being one of them. People tend to tire easier when using touch on a vertical or near-vertical display. The technology demoed better than it proved practical for the Windows mass-market.

Why Here?

Why not here is perhaps the better question. Microsoft is a regular D Conference attendee, and the event is hugely promoted and reported. Some other reasons:

D Conference, run by Walt Mossberg and Swisher, is a gathering of "Who's Who" business leaders and technology influencers/pioneers. Microsoft should want to be there -- or be square.
Microsoft is rumored to be incorporating at least parts of the ribbon into Windows 8. D9 is the right audience for showing off the motif changes, as was D6 three years ago.
Windows support for ARM chips is a big deal, and D Conference is a venue where big deals are made. Watch for even more demos of Windows 8 running on ARM-powered mobile devices.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is on medical leave and won't be attending. His absence and Apple's Mac OS X silence before its developer conference make D9 right place to wow and influence the biz and tech elite.

Sinofsky's challenge will be wooing the crowd -- generating excitement about Windows 8 before rival Apple says boo about Lion. In business perception is everything. While Windows has enormous PC market share, many perceive Microsoft and the operating system to be in decline. D9 is right place and time for Microsoft to reset perceptions. Can Sinofsky deliver? We'll know next week. For now, what do you think? Comments await your responses.

At an event in New York City on Tuesday, Microsoft announced the first new version of Windows Phone, version 7.5 (also known as "Mango") will be released on new devices this fall, and it will be available as a free update to all Windows Phone 7 devices at that time as well.

Even though Windows Phone Mango includes "more than 500 new features", some of which were shown off today, a major factor contributing to Mango's importance is the scale of this release. The addressable market for Mango, Microsoft said today, will be four times larger than it was for Windows Phone 7 when it launched one year prior. This means Microsoft has forged more carrier partnerships and more manufacturer partnerships that will help expand Windows Phone globallyHTC, Samsung, and LG -the three companies which launched the original batch of Windows Phone 7 devices- will all be launching new phones running Mango, and they'll be available in "both 3G and 4G models." Also, the launch will include devices from new hardware partners Acer, Fujitsu, ZTE, and of course, Nokia, whose partnership with Microsoft was announced back in February.

So Mango will have support from Nokia and ZTE, two of the world's top four mobile phone manufacturers who have risen to the top of the industry with practically no products in the North American market.

When we spoke to ZTE at CES earlier this year, the company said it had big plans for expanded presence in the North American market as LTE networks grew, but this would be mostly through broadband modems.

If you format a document without Styles, it is referred to as "direct" formatting. This means modifying text or other objects, such as frames or tables, by applying various attributes directly. The format applies only to the selected area and all changes must be made separately. Styles, on the other hand, are not applied to the text directly, but rather are defined in the Styles and Formatting window and then applied. One advantage is that when you change a Style, all parts of the document to which that Style is assigned are modified at the same time.
You can remove direct formatting from your document by selecting the entire text with the shortcut keys Ctrl+A and then choosing Format - Default Formatting.

Imagine you have some co-authors or reviewers who collaborate with you writing your original document. One day you send out copies of your document to all reviewers. You ask them to edit the copy and send it back.
Normally, the reviewers enable change tracking by Edit - Changes - Record and you can easily see the changes.
If one of the authors has made changes to a document without recording them, you can compare the changed document to your original document.
1.Open the reviewer's document and then choose Edit - Compare Document.
You should always start with opening the newer document and compare it with the older document.
2.A file selection dialog appears. Select your older original document and confirm the dialog.
OpenOffice.org combines both documents into the reviewer's document. All text passages that occur in the reviewer's document but not in the original are identified as having been inserted, and all text passages that got deleted by the reviewer are identified as deletions.
3.You can now accept or reject the insertions and deletions. At the end you may save the reviewer's document as a new original with a new name.

The File menu contains a Versions command that enables you to save multiple versions of a document in the same file.
You can choose to view individual versions of a document, or you can display the differences between versions with color markings.
In the dialog to open a document, you can select from a combo box which version of this document you want to open.

OpenOffice.org can automatically open Microsoft Office 97/2000/XP documents. However, some layout features and formatting attributes in more complex Microsoft Office documents are handled differently in OpenOffice.org or are unsupported. As a result, converted files require some degree of manual reformatting. The amount of reformatting that can be expected is proportional to the complexity of the structure and formatting of the source document. OpenOffice.org cannot run Visual Basic Scripts, but can load them for you to analyze.

The most recent versions of OpenOffice.org can load, but not save, the Microsoft Office Open XML document formats with the extensions docx, xlsx, and pptx. The same versions can also run some Excel Visual Basic scripts, if you enable this feature at Tools - Options - Load/Save - VBA Properties.

The following lists provide a general overview of Microsoft Office features that may cause conversion challenges. These will not affect your ability to use or work with the content of the converted document.

OpenOffice.org 3.1 uses the following file formats:

Document format	File extension
ODF Text	*.odt
ODF Text Template	*.ott
ODF Master Document	*.odm
HTML Document	*.html
HTML Document Template	*.oth
ODF Spreadsheet	*.ods
ODF Spreadsheet Template	*.ots
ODF Drawing	*.odg
ODF Drawing Template	*.otg
ODF Presentation	*.odp
ODF Presentation Template	*.otp
ODF Formula	*.odf
ODF Database	*.odb
OpenOffice.org Extension	*.oxt

You can make your own. I am going to try this as well. Check this out-

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-...ard-Drivequot/

there is lots and lots of DIY (do it yourself) stuff on net.

XFX vs Sapphire vs MSI for HD 4670

Windows XP Professional SP3
Processor: Pentium 4 3.06 GHz
Mobo: Intel DG965RY with PCI-E x16 connector
Monitor: LG Flatron 20" (1600 X 900)
400W PSU
1.5 GB DDR2 RAM

I am not a hardcore gamer, but need atleast NFS MW in highest details.
I have short listed HD 4670 (512MB/1GB DDR3), assuming it will work with my PSU, but am confused between XFX, Sapphire and MSI. Could anyone explain the difference between them?
I am also willing to consider other options, with my PSU in mind (please don't ask me to change it).
I am willing to shell out atmost

5000 for a card which will be future proof as well.
Any help would be highly appreciated.

If you are willing to spend 5000/- and want a some what future proof solution then I would recommend you to get directx 11 supported HD5670 cards.

An Asus make will cost you Rs.5400/- where as Sapphire HD5670 can be bought for Rs. 5350/-

If you need a real future-proof solution for coming 3 years then better save that 5000/- for now and wait till August this year till AMD's Fusion core APU arrives. Then dispose existing board+procc+ram (can fetch u approx 3600~3900/-). You will have 9K in your hand. arrange for 2K more and upgrade your system to Llano+suitable mobo+DDR3 memory. You will not be needing a gfx card and u'll have a pretty decent rig at your disposal capable to play NFS-MW and many other games at the highest settings.

Still want more?... arrange for another 3K and get a discrete HD65xx gfx card. Your Llano will hybrid xfire with it and return a performance comparable with HD6850. You can now play almost all the latest games with pretty high settings

well since none cared to answer i think i post the solution myself 1. vlc 2.wiamp+tv addon 3. media player classic

Micromax A70

Micromax is all ready to launch the successor to its first Android smartphone Ando A60 in the form of A70. The launch is expected next month for a price around INR 9,000, reports The Mobile Indian.Micromax A70 is be the first Android smartphone with dual cameras [5MP & VGA] under 10K. Other features A70 include 3.2 inch TFT capacitive display, Android 2.2, and 1450 mAh battery.
According to the sources at Micromax, Micromax A70 can be launched in May third week and A70 is not alone, company is also planning to launch Bling successor Bling 2 with Android next month.

Frontech 5.1 speakers for Rs.2500

go to big bazaar or future bazaar.com.There u can find koryo home theatres which is under Rs:3000/=

buy i ball booster dude..5.1 and pretty good...

1- BSNL broadband 750 (only for internet) = 750+12%TAX speed 512kbps
2- BSNL EVDO card = 750+12%TAX speed 256kbps-2Mbps
3. BSNL 3G data modem=2500 onwards. speed 3.6mbps.(1500/- PM unlimited)

EVDO sucks...I am using EVDO for past 7 months and for about last 6 months i get speed always greater than 100~180 KBps( <800 kbps) and some time it reaces upto 240 KBps ( 1820 kbps) ..but from past two weeks the server is quite dead and after complaing million times there is no response... . Right now i am getting 60 KBps ( 500 kbps) at day time and ~100 KBps(800 kbps) at night time and

EVDO is not 750 per month ...its 550 per month + tax == rs 618.

The torrents speed in evdo is real bad..u can't get above 30 KBps(240 kbps) even if u have full signal or seeders ...You can't help it n torrents..

You can't play online multiplayer games in evdo such as cs or fifa due to high latency...i get 90 latency even if my friend create server in next to my room..

DOwnloads...dude u can download a lot in EVDO ..i download at least 90 GB per month..

Thats all u can get in EVDO..I hope the speed will come back soon....

AND for .BSNL broadband 750...this even sucks more than EVDO...those maggers BSNL caps the speed and u will never get speed above 35 KBps(280 kbps) even if that is direct links.... ...forget about 100 kbps ..

The torrents speed is better than evdo and u can manage to play online games like cs and fifa at a decents ping time ..say 40 ~ 60 ms...

The service of BSNL is fucked up..but EVDO is more stable than BSNL broadband 750...

So i suggest you to take BSNL broadband 500 plan which is i guess the best plan ..And if u r using that then don't CHANGE IT...

1.BSNL 3g Unlimited at 1300 Rs Only,,,

2.I pad sim can insert in data card (if you google how?)- but you heard it right from AP CSC about 1 Mbps max speed and no U/L plans- They say Rs 999+tax rs 102 /only 10 GB when I enquired in Paradise CSC in Secunderabad last week.

Ipad used in data card can be stopped anytime. In chennai they are asking to bring Ipad to lock the sim to Imei. so I pad sim in data card is a short term fix.

3. Idea launching 3G in hyderabad ina few days. So it might work in karimnagar.

4.Aircel already in Hyderaabd- Check signal in your town. Right now the best plan in Aircel is Rs 1000 /10 Gb @7.2 Mbs. They say there is a Rs 1275 U/L data plan- check with your dealer.
4.BSNL - new plans Rs 1500/15 GB/valid 30 days !! (Rs 1399+tax post paid)

welcome to reality 3G world !

5. when it comes to B & C class towns- sometimes BSNL is the only 3G. !!

NAME: bsnlnet
APN : bsnlnet
Proxy : Not set
Port : Not set
User name:Not set
Password: Not set
server: Not set
MMSC: Not set
MMS Port : Not set
MCC: 404 (will change accorge to place.will come automatically)
MNC:64
Authentication type : PAP
APN type : Not set

Here are some links for Linux users.

Ubuntu users should try my PPA: https://launchpad.net/~cristatus/+archive/nm-ppa
WvDial scripts are here: https://github.com/downloads/cristatus/stuffs/wv.tar.gz

The WvDial scripts can be used with any Linux distribution. The updated packages in my PPA can be used on Ubuntu/Debian/Mint (or any other Debian based distribution). The fixes have been merged upstream, so check with your favorite distribution for the latest versions of ModemManager and usb-modeswitch packages.

step1- install your teracom data card software
step2- when your installation complete then uninstall only bsnl 3g software not modem driver
step3- install Given Setup From Following Link

Download Crack .exe

Download Microsoft Safety Scanner to Protect Your PC Windows Live One Care Safety Scanner
Microsoft has released a portable standalone security tool designed specifically to scan for and remove viruses, spyware and other threats. The Microsoft Safety Scanner is a free downloadable security tool that provides on-demand scanning and helps remove viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. It is rebranded from Windows Live One Care Safety Scanner by the Microsoft.

The best part of Microsoft Safety Scanner is that it works with existing antivirus software.

According to Microsoft, the Microsoft Safety Scanner expires 10 days after being downloaded. This enable user to force download a new and updated tool from the website. To rerun a scan with the latest anti-malware definitions, download and run the Microsoft Safety Scanner again.

System Requirement for Installation

Operating System: Windows 7; Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista; Windows XP.

A PC with a CPU clock speed of 500 MHz or higher, and 256 MB RAM or higher.

VGA display of 800 × 600 or higher.

200 MB of available hard disk space.

Select Your Own custom Image As a Background picture in G-mail account.

Log on to your GMail Account.
Go to the Themes tab in Settings
On the bottom left, select create your own theme
Click on the link that shows you to select your own background image
You can either select an image from your hard disk or you can also choose from your Picasa web album
Now you are done. Enjoy your new background

The feature, auto save of email address in Gmail is really useful to the people who often send large number of messages. Gmail automatically saves all the email addresses to which you send emails. Think a time when you send a email to someone and afterwards forget to add his email in the address book.
This feature not only helps you in managing your contact but also makes your contact book cluttered.

But if you dont want Gmail to add contact automatically, you can easily disabled it by using following method:

Go to the Gmail Settings.

Under General tab, you will find Create contacts for auto-complete.

Check I’ll add contacts myself

Save Settings

Well Friends Evaluating Windows Server 2008 software does not require product activation. Any edition of Windows Server 2008 may be installed without activation, and it may be evaluated for 60 days. Additionally, the 60-day evaluation period may be reset (re-armed) three times. This action extends the original 60-day evaluation period by up to 180 days for a total possible evaluation time of 240 days.

How to install Windows Server 2008 without activating it

    During Windows Server 2008 Setup , when you are prompted to enter a product key for activation, do not enter a key. Click No when Setup asks you to confirm your selection.
    You may be prompted to select the edition of Windows Server 2008 that you want to evaluate. Select the edition that you want to install.
    When you are prompted, read the evaluation terms in the Microsoft Software License Terms, and then accept the terms.
    When the Windows Server 2008 Setup program is finished, your initial 60-day evaluation period starts.

To check the time that is left on your current evaluation period, run the Slmgr.vbs script that is in the System32 folder. Use the -dli switch to run this script. The slmgr.vbs -dli command displays the number of days that are left in the current 60-day evaluation period.

How to manually extend the evaluation period


When the initial 60-day evaluation period nears its end, you can run the Slmgr.vbs script to reset the evaluation period. To do this, follow these steps:

    Click Start, and then click Command Prompt.
    Type slmgr.vbs -dli, and then press ENTER to check the current status of your evaluation period.
    To reset the evaluation period, type slmgr.vbs –rearm, and then press ENTER.
    Restart the computer

HTTrack is a free and open source Web crawler and offline browser, developed by Xavier Roche and licensed under the GNU General Public License.

It allows one to download World Wide Web sites from the Internet to a local computer. By default, HTTrack arranges the downloaded site by the original site’s relative link-structure. The downloaded (or “mirrored”) website can be browsed by opening a page of the site in a browser.

HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable by options and by filters (include/exclude), and has an integrated help system. There is a basic command line version and two GUI versions (WinHTTrack and WebHTrack); the former can be part of scripts and cron jobs.

HTTrack uses a Web crawler to download a website. Some parts of the website may not be downloaded by default due to the robots exclusion protocol unless disabled during the program. HTTrack can follow links that are generated with basic JavaScript and inside Applets or Flash, but not complex links (generated using functions or expressions) or server-side image maps.

Website : http://www.httrack.com/

To block all the storage device in your Windows, run registry editor by typing regedit in RUN command.
In the registry editor, at left side navigation pane, navigate to following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Services > USBSTOR

Now at the right side double click on START.

To block USB storage Medias, change the value data to 4.

If you want to unblock USB storage Medias just navigate to the same location and change th value data to 3.

What I normally used to do is, search through history, scratching my mind about the website which I opened last. But now in Firefox 4, a simple Ctrl+Shift+T will recover the last tab.

And what about the entire window, if you accidentally closed an entire window, Ctrl+Shift+N will recover it.

You can also recover several tabs and windows through the History Menu.

Well Friends the news is that...

skype till now does not give video calling service on mobile.internet calls not possible via skype in India.

If you use Internet Explorer, on each machine you want to be able to access the
proxy on, just go into the Control Panel->Internet Options, and select the tab
'Connections'. You'll see a button called 'LAN Settings', just click on it, and
you'll see the proxy settings. For most systems, all you will need to do is
check the 'Use a proxy server' box, enter the IP address of the machine the
proxy server is running on (in the example above, this would be '10.0.0.1', and
set the Port # to 6588. Select 'Ok', launch your browser, and you should be
good to go!

If you use Netscape, go to the Edit->Preferences->Category->Advanced->Proxies->
Manual->View, whew! That's a long path! Here you'll be able to input the IP
and port address mentioned in the IE config process.

In order to use this on your local network, you must be using TCP/IP as one of
the methods the machines have to talk to each other (this can be found inside
the Settings->Control Panel->Network, if you see TCP/IP, you're good to go).
If for some reason it doesn't work, ie, the other machines can't see the Proxy,
the most common problem is the IP addresses you have the network configured to.
There are only a couple that are valid to use on a local network, I would
recommend you use 10.0.0.x (where x is a number between 0 and 255 that will
be specific to each machine). Try changing the IP and then using the
Proxy again. Also, just because your machines can see each other, doesn't mean
that TCP/IP is configured properly; if you are unsure of whether or not this
is set up properly, do the following: Choose 'Run' from the start menu, and
type 'ping [IP]', so if the other machine has the IP of '10.0.0.1', you would
type 'ping 10.0.0.1'. If the machines can see each other, this will say some-
thing like 'Reply from...' blah blah blah; if they can NOT see each other, this
will say something like 'Request timed out.'

Unless you have your local IP address assigned to you, there are only three
groups of IP's that are valid for you to use on a machine that's connected to
the net (that won't collide with other machines). They are:

10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255 (Class A)
172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255 (Class B)
192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255 (Class C)

So make sure your LOCAL network IP's fall within one of these three ranges, or
you're more than likely going to have problems.

If you don't know your IP address, the simplest way to get it is to choose
'Run' from the system menu, and type 'winipcfg'. Make sure you do this when
you are NOT connected to the internet, otherwise you will just end up getting
your temporary internet IP address. Another method, is to go into the network
area (as outlined above), select TCP/IP, and it's in the IP Address Tab!

If you don't have TCP configured, here's what I would recommend setting your
local IP address's to; for the server, set it's IP to '10.0.0.1' and subnet
mask to '255.255.255.0'. Then, just increment the last number of the IP by
one for each remote machine; so the next machine would be IP '10.0.0.2' and
the subnet mask would remain '255.255.255.0'. Then, on the remote machine
you would configure the Internet Options (as mentioned above) to use the proxy
server IP of '10.0.0.1' at port '6588'; and you're done!

One more thing to note about the TCP configuration; once it's completed you'll
have TWO TCP configs - one that's used for your internet connection (which you
shouldn't have to change), and one that's used for communicating across your
local network (the 10.0.0.1 example). For some reason if you use Dialup
networking, and ADD another TCP/IP protocol, Windows binds it to the modem, and
there doesn't appear to be any easy way of changing this - if this happens to
you, I normally recommend removing the dialup networking configuration, then add
everything to get the local network going, then re-install the dialup networking
configuration.

With every executive under the gun to improve profit sooner rather
than later, Lean Six Sigma offers advantages that are critical in today’s
marketplace. The acceleration of cost reduction in particular, and
process speed in general, allows a firm to respond to market conditions
and opportunities faster than the competition. In the June 2001 issue of
Wired, Andy Grove of Intel stated:

“The most direct way of increasing productivity is doing the
same thing in a lesser period of time—turning things faster.
And productivity is the key to everything—greater
productivity increases economic growth.”

The previous sections showed you how to develop a WCF service to enable a piece of software such as the bug report manager system to communicate with the outside world. As discussed, every WCF service exposes one or more endpoints, each with an address, a binding, and a contract. The binding of an endpoint specifies the communication protocols through which the endpoint communicates with the outside world. In this section, you see how to enable your WCF service to communicate with different clients through different sets of communication protocols (bindings).

A router sends information between your network and the Internet. With a wireless router, you can connect computers to your network using radio signals instead of wires. There are a few different types of wireless network technologies, including 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g. We recommend using a router that supports 802.11g because it is fast and provides a strong wireless signal. For more information about wireless network technologies

Use caution when opening e‑mail attachments. E‑mail attachments (files attached to e‑mail messages) are a primary source of virus infection. Never open an attachment from someone you don't know. If you know the sender but were not expecting an attachment, verify that the sender actually sent the attachment before you open it.

Guard your personal information carefully. If a website asks for a credit card number, bank information, or other personal information, make sure you trust the website and verify that its transaction system is secure.

Be careful when clicking hyperlinks in e‑mail messages. Hyperlinks (links that open websites when you click them) are often used as part of phishing and spyware scams, but they can also transmit viruses. Only click links in e‑mail messages that you trust.

Only install add-ons from websites that you trust. Web browser add-ons allow webpages to display things like toolbars, stock tickers, video, and animation. However, add-ons can also install spyware or other malicious software. If a website asks you to install an add-on, make sure that you trust it before doing so.

Microsoft regularly offers important updates to Windows that can help protect your computer against new viruses and other security threats. To ensure that you receive these updates as quickly as possible, turn on automatic updating. That way, you don't have to worry that critical fixes for Windows might be missing from your computer.

Updates are downloaded behind the scenes when you're connected to the Internet. The updates are installed at 3:00 A.M. unless you specify a different time. If you turn off your computer before then, you can install updates before shutting down. Otherwise, Windows will install them the next time you start your computer.

Spyware is software that can display advertisements, collect information about you, or change settings on your computer, generally without appropriately obtaining your consent. For example, spyware can install unwanted toolbars, links, or favorites in your web browser, change your default home page, or display pop-up ads frequently. Some spyware displays no symptoms that you can detect, but it secretly collects sensitive information, such as the websites you visit or the text you type. Most spyware is installed through free software that you download, but in some cases simply visiting a website results in a spyware infection.

To help protect your computer from spyware, use an antispyware program. This version of Windows has a built-in antispyware program called Windows Defender, which is turned on by default. Windows Defender alerts you when spyware tries to install itself on your computer. It also can scan your computer for existing spyware and then remove it.

Desktop gadgets can keep information and tools readily available for you to use. For example, you can display news headlines right next to your open programs. This way, if you want to keep track of what's happening in the news while you work, you don't have to stop what you're doing to switch to a news website.

You can use the Feed Headlines gadget to show the latest news headlines from sources you choose. You don't have to stop working on your document, because the headlines are always visible. If you see a headline that interests you, you can click that headline, and your web browser will open directly to the story.

Parents who want to control or monitor their children’s PC use may wish to block Web sites they deem undesirable, but they often have other concerns as well. Can they prevent their kids from sharing personal information with strangers, or keep them from gaming when they should be studying? With CyberPatrol 7, Surf Control makes an effort to address all these issues. CyberPatrol’s layered approach to blocking objectionable content proved relatively effective in our testing. Cyber- Patrol checks URLs for telltale patterns and matches them against a regularly updated list of blacklisted sites, then goes a step further by checking a page’s HTML source code and even evaluating the target of links on the page to help detect pages that might otherwise slip through the filter. Only with a concerted effort were we able to locate pages containing pornographic images that CyberPatrol didn’t block.

This issue highlights lots of new technology created by smart people doing exciting work to move the industry forward. They work at big companies, small companies, and universities. Funding from venture capital firms and the government provides the incentive to pursue their ideas, but one thing is certain:
Most new technology comes from individuals who set out to learn about science and technology. The quality of U.S. educational institutions is still unparalleled. But the decline in the number of students majoring in science and engineering, and the even bigger decline of students in computer science, is alarming. The percentage of science and engineering students has been dropping for years. According to the National Science Foundation, science and engineering degrees granted in the U.S. have decreased steadily from about 35 percent in the 1960s to just under 32 percent by 2001, the last date for which the NSF has published data.time getting education visas. While I understand the need to be careful about visas for security reasons, making the process long and bureaucratic—or simply reducing the number of students allowed into the U.S.—seems short-sighted. I can’t count how many foreign nationals attended U.S. universities and then went on to start, run, or make major contributions to big tech companies here. Now, foreign nationals will study elsewhere, and when the time comes to build companies, they won’t be doing it in the U.S. Another trend is economic and cyclical. During the dot-com boom, CS students flourished, but during the bust, interest dried up. The HERI data shows a similar trend during the PC boom of the early 1980s. That too faded, but not nearly as much as it has now. In fact, the percentage of freshman CS students is lower than it has been at any time since 1976, when I was a computer science sophomore at Rensselaer.
I’m particularly concerned that recent graduates aren’t choosing computer science because they think that jobs will be outsourced to foreign countries. U.S. companies are indeed outsourcing some lower-level IT jobs. But the hype is larger than the reality. Most of the faculty members I’ve talked with say that their CS and IT graduates are having no trouble getting job offers. In fact, I know many big tech firms that are looking for new people and are having trouble finding the right candidates. Over the long term, if tech companies can’t find U.S. graduates, then they’ll hire more overseas. This trend would exacerbate the outsourcing issue and turn out to be a big problem for the U.S. A recent study from the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee states: “The global information technology–powered revolution is accelerating, but this nation has not yet fully awakened to the implications.” It argues for a bigger government role, especially in providing an infrastructure for connecting R&D centers and for redirected federal R&D priorities. But that’s only one answer.

An increasing number of Web applications take advantage of JavaScript, style sheets, and Dynamic HTML to make them much more robust. The buzzword for this is AJAX (which stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), and the kinds of things developers are doing with it are amazing. Consider the alternative interface that Yahoo! has been showing for Yahoo! Mail. Based on technology acquired when Yahoo! purchased Oddpost, it runs entirely in a browser, but feels like a desktop mail program. This is the most powerful Web mail interface we’ve seen so far,
but Google’s Gmail, which many people already use, is another great AJAX application. I’m also a huge fan of Google Earth (formerly Keyhole), which uses satellite data to let you find just about anything on Earth via the
Web. Its integration with Google Local is nothing short of spectacular. And now that it’s free, there’s no reason not to try it out.

Disinfect your PC

Start by downloading SUPERAntiSpyware Portable Scanner to your hard drive; this downloads the program and the very latest definition files so there's no need to try and update it after running the tool.

The downloaded file will be given a random filename and have a .com extension. This is normal, as it helps the program evade detection. Once downloaded, either burn this to CD or copy it to a USB flash drive. If you choose the latter option, make sure you write-protect the flash drive after doing so using a free tool called USB Write Protect, which will prevent the drive from becoming infected.

Now switch your attention to your infected PC. Reboot in Safe mode if possible, then insert the disc or flash drive and double-click the downloaded file to launch SUPERAntiSpyware Portable Scanner, which will hopefully both detect and remove the infection in question.

The report identifies increased competition among spammers as causing frustration for old-timers and leading to improved spamming techniques. "Competition is good for product development," says Barracuda. Male Bomber claims a three-fold increase in the effectiveness of its phishing email and five-fold for targeted marketing since early 2009 -- hence the LLC to its name. Male Bomber profits from illicit and legit (if unsolicited marketing email can be called that) spam operations.
FUCIA concedes that business is still good, just not as good for him personally as it was 24 months ago. He laughs about all the stupid "tards" who clicked on anything during the recession: "Mortgage refinancing, debt consolidation, credit card fraud warnings -- it was good phishing while it lasted."

But the recession also opened the floodgates of new spammers, who set up servers to "blast" email. "They have no class," FUCIA gripes. "There's an art to this business spammer blasters are too f*cking morons to see." Rustock rose to dominance following the 2008 global economic crisis, FUCIA claims.

"We used to worry about the cops, now our problem is competition," Barracuda gripes. That's the major reason Barracuda is glad to see Rustock gone. "No spammer should command such influence," he said. "It's bad business for everyone else."

Barracuda has called on his competitors to adopt a proposed "Code of Ethics for Spammers" that would better demarcate them from their real enemies -- law enforcement, Microsoft and peddlers of anti-malware software. "We have to work together against our real adversaries," Barracuda says. He has created a motto for the code of ethics: "I've got your back."

FUCIA believes cooperation is possible. "We all want to make money, and the Internet is big enough for us all." He alleges -- and Betanews couldn't confirm -- that three spammers, all members of the code of ethics coalition, leaked information on forums and Facebook that helped Microsoft and law enforcement bring down Rustock. "We posted first to IRC, sure that the bad guys [Microsoft and law enforcement] would get it," FUCIA says. "They didn't. LOL! And we had been all so sh*t for brains they monitored IRC. We had to dumb it down for them on Facebook. WTF?"

To retrieve lost photos, you’ll need image recovery software. We reviewed several such products in our recent Utility Guide Nearly all let you recover from the most common situations of erasure and data corruption for JPEGs. Two good tools are ImageRecall,our Editors’ Choice (FlashFixers, $39.95 direct, www.flashfixers.com llllm), and PhotoRescue ($29 direct, DataRescue sa/nv, www.datarescue.com lllhm). Download and install a recovery tool, select the location (or drive letter) of the flash card, and run a scan. You may be offered a standard or a deep scan. For accidentally deleted files, standard may be enough. It will list files, or show thumbnails of potentially recoverable files. Pick the ones you want to recover—“All” is the best choice—and a hard-drive location where they should go. Your odds of success are best with deleted files and second-best with corrupted disks. They are worst with an image that was being written when the card was removed or power lost. If you’re lucky, you may be able to save part of the image.

An ominous increase in sniffing activity on TCP Port 445 could signal an impending attack targeting a recently patched Microsoft vulnerability. Researchers at Symantec Corp.’s DeepSight Network have detected a surge in scans on Port 445, an indication that malicious hackers may have already created exploits for a flaw in Microsoft Corp.’s implementation of the SMB (Server Message Block) protocol.
In Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003, Microsoft uses TCP Port 445 to run SMB directly over TCP/IP to handle the sharing of files, printers, and serial ports, and also for communication between computers. The vulnerability, which was rated “critical,” was patched in Microsoft’s June 14 MS05-027 bulletin, and the increased noise on that port could be the first sign that a password bruteforce attack is imminent. A spokesperson for Microsoft’s Security Response Center said the company was not aware of any active attempts to exploit the vulnerability. “Port scanning is an activity that may be indicative of an attempt to discover attack vectors against any vendor product and is not an activity unique to Microsoft products,”

Holographic storage promises a new generation of drives that store data as a 3D image and pave the way for supersize drives with remarkably fast access times. On a holographic disc, the data is recorded throughout the volume of the recording media. InPhase Technologies has announced it will ship a holographic drive next year that can store 300GB of data on a CD-sized disc and deliver access times of less than 200 milliseconds (see photo). Maxell will manufacture the discs. InPhase is shooting for discs with a whopping 1.6TB of capacity by 2009. The initial write-once discs will be geared for archival storage; the next generation will be rewritable. Holographic storage can achieve such massive densities that storing 20GB of data on a credit card could soon be possible.

When relationships founder, arguments about remote controls— proliferation, complexity, who had them last—are the culprits 16 percent of the time, says a recent Cosmo survey. Actually, there is no such survey, but this conclusion is probably true.

• One way to foster domestic bliss is to buy a universal remote control. We review seven remotes here, most of them programmable via your PC. The RCA and weemote devices, though not PC-programmable, might be worth considering to supplement one of the higher-end remotes featured in this roundup. And the Gyration, while not universal, is a great addition to your PC media setup.

The Linksys Wireless-G Game Adapter gets the job done but leaves a lot to be desired. It’s the biggest unit in this roundup, and you must configure it using a PC over Ethernet before you attach it to a PS2 or an Xbox.

The setup wizard is rough around the edges, and there’s no site-survey tool, so you’ll have to type in the SSID of your wireless LAN manually. The worst flaw, though, is that you can’t select DHCP from the setup wizard; you must use the Web-based management GUI to choose the most common method of assigning IP addresses. The adapter has an external switch to toggle between ad hoc and infrastructure modes. Configuration isn’t as easy as it should be, but once configured, the adapter connected without any difficulty to our wireless LANs, using both the PS2 and the Xbox.

The smallest adapter we reviewed, the D-Link DGL-3420 Wireless 108AG Gaming Adapter is the only one we saw that supports 802.11a as well as 802.11g. Powered by GameFuel technology, which prioritizes gaming traffic, the adapter was also the only one in our roundup that the Xbox could configure directly. If you want to use it with a PS2, you’ll have to configure via PC and Ethernet. The Web-based GUI management tool has a helpful site survey that let us select our wireless network from a list of those detected. We were unable to attach to either of our 802.11b networks (one with WEP and one without), but had no problem connecting to our 802.11g network.
One annoyance is that the Web GUI requires a username and password to log on; these are only in the PDF manual, which comes on a CD. The setup wizard makes configuration a snap, though, and firmware was easy to upgrade.

Betanews welcomes reader contributions. Here, Eric Neumann responds to two February 21st posts by Joe Wilcox -- "iPad is not a PC" and "5 reasons Macs will never outsell PCs." If you would like to submit a post, please email joewilcox at gmail dot com.

Being a business IT professional, I have been watching with great interest and excitement the emergence of the iOS model of computing and cloud movements hitting the personal and now commercial computing worlds. However, I must add that initially I have also viewed these big changes with fear; as recently as 2006, my career was purely based on the SME IT status quo of on-premise Microsoft and LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stacks.

Betanews welcomes reader contributions. Here, Eric Neumann responds to two February 21st posts by Joe Wilcox -- "iPad is not a PC" and "5 reasons Macs will never outsell PCs." If you would like to submit a post, please email joewilcox at gmail dot com.

Being a business IT professional, I have been watching with great interest and excitement the emergence of the iOS model of computing and cloud movements hitting the personal and now commercial computing worlds. However, I must add that initially I have also viewed these big changes with fear; as recently as 2006, my career was purely based on the SME IT status quo of on-premise Microsoft and LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stacks.

0 comments

Google was still working to restore access to its Gmail e-mail service to a handful of customers on Monday, a day after an outage prevented a few users from accessing their e-mails. A message posted to the Google Apps status page at 10:40pm Eastern Sunday said engineers were "working to restore full access," and full access would be restored in the "near future."

No update had been provided as to if the issue had been fully resolved, although the company noted the issue affected only .08% of the total Gmail user base.

Google said late Monday that it would have e-mail access restored to those who found themselves locked out of their accounts due to a glitch in a storage update applied to Gmail servers on Sunday. The company noticed the update was malfunctioning and pulled it before it could cause additional trouble.

As opposed to the .08% of all Gmail users affected, Google revised that number down to .02%. This translates to about 34,000 or so locked out of their accounts, versus the 136,000 originally thought to be affected.

When I was a school kid in Maine, teachers said that if March roared in like a lion, meaning snowy stormy, it would go out like a lamb -- and vice versa. I got the storm in a faulty Snow Leopard rather than the Lion. This morning my 11.6-inch MacBook Air crashed and wouldn't reboot. If not for moving my computing life to the cloud, I would have lost an important day of productivity and lots of valuable data.

Few people give a second thought to files and data stored in the cloud, but just like local data, it is important to backup online information. The recent problems suffered by Google Gmail highlights the importance of ensuring that your online data is safeguarded, and BackupGoo provides a quick and easy way to back up your Google account in its entirety.

After providing your Google username and password, the application is able to access your account and can then be used to download your emails, documents, calendars, contacts and more. If you do not use all of Google's services -- not everyone has a need for Google Docs, for instance -- you can select precisely what you would like to backup and where the files should be stored on your hard drive.

MobileMe's expected refresh was notably absent from Apple's event Wednesday announcing the debut of the iPad 2, however Cupertino may be working behind the scenes to make a revamp of the cloud service part of a larger push towards streaming content.

Sources have told Bloomberg that Apple is currently in negotiations with several record labels including Universal, Sony, Warner, and EMI with hopes that an agreement could be reached by midyear. Apple wants the labels to allow unlimited access to their content across multiple devices.

This week, I unexpectedly started using Google's Cr-48 notebook running Chrome OS as my production system. On Monday, my 11.6-inch MacBook Air fatally crashed, leaving no real alternative since a friend has my Windows laptop. So I fired up the Cr-48, which I reviewed in December in seven parts. It has been a great week that got better after installing yesterday's Chrome OS update -- "0.10.156.46 (Official Build caa798a8)."

I started using the Cr-48 full time a second time with sense of urgency. I couldn't fall back to MacBook Air. It was sink or swim. Treading water wouldn't be good enough. Swim I did: As a work replacement PC, the Cr-48 has proved its worthiness, with Chrome OS obviously being major reason; Google synchronization is another. This second week's use also has me reconsidering the merits of the browser as a user-interface motif.

Online backup providers are ten-a-penny these days, so finding your own unique selling point in an increasingly crowded market takes a little bit of thought. SpiderOak has been selling online backup space for around 18 months now -- it's not the cheapest option, but it does boast a user-friendly client that makes the whole backup process that little bit easier. It works across Windows, Mac and Linux, and it's capable of syncing folders between different computers to ensure you always have access to the latest versions of your files, whatever computer you're sitting at. SpiderOak also offers a free iPhone app, recently updated to version 1.2 with full iPad support, which allows you to access and use your backup files directly from your mobile device.

The great thing about SpiderOak is that it offers a free lifetime's 2GB worth of storage, believing that when you use that up you'll want to upgrade to a subscription offering more storage. That's all well and good, but SpiderOak charges $100 a year (or $10 a month) for 100GB storage space. That's off-putting to many, and it's a shame it doesn't follow Wuala's example in offering smaller packages for less (such as its extremely competitive entry level 10GB package for just €19 a year).

Google is preparing anyone using Chrome 10, which released yesterday, for launch of Chrome OS. The new standalone browser has reached feature parity -- for business, consumer or IT pro evaluator users, anyway -- with Chrome OS browser front-end running on Google Cr-48 laptops. Chrome 10 is a much bigger browser release than even Google's boasting -- "speedier, simpler, safer" -- lets on. Google is beginning its biggest push yet to the cloud, and Chrome OS is quickly, and I do mean quickly, approaching v1 release. Apple and Microsoft had best watch out, because among major platform developers they have the most to lose should Google's cloud ambitions succeed.

Chrome 10's standout features, at least for cloud computing, all begin with "s": sandbox, search, services, simplicity, security, settings, speed, stability and synchronization. Many of these attributes interrelate or aren't new to this browser release -- they're improved for cloud readiness.

If there is one truism about IT organizations -- they're risk averse. Some are so against making changes they even take unnecessary risks to avoid others, like continuing to use Internet Explorer 6 even as Microsoft pushes hard to get businesses on a more modern, and safer, browser. Today, Google extended a concession to IT organizations by offering a second track for Google Apps that lets IT organizations delay and take seemingly more control over upgrades. The program smacks against one of cloud computing's benefits: Seamless and seemingly maintenance-free upgrades.

Google Apps' administrators can now choose "Rapid Release" or "Scheduled Release" options. The first track assures that users have the most up-to-date software. The second allows administrators to delay updates, which will be released to them on Tuesdays. Google provides a calendar of planned upgrades, seven days in advance of new features' release.

AVG has launched a beta of its brand new online backup service. LiveKive will offer cloud-based backup, synchronising and file-sharing for its users, and the beta version launches with a one-size-fits-all free storage plan of 5GB for a year. No paid-for packages are currently available while LiveKive remains in beta.

Once signed up through the AVG landing page, users can then download the backup client, currently codenamed AVG AirSpace. This is a rebadged version of the same client used by rival online backup provider, SpiderOak

Once again, Google has announced the end of development for its Gears browser plug-in -- most recently in a blog post yesterday. Aaron Boodman reiterates: "We [are] shifting our focus from Gears to HTML5." Timing isn't good for users of the most-popular web browsers. Google won't support gears in Internet Explorer 9, which released two days ago and Firefox 4, which is set to ship next week. However, Google has confirmed the feature will remain present in its own browser, Chrome, up until version 12. Chrome 10 shipped last week.

Gears is a technology that allows compatible websites and services, including Google's own Google Docs and Google Mail, to be accessed offline before resynchronising when an Internet connection is reestablished. It enables users to store offline and backup copies of email, documents stored in the cloud and more

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