What would you outsource to your mobile operator

The mobile landscape is growing larger and more strategic to business. Users' phones are supporting a blend of personal and business use. Such an environment is complex to plan, build, manage and secure, so how would you feel about outsourcing it? How about outsourcing it to a mobile network operator?

Slowly but surely, the cellular carriers are likely to approach enterprises with managed wireless service packages. Such packages, for example, might include a mix of service usage plans plus the installation and management of in-building cellular equipment that possibly supports Wi-Fi services, as well.

Managed fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) CPE services to enable roaming between the two network types, indoors and out, might be still another option. FMC equipment maker Agito Networks, for example, last week said it has appointed a former AT&T sales exec as its vice president of strategic accounts.

"There is work in the carrier channel, we have signed deals, and this new executive is going to help sling shot that effort," an Agito spokesman told me by e-mail.

Emerging enterprise-grade femtocells and enterprise radio-access networks (E-RAN) will theoretically boost indoor cellular coverage at more affordable rates than distributed antenna systems (DAS). It's a natural fit to partner with one or more wireless carriers for any of these products, because as the license holders of cellular spectrum, carriers must be the ultimate signal source of the indoor equipment. Still, incumbent operators don't exactly have a reputation for flexibility and customer service.

Turning your Wi-Fi network over to your mobile carrier is an even murkier decision, particularly if you are already well into your Wi-Fi implementation.

Some DASs support Wi-Fi already, and new E-RANs (which use the existing Ethernet to distribute cellular signals) may support Wi-Fi, as well. How well Wi-Fi equipment from such companies competes with the mature enterprise-class vendors' products in large companies is at this point unclear.

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Windows Phone 7, Microsoft's mobile strategy finally takes off

Microsoft today announced the new version of its phone operating system, Windows Phone 7. It’s a sweeping redesign, coupled with an aggressive new partnership with handset makers and mobile carriers. Initial reviews are not only positive but actually excited.



With the unveiling today of Microsoft’s next mobile phone platform, Windows Phone 7, it’s now official: the phone is not a PC. That statement became a mantra as Microsoft executives demonstrated a sweeping redesign of the company’s mobile operating system.
But technical details were sparse, and the official Windows Phone Website doesn’t add much. Microsoft didn’t reveal what changes, if any, it had made to the OS kernel, which in the past has been based on Windows CE. The company says the Windows Mobile 7 Web browser is “much more advanced” than any previous offering, but didn’t say from which version of desktop Internet Explorer it borrows the core components.

Microsoft says a brand new set of software development tools and resources, and presumably a software development kit, will be forthcoming but put off details until the company’s MIX10 Web developer conference next month in Las Vegas.

“We knew we needed and wanted to do things that were out of the box, that were clearly differentiated from our past and hopefully from other [offerings] in the market,” said Steve Balmer, Microsoft CEO, who hosted the press conference today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. “It’s a big step. I think we have a chance to have a major impact on the market.”

Balmer wasn’t kidding. Andrew Lees, senior vice president for Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business talked at length about Microsoft’s mobile partnerships, an approach that’s been given a redesign almost as sweeping as the user interface. Over 1 billion phones are sold globally each year, vastly more than the current smartphone market, he noted. “We need partners to support Windows Phone on this scale,” he said.
Phones from an array of leading handset makers, and all major U.S. mobile operators will be available in time for the holiday shopping season in 2010. Microsoft officials were not more specific.
Using an unidentified prototype phone, Joe Belfiore, vice president of Windows Phone, showed off the new user interface. It’s a dramatic change from Microsoft’s original approach to the mobile market with the PocketPC: as the name implied, the idea was to translate the PC experience to mobile devices. That model is now extinct: “The phone is not a PC,” Belfiore said repeatedly.
With Windows Mobile 7, users start with three buttons at the bottom of the screen: start, search, and back. The initial lock screen gives way to a completely redesigned start screen. Microsoft has discarded the familiar grid-like display of application icons.
Instead, the UI offers a flexible, customizable display that combines elegantly clean, crisp text with intelligent icons, dubbed “live tiles” because they’re linked with online data sources such as Facebook or Flickr or email, grouped in “hubs” that bring together data from applications, corporate servers like Microsoft Exchange, and the Web. Text and tiles “overflow” the touch screen, but users pan quickly through arrangements that are visually consistent in each hub.
One hub is “productivity” which is built around the Microsoft Office suite, including the OneNote note-taking application, and Sharepoint Server. Other hubs organize and synchronize people and contacts, photos, music and video, games via the first mobile phone Xbox Live connection, and marketplace for buying and downloading applications and games.

These integrated user “experiences” represent a real advance in mobile design, according to some.

“This is one feature I expected in [Windows Phone 7] based on prior previews I had had with Microsoft, and this is going to be a huge strength,” says Alex Kac, president and founder of Web Information Systems, a Cedar Park, Texas software company specializing in mobile applications, including those for Microsoft platforms. “This is something Apple has done far better than Microsoft on the desktop, but not well at all on the iPhone and I'm excited to see that.”


The redesign is getting strong early reviews.

“The result is a feat no phone has performed before: Making the iPhone's interface feel staid,” says Gizmodo reviewer Matt Buchanan. “If you want to know what it feels like, the Zune HD [Microsoft’s digital music player] provides a taste: Interface elements that run off the screen; beautiful, oversized text and graphics; flipping, panning, scrolling, zooming from screen to screen….”

“The sheer minimalism of the interface is striking, and we're really impressed by how many risks Microsoft is taking here,” writes Joshua Topolsky, for Engadget. “It's hard to believe that just a year ago this company was showing off WM 6.5, which now looks ages behind what they've turned around with today. We're not sure if someone was just let off the leash or if we're seeing a newer, smarter, more agile Microsoft, but the 7 Series concept definitely shows that this company is learning from its mistakes.”
The Zune influence isn’t to everyone’s taste. Alex Kac admits that he’s not a fan of the Zune UI,though his objections are more aesthetic than functional. “I'm not a fan of the large typography and avant garde look,” he says. “I'm also not a fan of the blackness. The [Google] NexusOne [smartphone interface] is very black and I don't care for it.”
The new OS comes with Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, and Bing Maps, built-in, allowing a range of additional features to be exploited.

The revamped UI will be part of a new hardware platform that Microsoft has developed in an unprecedented partnership with hardware and software vendors, according to Microsoft’s Andy Lees. For the first time, Microsoft worked very closely with Qualcomm to optimize the phone’s silicon, presumably the advanced ARM-based Snapdragon processor, and the core OS software and drivers. Secondly, with its partners, Microsoft has developed a common hardware architecture for Windows Phone 7 devices, for example, defining how sensors such as accelerometers will work in all these handsets. Partners included Dell, HP, HTC, LG, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba.

There was very little detail about the hardware architecture. Microsoft did reveal that the phones will offer a multi-touch screen experience “in the same way as” desktop Windows 7. And, Windows Phone 7 devices will combine a WVGA multi-touch screen with a display technique, part of Microsoft’s ClearType technology called “sub pixel positioning.” The combination results in text that’s very easy to read, according to Microsoft.

“Microsoft has wisely (finally) decided [that] all device vendors must meet minimum hardware and software resource requirements before their devices will be certified,” writes technology consultant Jack Gold, principle of J. Gold Associates, Northborough, Mass. “This should make for a greatly enhanced user experience, although it will prevent some vendors (e.g., HTC) from creating their own layered UI on top of the OS to make their devices unique.”

Finally, all the leading U.S. mobile carriers plan to introduce Windows Phone 7 devices later this year or early next year. Microsoft is working especially closely with AT&T, currently the sole U.S. operator for the Apple iPhone, and with Orange in Europe.

Lees promised new development tools and resources for Windows Phone application developers but wouldn’t go into details about them. Those details, including to whether or to what degree the phone’s hubs are open to developers, may be critical in getting enterprise developers to embrace the platform.

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Why You Should Help Microsoft Thwart Windows 7 Piracy

Microsoft announced plans to improve efforts to combat piracy of its flagship desktop operating system. An update is coming soon to guard against activation exploits and defend Microsoft, and unwitting customers, against counterfeit copies of Windows 7.

Joe Williams, general manager of Microsoft's Genuine Windows group, stated in a Genuine Windows Blog post "In the coming days, we'll be deploying a new update for Windows Activation Technologies, the set of built-in activation and validation components built into Windows 7."



Williams goes on to explain "Called Windows Activation Technologies Update for Windows 7, this update will detect more than 70 known and potentially dangerous activation exploits. Activation exploits are sometimes called "hacks", and attempt to bypass or compromise Windows' activation technologies. This new update is further evidence of Microsoft's commitment to keeping customers and partners secure."

It is understandable that Microsoft would want to thwart piracy of Windows 7. Obviously, Microsoft has a vested interest in ensuring that every copy of Windows 7 is a legally licensed, and more importantly paid for, copy of Windows 7. Piracy doesn't do much for the bottom line.

The question is whether IT administrators should risk applying it. A user who has a known pirated copy of Windows 7 obviously won't bother applying the update. Many businesses might believe their software is legitimate, though, but be unwittingly running counterfeit versions of Windows 7.

Applying the update should detect that the Windows activation technologies have been circumvented, and place pirated versions of Windows 7 into an unactivated state. The functionality will not be restricted in any way, but the desktop background will change to black and the operating system will frequently display alerts and pop-ups as a reminder that the operating system is not Genuine Windows.

Then what? From a purely moral or ethical stance, those businesses that find they have been duped into purchasing pirated copies of Windows 7 should discard the counterfeit versions and buy new, legitimate copies of Windows 7 from Microsoft. But, that means paying twice for the same software even though the company had no intent to defraud Microsoft in the first place.

IT administrators have more reason than the ethical dilemma, though, to be concerned about counterfeit copies of Windows 7. Williams clarifies in the blog post "Searching for, downloading, or installing activation exploits or counterfeit software on the Internet is risky, because sites that advertise these pirated products often contain malware, viruses, and Trojans, which are found bundled with or directly built into the activation exploit or counterfeit software. A study by research firm IDC, The Risks of Obtaining and Using Pirated Software, shows that one in four Web sites offering counterfeit software attempted to install unwanted or malicious code upon downloading. And this rate is rising."

Williams continues "Media Surveillance, an anti-piracy solutions company based in Germany, recently downloaded more than five hundred pirated copies of Windows 7 (and Windows activation exploits) and found that 32% contained malicious code."
So, essentially, the bargain-priced copies of Windows 7 you acquired from that questionable source online have somewhere between a 25 and 32 percent chance of containing malware and potentially exposing your computer systems and network to further compromise or exploit.

The Windows Activation Technologies Update is signature based and will update its signatures from Microsoft every 90 days and check the operating system again. That part makes no sense at all. If my Windows 7 is legitimate today, how exactly would it become counterfeit 90 days from now?

I support Microsoft's efforts to prevent software piracy and protect customers from potentially malware-ridden counterfeit copies of Windows 7. I think Microsoft would be doing itself, and its customers a favor, though, if it also offered some sort of amnesty or discounted exchange program for small and medium businesses that have fallen prey to Windows 7 pirates.

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Experts Break Mobile Phone Security

The algorithm used to protect the security of communications on 80 percent of cell phones in the world can be relatively easily cracked to intercept calls, according to cryptographers at the 26th Chaos Communication Congress, a computer conference in Berlin. A German researcher presented an attack on the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)--showing it's possible to eavesdrop on cell phone calls and intercept SMS messages. Mobile phones worldwide use GSM, though in the United States many carriers, including Verizon and Sprint PCS, use a competing standard.



Karsten Nohl, who has a PhD in computer science from the University of Virginia, says he demonstrated the GSM attack to encourage people to develop a more sophisticated means of protection. GSM encryption was introduced in 1987, and first showed cracks in the 1990s. Nohl points to a series of academic papers illustrating problems with A5/1, which is used to protect GSM calls.

Nohl says that despite these concerns, people trust GSM with ever more sensitive data. In particular, there have been recent moves to use the standard for mobile banking, payments, and authentication.

Working with a group of hackers, Nohl generated and published a "rainbow table" for A5/1. This table is an optimized set of codes that would allow an attacker to quickly find the key protecting a given phone conversation. The group also cracked another algorithm that protects conversations by shifting communications between mobile phones and base stations to a variety of different frequencies during a call.

"It would be a good time to start transitioning GSM systems to more advanced cryptographic algorithms," says David Wagner, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who was involved in work in the early 2000s that proved it was possible to break A5/1. "We should be grateful. We don't always get advance warning that it's time to upgrade a security system before the bad guys start taking advantage of it."

Wagner says the research brings no surprises. It simply demonstrates that attacking GSM's encryption is more feasible than previously realized. "The bottom line for cell phone users is about the same," he says. "Interception of GSM calls is possible, but takes serious technical sophistication." Intelligence agencies, however, are probably following this closely, Wagner adds, since they're in a position to use these techniques to decrypt GSM calls en masse, and may already be doing so.

The GSM Association, a London-based organization that "represents the interest of the worldwide mobile communications industry," begs to differ. "All in all, we consider this research, which appears to be motivated in part by commercial considerations, to be a long way from being a practical attack on GSM," the organization said in a statement. "Before a practical attack could be attempted, the GSM call has to be identified and recorded from the radio interface. So far, this aspect of the methodology has not been explained in any detail, and we strongly suspect that the teams attempting to develop an intercept capability have underestimated its practical complexity."


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First Look, New IPhone Games From Electronic Arts

On Thursday, EA Mobile unveiled three new games that are coming soon to an iPhone or iPod touch near you. Though no release dates have been set yet, look for theses titles in the coming weeks.


Spore Creatures
Spore Creatures is an adaptation of the creature phase from 2008's evolution simulator, Spore ( Macworld rated 3.5 out of 5 mice ). But thanks to some impressive graphics and an accelerometer-controlled top-down display, Spore Creatures looks to be a game carefully developed for the iPhone platform."

The producer for Spore Creatures, Kam Zambel, sat down with me to demonstrate the gameplay of this evolution simulator. The developers worked hard to create an open world environment for players to explore with their unique critters. The dedication to open-ended gameplay isn't limited to the 20 levels for your creature to scavenge, hunt, and discover, but also to the game's iconic creature creator. Thanks to the iPhone's touchscreen display, manipulating the creature's body is only a pull, pinch, or flick away. Kam explains that with 45 creature parts and five different character traits to level up (offensive, defensive, socialization, movement, and perception), the combinations for unique creatures are virtually infinite.

The game begins when your creature makes its first tepid steps onto land. You'll have to eat creatures smaller than yours to stay alive and collect their DNA to evolve. You can befriend creatures or attack and eat them; each strategy has advantages and disadvantages. You'll also encounter puzzles that will unlock new areas to explore or allow you to defeat "epic creatures" you'll encounter in certain areas. During the demo, Kam showed that in order to get past a boulder, her creature needed to develop legs and pull the rock away.

Throughout gameplay, you can evolve three times and reach new zones. You'll encounter new parts to attach to your creature and develop its skills. The zones are varied too, from beach areas to forests to icy tundra. Each has its own unique creatures to encounter.
While Spore Creatures lacks multiplayer, EA is confident that the customizable abilities of the creatures (thanks to Spore's innovative Creature Creator) and the wealth of things to explore will keep players interested. Spore Creatures will be compatible with all versions of the iPhone and iPod touch.


The Simpsons Arcade
Few cultural icons have the staying power or lasting impact of The Simpsons. Inspired by the 1991 arcade title and featuring the voice talents of the television show cast, The Simpsons Arcade for the iPhone and iPod touch is steeped in authenticity and reverence for the source material.

The game is a side-scrolling beat-'em-up, much in the style of the original arcade game. Steve Robert, producer of the Simpsons Arcade, explains that getting the characters and settings right was a top priority. To that end, Dan Castellaneta, Hank Azaria, Nancy Cartwright, and the other main voice actors all reprise their roles from the series for the iPhone game. When you hear Homer yell "D'oh!" it's the actual voice of Homer, Dan Castellaneta. EA worked with Michael Price, one of the writers for the show, in order to ensure the game was as true to the series (and funny!) as possible.

The plot is something straight out of a Simpsons episode. You play as Homer, who by chance runs into Mr. Smithers while he is in possession of a special donut. Mr. Burns needs that donut and employs half of Springfield to stop Homer from getting to it. Homer, for his part, just wants the forbidden donut.

Each of the six levels features an iconic environment like the Springfield Mall, Krustyland, and Mr. Burn's compound. As Homer, you'll confront iconic bosses, mini bosses, and NPCs straight from the show. On the first level in the streets of Springfield, you'll see Moe idly standing on the side of the street outside his bar. Snowball II runs past you at one point and you'll eventually do battle with Chief Wiggum and Mayor Quimby (both of whom have been bribed by Mr. Burns).

As a brawler, Homer has a full range of attacks at his disposal, including punches, shoulder charges, belly flops, etc. Just like in the original arcade, you can pick up weapons and interact with the environment to a limited degree. The controls are simple too: there's a touchpad D-pad in the corner and a couple buttons on the right. According to Steve Robert, you can earn extra lives and continues by finding trophies hidden throughout the levels and beating the minigames sprinkled through the game.

But what of Bart, Lisa, Marge and Maggie? Well, they're in the game, as well. Though not as full playable characters, you can find tokens throughout the game that will call on them to aid you in battle. If you're in a tough spot and confronted by a ton of enemies, finding one of these tokens can clear the stage quickly. Bart rides in and jumps on Homer's back, shooting from his slingshot and taking out enemies. Lisa uses her jump rope and Marge and Maggie grant Homer improved fighting abilities and temporary invulnerability.

From my initial look at the game, The Simpsons Arcade for the iPhone looks to be an authentic and fun brawler. While we'd love to be able to play as the rest of the family, it's understandable that EA wanted to keep the game focused. During the demo, the combat was well balanced, the environments great, and the references to the show numerous. If you've ever wanted to play as Homer on a donut-obsessed rampage, this is your chance.


Need for Speed Shift
Need for Speed Shift, the hotly anticipated sequel to Need for Speed Undercover, looks to offer more gameplay, more replayability, more content to unlock, and improved well, everything. From the stunning visuals to the extensive track and car lists, the game is sure to make every gear head happy.

Nikhil Dighe, associate producer for Need for Speed Shift, showed a preview of the game. The first thing you'll notice is that this is probably the best looking game you've seen for the iPhone. The cars look realistic, the roads are beautiful, and when the soundtrack is thumping, it's a really fun game to play.

While the game is designed to work on every generation of the iPod touch and iPhone, Nikhil admitted that the game runs best on the iPhone 3GS. Hopefully it will run better on some of the older model iPhones than Command and Conquer, another high-end EA title that really needs the 3GS's improved processor.

There are three modes to choose from: Quick Race, Career Mode, and Multiplayer. The "meat" of the game is in the Career Mode, where you can unlock three cities, four tiers, and twenty-eight events. Like the console games, unlocking content is based on earning stars. You may be able to earn several stars on the first track just by finishing first, but other stars (like leading from start to finish) will take time to unlock and keep you coming back for more. That's why Nikhil believes Need for Speed Shift will offer more replayability than Need for Speed Undercover.

There are 20 licensed cars to earn, though you only start with two in your garage. The soundtrack is a big focus of this iteration of Need for Speed, including 20 licensed tracks from a variety of artists and unique, authentic sounds for each car's engine. Not only can you see a realistic car, but you can hear what it's like to drive it as well.

You can customize your car both visually and technically, offering a selection of kits and assists to improve your car's performance and look.

But what is it like to actually play the game? We got a chance to race Nikhil in head to head multiplayer. The multiplayer mode allows for players to connect over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. If players have the same access point over Bluetooth, up to four can play at a time. Otherwise, it's limited to two players. Details on what kind of online multiplayer is available have yet to be revealed, but hopefully you can just hop in to a race against a random player online quickly and easily.

During our race, I switched between a cockpit view (which shows damage via a cracked windshield) and a third-person perspective that allows you to more fully see the racetrack (no car damage, however). The visuals were gorgeous and I really appreciated the arrows that helped novice players navigate (otherwise I would have never made some of those turns). I preferred using the iPhone like a steering wheel via the device's accelerometer; it had just the right amount of sensitive and responded beautifully.

I'm not much of a racing fan, but Need for Speed Shift was a heck of a lot of fun to play. With the soundtrack blaring, the engines revving, and hairpin turns through some truly realistic courses, I can honestly say I've never played a more intense (or fun) racing game on the iPhone.

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BrowserMap Map the Path of Your Packets

Download Now: BrowserMapSetup.zip

Version: 1.0
Released: November 17, 2009

Supported Platforms: Windows XP, Vista, & 7 (32 & 64 bit)
Requirements: Microsoft .Net Framework version 3.5 and Internet Explorer 7+ or Firefox 3.5+

As you're probably aware, as you surf the Web, data is hopping from location to location to request and retrieve the bits of information that form the web page you're looking at. You can actually get the IP addresses and names of the machines that your data has bounced around to and from using the Windows built in trace route utility, but do you ever wonder where those machines are? I'm talking about the physical locations.

Our utility BrowserMap provides this less than crucial but quite intriguing piece of data. By simply clicking the Get Url from Browser button and hitting Go, BrowserMap will trace the path of the hops your browser takes to get the web page data, showing you on a map where the different hop points are in the world.




Using BrowserMap

BrowserMap sets itself to synchronize with your default browser either IE or Firefox. However, if your default browser is neither of these, you can choose to synch with IE or Firefox by selecting the Settings menu, clicking on Synch with Browser, and then selecting Firefox or IE.

You can also select Type URL Manually which will remove the Get URL from Browser button. However, even without selecting this option, you can type in a URL and hit Go.

If you do choose to synch with a browser, simply hit the Get URL from Browser button and BrowserMap will retrieve the URL from the open browser. If you have more than one tab open, it will retrieve the URL from the currently selected tab. If you have more than one browser window open, it will get the URL from the top most browser window. Note: If you are synching with Firefox, the page must completely load in the browser before the Get URL from Browser button will be able to retrieve the URL.

Once you've typed in the URL or retrieved the URL from the browser, hit Go. BrowserMap starts to work. The first thing it does is determine your IP address, the one that is visible to the world, not your internal network IP. Next it passes the address to our web service that retrieves the domain information and the latitude and longitude.

All of the domain, latitude, and longitude data is retrieved from a database that we license. The data is updated regularly. However, we cannot guarantee that it is or will ever be 100% accurate.

Once the latitude and longitude are determined, the location is plotted in the map window provided by Microsoft's Bing.com mapping service.

For every hop BrowserMap takes while tracing the data, it repeats this process of looking up the IP address and retrieving the latitude and longitude and mapping it.

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Convert YouTube Videos Online

I have been searching on it from many days and at last I have found it on how to convert YouTube videos via Online…….

How to download youtube video?
1) If you don't know how to start, please go to www.savevideodownload.com

2) Enter the YouTube Video URL in the above field

3) Click "Get Link" , a new link will appear

4) Right click the new link

5) Save target as "newname.flv" to your computer

6) You must have a FLV player in order to play the newname.flv file on your computer.
Download the FREE FLV Player here. (You can skip this step if you just want to watch it on your other devices such as handphone or IPod.)

7) If you want to play it on your IPod, please download Ipod converter

8) If you want to play it on Sony PSP, Zune, Iphone, Black Berry, mobile phone or convert to other formats such as AVI, MP4, 3GP, WMV etc, you must download FLV Converter

9)If you are facing problem to download video by using above field, please download this all-in-one Youtube mate software. This software can download video from youtube and play the video directly.

Enjoy!!!...................


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Delete files or folders that are UnDeletable

If you were trying to delete some files and you get any one of these below warnings from windows then the Tool of this week is most suited for you.



• Cannot delete file: Access is denied
• There has been a sharing violation.
• The source or destination file may be in use.
• The file is in use by another program or user.
• Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

Windows File Unlocker
This single-function system utility removes a file’s access restrictions. Unlocker is unobtrusive: it resides in the system tray; an Unlocker command appears in files’ right-click menus.

Description
The application removes file-access restrictions that prevent a user from moving, deleting, or renaming a file. The user right-clicks on a file and selects Unlocker, which displays information regarding the selected file, such as Path Locked, PID, Handle, and Process Path. This program also allows terminating a currently running process. In some cases, files cannot be accessed due to Windows file-access bugs, for which Windows informs the user the file is currently in use–even when it’s not.
Unlocker can effectively bypass this bug’s restrictions; it unlocks or disables whatever is preventing the user to access that file. This tool would be a lot easier to use if it allowed hot keys. Novices to advanced users will find this free application very useful.

Features
• Close any handle.
• Kill any process.
• Unload any Damn DLL. Note: You should be aware of the consequences before doing it.
• Delete index.dat . ‘index.dat‘ is System File which store your IE Web History
• Delete, Rename and Move any file you want without the permission of the owner
• Best of all. It is a Freeware!

How to Use it?
1. Simply right click the folder or file and select Unlocker

2. If the folder or file is locked, a window listing of lockers will appear

3. Simply click Unlock All and you are done!

Download
You can download this free Utility at here


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Twitter partners with Bharti Airtel, India's largest telecom company

Another Milestone for Twitter.

It has announced a partnership with Bharti Airtel, India's largest telecom company.

This enables the Airtel customers not to depend on hardwired Internet connections for their tweets.
They now have an easy option of texting.
The fees that's going to be waived for this service is still not fixed, but Biz says Airtel is not going charge any added fees.

Biz Stone explained, "Our partnership with Bharti Airtel, the largest mobile operator in India, means a huge population of people can now send tweets at standard rates and receive tweets for free. Bharti Airtel is offering people in every city, every village, every remote taluk and even the smallest panchayat the opportunity to connect to Twitter and enjoy the open exchange of information with no added fees."


This certainly cheers the Twitter fans all over the world


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Windows 7 Roundup, A Must Read for All Buyers

The long-awaited operating system finally arrived on this Thursday. Unless you scored a Windows 7 free upgrade or plan to go PC shopping soon, the new software will cost a pretty penny (up to $319 for the “Ultimate” edition). So, is Windows 7 worth it?



System Requirements
• 1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit Processor
• 1GB of RAM (2GBs for 64-bit)
• 16GB Available Hard Drive Space (20GBs for 64-bit)
• DirectX 9-enabled GPU
Obviously, to reap the benefits of many of Windows 7’s other features, higher performance machines are required. If you’re not sure what kind of gear your PC is running but still want to get Windows 7, Microsoft has created a small evaluation program for determining whether you machine is capable of running Windows 7, which can be downloaded directly from Microsoft’s official download center.

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor will also tell you whether or not you will be able to upgrade your existing OS to Windows 7 or be required to do a fresh install, which will remove all of your preexisting files and settings. If you’d like to find out without having to install the software, Microsoft released an upgrade chart viewable here.

What’s New?




Many of the features of Windows 7 are improvements on the core framework of Windows Vista, but what features are new to Windows 7? Check out the most notable additions below:
• New Windows Taskbar: Now, it feels and behaves a lot more like Mac OS X’s dock.
• Jump Lists: Context-sensitive menus which are available for each program in your Taskbar and your Start Menu
• Unified Search: The old Start Menu gains a greater amount of utility in Windows 7.
• Fewer Annoying Popups: Remember the famously intrusive UAC system in Vista?
• Device Stage: gives you a single window for interacting with your various gadgets

Better than Vista?
Most reviewers made the inevitable comparison to Microsoft’s last operating system, Vista, which was widely considered a dud. And, most reviewers were happy to announce that Windows 7 is a big improvement over its predecessor. “The first thing you’ll notice about Windows 7 is that it looks like Vista,” writes the Guardian. “It also works like Vista, in the sense that it has the same plumbing underneath, except for a very welcome graphics upgrade to DX11. However, it works much better than Vista, and most of Vista’s annoyances have either been removed, or (mostly) can be changed so the system works the way you like. It takes personalization to extremes.”

Cleaner look



“Windows 7 introduces real advances in organizing your programs and files, arranging your taskbar and desktop, and quickly viewing and launching the page or document you want, when you want it,” says The Wall Street Journal. “It also has cool built-in touch-screen features. It removes a lot of clutter. And it mostly banishes Vista’s main flaws—sluggishness; incompatibility with third-party software and hardware; heavy hardware requirements; and constant, annoying security warnings.”

Speed test




“Windows 7 feels faster than Windows XP and Vista, but it turns out that’s not always the case–sometimes, it’s the slowest out of the three operating systems,” we found that Windows 7 RTM was the fastest to shutdown, and was tied with XP for iTunes encoding. However, it was slower than XP and Vista for both booting up cold by a bit more than 1 second, and slower than either of its predecessors in its Microsoft Office performance.”

Compatibility with old software and hardware




Engadget maintains a Windows 7 upgrade guide, but in their review they say that “anything we found to work in Vista seemed to work just fine (in some cases better!) in Windows 7. That goes for hardware and software, but of course the real test will be when this OS is unleashed upon the masses — your mom’s brother’s 25 year old printer might not make the cut, and we’ll be sure to pour out a 40 upon its behalf. In truth, Microsoft does a very good job with keeping a truly insane quantity of hardware and drivers and vendors happy, but we still think they could do better.”

Compatibility with Drivers




"With the Big Day just days away, expect to see a plethora of announcements from Windows hardware manufacturers about the availability of drivers for Windows 7,” says Driver Detective. Microsoft has addressed the issue of driver compatibility with Windows 7 by requiring all Vista-certified hardware manufacturers to provide Microsoft with compatibility metrics for Windows 7. Those drivers that don’t pass muster on the first blush must be made Windows 7 compatible by the time the new OS is released if the manufacturers wish to retain Vista certification.

Is there any Windows 7 Activation Crack?
“The first crack for Windows 7 RTM Build 6.1.7600.16385 had a short life time span and Microsoft made certain of this aspect,” says Softpedia. The Redmond company revealed that it had worked with Lenovo, the original equipment manufacturer that contributed to the activation circumventing of Windows 7 RTM by leaking the OEM SLP Master Product Key that served as the backbone of the hack, in order to hinder future attempts to bypass the activation and validation process associated with the latest iteration of the Windows client, via this method. The Redmond company indicated that it had blacklisted the special product key issued to Lenovo for the OEM-SLP (System-Locked Preinstallation) of the gold bits of Windows 7.

Sorry Guys Right not there is no Patch available to Activate your Beta copy of Windows 7

The final word




“Windows XP was a great OS in its day. Windows Vista, once it found its feet several months in, was a good OS. With Windows 7, the OS is great again,” concludes Gizmodo. “It’s what people said they wanted out of Windows: Solid, more nimble and the easiest, prettiest Windows yet. There’s always a chance this won’t be a huge hit come October, given the economy and the state of the PC industry, but it’s exactly what Microsoft needs right now. Something people can grab without fear.”

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Study finds prime time on the Internet is 11 pm

NEW YORK -its 11 p.m. Do you know where your neighbors are?

Chances are they're online. According to a study, North Americans have been staying up late to do their Internet surfing this summer, so late that the peak usage for the whole day has been at 11 p.m. Eastern time.

That appears to be a shift from previous years, when most Internet activity was in the daytime.

The new study by Chelmsford, Mass.-based Internet security firm Arbor Networks found that people using the Internet at work and school produce a smaller traffic peak around 4 p.m. Eastern time on weekdays.

Internet activity then declines as people head home. At 8 p.m. Eastern, U.S. and Canadian home Internet traffic starts spiking, and stays surprisingly strong past midnight, Arbor found. At 2 a.m. Eastern, overall traffic is as high as it is at 9 a.m., when people are logging in at work.

Of course, 11 p.m. Eastern time is just 8 p.m. on the West Coast. But the Eastern and Central time zones account for three-quarters of the U.S. population, so it's clear there's lot of late-night traffic.

It also seems North Americans are staying up much later on the Internet than Europeans. Their traffic peaks when it's 9 p.m. in Western and Central Europe, and then drops sharply.


So what is it that keeps us up at night?

Internet video, including both YouTube and pornography, appears to be a big part of the answer, according to Arbor's Craig Labovitz. Video usage peaks at midnight Eastern, later than any other traffic.

Gaming is another big evening activity, but one that's most intense between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Eastern, coinciding with TV's prime time for most Americans. Labovitz found a jump in gaming traffic at exactly 8 p.m. Eastern, and speculates that it's caused by "World of Warcraft" players who prearrange to get together at that time to tackle virtual monsters.

Arbor gathers data from Internet service providers that account for about half of North American traffic. The study looked at 10 weekdays in July. Labovitz said there was a chance that children on summer vacation could be affecting the numbers, and plans to keep watching traffic patterns in different seasons.

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20 Best Software Testing Interview Question

1. Can u test a website or a web application manually without using any automation tool?

As per my idea we can test a web application manually without using automation but its time consuming and might have error so to make our task easy and error free we use automatons tool like Qtp.

As for as Manual is concerned we can test Usability, Functionality, Security testing but whereas performance is concerned we can’t do it manually accurate


2. What tools are used in Manual testing for bug tracking and reporting?

For bug tracking and reporting there are many tools like
Rational clear quest.
PVCS
Bugzilla


3. At what stage in the SDLC testing should be started?

Testing Starts from the starting sate of SDLC that is requirement stage where we prepare SRS or URS DOC.


4. What is mean by designing the application and coding the application?

Designing and Testing are two different phases in a software development process (SDLC).

1. Information Gathering
2. Analysis
3. Designing–
4. Coding
5. Testing–
6. Implementation and Maintenance.

If u want answer in Testing terms means STLC, designing test includes preparing Test Strategy, Test Plan and Test Case documents, and testing means executing the test cases and generating Test Reports.

Designing the application as per the requirements designing the application is nothing but deriving the functional flow, alternative flow, how many modules that we are handling, data flow etc
Two types of designs are there

HLD:
In this designing team will prepare functional architecture i.e Functional flow

LLD:
In this designing team will divide the total application into modules and they will derive logic for each module Coding: writing the course code as per the LLD to meet customer requirements


5. What is the best way to choose automation tool?

We use automation only for version wised projects, means if the project comes up with different versions. Once we write the scripts for one version, we can use these scripts with multiple versions with minor changes. So the main advantage of automation is:
1. Saves the time.
2. Saves money.


6. What is the point of reference by which something can be measured?
1. Benchmark 2. Baseline 3. Metric 4. Measure 5. Indicator

Baseline


7. What is Concurrency Testing?

Multi-user testing geared towards determining the effects of accessing the same application code, module or database records. Identifies and measures the level of locking, deadlocking and use of single-threaded code and locking semaphores.


8. When does metrics validation occur? 1. Throughout the life cycle 2. During the test 3. After the test 4. During requirements definition 5. After the final software release Justify your answer with simple explanation.?

Throughout the life cycle - TO identify the lag & overcome


9. How to choose a test automation tool?

We have to choose depends upon the application complexity & delivery time.


10. Did u come across STUBS and DRIVERS? How did u use these in u r project ?

Stub : A piece of code that simulates the activity of missing components.
Driver : A piece of code that passes test cases to another piece of code.

i will give a gen example….suppose u have 3 modules…A B C…A n B r 100% comp….and C is only 50% comp….u r under pressure to comp in a time frame…what u do is u know to build the mod C u need at least 15 days…so u build a dummy mod C which will take 1/2 days…This is STUB now once all the mod A B and C(dummy) r ready..u integrate them to see how it works..This is a DRIVER


11. On what basis you are fixing up the time for project completion?

Test strategy; Based on the test strategy and testing Approach


12. How u r breaking down the project among team members?

It can be depend on these following cases—-
1) Number of modules
2) Number of team members
3) Complexity of the Project
4) Time Duration of the project
5) Team member’s experience
etc……


13. Usually customers won’t give all the requirements. How will u manage & collect all the necessary information?

Sometimes customer may not produce all the requirements. At this situation Business analyst and project manager will use their experience which they handles this type of projects otherwise we will go through some reference sites where we will observe the functionality and they will prepare use cases and requirements.

or

I am agree with the above answer.
If we really face such a problem then it is better to get information from development team so that we can know the exact info Or else use Ad-hoc testing for the required job.


14. What are the Qualities needed by a software tester?

A software tester must have intent of showing the product is not working as specified.
Software tester have the basic attitude of showing the presence of errors. He must have perspective of customers i.e he has to use the system as he is the client of the system. He has to strive for the quality.

Or

Software Tester must has these qualities—
1)He/she must observe the problem from both the side say user and programmer.
2)Must has good under standing with other team members .
3)Able to understand programmers view.
4)Once start testing, do not put it remain.
5)First test requirements of the user.
6)Before start testing first analysis the project like ;
technology using in project, all the flow etc……


15. In Testing 10 cases you found 20 bugs then how will you know which bug is for which test case?

Each Bug Will Have a Unique Bug-ID which would be related to that particular Test Case. We also make use of the Matrix to keep track of bugs and test cases.


16. What is the path for test director, where the test cases are stored?

c:\TDcomdir\TD_projectname\tests\test no
Usually test cases are stored in Test Plan in Test director


17. What is mean by test suite?

Test suit is “set of test cases”
Group of test cases is nothing but functional (+ve & -ve) and GUI


18. Suppose u have raised one bug have posted to that concerned developer. He can’t accept that is a bug. What will u do in the next stage?

If the developer won’t accept our sent bug, then we show it to our team leader or we can show it to our superior person. so he/she will go and discuss with developer or else they will conduct one meeting on that.

Or

Sometimes bug not reproducible in Dev Environment at that situation dev doesn’t accept
we will give him screen shots. If still debate occurs we raise the issue in bug triage meeting


19. Role of Software Test Engineer in Software Company?

The role of a software test engineer in company is to find the defect. He/She should have “test-to-break” attitude. He/She has to test the application taking the customer into mind. He should work hard for quality.


20. Suppose you testing Calculator application and you got problems like 1/1=2, 2/2=1, 3/3=6, 4/4=1, 5/5=10. Now how will you describe the bug title as well as give the bug description?

Bug title : Calculation Errors
Description: Unable to do the calculations of this application.like the output is giving an undefined/Unstructured format.
Here the examples :
1/1=2………
Severity : Critical
Priority: High/Medium(depends on your Requirement to solve)
Bug Title:calculator_functionality_Division
Description:Division function is not working properly when the values are(both) same and even.

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Gboard Automates Gmail Tasks

If you spend half your day in Gmail, as I do, then you're probably up for just about anything that can help you manage mail more quickly. The Gboard promises to do just that, so I jumped at the chance to give it a spin.



The Gboard is essentially a standard numeric keypad that connects to your PC via USB. The specially labeled keys are programmed with macros that correspond to Gmail's keyboard shortcuts. So, rather than having to remember that # moves an e-mail to the trash and e archives the current conversation, you can simply hit one of the 19 clearly labeled keys on this keypad.

I've now been using the Gboard for a little more than one full day, and it certainly works as advertised. Once you get a feel for the placement of each key, it's easy to operate the keypad by touch. Within a couple of hours, I hardly had to look away from my screen to tap the correct key. It works with both Windows PCs and Macs. There's not much more to say about the functionality of this simple device.

What remains to explore, though, is the actual utility of the Gboard. Priced at $19.99, the Gboard does little more than duplicate existing Gmail features that anyone can already use. Its 19 keys offer only about a quarter of the 69 Gmail shortcuts that exist, which means you still have to switch between either the Gboard and your regular keyboard or the Gboard and your mouse to navigate in Gmail. This constant switching between input devices gets annoying fast.

For serious Gmail users who don't mind actually learning the hotkeys, the Gboard is not much of a time saver. It is, however, a desk hog. It occupies about 33 square inches of desk real estate, and strings one more cable across your work surface. And it's nearly an inch thick, so you're not going to want to throw it in your travel bag when you're on the road.

Unless you're just looking for a fun stocking stuffer or a White Elephant gift to bring to a holiday party, the Gboard probably isn't a great tech investment. But the idea behind it is still worthwhile. It would probably be more compelling if it were a full-size standard keyboard that included labels for Gmail's shortcuts on all the right keys. Last year, Google actually offered free Gmail keyboard stickers that let you label your own keyboard this way. But since that offer is long gone, maybe the folks at Gboard should fill that gap.

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Apple's Green Glow

Until recently, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) was a little too ripe for the green scale. Environmentalists raised a stink over the company's use of toxic chemicals, its refusal to publicly release its carbon emissions, and its overall sorry showing in industry green rankings.





"Steve Jobs admitted they needed to do more when we pressured them in '06 but he also said he was hurt that we didn't give him credit for what they were doing," Casey Harrell, coordinator of Greenpeace's global electronics campaign, told MacNewsWorld. "Well, it's important we give Apple credit for the data they just released, because it has definitely raised the bar."

"Apple's disclosure of environmental impact is a really good story to tell and the closest to a full narrative that we've ever seen," he added.

Fully Bared
The most remarkable aspect of Apple's recent environmental impact disclosure was its comprehensive nature. Unlike most companies, Apple calculated and disclosed the environmental impact associated with its products throughout the entire lifecycle, including periods when Apple has no control and no responsibility, such as during subcontracted part manufacturing and assembly, and actual consumer use of the product.

"For Apple to step up and account for indirect aspects too is astonishing and equates to total transparency," said Harrell.

By contrast, most companies want to focus the discussion solely on their products' energy ratings, transportation issues (such as smaller packaging and lighter fuel use) and recycling efforts. Very few want to talk about environmental impact from manufacturing processes, and none outside of Apple have owned up to indirect impact -- such as through the use of contracted manufacturing.

"Most American companies don't actually make anything," explained Harrell. "They contract part manufacturing and assembly [somewhere] in Korea or China or India. They also contract a good part of the supply chain -- and while they all carry that on their financials, none save Apple carries this on their carbon footprint balance sheet."
It's All Relative

Interestingly, Greenpeace was quick to praise Apple for its transparency and comprehensive disclosures, but Apple itself didn't want to talk about it. Apple spokesperson Kristin Huguet was quick to provide the URL for the newly disclosed data but was equally quick to say there would be no further comment as "anything and everything is spelled out on the Web site."

Questions regarding measurement accuracy and other fine points in Apple's disclosures are still hanging in the air.

"This info should be verifiable," said Harrell. "I have a call in to them now to ask a few more questions, but you would have to be insane to provide this much granular data and it be fake."

The measurements and accounting Apple released are "well within the range Greenpeace expected Apple to be," he noted.

Much of "green" accounting relies on self-disclosed information. Take the esteemed PriceWaterHouseCoopers Carbon Disclosure Project, for example. It contains green rankings of the Fortune 500 but is based exclusively on self-reporting, resulting in a relative, rather than an absolute, score. This year's average score for all respondents was 53.2 compared with an average score of 81.7 for the top 10 percent in the Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index. In that report, Apple scored 73, HP (NYSE: HPQ) 86, and Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) 66 -- all above average.

Numbers Count
Green ratings do count -- and in more ways than one.
"The 'greening' of an organization is more than a public relations initiative," Matt Arnold, principal of sustainability and climate change practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers told MacnewsWorld. "Instead, companies in a range of industries -- including technology -- are developing thoughtful strategies that produce environmental benefits while also creating competitive business advantages."

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veoh.com, watch and downlaod good quality print old and new hindi movies

Veoh Networks was founded in 2004 by Dmitry Shapiro, a serial entrepreneur with experience in communities, video and peer-to-peer protocols. At this site you can find Millions of Videos. Movies, clips, songs and you can also watch TV Online.

You can always watch starting 5 minutes of any movies with this message
This is a preview of 5:00 of full length,

Beyond that you can watch the movie. In order to watch the complete movie, you need to download Veoh Web Player. Veoh web player is peer to peer player. I am using this player for the last one month and I do not find any viruses.

Click here to download



Once you have downloaded the veoh web palyer, you can not only watch the complete movie, you are allowed to downlaod the whole movie in your desktop.

I treid downloading few movies, it takes around 15-30 minuts to download the whole movie, which is very fast as compared to other free movie download sites becuase veoh uses peer to peer connections.




Downloading and installing gives you more freedom and allows you to
• Watch videos of any length at any time with the Veoh Video Compass + Web Player!
• Discover videos as you search and browse the web's most popular sites
• Explore topics and terms related to your web search
• Watch full-length videos directly in your browser - no need to launch a separate application
• Download videos from Veoh and other popular video sites for full quality, offline viewing
• Organize downloaded videos in your library to watch them later

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Hands-on with the Sony Ericsson Vivaz

Daniel Rosendahl and Albin Olofsson from Developer World are showing some interesting features on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz. The Sony Ericsson Vivaz is an Entertainment Unlimited smartphone running on the Symbian S60 operating system. What’s interesting about it is that it’s capable of recording HD videos. Other cool features that seem to be part of it are a 3.2-inch screen and an 8.1-megapixel camera. The device also has the possibility to use flash applications/animations as panels on the home screen

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Gadgets to Watch Out For in 2010

We have said it a million and one or so times: there is nowhere else for technology to go but forward, so can we help it if we look at the rest of 2010 and think, okay, so what’s next? We witnessed the stuff that became successes in 2009, and PC World what may end up big in 2010. We are, in turn, sharing some of them with you – at least the ones that may end up – or already are – on our wish list.

Motorola Backflip. This being the text messaging and Facebook-using generation, having a good messaging phone is practically a must. The Motorola Backflip will appeal to the younger generation, equipped with a full QWERTY keyboard that can be flipped out; this allows the keyboard and the touch screen to face the user at the same time. And estimates indicate that it may hit $100 – subsidized – before the year bids adieu.



Apple Tablet. We can’t help but include this one – even if it is still strictly more wishful thinking than anything else, at least until January 27 when Apple is expected to finally put rumors to rest.

Lenovo IdeaPad U1. Why settle for just a tablet when you can have so much more than just – well – a tablet? The Lenovo IdeaPad U1 is a laptop that runs on Windows 7, but the 11.6-inch screen also doubles as a multi-touch tablet PC with 16GB of flash memory that runs on Linux.

iPhone 4G. There is nothing final about the name yet, but speculations point to the release of yet another iPhone towards the end of spring or early summer.

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Firefox Add-Ons Google Shortcut -One-Click-Go Google Services

Today, Google has many online product & services and many people are using more than one google services.Generally, Visiting all those services become little irritating. There are many google product and services available and the most Popular Google services used today are Gmail, Orkut, Google Reader, You tube, Wave, Blogger, Adsense, Webmaster, Feedburner, Docs, etc.Since Many people are using more than one services, they generally go to My Account under setting Option in google where all the google product and services gets listed.To open google services you may search that services on web or you may go to My Account in google or you may have already bookmarked those services.All those procedure has to go from long way and also time consuming.However, there is a better way to go to all those google services.




Firefox add-ons Google shortcut is a better and fast way to visit all those favorite services on google.If you are using more than one services on google then its recommended.With the help of Google shortcut, you can directly go to the specific services.You can also call this Add-on as One-Click-Go because you simply need to click once from the list of services and you will directly go to the specific services.After installing this Add-Ons, you will find this on toolbar of your firefox.

You may see all google services icon on your firefox toolbar is in horizontal and not how it looks in the above image.You can customize the icon to vertical drop down menu instead of showing horizontal.Goto Setting >> Display Options and put tick on Dropdown Menu.




You can select or deselect services from Services Selection and Click Save Setting




Download Link: Google Shortcuts Add-On

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8 Tips for Safer Online Shopping

The holiday season is upon us, and now more than ever that means shopping on the Internet. This past Black Friday saw $595 million in online sales, an 11 percent increase compared to Black Friday 2008, according to online market tracker comScore.

But with the comfort and convenience of buying presents from your couch comes with security risks that even the most vigilant shopper can take for granted.

The browser used to be just a place to access Web pages, but as more people makes financial transactions and store personal data there, the security of browsers has become vital to consumers at home and IT managers at the office.

Here are some of the tips to be seen while online shopping……

Microsoft has offered up tips on how to fortify your browser against viruses, spam and malware.
Naturally, Microsoft would prefer you use Internet Explorer 8, although it's worth noting that Internet Explorer has been losing market share throughout 2009, and Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari and Google's browser Chrome all have security features of their own.
Internet Explorer 8: Five Security Features for Enterprise Users
Internet Explorer currently has 63.6 percent of the browser market share, a six percent drop from January 2009, according to Web metrics company Net Applications.

Keep your computer's software and browser current. Microsoft's Download Center is a good place to start.
Protect your computer with firewall, antivirus, antispam and antispyware software.


Beware of phishing scams and malware. IE8's SmartScreen Filter feature alerts users if a Web site you are trying to access has been reported as unsafe and allows you to report any unsafe sites you find. SmartScreen Filter and other security features can be accessed in IE8 under the Safety tab in the upper right hand corner.

Protect yourself against cross-site scripting attacks. Cross-site scripting, or XSS, attacks allow malicious code to be injected into Web pages that can lead to identity theft. What's most unsettling about XSS: everything looks normal to the user while unauthorized access is being given to a hacker and sensitive data is being stolen. IE8 has a built-in XSS Filter that is always on.

Identify Fake Web Addresses. By highlighting the domain name of a Web address in black, IE8 makes it easier to see a site's true identity, thus avoiding getting fooled by a deceptive Web site.

Browse more privately. The InPrivate Browsing option in IE8, located under Tools, allows you to surf the Web without the browser storing data about your session. Temporary Internet Files, Web address history, cookies and passwords are all disabled.

Make Sure Payment Web sites Use Encryption. Any Web site that processes credit card information must use encryption. To make sure of this, look for: An "s" after http in the Web address - it should read https; a closed padlock icon in the address bar or at the lower-right corner of the browser window; a green address bar - IE8 uses green to indicate a trustworthy site.

Never Respond to Unsolicited Requests to Update Your Account Information. An e-mail asking to update account information might be a scam for stealing your identity. Legitimate companies never send unsolicited e-mail or instant message requests for your passwords or other personal information.


Do comment on it....
Enjoy...

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Latest Features in GMAIL

The month of November saw a slew of additions to Google’s web mail service Gmail. While one feature revs up Gmail for mobile users, adding offline support to mobile Gmail, another makes Calendars and Docs Gmail-compliant.



Here’s looking into Gmail’s new features and what they promise.


New Gadgets:
This week, Google opened Gmail to further user modification by allowing users to integrate Google Gadgets in Gmail’s left-hand navigation bar. The company has provided two sample Gadgets — Google Docs and Calendar (modular mini applications). While one provides a simple way to see your Google Calendar agenda and get an alert when you in a meeting, the other shows recently opened Google Docs files and lets you search across all of your documents right from within Gmail. The Gadgets can be enabled through the Gmail Labs tab in the Settings menu. Google has also added a Gmail Labs option to `Add any gadget by URL,’ which allows users to add any Gadget, the way one can while using iGoogle.


Emoticons:
Emoticons have been available on Google Chat for quite some time, but this month they made their appearance on Gmail Darren Lewis, Gmail engineer, said in a blog post, “Following the evolutionary path blazed by coloured labels, we present, in all their technicolor glory, emoticons in your mail.” Besides the common gestures like smiling or winking, the new emoticons will enable users to input images of hugs and kisses instead of `XOXO’ and pictures of drinks, cake or exclamation points to help them get their points across better. Google not only added emoticons to mail messages, but also added the number of emoticons available in Google Talk.

Gmail Mobile version 2.0:
Google has introduced Version 2.0 of Gmail for Mobile for J2ME-supported devices such as the Nokia N95, as well as BlackBerry phones. According to Derek Phillips, Software Engineer, Google mobile team, “the focus in the second iteration of the popular e-mail client was to produce a faster and more reliable experience for users.” It will also give users offline access to their mails. The offline access will let users read, edit and respond to any mail. The sending of replies (as well as downloading of new mails), however, takes place when connectivity resumes. Among the key additions, the new version lets users access multiple accounts. Those who have both a Gmail and Google Apps email account can easily switch between them quickly. Users will no longer have to use two different mobile apps to access personal and work emails.
There is a multiple email drafts feature where users can save multiple email drafts in their mobile phone, so that they can pick and choose what they would like to send later. Also, the new version packs powerful shortcut keys. However, Gmail Mobile version 2.0 lacks support for many phones, especially those running on Windows Mobile such as HTC handsets. However, Google said users can try installing it at their own discretion if they have a Java Virtual Machine installed.

Google Goggles:
For late night party drunkers Google has come up with a free email service that will check if users are really sure of want they are sending in the late night Friday email. For this Google has come up with a simple method that will ask users to solve a few simple math problems after they click send to verify if the sender is in the right state of mind. By default, Mail Goggles is only active late night on the weekend. Gmail users can adjust their email settings to activate the Goggles feature and dictate the times it is active.

Canned Responses:
These will allow Gmail users to save a reply they are writing as a `canned response’ and then quickly select one of these responses while replying to a future e-mail. Canned Response feature is ideal for those tired of copying and pasting the same reply every time someone emails with a common question. To use the feature, a user just needs to click ‘Settings’, then click the ‘Labs’ tab. In the drop down menu click ‘Canned Responses’, and save changes. To compose a canned response, compose a new email and type the message. When the message is composed, click the drop-down arrow next to Canned responses and select new canned response. Give it a title and save. Now your message will be available to you whenever you are composing a new message, replying to a message or forwarding a message.

Contact manager:
Google has also made a few changes to the contact manger in Gmail. Says Benjamin Grol, Product Manager, Google Contacts, in a blog post, “Up to this point, if you emailed someone five times, we’d automatically move them into My Contacts. Now, we’ll no longer automatically add contacts to your My Contacts group. Instead, you can go to Suggested Contacts, select the contacts you’d like and move them into My Contacts. All of your contacts — whether they’re in My Contacts or Suggested Contacts — will continue to show in auto-complete as you’re composing messages.”
As a part of this change, Google has moved previously auto-added contacts back into Suggested Contacts. Only contacts that a user has edited, imported or added to a group will remain in My Contacts. This will provide users with a clean slate and, we hope, a better point for syncing contacts with mobile devices.

Advanced IMAP controls:
IMAP controls let users further streamline their Gmail IMAP experience. Users can choose which labels to sync in IMAP. This is useful if one finds mail client choking on Gmail/All Mail folder. The IMAP protocol allows messages to be marked for deletion, a state where a message is still present in the folder but slated to be deleted the next time the folder is deleted. After enabling this, go to the Labels tab under Settings. Users will see a new ‘Show in IMAP’ checkbox next to each of their labels. Uncheck the box and the corresponding folder will disappear from IMAP.
There are some other options also for users who want to make Gmail’s IMAP work more like traditional IMAP providers: turn off auto-expunge or trash messages when they’re no longer visible through IMAP.

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