In case of stolen mobile
Friday, August 30, 2013
Expand Vocabulary in ANDROID
There are occasions where you need to type the full word since it did not turn up in auto complete of suggestions. It often happens when you are trying to type the complex words or a word from some vernacular language. All you need to do is, long-press on text field, and the word automatically gets added to the dictionary.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
MS Windows 8 Insecure to Use
German government experts have given everybody another reason to hate Microsoft Windows 8, the experts after research concluded that Windows 8 is too ‘dangerous’ to use and pose an unacceptable security risk for companies and authorities. Issuing a warning to the government they called the so-called "Trusted Computing" framework in Windows 8 to be a backdoor for the NSA which can leak sensitive data.
Read more: German Security Officers Warns Govt. : Microsoft Windows 8 too ‘dangerous’ to use
The report based on leaked internal government documents elaborates that this backdoor under Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) once paired with TPM 2.0 in 2015, can't be deactivated. Once TPM 2.0 is activated there is no way to check what exactly Microsoft does to the computers through remote updates and can be used by NSA to get confidential information from companies and authorities.
Monday, August 26, 2013
ONLINE PIRATES / WEBSITE OWNERS ARRESTED IN UPLOADING TELUGU MOVIES – NAYAK & SVSC – 20 WEBSITES SHUTDOWN BY AP FILM CHAMBER OF COMMERCE....
FIR No: 57/13 of Patamata PS, Vijayawada.
Ceased: 1 laptop, 1 server, 3 paypal accounts, 3 debit cards, 1 credit card, 1 samsung s2 phone.
www.**********************
www.worldmovietracker.net
www.tktorrents.com
www.**********************
www.worldmovietracker.net
www.tktorrents.com
Latest movie Uploaded: Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu, Nayak, sarocharu, . . . .
Police identified 3500 movies (Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, English ) uploaded in his websites.
For each movie these local pirates are getting upto 130 USD from an online pirate Harsh Salamkhan, airbender994@gmail.com.
www.tktorrents.com
He will be arrested in couple of days in Sri Lanka. It is requested not to indulge in any piracy issue.
(Must Read)Free messaging applications can compromise India’s security
Cyber security experts warned that free text messaging applications , such as Wechat , WhatsApp etc. pose a threat to the country’s security apart from compromising an individual user’s data.
When users download free messaging apps on their smartphones, they agree to a host of conditions that necessarily enable the companies to access a majority of the users’ phone data, including their conversations, contacts and many more confidential Data. Since the companies’ servers are on foreign shores, sensitive data or information can well be compromised.
While WhatsApp has its server in the United States, WeChat has servers in China. Human rights activists working in China have expressed concern about possible surveillance of their conversations through WeChat.
India has already raised concern over Chinese telecom firms ZTE and Huawei, whose close ties to the Chinese government, have obstructed their footprint in India. What may compound the worry now is the fact that an increasing number of Indian political leaders, policymakers, businessmen and others are using these apps, potentially dealing a blow to sensitive data.
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Cyber security expert Jiten Jain told dna “WeChat’s security loopholes have been largely ignored by its users, and this can be exploited to easily access their data.”
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Top 10 mobile phone brands in India during year 2013
The 18th annual survey V&D 100 said that the Indian mobile handset market posted a revenue (FY12-13) of Rs 35,946 crore (Rs 359.46 billion) in 2012-2013, compared to Rs 31,330 crore (Rs 313.30 billion) in the earlier fiscal year.
Indian mobile handset market has grown by 14.17% year-on-year in 2013, on the back of increasing sale of smartphones.
Below are the top 10 biggest companies of india.....
Samsung
Rank: 1
Market Share:31.5%
Revenue:Rs 11,328 crore
Korean electronics behemoth Samsung has taken the top position in the country replacing Nokia.
The Finnish handset maker had been holding fort in the Indian market for over a decade.
Company's handset prices ranging from Rs 1,500 to Rs 50,000 in varied screen sizes, besides product quality and new features, helped the company grab customers attention, the survey report said.
Nokia
Rank:2
Market Share:27.2%
Revenue:Rs 9,780 crore (Rs97.80 billion)
Nokia has been pushed to number two in the Voice n Data survey with a 27.2 per cent market share following a significant 18 per cent drop in revenue (FY 12-13).
Micromax
Rank:3
Market Share:8.7%
Revenue:Rs 3,138 crore (Rs 31.38 billion)
Homegrown handset company Micromax captured the number three position among V-D100 Top10 mobile handset brands for FY13.
Karbonn Mobiles
Rank:4
Market Share:6.4%
Revenue: Rs 2,297 crore (Rs 22.97 billion)
Closing in was Karbonn Mobiles, the company among the Indian handset players that grew most consistently.
In 2012-2013, Karbonn grew by 73.1 per cent to register revenue (FY12-13) of Rs 2,297 crore.
Apple Inc
Rank: 5
Market Share:3.6%
Revenue: Rs 1,293 crore (Rs 12.93 billion)
The iconic Apple posted a revenue of Rs 1,293 crore in FY 2013 in the country compared to Rs 250 crore in the previous financial year.
Though India was never a focus market for the Cupertino-based smart device maker till Steve Jobsera, in the last two years, Apple has started making inroads, though slowly, says the survey.
HTC
Rank:6
Market Share:3.3%
Revenue: Rs 1,180 crore (Rs 11.80 billion)
With an interesting portfolio of smartphones and tablets poweredby the Android and Windows Phone operating systems, HTC remains one of the preferred brands in India.
Blackberry
Rank:7
Market Share: 3.1%
Revenue:Rs 1,123 crore (Rs 11.23 billion)
From being a dominant player in the smartphones market, Blackberry sales have disbalanced. However, the company plans to launch new phones in the coming months to regain the market share.
Lava
Rank:8
Market Share: 2.8%
Revenue:Rs 1,001 crore (Rs 10.01 billion)
One of the fastest growing mobile brands in India, Lava is placed at 8th position.
In a short span of three years, Lava has grown to become the third best Indian mobile brand.
LG
Rank: 9
Market Share: 2.3%
Revenue: Rs 819 crore (Rs 8.19 billion)
Betting big on smartphones, LG has plans to garner 10 per cent market share in the smartphone sales with a number of new launches by December 2014.
Sony
Rank:10
Market Share:2.2%
Revenue:Rs 797 crore (Rs 7.97 billion)
Company has
9 per cent of the smartphone market share, plans to increase sales of mobile phones by March 2014.
The company plans to garner revenues to the tune of Rs 3,500 crore (Rs 35 billion) from Xperia sales during 2013.
Friday, August 23, 2013
'Mars One project' - permanent settlement on Mars
Around 1,800 Indians apply for the Mars One project to permanently settle on Mars
Many of us may not be alive to see an Indian stepping on the Moon, but there’s a high chance we could see one stepping on Mars. According to a report, nearly 1,800 Indians have applied for the Mars One program, which will send a contingent of humans to the Red Planet in 2022 to settle there permanently.
“This program is proving to be extremely popular among Indians,” Aashima Dogra, spokesperson of the Netherland-based Mars One said. “The number of Indians who’ve applied has increased from 6 in May to 1,800 in the last three months.” She further reveals that off the 1,800, a large part of them are from Bangalore.
For those who aren’t familiar, Mars One is an NGO which plans to settle a group of humans on Mars in 2023. To fund this ambitious project, the program will televise every aspect of the mission, right from launch to landing and living on Mars.
The program is currently open for anyone to apply and only needs the applicant to pay $7 (Rs 432 approximately) as an initial fee. The main criteria for applying are that the applicant should be over the age of 18 and is mentally stable. According to the plans listed on the company website, the training will begin in 2015, followed by the launch of two rovers in 2018 and a cargo mission in 2020. The first human flight will be in 2022. The company is currently looking for the right space ship to take the applicants to the Red Planet.
300GB discs by 2015
Sony, Panasonic promise 300-gigabyte discs by 2015
In Earlier Days there was CD (com), which held 700 megabytes. Then the DVD, which held 5 gigabytes. And Now the Blu-ray disc, with 50 GBs. What's next? Sony and Panasonic hope it will be a 300-gigabyte disc they're jointly researching that could hit in 2015. But might we have abandoned discs altogether by then?
Sony wrote up the joint-development agreement in a press release, citing the many strengths of optical media as justification for the project.
Optical discs have excellent properties to protect them against the environment, such as dust-resistance and water-resistance, and can also withstand changes in temperature and humidity when stored.
However, both Sony and Panasonic recognized that optical discs will need to accommodate much larger volumes of storage in years to come given the expected future growth in the archive market, and responded by formulating this agreement.
For years, the companies that make discs like these have worked to make the lasers, materials, and other components more precise, and have added more recordable layers, improving capacity. Just this last November, TDK announced a 1-terabyte disc based on refined versions of today's technologies.
But reading between the lines and taking current trends into account, the companies' enthusiasm seems a little forced. After all, the most popular new devices in the world, tablets and smartphones, both rely exclusively on flash memory rather than spacious but cumbersome hard drives, let alone optical discs. And that's only when they're not streaming that data or downloading it from cloud storage.
Even full-on computers, desktop and laptop, are far less likely to have a disc drive than they used to. Apple took the lead in 2008 with the drive-less MacBook Air, and since then support for discs has become increasingly rare.
That's why the proposed format is being framed as more of a professional tool: a high-capacity medium for the companies' pro-level video cameras and backup archives. After all, Sony and Panasonic gear is deeply embedded in TV and film, and a big bump in capacity like this will be attractive to the many creatives who rely on those devices to store hours of HD video for shows and films.
Will there be a new format war in 2015 as these mega-discs come to market? Or will we have moved on to flash and cloud storage? Chances are a bit of both — and by making sure that both will actually exist then, Sony and Panasonic are covering their bases.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
India become world’s 3rd largest internet population
India overtakes Japan to become the world’s third largest internet population at 73.9 million.........
In its latest report—2013 India Digital Future in Focus— ComScore has some interesting findings. According to the report, three- quarters of India’s online population is under 35. Below are a few more findings that give you an idea of the Indian online population demographic.
Riding on a 31 percent year- on-year increase, India’s online population grew to 73.9 million. With an extended online universe in excess of 145 million, the market is at a tipping point for online businesses. Other interesting observations are as follows:-
-Younger males and women aged 35-44 emerge as power users
-Three-quarters of India’s online population is under 35.
-Males in the segment and women aged 35-44 are amongst the heaviest users
-60 percent of web users in India visit online retail sites.
-Social Networks capture the largest percentage of consumers’ time in the region.
-Facebook continues to be the number one social network with a 28 percent increase in traffic and a reach of 86 percent.
-LinkedIn emerges as number two, while Pinterest and Tumblr are the fastest growing networks.
-The online video audience in India grew an astounding 27 percent in the past year, YouTube continues to be the top video property with more than 55percent share.
-International publishers including Facebook, Yahoo and Dailymotion get a majority of the 54 million who watched videos.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
FIRST LOOK: GODZILLA(2014), MAN OF STEEL-2(2015)
MAN OF STEEL-2 will bring together Batman and Superman. This film will release in June 2015. Here is official logo -
EXCLUSIVE -
Brand New Poster of GODZILLA showing his massive tail.
This film will release in May 2014 -
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Govt. to invest Rs 8,000 crore to distribute free tablets
The government of India is planning to invest around Rs 8,000 crore in order to distribute over 20 million tablets for free to the senior school students across India before the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. For this project, the government will release an open tender soon, and it is expected that tablet vendors like Micromax, HCL Infosystems, Karbonn, Lenovo and Teracom will be amongst the top contenders for the same..Reportedly, the proposal for the free tablet distribution has already been discussed amongst a set of representatives from the Prime Minister’s office, the department of telecommunications and the department of information technology and electronics. However, the process is still in the initial stages and the government is yet to decide on how to take this forward..The report quotes a government official disclosing that, “We expect price of a tablet to be between Rs 3,000 and Rs 4,000.” And considering the number of the tablets projected in this project, the cumulative price for these tablets will cost close to Rs 8,000 crore to the government..This project could be funded by the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). This is a government organization which gets its share of funds from telecom operators who give a share of their annual revenues to the organization in order to make rural areas more technology equipped. The USOF has about Rs 25,000 crore available with it, which can be utilized for the project..This is not for the first time that the government is planning to distribute gadgets to students, as earlier various state governments have either distributed or planned to distribute tablets or laptops to students. Also, the HRD ministry had been working on the Aakash tablet project that aims to provide $35 Android tablets to the underprivileged and those students belonging to financially weaker section of the society.
UC browser no.1 in India
UC Browser, an app available for all major mobile platforms including Nokia Symbian and Android phones, has become the top mobile browser in India. According to latest data from Stats Counter, the browser developed by UCWeb, a Chinese firm, powered 29.9% of total internet traffic coming from mobile phones in India in July. The Intelligence Bureau (I officials are reportedly wary of growing use of Chinese IT services and products in India. In June, IB proposed a ban on WeChat, an instant messaging app made by a Chinese firm.Opera browser, which topped the Stat Counter list in June with a traffic share of 30.3%, was second in July with 28.5%.While UCWeb claims it has over 400 million users in 150 countries, majority of them are in China and India. The browser features a modern and easy-to-use interface as well as features like caching of videos for offline view. This helps users who have slower data connection in their phones. It won the 'best browser of the year' from About.com, a popular website, in 2011 and 2012.In March this year, UCWeb announced that it registered a 60 times growth in India in the last three years.
UCWeb also announced that it is designating its office in India as its "second headquarters" after China. Xiapeng He, co- founder & president of UCWeb, said that the decision was taken because the company believed in going local to serve the needs of local consumers.
Kenny Ye, the company's managing director for India, had added, "In the Indian market we have seen a huge demand for watching videos and mobile downloads. Our browser is leading the trend in this case as we are now further optimizing our product to negate the effects of slow and erratic networks and huge data costs." UC Browser is part of Google's Play store as well as other app stores, including iOS app store, and hence there is little chance of a hidden vulnerability or malware in it. But that does not mean that it could be not be privacy or security risk to Indian users.Mohit Kumar, a white-hat hacker and security researcher and who runs TheHackerNews website, said,"Even benign looking apps can be dangerous. On smartphones it is possible for apps for seek permissions and access rights that sound genuine and normal but then use these permissions to spy on users or collect their data without telling users."
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Google goes down for 5 minutes, web traffic takes a dive
Google's services, including the popular Google Search, suffered a rare outage on early Saturday morning. The outage was noticed around 4.20am IST and lasted for around 5 minutes. All Google services were disrupted. If a user tried to access Gmail or Google Search, the web browser returned 502 error.
While the outage lasted just minutes, it caused a flurry of tweets on Twitter.
I wonder how many people checked their wifi connection first before realizing it was Google that was down, a Twitter user said.
Around one hour later, GoSquared, a web analytics firm, said that it noticed a 40% dip in the pageviews.
Google.com was down for a few minutes between 23:52 and 23:57 BST on 16th August 2013. This had a huge effect in the number of pageviews coming into GoSquared's real-time tracking — around a 40% drop, as this graph of our global pageviews per minute shows," noted GoSquared. That's huge. As internet users, our reliance on google.com being up is huge.
Google's services dashboard that monitors and shows the status of Google services had a pink dot in front of each one, indicating that they were offline for the said duration. Clicking on each dot, revealed a generic message confirming the outage.
For example, the tab for Gmail noted,
We're aware of a problem with Gmail affecting a significant subset of users. The affected users are able to access Gmail, but are seeing error messages and/or other unexpected behavior. We will provide an update by 8/17/13 6:07 AM detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change. The incident lasted 1-5 minutes.
Around ten minutes after the outage was reported, Google engineers added to the dashboard that all problems had been resolved and the services were running fine.
While the outage lasted just minutes, it caused a flurry of tweets on Twitter.
I wonder how many people checked their wifi connection first before realizing it was Google that was down, a Twitter user said.
Around one hour later, GoSquared, a web analytics firm, said that it noticed a 40% dip in the pageviews.
Google.com was down for a few minutes between 23:52 and 23:57 BST on 16th August 2013. This had a huge effect in the number of pageviews coming into GoSquared's real-time tracking — around a 40% drop, as this graph of our global pageviews per minute shows," noted GoSquared. That's huge. As internet users, our reliance on google.com being up is huge.
Google's services dashboard that monitors and shows the status of Google services had a pink dot in front of each one, indicating that they were offline for the said duration. Clicking on each dot, revealed a generic message confirming the outage.
For example, the tab for Gmail noted,
We're aware of a problem with Gmail affecting a significant subset of users. The affected users are able to access Gmail, but are seeing error messages and/or other unexpected behavior. We will provide an update by 8/17/13 6:07 AM detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change. The incident lasted 1-5 minutes.
Around ten minutes after the outage was reported, Google engineers added to the dashboard that all problems had been resolved and the services were running fine.
Hackers target bank websites, steal crores
A gang of crooks fraudulently obtained customer data by hacking into bank websites and used it to empty their accounts, police said. While the kingpin of the gang has been arrested, his aides, including a hacker, an accountancy specialist and a bank operations expert, have been identified and teams have gone to several states to nab them. The accused targeted foreign customers to avoid complaints in India. The total amount siphoned by these crooks is suspected to be in the tune of several crores. The possible involvement of bank personnel is also being ascertained and cops are investigating how banks issued card swiping machines without proper verification of the merchant. "The kingpin, Arun Kumar (30), belongs to Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh and was living in Mayur Vihar. He is a graduate from Kanpur University. Seven card swiping machines and 26 cheque books of different banks, fake seals, 10 PAN cards and four debit cards have been found. The others involved in the fraud have been identified as Yasin, Jitender, Vikas and Sanjeev," DCP (southeast) P Karunakaran said. Yasin is the hacker of the group. He came in contact with Arun when the two worked at a leading telecom company.
They planned to prepare clones of credit and debit cards to earn quick money. The accountancy specialist then formed several fake e-companies and used them to get the card swiping machines allotted . The gang also opened bank accounts using forged documents which were linked to the machines. Yasin first entered the bank's website and transferred customer data to the data readers. These data readers were attached to the cloning machines which copied the data onto blank cards. "The gang swiped the cards on the swiping machines allotted by the banks which transferred money to their accounts . This money was immediately withdrawn at ATMs and through cheque books," Karunakaran added. On August 5, the chief manager of a bank in Nehru Place filed a complaint regarding an incident of cheating by the owner of a company called Blue Waves Technology. Similar incidents had been reported in parts of Delhi and NCR. DCP Karunakaran formed a team comprising the ACP (Kalkaji) and Sub-inspector Sanjeev. Investigations revealed that Arun Kumar owned Blue Waves and that he had recently moved his office from Kalkaji to Govindpuri. On August 7, a trap was laid with help of bank officials and Arun was apprehended.!
Saturday, August 17, 2013
World's First Plasma Display
In the 1960s, some physics professors led by Don Bitzer took the first steps down the road that would lead to the invention of the modern plasma display. He and his colleagues were looking to reduce the flickering inherent to standard cathode-ray tube displays, and their answer was to use three thin layers of glass, with the middle layer perforated with tiny holes filled with gas. The outer layers were lined metallic wires (so thin as to be invisible) that, when electrified, excited the gas. This was a completely new way to display images, which overcame the flickering by eliminating the need to refresh the image.
Friday, August 16, 2013
WORLD's FIRST TOUCH SCREEN
The first touchscreen was implemented at Switzerland’s CERN laboratories. Though a device that created buttons on a touch-responsive display already existed, it was unwieldy and required an awkwardly large frame. The solution proposed by CERN member Bent Stumpe was to etch a set of electric capacitors into a film of copper, which was then joined with the glass screen. A touch would increase the capacity, sending a signal to the computer.
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The screens were developed for use in the central control of CERN’s SPS division, and they remained in use at the facility for over 20 years. Compare that to your smartphone, which is lucky to get through the unboxing process without voiding the warranty.
WORLD's FIRST SMARTPHONE
The world’s first smartphone hit the market on August 16, 1994. Its name was Simon. It was produced by IBM, and as smartphones go, it certainly contained most of the features we’re used to: email, predictive typing, even a rudimentary version of “apps” by way of plugging in a memory card to get more features. It also weighed over a pound, was the size of an actual brick, and cost almost $1,000.
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Even though only 50,000 devices were sold, and even though it predates the existence of web browsers, Simon has still managed to influence the industry in a huge way: Today, smartphone manufacturers must still pay royalties to IBM and BellSouth, who hold many Simon-related patents on standard smartphone features like highlighting text on a touchscreen and remote activation.
CLEAR DOUBTS ABOUT PROXY, SOCKET, PORT
WHAT IS MEANT BY A PROXY SERVER?
in simple words, proxy server is a computer or an application program that act as a bridge for request from clients(users) asking resource from other servers.a client connects to the proxy server requesting some service such as a file or a web page available in the other servers.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE B/W HTTP AND SOCKET?
both of them representing mobile internet.simply socket connection means,a connection without proxy and port. but http(wap) connection have proxy and port.if u uses a socket connection(like airtel mo) the connection pings the data and make the connection stabl e.in the case of operamini, we get more speed if we uses socket connection.
WHAT IS IP AND PORT?
the full form of ip is internet protocol. Every person who entering into a gprs network will assign a ip address. The address of our house is used to track the place of house.like that ip is used to track all information of a gprs user. All will get unique ip address.port is the connection router number of a server.
HACK SECURITY CAMERA USING GOOGLE
There exists many security cameras used for monitoring places like parking college campus, road traffic, Hostel etc. using internet which can be hacked using Google so that you can view the images captured by those cameras in real time.
- All you have to do is use the following search query in Google. Type in Google search box exactly as follows and hit enter inurl:”viewerframe?mode=motion” Click on any of the search results (Top 5 recommended) and you will gain access to the live camera which has full controls.
You can also move the cameras in all the four directions, perform actions such as zoom in and zoom out. This camera has really a less refresh rate. But there are other search queries through you can gain access to other cameras which have faster refresh rates. So to access them just use the following search query.
intitle:”Live View / – AXIS”
Click on any of the search results to access a different set of live cameras. Thus you have hacked Security Cameras using Google.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
EARN EASY WITH GOOGLE ADSENSE....
Google adsense is best in online advertising, it’s a big thing for every blogger or website owner to get his/her adsense account approved.There are certain ways you have to check regarding your wesite or blog before applying for adsense approval. Bloggers from western countries gets adsense approval quickly compared to asians...
REQUIREMENTS :-
- Website or blog or Page should be atleast 6 months old .(newly blogs only from europe,usa,canada are accepted).
- Site should not contain any adult content.
- Your site should not contain any copyrighted pictures,videos or links to sites that violate Google policies and guidelines.
- Never copy and paste content from other websites . Always post new original content.write content rich pages.
- You should post at least 10 to 20 content rich pages before applying .
- You must be at least 18 years old.
- Your site should have a good navigation system that can link all the pages of the blog from the homepage.
- Include an about author page with your original photo.
- Copyright your content.You can signup in MyFREECOPYRIGHT to copyright your contents for free from GOOGLE.
- Get some daily visitors through google search . I think the pageviews are not given much consideration , site's content have more
Earn easy money with domain parking
Another easy way of earning online is by domain parking. For all the advertising networks you need to have a fully working website with a lot of original contents and a continuous flow of traffic. Obviously this is really hard work and needs a lot of time and efforts. But domain parking is a very easy way of earning online without doing anything. Many people are earning from this program just by parking the purchased domain.
How domain parking works???
This method of earning is very easy and simple. Just purchase a domain name(try to make an attractive domain name) and then point your domain to parking website other then your own hosting server or space. Many websites and firms offer the feature of domain parking. Some popular websites are GoDaddy, Afernic, Sedo etc.After changing your hosting server name to the parking server, they will change your domain into a single paged proper website having some links related to your domain name and when your domain will be visited or someone will try to search your domain from search engines and when the visitors use the links on that page, you will get the earnings. And a small amount of earnings will go to the website which is parking your domain.That’s it, simply buy a domain and park to the website you want to and start earning without doing anything. It’s the best way of earning online for those who can not write or create websites.
Purchasing the domain name is not so difficult and costly. GoDaddy provides the domain name in just 8.95$ for a year.Best of luck!
Google retires the classic Gmail composition interface: How to make the new one more usable
Well, it's official: The classic Gmail composition interface is gone, gone, gone, replaced by the new-look pop-up window that first rolled out way back in March.
Don't act surprised. You knew this was going to happen, even though the revamped compose UI was lambasted from the moment it rolled out to the masses. And rightfully so! The classic Gmail composition experience consumed most of the screen, allowing you to focus front-and-center and respond to messages in-thread.
The new composition UI, on the other hand, was a small box that popped up in the lower-right corner of your screen. You had to turn your head to peer at it, especially on a large monitor; text quickly disappeared off-screen when you were banging out long emails.
In a word: meh. Before today, at least, you had the ability to revert to the classic Gmail composition interface is you loathed the new look as much as I did. No more, alas.
But fear not! While the small corner composition window is still stinking up Gmail by default, Google introduced a full-screen option for the new Gmail compose UI about a month ago after receiving a barrage of user complaints. It works really well, but it's not the default.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Facebook Reveals 78% Of US Users Are Mobile As It Starts Sharing User Counts By Country
A new level of transparency from Facebook will help the world see whether its mobile growth is entirely propped up by international users that don’t earn the company as much money. Today Facebook announced it will start sharing country-by-country web and mobile monthly and daily user counts. Facebook’s 101 million US daily mobile users make up a whopping 78% of its 128 million daily US users.
Windows 8.1 Launches Digitally October 17, Hits Store Shelves October 18
Microsoft is making its Windows 8.1 launch date official: mark October 18 on your calendars, you devotees of Ballmer and Redmond. That’s when the free update for Windows 8 users arrives in-store as boxed software, according to the official Microsoft Windows blog, and new hardware available in stores will have it installed on the 18th as well. If you’re shopping digitally, you get access to the updated OS a day earlier, too.
The update rollout begins October 18 at midnight New Zealand time, which means 4AM PT on October 17 if you’re operating on clocks located in our neck of the woods, but boxed copies and new devices only arrive the next day. That means Windows 8 users get an advantage of a few whole hours to play around with the new software!
What do you get on the 18th (or 17th, depending)? A redesigned user experience that features a new Start button (which isn’t a Start button) as well as an option to default boot to the old-school desktop, among a number of other improvements like native 3D printer support.
Reports: Microsoft's holding Windows 8.1 until October to launch it with new hardware
While it looks like Microsoft is putting the finishing touches on Windows 8.1, a couple of reports say the release date is still a couple months away.
Both ZDNet and The Verge claim that Windows 8.1 will launch in October, not just for existing Windows 8 PCs, but for new computers running the updated operating system. The duo were the first to report on Windows 8.1's (then called Windows Blue) existence, many months ago.
Mind you, this isn't a delay, as Microsoft has never confirmed a release date for Windows 8.1. The company has only said that it would release the software to PC makers (a process known as RTM) in August. Both reports say Microsoft is still on track.
But as ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley explains, Microsoft may be holding back the actual launch for a couple of reasons: First, Windows 8.1 is reportedly quite buggy, even for a test build, so the extra time will allow Microsoft to clean things up via software updates for new PC buyers. Second, releasing both the update and new Windows 8.1 devices at the same time might create a bigger splash, amounting to a “launch event” for the more user-friendly version of Microsoft's operating system.
Windows 8.1 includes a number of concessions for desktop users, as well as new features for the modern interface. Users will be able to boot straight to the desktop, disable modern-style “hot corners” and access key desktop functions by right-clicking on the newly-restored Start button. The modern interface includes major improvements to built-in apps, the ability to use three apps side-by-side, overhauled Bing search and more. The net effect is that it's easier to stay on the desktop if you want, but not unthinkable to switch to the modern UI.
If Microsoft manages to launch the update in October, it'll fall around the one-year anniversary of Windows 8. That's a big change for Windows, which typically releases major updates once every few years, but it's a necessary change as Microsoft tries to keep up with Apple and Google. Whether you love or hate the operating system, there's no doubt that Microsoft's switch to a rapid release cycle is definitely bearing fruit.
Hackers infect the Dalai Lama’s Chinese site with spyware
The Chinese-language of the Dalai Lama’s Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) has been hacked and infected with malware.
According to security firm Kaspersky Lab, the Website for the Tibetan government-in-exile has been compromised and poisoned with malicious software that may be used to spy on visitors to the site.
Technical evidence points to hackers who have carried out previous cyber attacks on various human rights groups throughout Asia.
Several groups—such as the newly re-surfaced Comment Crew—have mounted attacks on organizations around the world that oppose Chinese government policies. According to Kaspersky, the CTA site has been under attack from the same group of hackers since 2011, but previous breaches have been quietly identified and repaired.
Oracle trots out virtualization appliance, taking on NetApp and EMC
Oracle has joined the market for pre-integrated systems intended to ease the process of setting up and managing a virtualized compute environment.
The Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance, released on Tuesday, includes Oracle x86 servers and storage hardware, along with network virtualization technology that Oracle acquired last year when it bought Xsigo Systems.
The promise of such appliances is that most of the set-up and wiring is done by the vendor at the factory, leaving customers with a minimum of configuration work to get the box running, reducing the room for error.
Other vendors, such as NetApp and EMC, already offer pre-integrated systems for virtualization. Oracle contends it will have an edge because it owns the virtualization stack it uses, including the OS, hypervisor and applications.
“We’re the only vendor that has full-stack capabilities,” said Adam Hawley, Oracle’s senior director of product management for virtualization.
The Virtual Compute Appliance differs from the high-end “Exa” machines that Oracle already sells. Those systems, like the Exadata Database Machine, are designed for maximum performance, while the virtualization appliance is designed for “extreme ease of use,” Hawley said.
It can also run third-party software, which the Exa machines generally can’t. Customers can run pretty much “all the viable x86 operating systems,” Hawley said, including Oracle Linux, Oracle Solaris, Red Hat Linux and Windows.
Oracle offers around 120 virtual templates for its applications, to make loading them on the machine easier. It estimates how much CPU, memory and other resources the various workloads need, and the machine configures itself to those specs when the templates are loaded.
Samsung’s newest TV lets viewers watch different HD programs on the same screen
Samsung’s curvy new 55-inch OLED TV will allow two users to watch different full-HD programs simultaneously on the same screen—with the help of special glasses.
Not only will this “MultiView” technology give each viewer a look at standard HD streams, but one—or both (!)—viewers can watch a full-HD 3D presentation. Each pair of “3D Active” glasses comes fit with speakers that will allow viewers to hear the corresponding audio stream. Viewers can adjust the volume or toggle between sources with controls fitted on the side of the glasses.
Under standard one-signal presentation, the unfortunately named KN55S9C TV offers a stunning bright display with rich colors and contrast. Even the viewing of one channel via MultiView still manages a vibrant picture comparable with most high-end viewing experiences.
Like many of Samsung’s recent spate of high-end TVs, the design is sleek and sophisticated with the speakers built into the surrounding mount.
The TV will be available on Samsung’s US site starting Wednesday, and will work its way to retail outlets shortly thereafter. Interestingly enough, the TV will be available for $9000, a good $7000 less than the TVs were originally rumored to cost.
JavaScript Slideshow Code
TinyFader2 is a 2KB JavaScript slider code that is completely configurable through robust options. It is an upgrade to the previous TinyFader version adding a number of requested features and making additional improvements. It gracefully degrades without JavaScript support and is totally customizable using CSS.
Here are the current features:
- CSS3 hardware transition support for Firefox and Webkit browsers
- Automatic or manual slide rotation
- Option to resume play after interruption
- Toggle to pause auto play on slide hover
- Set the initial slide index with a parameter
- Pass a navigation ID of a list and have the script bind either click or hover events for navigating the slideshow
- Ability to move to previous or next slide
- Functions to play and pause the automatic slideshow
- Parameter to set the transition duration
- Other improvements include setting the opacity to 0 on slides besides the current one, cycling the z-index, improving code readability, upgrading the codebase to HTML5, and a handful of other tweaks.
id: "slides", // ID of the slideshow list container
position: 0, // index where the slideshow should start
auto: 0, // automatic advance in seconds, set to 0 to disable auto advance
resume: true, // boolean if the slideshow should resume after interruption
navid: "pagination", // ID of the slide nav list
activeClass: "current", // active class for the nav relating to current slide
pauseHover: true, // boolean if the slideshow should pause on slide hover
navEvent: "click", // click or mouseover nav event toggle
duration: .25 // duration of the JavaScript transition in seconds, else the CSS controls the duration, set to 0 to disable fading
});
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