How many versions of Windows have there been to date. Too many, Windows 1, Windows 2, Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 95a, Windows 95b, Windows 95c, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows Server / Windows Home Server, Windows ME, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windoes 7. Are free anti virus programs as good as the paid versions? They perform the same function so they do protect you. Since you do not have to part with money they are probably better ..... you are protected but get to keep your money. Should I turn my computer off at night? Yes, you should. This will mean that you do not consume electricity so turning off makes a positive social contribution. Turning off also means that your computer will last longer but most people do not use a computer to the extent of its full life. How I can I see how long a web page is before I print? Use the Print Preview feature in your web browser. Click File and then click Print Preview. be sure to pay attention to the number of pages contained in the document where it says "page 1 of _______." What is a zip file? A computer file that contains one or more files are compressed for storage or transmission. The file extension for this type of file is "zip." What is a "Quickie"? A "Quickie" is a short question about General topics. Why does my computer clock lose time? The CMOS battery needs to be replaced. What does ASCII stand for? American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is the current standard for text encoding used by computers. Is Windows Complete?? If you run sfc /scannow from a terminal it will check if your key system files are present. Remove a virus. A very good idea. Perhaps the free on-line scan from Trend called HouseCall could help you. Google will show you the way. For complete help go to http://www.protonic.com/index.php?page=ask Does Excel worksheet have to be open to quickly update link. Your question has a number of different facets depending on what is a link. The following article may help you though ... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/327006 Hi, I have an Occigen monitor and want to use the intrgated speakers There should be no problem in doing this if you simply connect it to the Speaker output of the computer. If you already have speakers connected you can get a "Y" splitter at a local Radio Shack etc. How do I see the calendar in Windows? Right-click on the time on the task bar and then left click on "adjust Date/Time" options. How do I get a menu for Word 2007 that looks like the Word 2003 menu? Install and use a program named UBIT found here: http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/ What is a computer bug? It WAS actually a BUG that was found in a relay contact of an early computer causing a malfunction. However it has come to mean anything that causes a piece of hardware or software to malfunction. How does a computer virus spread? http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4579979_computer-virus-spread.html Int. Explorer will not play my .ppp files. -- I can save and the play. Details of ppp files are here http://filext.com/file-extension/ppp IE is not the right program to open them. What is an external hard drive? This is a normal hard drive but held in an enclosure which connects to the PC by a USB cable so the drive is always external to the computer. Is an Acer H243H LCD Monitor compatible with a Radeon 5570 video card? The monitor will work with just about any video card. My folders wont get smaller when I click.i am using Vista First step check for spyware infection. Use the free version of http://www.superantispyware.com/ If that does not help please open a detailed ticket ... How do I shut off the caps lock screen icon in windows 7? gateway pc The suggestions in this thread may assist you http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-desktop/caps-lock-notification-appears-on-the-screen-when/285a5edf-eb03-4e19-93c3-63e869486180 After upgrading IE i lost my tab for adding favorites You may need to open a ticket. Please try this first http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318378 If I uninstall Itunes will my ipod classic still work? Yes. Your iPod will still work just fine. You just cannot sync or manipulate your music until iTunes has been reinstalled. How can I get my mic to work on my laptop it was working before? Check that it is not muted in the sound settings. Check the sound device drivers. Perhaps open a detailed ticket? Will Photoshop 7 work with Mac 10.5? http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=603579 how do I give feedback? You will see a rating link on the ticket when it is closed. My hard disk --SATA 160GB -- is 5 year, do need to go for a new one? If it works and does not make any noises there is no need to get a new one. If you need further information please post a ticket at http://www.protonic.com/index.php?page=ask . How do I compress multiple files into one file? Use a file compression program to make an archive file. zip files are an example. A free program such as 7-zip will help http://7-zip.org/ How can I quickly increase or decrease the font size on a web page? This depends on the browser you are using. Holding the Windows key and moving the mouse wheel can quickly resize a page. See also http://www.ehow.com/how_4877692_adjust-browser-font-size.htm How do I fix the 2011 browser redirect virus? In the first instance use ComboFix http://download.cnet.com/Combofix/3000-8022_4-75221073.html Where is the internal antenna on my laptop? It is most likely internal to the screen near the top when it is unfolded. However depending on the brand and model it can be located elsewhere. When I am typing black line disappears have to use cursor to put it back Depending on the application you are using this may be caused by a setting called "Hide cursor (or pointer) while typing". This can be set in "Control Panel / Mouse" or as an application setting. Unable to Locate Component GDI32.Dll not found You may like to take a look at this thread .. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/itproxpsp/thread/7a771d00-d5e8-4422-8bda-1f78897c1023/ My 64-bit PC running 64-bit Win7 with 4GB mem shows 3.25GB usable, why? Please read this article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978610/ How to find PDF version of Advanced UNIX Programming 2nd edition try this link http://www.advancedlinuxprogramming.com/alp-folder or google What does HTTP stand for? A detailed definition is at the following link http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/H/HTTP.html What does the term "pentium" refer to? A detailed description is found at this link http://searchcio-midmarket.techtarget.com/definition/Pentium Can anyone help with an Excel formula? Yes no problem - our techs are used to answering these questions but we may need to see the spreadsheet to be able to advise fully. Post the question and we will look at it for you. What are free trial cloud servers ??? Cloud - simply a storage space based on the Internet, It allows users to store data, files, pictures etc for use / retrieval later from the cloud. Many of the main companies offer so much space free What is Open Office.org? OpenOffice.org is the website of OpenOffice which is the free equivalent of Microsoft Office. In Corel Word Perfect - Keystroke options not working Have a look at http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Content/1153321168236 for details - if that is not the answer post a question on our main site and one of our techs will investigate for you Do i need ms product code key to reinstall/repair Vista If you restore from a Factory Restore disk you probably do not need the CD Key. If you want to reinstall from a Setup / Install disk you need the key. If you want to repair it is usually not needed. I keep getting the wromg home page where did I go wrong? You probably have a spyware infection. You may want to run the free version of superantispyware just to check your machine is clean. http://www.superantispyware.com/ Windows Media Player windows 7 says insert blank disk even after I do. You may want to run a lens cleaning CD to check that your drive is working properly. If that does not work then open a detailed question ... How do I move forward and back in my browser using the keyboard? Go to the next page - ALT+RIGHT ARROW Go to the previous page - ALT+LEFT ARROW or BACKSPACE Go to your Home page - ALT+HOME For Internet explorer should be the same for them all Is there a way of typing on a pre-printed Adobe (.pdf) form? The commercial "FormTyper" part of "PDF Converter" (http://www.nuance.com/) will do this. I am not aware of any free program that does this. Saving Email Attachments in Eudora Please follow the suggestion in this link http://email.about.com/od/eudoratips/qt/et051703.htm How do I find my Macs IP address? Go to http://www.whatismyip.com/ to see it.on the top of tha page. How come a shortcut (Google) wont pin to taskbar? Other shortcuts do. If you use Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9 you can do this. Otherwise you cannot. For more information please go to http://www.protonic.com/index.php?page=ask to post a more complete question. How to remove "Personal Shield Pro" from Windows XP computer? Use the free version of superantispyware http://www.superantispyware.com/ How do I export Windows Live Mail address book to Thunderbirds address book Assuming you are running Windows 7 proceed as discussed at: http://www.timesnews.net/blogger.php?id=5&postid=7647 I have 2 copies of windows on my computer. how do I get rid of one of them The instructions in the following link should help you http://www.ehow.com/how_7248191_delete-second-copy-windows.html I can not start Windows Live Messenger and other Windows Live (Windows 7) If none of the Windows Live programs will start, you should reinstall them all. Somehow, they have experienced file corruption and need to be refreshed. Password Protect USB Drives Please see the discussion at: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=144508 you should find an answer therein. Some USB drives are available that are password protected in hardware, I need a backup program - free or otherwise. SecCopy not good. Please take a look here: http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/26/the-10-best-windows-backup-software-programs/ Turn on/off popup blocker Several different pop up blockers available common one is on google toolbar - switch it on or off, simply click it. If you want more control it does have a drop down box for more. If not this ask more May i hide my IP without proxy use? No. Even if you use a proxy your IP address is only partially hidden. It is often still possible to trace back to your connected IP. Your ISP always knows what you are doing ... in detail. Compaq nc6220 laptop - a couple of keys dont work can I repair myself? Yes, this is a relatively cheap and easy fix - see http://www.batterycentury.com/hp-business-notebook-nc6220-keyboard-p-76748.html for the method. You can buy a replacement keyboard online. How do I set up a shared network drive between windows 7 and Vista? Please read through the following guide http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15247/complete-guide-to-networking-windows-7-with-xp-and-vista/ If you need further assistance please open a detailed question. How do I put an icon on the desktop for protonic.com? Assuming you are using Internet Explorer or FireFox (you did not say) simply drag the icon that is to the left of our address in the address bar to your desktop. How come whenever I try to download, its says "error 1606", please help me! Microsoft offer a solution for "Error 1606" on the following http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886549 - run the Fix it program offered, if that fails post a question on our site for a tech to help you. Does MS NET Framework in Win XP have any function for home user? .NET is a library of functions that many developers use to write software. If it is not on a computer on which you choose to run the program it will not function. Therefore you MUST have it installed. Where to find online volunteering opportunities available for a newbie? A lot depends on what sort of volunteering opportunities you are looking for. Perhaps google would be a good place to start your search? Win XP & NET Framework: is it a browsing app? I want to eliminate it! .net framework is on your system to allow many Microsoft programs to run correctly. I have Fix It utilities, but computer still slow, Why? You probably have a virus or spyware infection. Check for that first.......... 2003 slow to load Check that you have a machine free of spyware infection. If you do ... open a detailed question. Outlook 2003 slow to load Check that you have a machine free of spyware infection. If you have a clean machine then open a detailed question. Computer wont run DVDs Try running a cleaning CD to clean the lenses. It may be that the drive is partially dead though. The JPG extension refers to what kind of file? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG What is a print queue? http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/View-the-print-queue In Office 2010 Excel, how can I make the home tab my default? Right click on the ribbon and de-select "minimise". Can you stack external hard drives on top of each other? As long as they are in an external disk carrier making them protected. Any easy way to install a router so it will work? If this article doesn't help, please fill in a ticket here on the site: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/organization/wirelesssetup.aspx I receive message: "CMOS ckecksum error". Replace the CMOS battery on motherboard. http://www.liverepair.com/encyclopedia/articles/cmosreplace.asp I am trying to download iTunes, but can't break out of a loop. Can you give me a valid link please? Please try the following link: http://www.officialdownloadstore.com/itunes10.htm Can I use two versions of Google at the same time on my monitor? Yes, if you switch to tabbed browsing. See this link: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Tabbed%20browsing What is 0×00000048? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331484 Upgrade ME to XP. I install over ME or new Hard Drive? Reformat the hard drive then install XP. How to delete sound from a video (.mov or MP4) file? Imtoo MPEG Encoder www.imtoo.com, import video files, Disable Audio option in the right setting area, just check True, audio removed but not free. Free ones - www.virtualdub.org or www.erightsoft.com Why does my monitor make screeching sounds when on a white screen? Your monitor is starting to die. Replace it. If I install a USB 3.0 card wil that give me a working USB 3.0 port? Not at this time. Windows 8 will support USB 3.0 when it comes out. There are rumors that Win 7 SP2 will carry the needed updates to allow Win7 to utilize USB 3.0. Save AVG updates? http://globalrecordings.net/docs/au/updating_avg_manually.pdf After how much times should i make program updates of an antivirus program? A week is good enough but if you change the settings to auto update then you will not have to worry and always have the latest definitions installed. Where to download a trial version of Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit? There is no trial version available for download at this time. Microsoft are the only legitimate source of such downloads. How to recover windows password? Use google for help. Due to password protected stolen laptops surfacing we cannot for legal reasons help you. Which is the best free antivirus software at present? http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/collection/5928/2011_free_av.html Does privacy software like easy-hide-ip do any good, or is a router better? At the end of the day neither will fully protect your privacy since your ISP will still have full information. Best to do only things you are happy to be seen doing. On privacy issue below-how do I otherwise stop ads/pop-ups on my computer? Scan for and remove all spyware and virus infections. Then regularly scan with and update the protection software. Fresh install Windows if problems remain. How do I start my PC w.o. it beeping once in the DOS mode (have 2 HDs) This is NOT DOS Mode, it is the BIOS. The ONLY way to do this is to disconnect the speaker. This is not recommended since the BIOS uses the speaker to signal BOOT errors as a sequence of beep I have Avast free and Comodo firewall installed.Am i safe as home user? Yes, as long as you update Avast regularly and stay away from questionable websites. No one is 100% safe, but you are as close to 100% as you can get. iIs Maftoox Antivirus a good antivirus? It has received fairly good reviews and is on a par with AVG Free. Does Microsoft Security Essentials remove all malware? No one scanner will remove all malware, use Anti-Malware in conjunction with MSE: http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free New computer, password wont work, help to open laptop A laptop without a password is often stolen. Please go back to the person you bought it from and ask them. I hI ve Bitdefender 2011..How necessary is it to upgrade to 2012 ver Entirely up to you: http://www.bitdefender.com/support/How-to-Upgrade-from-BitDefender-2009-2010-2011-to-BitDefender-2012-711.html How to transfer Thunderbird emails, etc to Outlook 2010 quickly and easily? http://blog.nektra.com/main/2009/04/14/export-messages-and-folders-from-thunderbird-to-outlook-outlook-express/ A public computer has no security software.What precaution should i use? Use this public PC to look up items on the internet, view web pages, and check your favorite teams scores, but do NOT use this public PC for ANY transactions with ANY personal info. Can i use "Epson Stylus TX121 " printer to print digital photos? Yes you can. Product details at the following link http://www.epson.com.ph/epson_philippines/printers_and_all_in_ones/inkjet/product.page?product_name=Epson_Stylus_TX121 Can i print photos with "HP Photosmart C4388" printer? Yes you can but please note that HP have discontinued sales of this printer. What software is easy to use and can get data off an HDD. http://www.pcinspector.de/default.htm?language=1 ... but click on EN in the top right corner if the site loads in German. Disable Win Messenger in XP? See this link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302089 Is it possible to sync Outlook (folders, etc) between 2 computers? http://www.outlookipedia.com/outlook/synchronize.aspx http://freelanceswitch.com/working/two-ways-to-sync-outlook-between-computers/ Are there any advantages to upgrading from Win XP to Win 7? Windows XP is about to be unsupported and except for security upgrades will not have support from Microsoft. IF YOUR COMPUTER HARDWARE WILL SUPPORT IT,Windows 7 it is an essential upgrade. Avast or AVG what is the best free AntiVirus I personally recommend AVGFree but it is down to personal preference as both have good reputations. This might help: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/free-anti-virus-software?gclid=CIKDuuPNg Is "soluto" a safe download and is it usefull The program has been rated good on CNET so it is certainly worth a try: http://download.cnet.com/Soluto/3000-18512_4-75446583.html What is error 1068 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827328 Will Microsoft LifeCam Cinema work with AOL AIM 5.9, or need update? See the MSKB article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969275 can my desktop pc be made to accept FAXES ? Please take a look here if you run Windows 7: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Set-up-your-computer-to-send-and-receive-faxes If not, you will need to fill in a full ticket. How to Send an email in Thunderbird 11. http://www.columbia.edu/acis/software/thunderbird/basics.html Does MacKeeper really work? Up till now my preferred choice has always been CleanMyMac but for the price this "new kid" looks very good and for the price has a lot of features I would change and go for it so YES Are the motherboards on all Dell C400 laptops compatible? They are compatible to a point. Since C400 computers can be ordered with multiple features, peripherals, and processors One may or may not be able to directly replace another. MS Word will not print on Canon780; other sources & test page normal Uninstall the printer & printing programs(s), reboot. Reinstall printer & program(s). What is the best FREE on line storage? Google or Dropbox work well. www.dropbox.com or www.google.com Both have the ability to store different kinds of files indefinitely and allow access from virtually anywhere. How do I get my menu back on my newly installed Google Chrome? While in Chrome press the "Alt" key on your keyboard and it will show up. Why does my laptop save a scanned document to my pictures? That is the default "save" location for Windows. You can tell the program to save them somewhere else if you so desire. Is it easy to scan a document and convert to PDF format to save? Yes, your manual that came with your scanner should have all the info needed to enable you to do this. What is the best website to buy custom pcs from? (ie ibuypower) Please review the items in this link: http://bit.ly/HP2PMU What is pre-BIOS failure ? If you have this post a question to us for one of our Techs to look at. Generally it is a fault with the system occurring before startup checks, the power supply or mother board main areas to look at. Is an administrator user account required on Windows 7 computer? The REAL Admin account is hidden by default. But, all others, can be restricted users. Do you help with virus removal from my computer? Yes, we can. You'll need to fill out a ticket with some specs and a few more details so we can better help you with this. My hp 5600 printer went offline. How can I get it online? When a printers starts acting up, the VERY first thing to do is uninstall the printer and ALL its programs from your PC, reboot, then reinstall like you did the first day you owned the printer. Besides the fasterfox addon is there a way to speedup firefox startup? Yes there is. Try Speedyfox. This program optimizes the SQL databases inside Firefox to make it start faster. http://www.crystalidea.com/speedyfox Chrome crashes(or at least fakes it) when downloading files, any help? Try uninstalling Chrome, rebooting, then reinstalling with a new installation file from Google. How do I get the program off my computer which is slowing it down? The EASIEST way is to run a system restore back to a day BEFORE this program showed up. In Windows 7, where is the "Run" command on the start menu, as in XP? The easiest way to the Run command is using the Win Key + R buttons. This opens up the Run command instantly. How do you "clean" out a system other than files, cookies, history? http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/maintenance/speed.aspx How do I get rid of Babylon? http://deletemalware.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/remove-babylon-toolbar-and-search-web.html How do i play 2 videos at same time side by side synchronized? Please either refer to this thread http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=138430 or take a look at a program called Avisynth. How can I tell for sure if I have a virus on my computer? Generally, run a good-quality anti-virus software (some free ones are Avira, AVG, or Avast!). These will catch most viruses. If you have a specific symptom or issue, then please open a ticket. Is there a battery in the Dell Inspiron 518 tower? http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/insp518/en/sm/techov.htm How do I changed my unsecured wireless internet back to secured? http://www.wikihow.com/Secure-Your-Wireless-Home-Network How do i use Outlook Express? Search on Google for "Outlook Express user manual" and you will find several pdf manuals available to guide you. Where can I find a manual for mcp61pmgm c1.8676 gateway motherboard. A Search for this results in no manual though Google responds with many links to the board itself. It is probably best to contact Gateway (now via www.acer.com) What is nginx ? nginx [engine x] is an HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as a mail proxy server. Details at this link http://nginx.org/en/ Adobe flash player installed but doesnt run. Uninstall Adobe Flash Player from your Control Panel/Add Remove Programs or Programs and Features, Depending on your version of Windows. Reboot when finished and try reinstalling Adobe Flash again. Desktop icons began ending in .lnk, why? Now cant open them. A .lnk file is a shortcut or link file. It links to a file in some other location on your computer. That the shortcut no longer works normally means that the linked file has been moved. Can my computer be hacked if its off? No, it cannot be accessed if the power is off. How can I open a ".wdb" file that I saved on a floppy disc years ago? This is a Microsoft works Database file. Please see http://www.fileinfo.com/extension/wdb for instructions on how to open it. Can I re-install iTunes without losing my songs? Backup your music BEFORE the reinstall, just in case. Then, you cannot lose your music. How can the Bookmarks in PMac IBM 10.4.11 be transfered to MBP 10.7 Copy the Bookmarks.plist file from Home Directory/Library/Safari. to a different location (usb), install the new system and then copy the file Bookmarks.plist in to the same folder in the new system How can I stop PriceGong from continually popping up on my screen? http://www.pricegong.com/Remove_PriceGong.aspx Charge Tablet and use or always plugged in better for battery life? Allowing a NiCad battery to run down completely WAS considered he best practice to maintain battery life. Now with Lithium Ion batteries it makes little difference if it is always plugged in or not. How can I clean up registry errors on my computer/ Simple answer would be to use a product such as ccleaner from -http://www.piriform.com/ and select registry then analyse and fix. But it depends on the errors you find and if you need more help Is it true you can put a PCI sound card in a PCI-e slot? No, this cannot be done. A PSIe card has a different form-factor than a regular PCI card. Has anyone had a problem installing the Ant.com program? ant.com is a video downloader and we are not aware of any problems with its installation or use. It appears to have a good reputation ... Internet Explorer is taking over a minute to open. Why? See this link for more info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969938 My computer is a mess can you help?? I am sure we can but in order to do so you will need to open a detailed question giving as much information as possible so that our Technicians can assess your challenge. I have Norton 360 version 6.2.x.x. Do I need additional protection? With the latest anti virus product installed on your machine AND you keep it up to date with the latest virus signatures AND you are cautious about sites you visit, files you open etc you should be ok Can you help someone learn to use a software program called Yardi? Have a look here: http://www.ehow.com/how_7480066_use-yardi.html How can I take my mp3 music and add them to my Ipod or Itunes library? Please see this link for more information: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1473 I keep getting a message saying your windows its not gunuine. it's likely that your copy of Windows was not properly activated. To fix this, click the notification and follow the steps to repair Windows or post a question for our techs to help you Is there anyway around Windows 7 logon when password is forgotten Yes there is but for legal reasons (many forgotten passwords relate to stolen laptops) this type of question is beyond the scope of our service. How to backup my computer to a external hard drive Purchase and use backup software and designate the external drive as the target, keeping in mind that it is no more reliable than any other mechanical hard drive. What type of anti virus protection do you recommend? Microsoft Security Essentials has been winning the free program category for a while now. Symantec's Norton AV wins the paid version category. Windows 7 doesnt recognize me as administrator. How do I change that? Here's how to change your user account type in Win7: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/103538-user- account-type-change.html How to print color screens in black&white, to save on expensive ink? Please follow the directions here: http://www.worldstart.com/save-color-ink-print-in-grayscale/ Can I install windows on a MacBook Pro?If so how? With Intel-based Mac using OS X v10.5 or later you can use Boot Camp Assistant which is located in /Applications/Utilities make sure you install the latest updates available for your Mac first Monitor is black, green light flashes This means that the monitor has power but it is not receiving a video signal from the computer. So first step .. check your video card. Second step .. open a detailed ticket for our help. Can windows 7 write a CD-RW that will be readable by XP? Yes, if you are using the correct media and burn the CD correctly. How can I tell if a program on my computer is an antivirus, antispywar Go to www.google.com and look up the name of the program in question. You'll know in just a few minutes of reading if it is a antivirus or antispyware program, or exactly whay it is. How can I get rid of a rootkit virus in windows 7? Different approaches and really no single full-proof method but formatting the drive and completely re-installing the operating system is the recommended answer My computer is so slow and have to wait untill it unfreezes You may be experiencing the effects of spyware or a virus infection. Removal can take a few steps so you may like to open a question in our system so that we can give you detailed help. How do I fix "Microsoft jscript compilation error? Download and install the latest version of java from the link: http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp If this fails, see this link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308260 HP f1503 monitor menu keeps popping up. Solution? It sounds like there is a fundamental hardware defect with the monitor. Please take it to qualified repair technician and let him offer advice. How do I open Registry to search for and delete some files? On your Start menu, go to Run, then type in "regedit" without the quotes and hit the Enter key on your keyboard. Just remember, there is no "undo" button when using regedit. Why do my laptop speakers crackle when I listen to something? This would appear to be a hardware problem. Since this is a laptop you should probably seek the advice of a qualified laptop repair company. Where can I find a free, simple to use, fax program to download? Try the Google search: http://www.google.com/cse?cx=partner-pub-2434300511542223:hv1p4kpyfrx&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=free+fax+program#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=free%20fax%20program&gsc.page=1 Are there still free internet services in the us? Generally not as a public service. You will find some free wireless Internet but not as a Metropolitan Area Network. Some cities intend to offer this but we wait for deployment. How do i become a tech support volunteer for this site? Log into your account @ protonic and go here: http://www.protonic.com/?page=join Lost HP Photosmart Essential in move items box This can be found at the HP site under "Photosmart Essentials). It can also be reinstalled from the disk you received with your printer. How can I check a Vista Desktop for improper internet browsing? Look at http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/iehv.html for a history of sites visited download tool, also check the temp folder on the computer and cookies files, but you may not see it all if hidden Is there any way to tell if my memory is bad? You can download this program and make a bootable CD of it. Leave the CD in the drive and reboot to the CD. It will test the RAM and tell you if it fails. http://memtest86.com/memtest86-4.0a.iso.zip Is removing and re-installing IE8 on XP pc easy to do? It is not really easy but the site at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969358/en-gb should give you the solution. Whats the default English font on windows 7? The default font when it is first installed is Segoe UI 9pt, not bold, not italic. (All the settings in a default Win7 or Vista machine will be Segoe UI 9pt.) Cant get sound on my computer. Can you help? You have to ensure the correct device drivers are installed for the sound card in the computer. You need to find out the manufacturer of your sound card and download the drivers according to the specs How do I open/access/use paint.NET? http://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/FAQ.html Are there keyboards with big keys like on some telephones? Yes, there are many of these available. Here you go: http://tinyurl.com/ctkkard this link leads to a google search that will show you lots of different keyboards with oversized keys and many sellers How to get a new IP address on my startup,with Windows XP? Left click Start menu, left click run. In the open box type command and press enter. At the DOS prompt, type the command IPCONFIG /renew to acquire a new IP address. Is it safe and simple to use the restore in windows XP? Yes it is safe to use. The catch is, depending on how far back you choose to restore, you MIGHT lose some files in the process. Files such as emails, word docs, and other such files. How to turn off google double click http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/html/opt-out.html how much does it cost for a store to change a video card ÂŁ? This is a task you can easily tackle yourself. Please fill out a ticket and we'll happily give you step by step instructions. How can I recover photos that were deleted from my memory card? http://www.powerdatarecovery.com/power-data-recovery-free-edition.html How to reformat an MacBook then install Snow Leopard http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3910?viewlocale=en_US Is the MAXTOR one touch 4 plus a modem? No, it is an external hard drive. How to get incoming emails in gmail to show in thunderbird my default https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/thunderbird-and-gmail I want to learn Web Design. What is my first step? Where do I begin? Search on Google for free tutorials to learn html and css. If you understand those core skills you will be able to move on to more. Can I delete Microsoft.net framework 2 & 3 service pack 2 & keep 3.5? No, these libraries are needed for different programs you have installed to run correctly. Will USB 3 work plugged in to my USB 2.0 port? Yes it will, but the data will fall back to USB 2.0 speed. Can I replace a $60/year Skype VOIP number with a free Google number? This is possible by following the directions at: http://www.wikihow.com/Port-Your-Skype-Number-to-Google-Voice how do I sync my iphone on more than one computer? http://www.andrewgrant.org/2008/03/30/how-to-sync-an-iphone-with-two-or-more-computers.html Is there any freeware programs that will fix all registry errors? The short answer to this is "no". There are many different registry scanners out there and each of them will find what other programs will not. If you decide to use such a program, use it carefully. How do I get rid of exclamation marks next to iTunes songs? The problem and solution are discussed in the following thread. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4014573?start=0&tstart=0 Do you advise changing to IE9? You can upgrade to IE9 if you are using Win Vista or Win 7. If you are using Win XP, youre out of luck. Microsoft is not allowing this for XP. Please read through this link: http://bit.ly/fNteaQ While installing drivers for smartphone, MTP driver fails. Any ideas? http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1824420 in Fire Fox, how do you limit the number of tabs to be closed The answer is at: http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/760500 and at: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/window-and-tab-limiter/ Looking for a great anti virus software. All the well known products are great. They all work but none is perfect, they all let something through. The free versions are good enough for proper protection. Can Internet Explorer 9 be safely removed from Vista and re-installed? yes have a look at the microsoft site to see how:- http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/how-do-i-install-or-uninstall-internet-explorer-9 how do I send someone a link from my website to add to their website Highlight the address of your site in the explorer bar, Copy it (ctrl +C) and then paste it (ctrl +v)in to the email you send them. They then do the same on the web page it is to go on to. How can I reopen a closed ticket? The only way to reopen a ticket is by using the links in the bottom of the email you received when that ticket was closed. Option 2 is to open a new ticket and reference the closed ticket number. Can i plug a powered device, eg printer, into a powered USB Hub? Yes. you can do this without any problem. Can I uninstall iTunes and still maintain files after a reinstall? Follow the directions here: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-to-reinstall-itunes.html Your music folder should contain a backup folder that is updated every time you sync iTunes. is there a defrag for the mac os please let me know! you could use a tool like iDefrag - http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php OSX will automatically, in background, defragment files under 20mb in size. Files over 20mb are never defragmented. Where is the best place to locate somone who can fix code? Perhaps you would like to explore one of the on-line sites that match projects to coding professionals. The following is an example http://www.freelancer.com/ How can I prevent some programs from loading automatically on startup If you download and install ccleaner from piriform.com there is an option to stop some programs at startup in the tools section and its easy to use the product rather than changing registration

Lately we have been having problems sending E-Mail to Clients with a Wildblue, Road Runner, Comcast, ATT, and a few other E-Mail providers. For the most part this has been fixed..

However, if you feel you are not receiving our E-Mails, please write us at THIS LINK from your registered E-Mail address explaining any problem you are having.

Pushdo botnet is evolving, becomes more resilient to takedown attempts A new Pushdo malware variant uses domain generation techniques to call home if normal communications fail, researchers say

Read more at: http://bit.ly/19SozkE
Researchers uncover new global cyberespionage operation dubbed SafeNet The attack infected computers belonging to companies, governments, and other organizations from more than 100 countries, Trend Micro says

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11PU3dg
5 Gmail tips for power users While there's no shortage of email providers, Gmail's simple design, ease of use and cool features continue to attract users.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11PSrQJ
Oracle renumbers Java patch updates, confuses users even more New numbering scheme was necessary to take into account the increase in zero-day patches, Oracle said

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14CR4BP
7 steps to securing Java Java, the popular OS-independent platform and programming language, runs on just about every kind of electronic device imaginable, including computers, cell phones, printers, TVs, DVDs, home security systems, automated teller machines, navigation systems, games and medical devices.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14CMLGy
In a sea of malware, viruses make a small comeback Microsoft has noticed a small uptick in viruses that infect files

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15Xh6Er
Internet Explorer 10 beats Chrome and Firefox at blocking malware downloads Internet Explorer 10 users are far less likely to suffer malware infections while Web browsing compared to users of Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Opera, according to a recent independent study by NSS Labs.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/13yliXr
Just Manager is a promising, portable Windows Explorer alternative The default Windows file manager Windows Explorer has not really changed that much in all its years of existence. Microsoft made only marginally changes to the program and while it is sufficient for basic file related operations, it lacks several features that third party tools offer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/10caeOt
Windows 8 Vulnerable to Attack, Kaspersky Says Kaspersky Lab product specialist Wayne Kirby says that the complex design of Microsoft's newest operating system (OS), Windows 8, increases its vulnerability to hackers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12hcl2j
Stealthy malware spreading among popular Web servers Security company Eset says the Linux/Cdorked malware program targeting Apache servers now also affects Lighttpd and Nginx Web servers

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12hc5Am
Windows 7 patch KB 2670838 fries Firefox fonts For users with font-rendering problems in Firefox that can be traced to problematic KB 2670838 patch, here's an easy fix...

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12hbQW6
Phrozensoft VirusTotal Uploader: check files for viruses online Virustotal is without doubt one of the go-to services when it comes to scanning a file for viruses online. Its appeal is mainly based on the fact that it is using dozens of antivirus engines in file verifications.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/13v5DY7
Windows Start button could make a comeback, Microsoft exec says Julie Larson-Green, corporate vice president of Windows, says the company is having "meaningful discussions" about bringing older features of Microsoft's operating system to Windows 8.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/13v3hsk
Reduce Computer Eye Strain With Flux If you are finding yourself in front of the computer too many hours at night or when it’s dark, you may find that bright light from the display may be impacting your sleep and causing eye strain. Fortunately, there is a free utility that minimizes this problem. The program is called f.lux and is from the same company that brought you Google’s Picasa.

F.lux works in the background and adjusts your computer monitor's color temperature throughout the day. This is different than an ambient light sensor which looks at the brightness of light in your environment. According to the developers, the program makes “the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day." The result is the monitor better mimics the natural environment. and you are less likely to experience eye fatigue. There is also research suggesting that the bright lights from the computer monitor can interfere with your sleep. In the screen snap below, you can get the idea of the wave-like movement over the day.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/18ssNS2
Send mails faster with Auto Compress File for Thunderbird Improvements have been made in recent time to tackle what I call the attachment issue in emails. Mail servers limit the maximum size of emails, and every email that exceeds that size is bounced back to the sender.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15mif7W
Resize YouTube’s video player to full screen automatically It is quite surprising that the video hosting site YouTube does not offer better video player controls.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15mhMTl
Microsoft admits zero-day bug in IE8, pledges patch Microsoft late Friday confirmed that a "zero-day," or unpatched, vulnerability exists in Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), the company's most popular browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/18ofody
Complexity of Windows 8 OS makes it vulnerable to attack: Kaspersky The complexity of the Windows 8 operating system has increased its vulnerability, according to Kaspersky Lab A/NZ product specialist, Wayne Kirby.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/18offa8
Internet's Very First Website Brought Back to Life Twenty years ago this week the World Wide Web's technology became publicly available. To mark the event, the first-ever website has been recreated and republished.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZD9jaj
Windows XP at risk as antivirus vendors jump ship Virus Bulletin VB100 report, focused on fully updated Windows XP systems, shows antivirus manufacturers are giving short shrift to XP, despite its popularity

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZD8NJe
Microsoft Set To Redesign Bing, Skype, And Xbox Microsoft is reportedly working on rebranding some of its products soon.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZdXhR2
Ubuntu 13.04 released: how to upgrade Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" has been released today as part of the usual six month release schedule of the Linux distribution.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11NK3fM
How to make the most out of Chrome’s and Firefox’s bookmarks bar Are you using the bookmarks bar in your browser of choice or do you use another method to access bookmarks in the browser (or maybe none at all)?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/164vbyF
Firefox prefetching: what you need to know The basic idea behind prefetching is to speed things up for the user. An algorithm is involved that guesses which resources are likely to be accessed by the user in the recent future.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/164unK5
Don’t like Skype? Revive Windows Live Messenger Microsoft some time ago announced the retiring of Windows Live Messenger (formerly know as MSN Messenger) in favor of the communication software Skype.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/164tGR8
Online security: Your two-factor authorization checklist Twitter reportedly is getting ready to roll out two-factor authentication in the coming weeks -- a development that comes not a moment too soon as the company's current security efforts fall short.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/164rLMh
Sizing your disk backup and deduplication system to avoid future missteps Correctly sizing a disk backup with deduplication to meet your current and future needs is an important part of your data protection strategy.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/164r8lY
Know thy cyber enemy: Who's attacking and what they want Verizon security study shows most attacks made by external parties, primarily based in China and Romania, using wide variety of threat actions.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/17Y3DKM
Microsoft’s Embarrassing Change To Windows 8 Microsoft’s new operating system has not been well received, and they may be planning to change some fundamental pieces – like reinstating the missing start button and getting you to your desktop as soon as you boot up.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/17Y32ZE
Many Home Routers Vulnerable to Attack: Report Do you use a Linksys, Netgear, Verizon, D-Link, or Belkin router for your home network? Then your network could be vulnerable to attack.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11AqDvK
Is full-disk encryption worth it? New study -- sponsored by drive makers -- argues the data security benefits of hardware-based encryption outweigh hassle, cost.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11AqkkE
Researchers find serious flaw in latest JRE for desktops, servers Security Explorations researchers say there is a new sandbox bypass vulnerability in the Java 7 Reflection API component of Java Runtime Environment.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15FpmrB
Microsoft re-releases 'Blue Screen of Death' patch All is well, the company says; the once-flawed fix is now safe.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15Fp4AV
Microsoft: AV-Test study that Bing serves 5x more malware is inaccurate Microsoft's response to the study paints a different picture. The company noted in a blog post published April 19 that the conclusions drawn from the study are wrong.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15CKizs
Junkware Removal Tool uninstalls popular toolbars and unwanted software from your PC It is probably fair to say that the majority of Windows users encountered toolbars in one way or the other.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15CK23A
Bing Turns Up 5X More Malware Than Google: Report Not sure which Internet search engine to use? Maybe this will affect your decision: according to a new report, Bing search results produce five times more malware-ridden sites than Google search results.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11ti1Hv
Microsoft releases repair disk for botched KB 2823324 patch In unprecedented move, Microsoft releases downloadable repair CD for users with Win7 systems bricked by MS13-036/KB 2823324 patch

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11teOHU
Top Wi-Fi routers easy to hack, says study The most popular home wireless routers are easily hacked and there's little you can do to stop it, says a new study by research firm Independent Security Evaluators.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/12yLyAI
Russian BadNews bug found in Android app store Security researchers have identified 32 separate apps on Google Play that harboured a bug called BadNews.

Read more at: http://bbc.in/ZAA3r5
Microsoft finds Trojan that hides files to evade analysis Microsoft has discovered an unusually stealthy Trojan capable of deleting files it downloads in order to keep them away from forensics investigators and researchers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZAyiKv
How to change Microsoft Paint’s default save type It has been quite bothersome for some time now that Paint uses the png image format as the default save format for newly created images.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZFhEp5
YAHOO! DUMPS DEALS COUPON SERVICE IN HOUSE CLEANING Yahoo! on Friday announced it is getting rid of coupon service Deals and the “Yahooligans” Internet guide for children while it cleans house.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZFhnm5
Survey: Internet users like targeted ads, free content Internet users overwhelmingly enjoy free Web content supported by advertising, and they'd rather see advertisements targeted toward their interests than random ads, according to a survey released this week by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA).

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZFhbTN
Security certificate problem trips up Bing Web site Using Microsoft's search service over a secure network connection yielded serious warnings because of a security certificate problem Friday.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/ZFgZEh
Gmail: Hold down Shift for a larger compose window Gmail's new compose window is highly controversial. Some users like it as they can now access emails at the same time and in the same browser tab to reference them or re-read them while composing an answer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12TbY2l
VLC Media Player 2.0.6 has been released VideoLAN, the non-profit organization behind VLC Media Player, has just released version 2.0.6 for all desktop operating systems that are currently supported.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12Tb5a7
Baidu PC Faster is a free system maintenance tool for Windows Baidu PC Faster is a free system maintenance tool for Windows that does not have to hide behind Advanced System Care, Slim Cleaner or System Mechanic.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZROCm3
Microsoft urges Windows 7 users to uninstall 'Blue Screen of Death' patch Microsoft today urged Windows 7 users to uninstall a patch shipped earlier this week that has crashed customer's PCs and crippled the machines with endless reboots.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZROlj4
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.75 update adds archive scanning Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is one of those programs that every Windows users should have installed on their system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12K0YnN
With Windows XP support ending in one year, what are the options? The support deadline of Windows XP will not be prolonged and end on April 8, 2014. The change is affecting many computer users, with companies collecting statistics about operating system use seeing the operating system's use as high as 38%.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12HryKK
Microsoft Security Bulletins For April 2013 overview Microsoft a couple of minutes ago has released security patches for several of its products as part of this month's patch day.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12Hr2fK
Patch Tuesday leaves Internet Explorer zero day untouched It’s Patch Tuesday time again. This month Microsoft has unleashed nine new security bulletins. Nine is a reasonably high number of updates, however, only two of them are rated as Critical. So, it’s actually a little more laid back than most months, but there’s still cause for concern.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12HqIgN
Microsoft fixes two critical flaws for April's Patch Tuesday In the latest round of security updates, Microsoft has released patches for nine security vulnerabilities, two of them considered "critical."

Read more at: http://cnet.co/12HqkPE
US inventor develops an electric guitar that can send EMAILS We all get bored of sitting in offices typing emails, so one American inventor has created a melodical solution by making a guitar which sends emails.
David Neevel, of Portland, Oregon, programmed his own guitar to work as a computer keyboard which types different letters depending on which note is played.
Mr Neevel linked a synthesizer pedal to an opto-isolator circuit which transmitted signals over to the operating system of a USB keyboard.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YapSWO
My dear Winston... O.M.G! Tech phrase loved by today's teenagers was first used 100 YEARS AGO in a letter to Churchill OMG. It's one of the most popular phrases of the modern technological age used by just about every teenage girl in Western civilisation.
However, it seems the 'Oh my God' initialism O.M.G. is actually very 'last century'.
It dates back to 1917 when British admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher first penned the expression in a letter to Winston Churchill.
Lord 'Jacky' Fisher, as he was known, had been writing about some 'utterly [upsetting]' World War I newspaper headlines.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YeWzqn
Google set to take on phone spam with 'robocall' system to spot nuisance numbers Google has developed a way to stop 'robocalls' - nuisance calls which play a recorded message.
The search giant has won a contest run by the US Federal Trade Commission to stop the calls, which are becoming an increasing annoyance.
Google's system is similar to the one its Gmail service uses to filter out spam.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YeVHCk
The terrifying 'blowtorch printer' that uses FIRE to burn messages onto wood A graphic designer has combined a printer with a blowtorch to make an incredible tool which burns images onto surfaces down to the tiniest detail.
The 'FireWriter' was created by Lucien Langton to reproduce black and white images perfectly pixel for pixel on walls, wood, plastic and fabric.
The blowtorch is mounted on rollers, and the user simply loads the image they want into a computer, the 'rolls' the contraption along a large sheet of wood.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YeV9w1
EE set to double Britain's superfast 4G speeds in bid to beat rivals Speeds of 'superfast' 4G broadband services are to double, provider EE announced today.
Average speeds on the network currently range between 8Mbps and 12Mbps but this is to be given a boost to more than 20Mbps.
The service is expected to enable users to surf the web much more quickly on mobile phones.
Olaf Swantee, EE's chief executive officer, said headline speeds would reach more than 80Mbps and the benefits would be brought in for both new and current subscribers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YeUhHT
Microsoft and Nokia go to war with Google over 'trojan horse' Android phone software Google has been attacked by competitors in an EU complaint for using its free Android mobile phone software as a 'trojan horse' to install its own apps.

The FairSearch group, which includes Microsoft, Nokia, and Oracle, among others has asked the European antitrust (competition) authority to investigate Google for alleged unfair practices in the mobile smartphone market.

It claims Google is simply keen to get hold of consumer data so it can better target advertising.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YeTW83
Microsoft's Patch Tuesday for April to address Windows 8 vulnerabilities Windows 8 and Windows RT are subject to critical vulnerabilities that will be addressed on Microsoft's Patch Tuesday next week, both by virtue of supporting Internet Explorer 10.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XkG3Ui
Sneaky malware hides behind mouse movement, experts say Researchers from security vendor FireEye have uncovered a new advanced persistent threat (APT) that uses multiple detection evasion techniques, including the monitoring of mouse clicks, to determine active human interaction with the infected computer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XkFDx5
Intel confirms USB bug in 'Haswell' chipset The chipmaker says a USB bug in the chipset that accompanies the "Haswell" processor exists and will be fixed.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/10Ge8eU
Can Modem Lights Warn of Danger? Your modem and router lights are blinking all the time – even when you know that no one is using the Internet. Is that a warning that something’s wrong?

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/10GdOgj
Review: Free Opener can open almost any type of file you can think of What do you use to open files? If you're in the majority, your answer would be "depends on the file." This is not the case with Free Opener.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XYOlyk
Recuva 1.46 update brings improvements across the board Data recovery software can come in handy in several situations, most notably when you deleted files permanently on your system or when a third party software or even a virus did so.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XYLSns
First glimpse of the Facebook phone: Leaked screenshots show new 'home' app that could be downloaded to ALL Android handsets The first details of Facebook's mobile phone have revealed a new 'home' app - and it could turn any Android handset into a 'Facebook Phone'.
According to website Android Police, the software will be unveiled alongside a handset developed by the social networking giant and phone maker HTC at a special event on Thursday.
Codenamed Myst, the handset is expected to feature dedicated Facebook menus and screens.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/10pmpGC
Google facing fines in EVERY EU country as Information Commissioner launches probe into search giant's privacy policy Internet giant Google is facing a major probe by the privacy watchdog over allegations it is abusing users’ personal data.
The search firm could face fines of hundreds of thousands of pounds if it is found guilty of breaching data protection rules.
Britain’s Information Commissioner was one of six European data protection regulators who launched investigations into the search company yesterday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/10ply8F
Mega DDoS attacks on the rise – Kaspersky DDoS attacks like the one that resulted from an altercation between a Dutch company and Spamhaus this week are on the rise, according to a statement from Kaspersky Labs.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YMvxW8
In honor of World Backup Day: How to protect your data Happy World Backup Day, an occasion dedicated to encouraging you to make sure all your digital data is kept safe and secure.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Z22ABI
There is such thing as 'un-googleable'! Google at war with Sweden over plan to create new dictionary definition for anything that can't be found online Google has forced a Swedish council to drop the phrase 'ungoogleable' from a new dictionary

The term, meaning 'impossible to find via web search' was in use as the word 'ogooglebar' in Swedish until this week.

The Language Council of Sweden, which oversees the addition of official new words to the Swedish lexicon, had lined up ogooglebar for inclusion in an official list of new words, defined as 'something that cannot be found on the web using a search engine'.

But it reckoned without the might of Google, which demanded that the wording be amended.

It insisted that its trademark should not be diluted by being used to apply to all searching of the internet.

Instead, lawyers said the definition should be 'something that cannot be found on the web using Google'. The search giant also wanted its trademark sign added.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/121bUcC
Are you about to get fired because of your Twitter account? This new app will warn you in advance! It may be tempting to tweet your distress about the terrible job you've just been asked to do at work - but what if the boss is reading your feed?

Now a new 'FireMe' app will monitor your messages and send an alert to warn you the tweet is dangerous.

But the only problem is it will also broadcast your tweet via its own 'shaming' page.

Every time you tweet about your job, or your boss or colleagues, the app flags it up and sends the person who wrote it a reply asking whether that was really a good idea.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14vWTUn
Three Egyptian divers 'tried to hack through internet ocean-floor cables in attack that could have taken ENTIRE continent offline' Three men have been arrested by the Egyptian army for apparently trying to cut through an undersea Internet cable.

A patrol stopped a fishing boat near the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria and arrested three divers, an army spokesman said on his official Facebook page.

It is believed they were trying to cut through an SEA-ME-WE 4 undersea cable - one of the main connections between Asia and Europe, running from France to Malaysia and linking Italy, north Africa, the middle east and south Asia.

If the men had been successful, experts warned they could have taken an 'entire continent offline', but interruptions were reported around the region, including Dubai and India, today.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/121aHCb
REVEALED: The Nato bunker deep in Netherlands forest where hackers 'almost brought down world's internet in biggest every cyber-attack' This is the ex-Nato bunker where hackers almost brought down the world's internet in a sustained revenge attack.

It comes after a bitter feud between two online companies - a group which aims to block unwanted emails known as â€spam’ and a firm accused of sending them - erupted.

Spam-fighting organization Spamhaus says it's being subjected to a massive cyber-attack, apparently from groups angry at being blacklisted by the Geneva-based group.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/121a3EJ
Man catches woman who stole his iPad after he logs in and sees her taking hilarious 'selfy' portraits An Arkansas man won't have to get a sketch artist for a picture of the woman he says has his iPad, as she keeps sending pictures of herself to him.

Allen Engstrom said he left his iPad on an airplane and it somehow ended up in the unidentified woman's hands.

But what she might not know is that the device is synced to an iCloud, meaning every time she takes a photo of herself - which she does often - the photo's stream back to Engstrom's family devices.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/1219ISn
Spy agencies unite to fight cyber-crime with new 'Facebook to attack internet terrorists' Britain’s intelligence agencies are today launching a Facebook-style site to share information in a bid to combat a growing terrorist threat.

UK networks are often attacked by other states, criminals and companies seeking secrets, costing billions of pounds.

Now, experts from government communications body GCHQ, MI5, police and business will work together on a new partnership designed to defend industry and government against attack.

Those using the Cyber Security Information Sharing Partnership (CISP) will be given access to a web portal, described as a 'Facebook for cyber security threats', which will operate on social network lines.

Analysts, based at a secret location in London, can then choose who they share information with in real time.

Large screens will monitor attacks and provide details in real-time of who is being targeted.

Then a group of 12-15 analysts with security clearance will work mainly during office hours.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/1219uuv
Blackberry is back in the black: Smartphone helps phone giant recover to sell ONE MILLION devices BlackBerry has sold around one million of the new Z10 smartphones it hopes will help restore the firm to the top table in mobile technology.

The handset's performance is widely seen as being key to the company's fortunes after a difficult couple of years when the firm lost ground and customers to rivals including Apple and Samsung.

Today, the mobile giant announced a return to profitability in the most recent quarter and posted earnings of 98 million US dollars (ÂŁ65 million) after recording a substantial loss in the same period last year.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12197jE
Got a smartphone? You probably check Facebook FOURTEEN times a day Good news for people who think they are Facebook fanatics. Unless you’re checking the social media site at least 14 times a day, you’re actually BELOW the national average.

The results from a survey may confirm suspicions about how much smartphones have become an integral part of our lives.

It seems that 79 per cent of smartphone users check for their devices within 15 minutes of waking up.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/1218C9s
How to protect yourself against online identity theft (not using 'password' as your password is a start) We are revealing more information about our personal lives than ever before.

Through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, many of us openly share private information about our everyday lives.

So it is no surprise that cases of identity theft are rapidly increasing, with more and more people being caught out every year.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12186Iq
Astonishing speed China censors information on the internet: 30% is deleted within half an hour, and 5% is deleted within FIVE minutes of appearing online Thirty per cent of online posts which are deemed inappropriate on China's equivalent of Twitter are deleted within half an hour, according to new research.

Computer scientists Jed Crandall and Dan Wallach conducted the study on how quickly censorship on Sina Weibo can work.

They found that some posts are deleted as quickly as five minutes after being put online.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/1217N05
Is Facebook about to launch its own phone? Social network giant promises 'new home on android' Facebook could be about to launch its own smartphone, it has emerged.

The social networking company sent out invitations yesterday to a press event which promises to show off the firm's 'new home on Android.'

Sources close to the project say Facebook will show off its own version of the Android operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12178fb
How to switch between Ribbon views in Office 2013 The more I use Office 2013, the more I like some of the little interface tweaks Microsoft made to the suite.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/165Rtvz
Internet Apocalypse Now? Experts Say No The amplified DDoS attack by Web hosting provider CyberBunker against antispam outfit SpamHaus Project is big news.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XKEPPd
Chrome update polishes spell-check and fixes bugs Four weeks after the launch of Google's Chrome 26browser into beta, the final version debuted on Tuesday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XKCqUK
Researchers find new point-of-sale malware called BlackPOS A new piece of malware that infects point-of-sale (POS) systems has already been used to compromise thousands of payment cards belonging to customers of U.S. banks, according to researchers from Group-IB, a security and computer forensics company based in Russia.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XKCbZN
Linux use in enterprises jumps again: survey The past two years have already seen significant jumps in corporate Linux usage, but now it looks like that trend is continuing into a third year.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/16iO6TY
CCleaner 4.0 released: new and improved tools, better performance When you ask tech savvy users which programs they use to remove temporary files on their Windows system, it is likely that the list they provide you with includes CCleaner.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11OkK1b
Cyberfight puts a drag on the Internet A fight between a spam-fighting group called Spamhaus and a Dutch Web host Cyberbunker has been called the biggest public DDoS battle in history.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/11OiEyg
How to set up public Wi-Fi at your business Offering wireless Internet access for guests can open new doors for your business.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11Oigjp
Review: IsoBuster recovers files from just about anything IsoBuster has matured from a program that dealt only with optical discs and images into a program that will recover data from any type of media.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZVs4Uv
How to use Dropbox’s new photo feature right now Dropbox back in January 2013 started to upgrade users to a new photo feature that improved the service's photo viewing and sharing capabilities.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/16UkdL0
Bookmarx: better bookmarking in Google Chrome The process of adding bookmarks in web browsers has not really been touched in the last decade or so.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/16Uk0HP
How to sync files and folders across two PCs Here are four ways to do this, although--technically speaking--only two of them actually keep the files on both PCs. The others merely make the folder available on both.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/16UjF7R
Linux distro update: Ubuntu slashes support, Debian 7.0 draws near It wasn't all that long ago that Canonical extended the support period for Long Term Support (LTS) releases of its Ubuntu Linux from three years to five, but last week it made a move in the opposite direction for its non-LTS software.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/16UjaL6
Security experts warn about Iran and North Korea hackers Cyberattacks supposedly originating from China have raised alarms in recent weeks, but U.S. businesses and government agencies should worry as much about Iran and North Korea, a group of cybersecurity experts said.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11zUrYH
McAfee warns of malware targeting point-of-sale systems A new piece of custom malware sold on the underground Internet market is being used to siphon payment card data from point-of-sale (POS) systems, according to security researchers from antivirus vendor McAfee.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WPzYio
Complete guide to using Windows 8 (roundup) Microsoft's newest operating system has a whole new interface and loads of new features. Here are CNET's best tips for getting up to speed quickly and getting the most out of Windows 8.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/168YcqF
Apple Plugs Password Security Hole Apple has fixed a security hole that made it easy for someone to seize another person’s Apple account, which controls access to iCloud, iTunes and other Apple services.

Read more at: http://nyti.ms/168WIwC
Hackers could be fair game for deadly force, cyberwar experts say Deadly force against organized hackers could be justified under international law, according to a document released Thursday by a panel of legal and cyber warfare experts.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/168We9K
Do we need another Windows OS? Microsoft made a case this week for Windows RT, its stripped down version of Windows 8. But do we need a third version of Windows?

Read more at: http://cnet.co/168VC3U
Microsoft starts auto-installing Windows 7 SP1 on consumer PCs Tuesday Microsoft today said it will start automatically pushing Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) to customers as a last-ditch move before it drops the original 2009 edition of Windows 7 from support next month.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ynf8UK
Finance sector under threat from sophisticated malware threat The financial sector is under threat from increasingly sophisticated malware attacks a Symantec report has claimed, with many security solutions ineffective against modern Trojans.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/132FEua
Linksys brand name survives as Belkins takes over from Cisco Belkin completed its acquisition of Linksys on Friday and will keep the longtime home networking company's brand, products and support channels.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/132EIWX
Non-Microsoft security flaws the ones to watch, Secunia analysis finds The number of security flaws affecting Windows users rose five percent last year and the culprits are overwhelmingly non-Microsoft programs, the latest study from information provider Secunia has found.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/131mW6f
'NotCompatible' Android malware rears its ugly head, again The "NotCompatible" malware, designed to infect Android devices and turn them into unwitting Web proxies, is suddenly showing a sharp uptick in activity, according to mobile security vendor Lookout.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/131mFQI
Microsoft pins Hotmail, Outlook outage on hot data center The glitch that took down Outlook and Hotmail on Tuesday was caused by a temperature spike in a Microsoft data center.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/XH8IFA
The ultimate Google Reader alternatives list When you ask around which online RSS reader Internet users make use of, it is almost certain that Google Reader will be mentioned quite often.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XH8gai
Belkin completes acquisition of Linksys from Cisco Linksys will still exist as a separate brand; support for all existing products will continue and warranties will be honored.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/XH7V7A
Scary flaw makes your USB ports a major security risk It’s the second Tuesday in March, which means that it’s also the third Patch Tuesday of 2013. Microsoft released seven new security bulletins today, with four rated as "critical," but security experts are particularly concerned about a flaw rated as merely "important" that exposes your Windows PCs to major risk.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/16r78sy
How to make Firefox the Fort Knox of browsers Whenever you hop on to the Internet you are facing dangers. While it is relatively safe on popular sites such as Facebook or Google, it is possible that you are deceived even there.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Wf4IZS
Four months in, Windows 8 needs help Microsoft needs to fix Windows 8 to make it easier for the average consumer to use, says IDC.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Wf4q54
Microsoft to patch critical holes in IE, Office, Silverlight Next week's Patch Tuesday will see seven security fixes rolled out to fix holes in Internet Explorer, Office 2010, and Microsoft's Silverlight platform.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Wf4dyJ
Mozilla updates Firefox to 19.0.2 in response to Pwn2own issue The Pwn2own security challenge is an annual competition in which hackers and security experts from all over the world try to beat the protection of software and mobile devices.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XYCzqn
Find out which Firefox add-on uses the most memory One of the things that I really like in regards to Google Chrome is the browser’s task manager that reveals a variety of information about the browser’s memory usage.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XYCqTL
Microsoft slates IE, Windows, Office updates for next week Microsoft today announced it will deliver seven security updates next week, four of them rated "critical," to patch Internet Explorer (IE), Windows, Office, SharePoint Server and the Silverlight media software.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WZJzFR
LibreOffice update brings remote presentation app to Windows, Mac One of the highlights of the Document Foundation's LibreOffice 4.0 release last month was the addition of Impress Remote, a mobile app that lets users control LibreOffice presentations from their Android phone.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/109eg8k
Cybercriminals using digitally signed Java exploits to trick users Security researchers warn that cybercriminals have started using Java exploits signed with digital certificates to trick users into allowing the malicious code to run inside browsers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15wXkf0
Five new flaws found in the latest version of Java This latest vulnerability report follows a week after the same company reported two other holes in Oracle's plug-in

Read more at: http://bit.ly/166OVjy
Oracle releases emergency fix for Java zero-day exploit Oracle released emergency patches for Java on Monday to address two critical vulnerabilities, one of which is actively being exploited by hackers in targeted attacks.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W0S8xf
The Chromebook: A great second computer Chromebooks are best for people who always have access to an Internet connection. That's because many of the apps are built to run online,

Read more at: http://usat.ly/13zLpi7
Fix Chrome freezing and then beeping If you are running Google’s browser Chrome and noticing freezes when you open web pages in it, you may have tried a lot to resolve the issue.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14jDyRU
Display a list of all installed network adapters NetworkInterfacesView is a new program by Nirsoft that displays a list of installed network adapters and interfaces that are installed on the system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VrErZ2
Bank of America says hackers lifted its data from a partner Bank of America blames a data breach on another company that revealed internal emails related to monitoring of hacktivist groups including Anonymous.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14hxt8l
Evernote hacked: resets all passwords The note-taking service Evernote has posted a security advisory on its website informing the public that the company’s Operations & Security team has discovered – and blocked – suspicious activity on the Evernote network.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14hwBAM
Evernote note-sharing service says hackers stole some user data Evernote, a Web-based note-sharing service, said it was resetting the passwords of its 50 million users because hackers managed to breach its computer network and access some usernames, email addresses and encrypted passwords.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/14hwaWV
BlackBerry 10 users, here's your first software update The update addresses a bug with the mobile OS's Gmail support, as well as improvements to the camera.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/YMhhud
Create a storefront in 60 seconds with Planet Soho If you run a one-man shop and you're looking to sell a product or service, you have a few options. You can build an e-commerce site from scratch, which requires time and expertise, or you can go with a turnkey marketplace like Etsy, which might not be a good fit for your product (unless it's a tea cozy).

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Y5AK7c
Buggy HTML5 Storage implementation fills up your hard drive in minutes HTML5 localStorage was designed to allow websites and services to store larger amounts of data on a computer system. It is supported by all modern web browsers and used frequently by sites to save larger amounts of data on a system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Y5yTPD
IE 10 for Windows 7 special Bing and MSN edition Many of us in the tech world use Chrome or Firefox most of the time and we tend to forget that the vast majority of people still use Internet Explorer, largely because it simply comes with Windows.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YdiSKp
Review: Swizzle sweeps out your inbox Sometimes, I feel like I am drowning in all those emails in my inbox. Between all the marketing messages and ads, plus the newsletters I've subscribed to, finding messages that I want, those that are timely and important, is harder than ever.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YdeAmj
Another Java flaw exploited, security researchers warn A new exploit for a previously unknown and unpatched Java vulnerability is being actively used by attackers to infect computers with malware, according to researchers from security firm FireEye.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WwRsN2
Open any folder with the Windows-E keyboard shortcut As regular Hassle-Free PC readers know, I love my keyboard shortcuts. And one of my favorites by far is the Windows key plus E (Win-E for short), which instantly opens Windows Explorer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WwR8hm
Bing Maps gets huge high resolution update Microsoft announced a huge update to Bing Maps yesterday which includes more than 13 million sq km of updated satellite imagery and new features such as bathymetry.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WwQK2n
Firefox 19.0.1 out for Windows 8 It is quite common that Mozilla is releasing a second update shortly after a Firefox update has been released.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZFd5xp
Avast! Free Antivirus 8 has been released The new Avast! Free Antivirus 8 has been released a couple of minutes ago and is now available for download from the developer website or via automatic update.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZFcD1Y
Change the default behavior for new tabs in Internet Explorer PC World reader Joel is an Internet Explorer 9 user who encountered a problem:

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Y4A9VW
Researchers discover new global cyber-espionage campaign Security researchers have identified an ongoing cyber-espionage campaign that compromised 59 computers belonging to government organizations, research institutes, think tanks and private companies from 23 countries in the past 10 days.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Y4zG6m
Adobe releases third Flash Player security update this month Adobe’s Flash Player, just like Oracle’s Java, seems to be in permanent focus when it comes to security.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/13V9GuI
AccountKiller: instructions for deleting more than 500 online accounts On some sites, deleting an account involves nothing more than clicking on a link and confirming the selection to do so. On others, it may be a lengthy process or not possible at all.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VMdu14
How to print an individual email in Gmail I've never been a big fan of Gmail's browser-based interface. Although it's improved over the years, it's still cluttered, disorganized, and often unintuitive.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15LkCio
Windows XP and Firefox browser amass worst vulnerability record over past 25 years In a look at the number of vulnerabilities recorded over 25 years in software products and open source, a researcher at Sourcefire has determined that Microsoft Windows XP and the Mozilla Firefox browser stand out as the two with the largest number of high-severity vulnerabilities.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15LijMn
London, from above: Record-breaking 320-gigapixel interactive picture of the capital that lets you zoom in on streets and buildings 20 MILES away It's often said that you can't see London in a day. Well, now you can.

Using 48,000 individual frames, photographers have created the world's largest panoramic image, allowing you to explore England's capital like never before.

Taken from the top of the BT Tower, London's tenth largest building, the interactive picture offers a 360-degree view that lets you weave through the architectural maelstrom and even occasionally stumble upon some greenery.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/X4J0Z3
'When your heart stops beating, you'll keep tweeting': Controversial app that updates your Twitter feed from beyond the grave A new Twitter service will allow users to carry on their stream of consciousness in 140 characters or less from beyond the grave.

LivesOn will analyse users' Twitter feeds to learn their 'likes, tastes, [and] syntax' to continue posting similar messages, updates and links after they've passed.

The service, due to launch in March, promises: 'When your heart stops beating, you'll keep tweeting.'

Read more at: http://bit.ly/X6a3BK
The petri-dish that is your iPhone: The pictures which reveal the hidden bacteria lurking on your mobile These pictures show the hidden life on your phone – the bacteria that lurk on your mobile.

Long after we’ve swiped and tapped our smart phones, or sent and received texts, our devices retain a biological history of our actions.

Students studying bacteriology at the University of Surrey imprinted their mobile phones on to Petri dishes to see what they might carry.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/X4Ijiy
The end of the keyboard? The glove that lets you write in mid air - and it could be used with Google's Glass It could be the end of the keyboard - but also the pen.

German researchers have revealed a hi-tech glove that lets people simply write in mid air.

Dubbed the 'airwriter', the system is able to work out what is being written simply by monitoring the position of the user's hand.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/X68Vhz
Pointers on Microsoft's Hotmail phase-out Microsoft announced earlier this week that it is closing Hotmail and moving the "hundreds of millions" still using it to Outlook.com by this summer.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/122xW2T
Meet Manjaro Linux, a brand-new distro on the rise With virtually countless Linux distributions available for every taste and purpose, it's no secret that choice is a defining feature of the Linux world.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XSUr1R
Fixing Error Code 0x80073cf9 in Windows 8 Every week I’m spending time in Windows 8′s store to discover new apps for my weekly column over at Betanews.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XSU5YW
Remove toolbars and plugins with Avast Browser Cleanup Tool Getting rid of browser toolbars and plugins can sometimes be not as easy as uninstalling a program from the operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XSTXsy
Are rumours of Apple's decline premature? iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S BOTH outsold Galaxy SIII in the last three months of 2012
The iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4S each outsold the Galaxy SIII in the last quarter of 2012, between them accounting for one in five smartphones sold, new research shows.

The figures show Apple's current smartphone models soared ahead of Samsung's flagship mobile to become the first and second biggest sellers toward the end of the year.

The surge in popularity of Apple phones appears to refute suggestions that consumers are getting bored of the the Silicon Valley company's products.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Xp5pQo
Twitter insists users will not be affected by new 'targeted' timeline adverts... but does not rule out increasing the number of promotional plugs Twitter has launched a new automated advertising feature in a bid to help ensure paid-for promotional tweets are seen by the right users as it seeks to replicate Facebook's money-making success.

In an announcement on product manager April Underwood's blog, she revealed the new system for advertisers - but stopped short of saying there would be no increase in the number of adverts.

The microblogging site's new Ads API (application programming interface) will let advertisers tailor their campaigns to relevant members of Twitter's 200million active users.

Facebook launched similar technology in 2010, helping the social network to boost its revenues to more than $3billion the following year.

As speculation grows that Twitter will follow Facebook with a stock market float, it seems the company's executives likewise hope to unlock their sites moneymaking potential.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Xp5dRj
Apple's iWatch patent revealed: Device with a flexible touchscreen and a 'slap wrap' strap could be powered by the movement of your arm A patent application filed by Apple has revealed that its long-mooted iWatch could use the same technology as a child's slap wrap to mount a flexible touchscreen on a user's wrist.

The innovative design, published for the first time today, reveals the technologies that could one day be seen in an Apple wearable computer.

It comes after tidal waves of rumours and speculation on exactly what an iWatch might be like, including a range of designers revealing their take on the 'smart watch' - but none managed to predict what has emerged.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Weh5SF
Google launches touchscreen 'Pixel' laptop to take on Apple and Microsoft Google has launched a touchscreen laptop in a bid to take on Apple in the luxury laptop market.

The ÂŁ1049 (ÂŁ1299) Chromebook Pixel has a high resolution display that makes individual pixels invisible to the naked eye.

Although Apple has a similar display, Google says the addition of touch, and 1TB of free storage on an online hard drive, make its machine more attractive to 'power' users.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WegWyM
Adobe releases emergency patches for Reader and Acrobat Adobe released emergency patches for Adobe Reader and Acrobat 11, 10 and 9 on Wednesday that address two critical vulnerabilities being actively exploited by attackers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XqjNVz
Thunderbird 17.0.3 update fixes security issues Mozilla’s decision to put development of the Thunderbird email client on the back burner to concentrate on “more promising” projects like Firefox OS has caused quite the stir on the Internet and especially among Thunderbird users.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XqjFoW
Dell's thin, high-res XPS 13 laptop does Linux The high-resolution XPS 13 now gets Linux Ubuntu. The specs, with the critical exception of the Ubuntu Linux, are identical to the 1080p XPS 13 for Windows 8.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/1542SgM
Anti Tracks for Windows: delete privacy related data There are a couple of scenarios where deleting privacy related tracks may make sense. Maybe you are using a public computer and do not want the next user to see where you have went or what you have done on the computer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15422k5
Keyboard and Mouse Cleaner review It is a known fact that computer keyboards and mice are home to more germs on average than toilet seats. Why that is the case?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/1541M4A
Canonical launches Ubuntu tablet interface to run on top of its OS Canonical introduces the Ubuntu tablet interface, which will compete with Android, iOS, and Windows with its own take on multitasking and advanced security features.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/1541B9u
Review: Handy Backup is plain, powerful, and easy to use Handy Backup is utilitarian in the best sense; it's a backup program with a no-nonsense interface and a boatload of features. Despite its plain countenance, one of its iterations is sure to appeal to IT types and smart consumers. I looked at Handy Backup Free, which is... free.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/1541bjq
Mozilla debuts in-browser PDF, patches 13 Firefox bugs Mozilla today released Firefox 19, adding a built-in PDF viewer to the browser. Firefox 19 also included patches for 13 security vulnerabilities, 10 pegged as \\

Read more at: http://bit.ly/1540QgH
Firefox 19.0: Find out what’s new Mozilla is preparing to release a new version of the Firefox web browser, Firefox 19.0, today to the public. All other Firefox channels, beta, aurora and nightly, will also receive updates so that their versions move up as well to 20.0, 21.0 and 22.0 respectively.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/1540Ddi
MailStore Home 8.0 update brings Outlook 2013 support When it comes to backing up emails, MailStore Home is that trusted companion that I have been using for a long time.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YiVeZK
Adobe readies emergency patches for Reader, Acrobat Adobe Systems said it will release patches for two critical vulnerabilities disclosed last week that are actively being used by attackers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YiUXpF
Google Chrome Scroll to next image extension If you are browsing a lot of images on the Internet, for instance on forums like 4chan, blogs or other websites where several images are posted on a single page regularly, you are probably using the mouse to browse all images on a page.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12WxkLc
Now buy by Twitter: New service allows you to buy products with a text A 'pay-by-tweet' service has been launched that will allow Twitter users to pay for goods on the website for the first time.

The social networking site announced the new partnership with American Express yesterday where people can pay for products and take up offers by using just a hashtag.

Leslie Berland, head of digital partnerships and development at American Express said users will now be able to take up offers without needing to leave Twitter at all.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12VYz8Q
The car that drives itself... using an iPad! Oxford University unveils robot car Having a car that can drive itself has long been the stuff of science fiction. But scientists have now created a robot car – controlled by an iPad.

And the Oxford University team says the technology could be installed in mainstream cars within 15 years.

It means futuristic vehicles, like David Hasselhoff’s KITT in the 1980s TV series Knight Rider, could soon be driving us on the commute and school run.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12VYqSP
Yours for ÂŁ14,200: The titanium-plated smartphone with its own concierge who will book a restaurant table for you A British company today launched a luxury handmade mobile phone that comes with a sapphire crystal display - and a ÂŁ14,200 price tag.

Vertu's Ti - which runs on Google's Android operating systems - is cased in titanium, has 64mb of internal memory, and an 8mp rear camera.

It also has a special 'concierge' button that allows wealthy users to call their personal operator.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12VXX2X
Is there a cheaper iPhone in the pipeline? Apple boss Tim Cook gives strongest hint yet in rare interview An affordable iPhone might be in development, the head of tech giant Apple let slip yesterday.

During a rare interview, Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared to suggest that a less expensive version of their covetable but pricey gadgets might be in the pipeline.

'We are making moves to make things more affordable,' he said at the Goldman Sachs technology and internet conference in San Francisco.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12VXIFb
Is this the new PS4 controller? Leaked pictures appear to show TOUCHSCREEN as well as familiar buttons and sticks Pictures allegedly showing the new PS4 controller reveal the device will incorporate a touchscreen built into the middle of the familiar DualShock layout.

Excitement over the next-generation console is building after Sony sent out invitations to an event on 'the future of the Playstation' to be held next week.

A supposedly leaked image posted by games website Destructoid shows what appears to be an updated DualShock controller plugged into software development kit.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Z7Cyit
Transparent cell phone 'will happen near the end of 2013' promises tech company Taiwan-based Polytron Technologies may have the next leap forward in cell phones, promising a transparent mobile by the end of 2013.

The company has already begun marketing a transparent multi-touch.

The company's prototype uses what they call Switchable Glass technology. That's a conductive OLED using liquid crystal molecules to display images.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12VUPEd
Microsoft ties Office 2013 to a single PC Prior to Office 2013 customers who bought a retail copy of the suite were allowed to reassign a license to a different device.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XFJeBw
12 infuriating Office 2013 flaws (and how to fix them) While Office patriots wax poetic over Office 2013's new features (gosh, I can't think of a better way to invite all my friends to connect on LinkedIn), those who've long struggled with Office see a lot of gratuitous change that simply gets in the way.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XFJ2lM
Apple loses rights to the iPhone in Brazil: Authorities take a bite out of tech giant by ruling name belongs to local firm Brazil's patent authority has taken a bite out of Apple after ruling that the iPhone name belongs to a local company, not to the global computer giant.

The verdict won't forbid Apple from using the name in Brazil, but it makes it clear the rights belong to local consumer electronics firm Gradiente.

The SĂŁo Paulo-based company's request to use the iphone trademark was granted in 2008, and the company started making 'iphones' - with a lowercase 'p' - in December.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XNmhAk
'Stupid, Stupid, Xbox': Console's co-founder blasts Microsoft for 'five years of failure' - and says Apple could 'kill them' The co-founder of Xbox has launched a scathing attack on Microsoft for 'five years of failure' - and claimed that Apple could â€kill them’ at any given moment.

Former Xbox engineer Nat Brown - who came up with the console’s name (albeit spelled xBox) - slammed Microsoft for failing to capitalise on innovations such as Kinect and making it difficult for developers to make and sell games on the device.

The attack follows reports that Microsoft are likely to announce their Xbox 360 successor, codenamed Durango, at E3 in Los Angeles in June this year.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XNlI9A
Big Brother televisions: Intel is the latest firm to announce TV box that spies on you and selects ads that match your behaviour Campaigners today warned of a 'seismic shift' in privacy invasion after it emerged that Intel was the latest company set to market a television set-top box equipped with a camera that stares back at viewers.

The company, which makes the microchips found inside most personal computers, has launched an entirely new division, Intel Media, to make and market the Orwellian streaming-television product.

Erik Huggers (pictured), vice-president of Intel Media, said the new service would offer users a TV 'that is much more personal, that learns about you, that actually cares about who you are.'

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XNlqPW
How to unlock ANY new iPhone: Apple vows rapid update after major security alert found in iOS 6.1 Apple has promised a software update for their latest mobile operating system after hackers published a video showing how to unlock any iPhone running it.

The YouTube video and an accompanying explanation details a relatively simple combination of button presses which can quickly bypass the phone's password screen.

Once entered, it opens the main phone screen where any thief or snoop would be able to make calls, read and send messages, edit contacts, and go through stored data like photos and apps.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XNiS4D
Is that an iPhone 6? Apple give rare glimpse inside its secret product lab (and uses it to create a giant Blue Peter badge)

Apple has given a rare glimpse of its top design design lab where the iPhone and iPad were developed.

Sir Jonathan Ive, the London-born Senior Vice President of Industrial Design for Apple, gave the show a rare glimpse into his lab - although was careful to hide any products.

Instead, he used Apple's expensive milling machinery, usually used to create product prototypes, to make a giant Blue Peter badge for the show - as it honoured him with a gold badge.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XNhgb0
Privacy outrage after it emerges Google is sharing Android users' names, emails and ADDRESSES with app developers
Campaigners today slammed Google for violating Android users' privacy after it emerged that the company was sharing their personal details with mobile app developers.

An Australian software developer revealed that the search giant was sending him the full names, email and post codes of everyone who purchased his app on Google's Play Store.

He said the information was so detailed he would even be able to use it to 'track down and harass users who left negative reviews or refunded the app purchase'.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XNgKKb
Microsoft warns of looming retirement for Windows 7 RTM Microsoft yesterday reminded customers that Windows 7's first edition, which shipped more than three years ago, will be dropped from support in early April.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12OqVgF
Review: Daemon Tools USB lets you access and share your remote USB devices Daemon Tools made a name for themselves with simple, no-nonsense optical drive emulation software that allows your disk libraries to go from cake boxes filled with silver platters to immediately accessible disk images stored on your hard drive.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UkNpXz
Adobe Reader vulnerability: what you need to do to stay safe We had a lively discussion on Google Plus yesterday about the latest Adobe Reader vulnerability (feel free to add me to your circles there to stay in the loop).

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12mfPnL
Adobe confirms zero-day exploit bypasses Adobe Reader sandbox A recently found exploit that bypasses the sandbox anti-exploitation protection in Adobe Reader 10 and 11 is highly sophisticated and is probably part of an important cyberespionage operation, the head of the malware analysis team at antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab said.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12mfr8P
Why does your company force you to use IE? If your company compels you to use frustratingly outdated versions of Internet Explorer to run corporate apps, your suffering will continue for the foreseeable future, even if your morale improves.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/12dE8Ek
Test if your router’s UPnP is exposed to the Internet Universal Plug â€n Play (UPnP) is a technology that enables devices to communicate with each other (meaning discovering and connecting) without authentication.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12dDsi7
Microsoft Security Bulletins For February 2013 Released Patch day has arrived and boy it is a big one. A total of 12 security bulletins are released today that address a total of 57 different vulnerabilities in Microsoft products.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/X6p8Ba
Microsoft unleashes a Patch Tuesday to make your head spin It doesn’t break the record for most vulnerabilities patched, or even the most security bulletins in a single Patch Tuesday, but Microsoft comes pretty close. For the February 2013 Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has a whopping 12 security bulletins, which fix a mind-numbing 57 separate flaws.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/X6oHXt
Monster Microsoft Patch Tuesday focuses on Windows, Explorer, Exchange In addition to covering Windows and Internet Explorer, Microsoft's latest monthly batch of patches covers the widely used Exchange Server, both the Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2010 editions.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/X6ou6S
How a cuppa could charge your phone: The battery booster powered by a hot cup of coffee (or a cold can of beer) A mobile phone charger that can be powered by either a cold beer or a hot coffee has been unveiled.

The Epiphany One Puck, which doubles as a drinks coaster, connects to a phone with a USB cable.

It has two sides, one red, one blue.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WYZJeA
Could a concertina help BlackBerry take on the iPhone? BlackBerry may have eschewed physical keyboards for the now standard touchscreen on its latest flagship phone, but a new pair of patents filed by the company show it hasn't given up on its trademark yet.

The Canadian smartphone pioneer has applied to secure the rights to a new technology that would conceal concertina-like keyboards within their digital devices.

Physical keys have been in the past been hidden by sliders and, occasionally, twisting mechanisms, but such devices are not able to achieve the slim profile consumers have come to expect from their gadgets.

Shrinking keyboard: This diagram from U.S. Patent Application 20130033431, filed by BlackBerry, shows how keyboards could be concealed on the firm's future smartphones

The new BlackBerry technologies would solve that problem by allowing the keys to flip edge-side on so that they could pivot into place as the user pulls out a retractable section to start typing.

U.S. Patent Application 20130033431 describes how this would work, while U.S. Patent Application 20130033432 details the expandable casing such a keyboard would be housed in.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WYRdw1
Is this the iWatch? Designers give their take on how Apple's new gadget might look as tech-giant ponders wristphone It is believed to be Apple's next big thing - yet the secretive firm has not made a single comment about it..

However, that hasn't stopped people around the world speculating on exactly what an 'iWatch' might look like and how it would work.

Designers have even revealed their take on Apple's new 'smart watch' with professional looking mockups of the device, ranging from a glass cuff to a 'claw' design.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WYSxyV
The race against time to stop 4G networks killing off TV signals for millions Millions of British TV viewers could lose their signal as a result of new high speed 4G mobile phone signals.

The firm set up to monitor the problem today admitted it was in a race against time to distribute filters to an estimated 2.3 million viewers before the networks go live in the summer.

40,000 homes will lose their signal entirely, and will be forced to use alternatives such as satellite or cable to receive a TV signal.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WYUN9A
Your computer is watching you: How sinister 'cookies' track your every move online Have you ever had the feeling your computer is watching you? That somehow it knows what you were looking at yesterday, or last year?

And that rather than being your technological â€friend’ it behaves more like a slick second-hand car salesman?

You fancied flying to Paris so you checked out airfares . . . and before you knew it, your Facebook page was plastered with advertisements for hotels on La Rive Gauche.

Your daughter bought a record by One Direction. Now, the family computer is bombarded with ads for boy band concerts.

Anne Crabtree, a 32-year-old writer, knows exactly how this feels — because it almost ruined her wedding day.

â€I had used the computer to help me find my dress, shoes and jewellery, but obviously I wanted to keep them secret,’ she says. â€But adverts featuring them kept popping on to the screen when my fiancĂ© was in the room.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WYTZRU
Secure boot loader now available to allow Linux to work on Windows 8 PCs Freeing the way for independent Linux distributions to be installed on Windows 8 computers, the Linux Foundation has released software that will allow Linux to work with computers running the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) firmware.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11CFDfW
Noclone for Windows: delete duplicate files If you are running the same PC for a number of years you will eventually notice an increase in duplicate files on the system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/U7LqWx
How to limit Java exposure in Firefox Several Java vulnerabilities have been discovered in rapid succession in the past months. Every time Oracle put out a fix,new vulnerabilities were discovered in those recent versions almost immediately which in turn made any system those versions were freely installed on vulnerable to attacks.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YSIvzN
U.S. target of sustained cyber-espionage campaign China is trying to infiltrate American business computers to find data for economic gain, according to a national security document obtained by the Washington Post.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/U7JlJZ
More Java Patches Due Soon Oracle isn't done releasing patches for Java SE this month, as another batch will arrive February 19, according to a company blog post.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Y5DZgu
Three launches mobile price war as it offers customers free upgrade to 4G Three mobile phone network is set to spark a price war among providers after pledging to offer customers ultrafast 4G services as a free upgrade.

The company promised to make the recently unveiled 4G - said to run five times faster than the current 3G network - a standard feature on all smartprice plans when it is added to the network later this year.

The move is a bold attempt to undercut competitors as EE - the only company which is currently able to offer 4G - is currently charging customers at least ÂŁ5 a month extra for the service.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/USJrqJ
UK to launch first-ever satellite controlled by a mobile phone… and the scientists have chosen a Google Nexus handset British space scientists are gearing up to launch the world's first satellite run entirely using a mobile phone.

The unique STRaND-1 satellite, developed by researchers from the University of Surrey, will be fully controlled by a Google Nexus phone during part of its six-month space mission.

It will launch into a 785km sun-synchronous orbit on the Indian Space Research Organisation's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from Sriharikota, India, on February 25.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YOwo6J
This IS a secure line: The groundbreaking encryption app that will scramble your calls and messages A new app promises to encrypt all your smartphone communications to make them look and sound like gibberish to anyone trying to listen in.

Startup tech firm Silent Circle say their system is 'a secure information service' which can allow users to communicate via voice, text message, email and even video without fear of being tapped.

The app is already available on both iPhone and Android, and its functionality has recently been broadened to allow users to not only communicate securely but also easily send encrypted files.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YOw9ZF
UK government plans to track ALL web use: MI5 to install 'black box' spy devices to monitor British internet traffic UK spy agencies want to install 'black box' surveillance devices across the country's communications networks to monitor internet use, it emerged today.

A report by an influential committee of MPs tells how spooks are keen to implement a nationwide surveillance regime aimed at logging nearly everything Britons do and say online.

The spy network will rely on a technology known as Deep Packet Inspection to log data from communications ranging from online services like Facebook and Twitter, Skype calls with family members and visits to pornographic websites.

But civil liberties and privacy campaigners have reacted with outrage, saying that the technology will give the government a greater surveillance capability than has ever been seen.

The report by Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, published on Tuesday, gives UK intelligence agencies' perspective on the government's draft Communications Data Bill, which is intended to update surveillance powers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YOw5cl
Facebook developing app that will track your every move – even when it’s turned off Facebook is developing a new smartphone app to track the location of users in an effort to target them with localised adverts, according to reports.

The app will help users to find friends who are nearby, alert them when it detects one in close proximity even when the app is not open on the handset, it is claimed.

It will be just one of a whole suite of mobile apps Facebook is building up to help it profit from the increasing proportion of its users who access the social network on the go.

But privacy campaigners warned it was another example of 'profit trumping privacy' and called the function 'intrusive'.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YOvOGh
No more borrowing from your friends! New Xbox â€to BLOCK second-hand video games’ The next-generation Xbox console could require gamers to be permanently connected to the internet - ruling out the use of second-hand games, according to a report in Edge magazine.

The next Xbox will 'be absolutely committed to online functionality', says the magazine, quoting sources with first-hand experience of Microsoft's latest console.

Gamers will be required to activate games in the same way as most other software from Microsoft and other publishers is already activated online.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YOvEyI
Blistering new PlayStation 4 'to cost just ÂŁ270' and could steal a march on the next generation Xbox The Playstation 4 could cost as little as ÂŁ270 when it launches later this year, according to a report in a Japanese newspaper.

The Asahi Shimbun reports that Sony's new gaming console will cost 40,000 Yen - which translates to about ÂŁ270.

However, UK gamers will have to factor in VAT, which adds a whopping 20 per cent to the price, taking the possible UK figure to around ÂŁ325.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YOvsPP
Sales of last-minute goods at the checkout are falling… because we’re too busy looking at our phones in the queue to notice them Magazine bosses are blaming smartphones for a sharp decline in sales, but not for the reason you might expect.

While more consumers are choosing to get their news from web sites like MailOnline, circulation executives say the drop is down to digital devices distracting shoppers from picking up titles from checkout displays.

And they may just be right, for research published today shows shoppers are staying glued to their smartphones even as they browse the supermarket aisles.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YOvgjE
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak admits the iPhone is 'somewhat behind' competitors… and praises Samsung's 'great products' The iPhone is 'falling behind' on features, according to one of Apple's key founders.

Steve Wozniak - known as Woz - founded the giant Californian firm with Steve Jobs in 1976.

And although it's 35 years since the other Steve parted company with Apple, people still sit up and listen when he speaks out about the company and its products.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YOv5EW
Lost the remote control again? Not to worry - now you can use your FINGER to change channels! Could this mean an end to scrabbling down the back of the sofa looking for the remote control?

Now you can simply use your finger instead to turn over the TV.

EyeSight Technologies, an Israeli company, has announced the announces the world’s first commercial gesture technology to allow users to control digital devices with a fingertip, even from across a room.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YOuQcV
Microsoft lays into Google for 'invading Gmail users privacy' by scanning contents of emails to target personalised adverts Microsoft took a fresh pop at Google yesterday, accusing its rival of invading Gmail users' privacy when scanning the contents of their emails to target them with personalised ads.

The attack, the latest volley in Microsoft's Scroogled campaign, comes with a website and is aimed to boost interest in the veteran software company's Outlook.com email service.

It follows a series of Scroogled adverts last year which targeted Google's controversial privacy policies.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YOuDXh
AVG finds 11 year-old creating malware to steal game passwords Security firm AVG thinks it has spotted a disturbing new threat in its latest threat report – children with enough programming skills to code and distribute their own malware.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XiHHFk
Firefox’s may spill sensitive data via thumbnails, fix inside A story broke today on Hacker News where a user noticed that the Firefox web browser was saving an image of a Google 2-factor authentication barcode as a thumbnail even though that should not have happened anymore.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WVVrpC
Patch Tuesday: IE at risk of malware attacks; 57 flaws in total In the latest round of monthly patches from Microsoft, users of Internet Explorer should jump ship for the next few days as all versions of the browser are at risk of malware attacks.

Read more at: http://zd.net/WVU5Lp
Microsoft's next Patch Tuesday to fix 57 security bugs Tuesday's update will send out 12 security fixes to plug a total of 57 holes in various Microsoft products.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Y1bezu
Download web files directly to Dropbox in Chrome There is no shortage of extensions and apps available for the Chrome web browser, perhaps in part due to Google’s push to turn the browser into an operating system via all of the new Chromebook computers being released.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Xuwqhl
Hapless Vista turns 6, shuffles toward obscurity Six years after its long-delayed but well-publicized release, Windows Vista now accounts for less than 6% of all Windows machines, a metrics company said earlier this month.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XuwhdK
Review: Batch rename all of your files and MP3 music with File Renamer If you have a lot of badly named files on your PC, renaming them is extremely tedious, to say the least. Therefore finding an excuse not to do it becomes really easy.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Xuw9eo
Would Microsoft really bring Office to Linux? There's been a rumor floating around over the past few days that Microsoft is considering making a Linux version of its Office productivity software.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XuvXM0
LibreOffice 4.0 changes The LibreOffice team is about to release version 4.0 of the Office suite to the public. The new version has not been released officially yet and while some sites posted links to the final version, it is still possible that last minute changes will make another version the final one.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/V2gAxL
Bitdefender releases Rootkit Remover tool for Windows Rootkits are usually harder to identify and remove than regular malware due to the way these programs integrate themselves on a computer system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/V2fNg9
Google Chrome to get history grouping feature Google Chrome like any other web browser out there keeps a record of the website and services a user has visited in the past.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XWvoL0
Firefox to display learn how to speed it up message if startup is slow There are a couple of things you can do if a web browser starts to slow down, either on start up which may take longer than usual or when you are working with it on your system. A simple restart may help you out right away, although it may sometimes take more than that to resolve the issue.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XWucHr
Free Microsoft quick-start guides teach you the Office 2013 basics The other day I offered four reasons you don't need Microsoft Office 2013. However, if you fall into the camp that does need it, or you just decided not to follow my advice (it's been known to happen), Microsoft wants to help you get started using the new suite.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XWsWUU
Exclusive: Microsoft and Symantec disrupt cyber crime ring Software makers Microsoft Corp and Symantec Corp said they disrupted a global cyber crime operation by shutting down servers that controlled hundreds of thousands of PCs without the knowledge of their users.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/XWshTl
Burning software BurnAware Free 6.0 released While ImgBurn is my program of choice when it comes to the burning of data on optical discs, I do keep an eye on other free programs as well. BurnAware is one of those programs.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11N53GM
Which Linux distro is best? Survey says: Slackware One of the biggest ongoing challenges for Linux advocates has always been that there is such a paucity of data available to demonstrate the preferences of the people who are actually using the free and open source operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WPsEzI
Firefox 18.0.2 will resolve crashes when on Facebook Ever since Firefox 18.0.1 was released part of the web browser’s user base experienced crashes on the world’s most popular social networking site Facebook.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14Bmc4J
Review: Multi Commander is a more powerful alternative to Windows Explorer We’ve seen many versions of Windows, but one of the things that has barely changed is the Windows Explorer. We still have the same single folder view, and we still have minimal functionality.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UThz3c
Scan websites for Internet Explorer 10 compatibility As a webmaster, you need to make sure that your website displays in the most popular web browsers correctly. While you can install a selection of browsers on your system to test your sites from the local system, it is not always possible to do so as browsers may be limited to particular operating systems.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UTgZCm
Password Manager KeePass 2.21 released I have been using the password manager KeePass ever since I made the decision to switch from an online password management solution – Last Pass – to a local solution.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UTgjwT
Mozilla improves Firefox’s Do Not Track feature If you are on the Internet, chance is that you are being tracked. Advertising companies, Internet services and even Internet Service Provider track users for a variety of purposes, but most often to profile users to increase advertising revenue or sell the data to companies that do.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UTeznn
Review: Customize and tweak your Windows 7 experience with Sunrise Seven There are things in Windows the vast majority of us never touch. Look at your system, and then look at your friends' PCs. Do you all have the same Start Menu button? The same items in the desktop context menu?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UTe1Ot
Display Chrome extension permissions after installation When you install browser extensions in Google Chrome you are presented with a permissions request dialog before the extension is added to the web browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UTdRqm
The one keyboard key you should be using in your browser—but aren't Every so often I like to revisit topics I haven't covered for a few years, the idea being that new readers might have missed them the first time around.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UTbO5F
Four reasons you don't need the new Microsoft Office As you've no doubt heard by now, Microsoft Office 2013 has arrived. So has Microsoft Office 365. Some would argue that the latter is the better deal, but I'm here to tell you don't need either one.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UTaOhN
Maybe Those Chromebooks Weren’t Such A Crazy Idea After All When Google launched its Linux-based Chrome OS in early 2010 and its Chromebook pilot program later that year, most pundits didn’t quite agree with our own MG Siegler’s premise that Google had dropped a “nuclear bomb on Microsoft.”

Read more at: http://tcrn.ch/11je2jN
Yahoo plugs hole that allowed hijacking of email accounts Hackers behind a recently detected email attack campaign are exploiting a vulnerability in a Yahoo website to hijack the email accounts of Yahoo users and use them for spam, according to security researchers from antivirus vendor Bitdefender.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11jbu5b
Oracle rushes out another Java update, fixing 50 vulnerabilities Following disclosures by security researchers of vulnerabilities in the last update of Java released in January, Oracle has rushed out ahead of schedule another bundle of fixes for the programming language.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12j6zAt
Panorama to be removed from Firefox, offered as an add-on Are you using Firefox’s Panorama feature? Mozilla designed it to provide Firefox users with better tab management capabilities. It allowed users to group tabs, only display groups in the tabbar and display all tabs in full screen on a separate page.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ys7qKq
Correct the perspective of photos you have taken One of the things that professional photographers always take care of is that they get the perspective right.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ys6SE9
Mega Button improves the accessibility of Chrome settings One of the reasons why I prefer to work with Firefox and not Google Chrome as my main browser is that I can modify Firefox’s interface in a way that I can’t in Chrome.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Xvle5Q
How To Repair Internet Explorer Internet Explorer is an essential part of the Microsoft Windows operating system. It usually is the first browser there is and even if users switch to third party browsers it remains installed on the computer system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WqWN88
Disable Third-Party Flash cookies that track you on the Internet Flash cookies, or Local Shared Objects, are used for a variety of purposes: from Flash game saves over storing site preferences to user tracking.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WJQ24l
Improve your Steam shopping experience with Enhanced Steam for Firefox Steam has become my main gaming platform over the years and while I’m still wary of how it is permanently linking games to the account, I see the advantages it provides me with as well.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WJPs6H
Tinuous is a versatile Image Batch Converter for Windows When it comes to converting images in bulk, Windows users have lots of choices. We already reviewed programs like Photo Magician, Image Converter Plus or Fotosizer in the past that allow you to convert images in bulk.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/U56ZrP
Firefox is slow? Try these fixes I have to admit that while I do not agree with every decision Mozilla makes in regards to Firefox, I can’t really complain about the web browser’s performance on my system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11lIysf
Email attack exploits vulnerability in Yahoo site to hijack accounts Hackers behind a recently detected email attack campaign are exploiting a vulnerability in a Yahoo website to hijack the email accounts of Yahoo users and use them for spam, according to security researchers from antivirus vendor Bitdefender.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11lHR2h
Opera 12.13 final has been released The last month was a quite one in terms of news from Opera Software. The company released Opera 12.12 on December 17 and turned silent afterwards until it released a first snapshot of the upcoming Opera 12.13 exactly a month later.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XKtVaF
Mozilla takes drastic step to automatically block virtually all plug-ins in Firefox Mozilla yesterday announced it would automatically disable all plug-ins in Firefox except the latest version of Adobe's Flash Player, citing security and stability reasons for the move.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XKtLA6
Scan your local network for UPnP vulnerabilities A report by security company Rapid7 on Tuesday brought attention to a set of vulnerabilities in UPnP that puts millions of users at risk.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14uBcSW
U.S. government warns of hack threat to network gear The Department of Homeland Security urged computer users on Tuesday to disable a common networking technology feature, after researchers warned that hackers could exploit flaws to gain access to tens of millions of vulnerable devices.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/UB7Nm9
Speed up the loading of Windows 8 start up programs While Microsoft changed the way users boot into the company’s Windows 8 operating system which is a couple of seconds faster on average than in previous systems, it did sacrifice a couple of things along the way.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UB6SC5
Microsoft launches new Office for consumers Microsoft Corp launched new Office software for home users on Tuesday, featuring constantly updated, online access to documents from all kinds of devices as the world's largest software company attempts to tailor its most profitable product to a mobile generation.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/14qTzY2
Not ready for Office 2013? Here are five open alternatives Between Microsoft's October launch of Windows 8 and Tuesday's rollout of Microsoft Office 2013 and Office 365, there's no denying that it's been a decision-filled few months for PC users.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14qTaVw
10 killer new features in Word 2013 A word processor is indispensable for anyone who creates documents, be it for work, school, or writing angry letters to your representatives in Congress.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14qT1kT
10 awesome new features in Excel 2013 Microsoft's updated spreadsheet tool isn't getting a lot of new, whiz-bang features, but it is becoming more functional.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14qSOy0
10 ways PowerPoint 2013 gets more polish Love it or hate it, PowerPoint isn't going away any time soon; it remains the professional tool of choice for presentations.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14qSJdQ
Review: KeePass makes strong passwords and keeps them safe If you adopt just one security tool this year, make it KeePass. This free and open-source password manager is available for Windows, with unofficial ports for iOS, Android, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14q0oKv
How to activate Windows 8's File History feature As I slowly learn my way around Windows 8, I continue to uncover a few features I didn't know existed.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VNE9cs
Get your cheap Windows 8 upgrade now Microsoft's $39.99 Windows 8 upgrade special ends Thursday, so you may want to buy it now even if you don't plan to install it yet.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/VNznvx
Office 2013 to debut tomorrow Finally, an official confirmation. Microsoft is launching the new Office, aka Office 2013, on January 29.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/VNySl6
Anti-Bot protects you from visiting bot spreading websites Depending on the web browser you use, its version, settings, extensions and plugins installed, it is sometimes enough to visit a website to become a victim of a successful malware attack.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WtMSSG
Security Score rates your PC’s state of security If you had to assess your computer’s security setup, how good – or bad – would you say it is? Would you say it is well protected against threats you may encounter locally or remotely, or can’t you really say how good the security software and settings are?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WtMwLI
Hacker collective Anonymous hits US government site Hackers working under the name of the Anonymous hacktivist collective hit a U.S. government website on Saturday, replacing its home page with a 1340-word text detailing its frustrations with the way the American legal system works and a threat to release "secrets" gathered from U.S. government websites.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VrnE9i
Windows Defender Status Manager makes security easier With the release of Windows 8 Microsoft added Windows Defender by default. It is a good little security app and does not bog down your computer as some third-party ones have a tendency to do.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XLMdJ5
How to install unsigned themes in Windows 8 While you have some versatility when it comes to themes in Windows 8, you can’t just go ahead and install third party themes in it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VrnoHD
Google won’t give up Gmail information without a search warrant A couple of days back, Google released a report showing how many government requests for user data it received in the second half of 2012.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/10UafIy
Free PDF Creator for Windows I do not really print that much anymore on paper, only the occasional contract that I have to sign or other legal documents that I’m required to sign and process.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WAMNdL
WordPress 3.5.1 Security and Maintenance update WordPress is our blogging platform of choice and it is only natural that we mention updates that are being made to the platform here on the site.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/V4YkCq
Review: Update Your Shortcuts With Broken Shortcut Fixer With the plethora of free software available these days, we all install and then uninstall a huge amount of stuff. The problem with this is that quite often, a lot of shortcuts and other detritus is left behind, clogging things up and making things a mess.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/V4Xypg
Government data requests to Google continue to rise Governments continue to ask Google for more data about its users, with more than two-thirds of requests in the U.S. made through a subpoena, which usually doesn’t require asking a judge for a search warrant.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WSqP5I
Belkin buying Linksys It looks like Cisco is jettisoning Linksys and the rest of its home networking business unit after all.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/VwlnWL
Acer sheds eMachines, turns to Gateway and Packard Bell for post-PC era Acer is trying to adapt to the slowdown in the PC market by shutting down its eMachines unit and refocusing Gateway and Packard Bell to offer new products that are “beyond the PC.”

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Vwlbqt
Barracuda Security Equipment Contains Hardcoded Backdoors Multiple Barracuda appliances -- including its firewall, SSL VPN server, and load balancer devices – have security flaws that can be exploited by attackers to remotely access and gain shell-level access to the appliances.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XzOW7V
U.S. homeland chief: cyber 9/11 could happen "imminently" Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned on Thursday that a major cyber attack is a looming threat and could have the same sort of impact as last year's Superstorm Sandy, which knocked out electricity in a large swathe of the Northeast.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/XzNXEA
Opera’s On-Page Search is superior While Firefox is my main browser, I have other browsers installed on my system at all times. This includes Internet Explorer, two versions of Google Chrome, two versions of Opera and lesser known browsers such as Maxthon.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WS1tVG
Firefox’s new customization panel Mozilla around the release of Firefox 4 made the decision to merge all separate configuration and informational windows of Firefox with the main user interface.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WRZQqS
CCleaner 3.27 brings improved browser support While there are many tools out there that you can use to remove temporary files from your Windows system, only a handful play in the same region as the popular CCleaner.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WRZlgH
Experts prod Oracle to fix broken Java security Beset by some very public vulnerabilities in Java, and apparently unable to properly patch those bugs, Oracle must dramatically step up its security game, experts said Monday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VpzyNo
Review: Freebie Multi-Process Killer does exactly what you'd expect Multi-Process Killer does exactly what it says on the tin: It force-closes multiple programs to close simultaneously.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WU3oY5
Free disk space by cleaning the Steam folder If you have Steam installed chance is that you have at least one, more often than not a couple of games installed on your system as well.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WliFln
Separate stop and reload in Firefox I can’t really say when Mozilla made the decision to move and combine the stop and reload buttons in Firefox, only that this did happen in the past.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VltYvj
Give your website a thorough security scan with Detectify Making sure that your website is not used for anything shady is one of the most important tasks of being a webmaster.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Vlteq3
Remove duplicate bookmarks in Firefox Bookmarks are both my bread and butter and also the bane of my existence. Honestly, I began collecting them in the mid 90′s and still have the same file, although a steadily added-to version of it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VgM3OV
How to fix jerky YouTube video in Google Chrome Lately I've noticed that whenever I play a YouTube video on my PC, it's jerky. Choppy. Call it what you will—it's really frustrating.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VgKJvk
Webinpaint removes objects from your photos online So you have just created a spectacular photo with your digital camera were it not for that one guy walking by in just the wrong moment.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WlleFg
Conficker worm returns to attack photography enthusiasts Electronics accessory maker Hama has admitted that a 35mm photographic film scanner sold to German consumers over Christmas came with a software disk infected with the irrepressible Conficker worm.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Wll5S5
Mozilla language packs now auto updated The Firefox web browser is available in dozens of languages that you can download from the official Languages page over at the Mozilla website.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/10dPeTW
Fix for Thunderbird not opening links I have configured the Thunderbird email client to block links from being opened when I click on them. This may sound strange to some as it makes it less convenient to open links posted in emails but it improves the security of the system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/10dOUVu
Copyright suit pits Fair Use against unlicensed distribution Digital civil rights groups asked a federal court in New York Friday to reject what they call an attempt by the Associated Press (AP) to restrict Fair Use of content on the Internet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WfXn8T
Microsoft blazes trail to next PC With its serious processor, and its guts-behind-the-glass design, Microsoft's Surface Pro may well be the template for the new PC. And device makers should pay attention.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/WfX8uk
IE10 for Windows 7 inches closer Microsoft is continuing to test privately the last preview build of Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 before releasing it to the Web.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/WfWqgK
Acronis promising fix for Windows 8 bug Acronis, maker of one of the better backup programs for Windows, seems to have a Windows 8 problem.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W7hEQY
Review: DivX Plus 9 is a handy player and all-in-one video tool DivX Plus Software is a desktop media player. And a video conversion application. And a Web browser plug-in. And a codec pack. And a DLNA server for streaming videos to compatible devices.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W7hmcZ
Oracle's Java patch contains new holes, researchers warn Researchers from Security Explorations, a Poland-based vulnerability research firm, claim to have found two new vulnerabilities in Java 7 Update 11 that can be exploited to bypass the software's security sandbox and execute arbitrary code on computers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W7gOE2
Windows 8 start menu programs are downloaded in record numbers Microsoft decided to ship Windows 8 without a start menu and the main reason for that was probably to get users to use the start screen of the operating system even though Microsoft claimed it was based on telemetry data it collected.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XKzXdG
10 reasons to choose Ubuntu 12.10 over Windows 8 Microsoft's Windows 8 dominated countless headlines in the weeks leading up to its launch ...

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XKyXq4
Six new features coming in LibreOffice 4.0 It's hard to believe LibreOffice has only been around about two years, so thoroughly has it come to dominate as the leading free and open source productivity suite, but late last week a release candidate for its next major version appeared.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XKyIuY
Red October Used Java Exploit: Update or Disable Java Now With the recent zero-day exploit for Java, we're beating the "update Java now" drum and playing the "disable Java altogether" fife in the SecurityWatch parade.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VPD8Cl
Opera 12.13 with auto-update and settings protection improvements I have been waiting for the first Opera release of 2013 impatiently and was wondering what was going on up there in Norway and if everyone involved in the development took a month off (the last release was exactly a month ago).

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VPCoNR
How to change the font of mails in Thunderbird Thunderbird is my desktop email client of choice and one of the reasons for that is that it is highly customizable.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VPC6qa
IE10 for Windows 7 nears final release, says report Microsoft is close to wrapping up work on Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) on Windows 7, according to a report published Friday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VPBBw8
Office 2013 costs just $9.95 for some Microsoft today added Office 2013 to the Home Use Program (HUP), which lets employees of some companies and organizations buy the new suite for $9.95.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Vaw7xw
Microsoft challenges poor grade for Security Essentials The antivirus program didn't do so hot in a recent test, which isn't sitting well with the folks at Redmond.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/SaxUQY
New Java exploit sells for $5000 on black web; possible threat to millions of PCs Just days after it released a patch for a serious security flaw discovered last week in its Java programming language, the software is making headlines again because another previously unpublicized flaw in the program threatens the security of millions of PCs that may still have the application running on it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W7yHzo
A dead-easy guide to keeping your PC up to date Keeping your PC up to date with the latest security patches is a necessity and a burden at the same time.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W7ypIM
Your Password Isn’t Safe: 90% Are Vulnerable to Hacking, Says Report Think you’ve got a clever, un-hackable password?

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/W69OUD
Five Notable New Features in Fedora Linux 18 'Spherical Cow' After numerous delays along the way, the final version of Fedora Linux 18 “Spherical Cow” made its long-awaited debut on Tuesday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W69pBN
Malware infects US power facilities through USB drives Two U.S. power companies reported infections of malware during the past three months, with the bad software apparently brought in through tainted USB drives, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT).

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Y87GBJ
Install Malwarebytes Anti-Malware on PCs where it is blocked While most malware ignores software installed on a PC it is trying to infect, some have been designed to block security software from running or being installed on a system it has successfully infected.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/1086heV
Red October malware discovered after years of stealing data in the wild A shadowy group of hackers has siphoned intelligence data worldwide from diplomatic, government, and scientific research computer networks for more than five years, including targets in the United States, according to a report from Kaspersky Lab

Read more at: http://bit.ly/1085qL7
Cisco eager to regain ground as network security leader After failing to land a big acquisition in the security space last year and suffering a steady decline in market share, Cisco Systems Chief Executive John Chambers is determined to turn around his company's lagging security business - whatever the cost.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/Y6nSDN
U.S. says Java still risky, even after security update The U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned that a security update of Oracle Corp's Java software for Web browsers does not do enough to protect computers from attack, sticking to its previous advice that the program be disabled.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/W4hirj
Find out if programs are connecting to the Internet Depending on how you have set up your system, all, some or only select applications and programs may connect to the Internet or local network resources.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W4h5V9
'Red October' malware spies on governments worldwide It might have taken five years to discover, but a government-snooping spying campaign dubbed Red October has been exposed by Kaspersky Lab.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/W4gUZK
Microsoft to patch IE zero-day flaw today Microsoft will fix a zero-day hole in IE today almost a week after this month's regular Patch Tuesday updates.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/W4gGSp
Microsoft posts an emergency patch for Internet Explorer Microsoft is releasing a patch on Monday for older versions of its Internet Explorer browser, deviating from its normal repair schedule due to the seriousness of the problem.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W4foqG
Oracle Corp to fix Java security flaw Oracle Corp said it is preparing an update to address a flaw in its widely used Java software after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security urged computer users to disable the program in web browsers because criminal hackers are exploiting a security bug to attack PCs.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/11rT8xz
How to disable Java in IE, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari The unpatched Java vulnerability reported last week could be exploited by malware to infect your system, although no such infections have been discovered to date.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WNp0Fn
Security agency recommends disabling Java, due to exploit Internet users should consider disabling Java in their browsers because of an exploit that can allow remote attackers to execute code on a vulnerable system, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) recommended late Thursday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WNosPO
Homeland Security warns to disable Java amid zero-day flaw The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is the latest body to warn users to disable Java software amid escalating concerns over a serious, exploitable vulnerability.

Read more at: http://zd.net/WNnhzX
U.S. warns on Java software as security concerns escalate The U.S. Department of Homeland Security urged computer users to disable Oracle Corp's Java software, amplifying security experts' prior warnings to hundreds of millions of consumers and businesses that use it to surf the Web.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/13p3a12
Create a Windows Power Efficiency Diagnostics Report A long battery life is one of the most important features of mobile devices in my opinion. That’s obviously only the case if the laptop or tablet is running on battery regularly.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/13p2fh8
How to reload tabs automatically in your web browser Some websites and services refresh their contents automatically in intervals if you allow certain scripts to run on them.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XT9Q8a
Convert Excel spreadsheets in bulk If you have a stash of Excel spreadsheets on a backup drive or your main drive that you want to convert into different formats, for instance old xls files into the newer xlsx format that Microsoft introduced in Office 2007, you did not really have much choice until now but to convert them one by one.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/13m0TDU
Chrome 24 brings math formatting, better offline abilities Alongside the perpetual effort to speed up JavaScript, Google's newest browser gets MathML support, offline data storage with IndexedDB, and security fixes.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/13m0DEH
How to restore the default Windows libraries I’m experiencing quite a few issues on the system running Windows 8 which I find puzzling to say the least. I fixed the video playback issues recently on the system and discovered during that time that all libraries of the system were not working anymore.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/13jKOyt
Microsoft to kill the Messenger on March 15 The tech titan plans to migrate users of the instant-messaging client to Skype, which it purchased in 2011.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/ViNY3v
Microsoft beefs up SkyDrive with more features The SkyDrive Web site now offers better support for dragging and dropping files and sharing files with other people.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/ViNtXf
Google offers New York City neighborhood free WiFi Google Inc and a New York redevelopment organization are providing a Manhattan neighborhood with free public WiFi Internet access, making it the largest area of coverage in New York City.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/SiPCmC
Review: Toolbar Cleaner removes unwanted browser toolbars, browser extensions, and start-up items At one time or another, we install too much stuff. And who can blame us? The Internet is one big playground with lots to install and play with, and we eventually forget that too many installations can slow down and eventually crash our system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SiNICu
Security experts stress urgency of patching Windows XML flaw Happy Patch Tuesday! Microsoft is kicking off the year with seven new security bulletins. There are five rated as Important, and two rated as Critical—but one in particular that has security experts concerned.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Uza2Dt
Review: Eraser removes files safely and permanently Secure deletion utility Eraser is free, comes with a beautiful GUI, can do just about anything when it comes to secure file wiping.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11d8BRW
Microsoft Security Bulletins For January 2013 Released It is the first Microsoft patch day of the new year and we continue our monthly series where we look at the security bulletins that get released, how the bulletins are best deployed and what you need to know besides that.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11d82rr
Adobe patches critical flaws in Flash, Reader, and Acrobat Today is the second Tuesday of January—which makes it the first Patch Tuesday of 2013. Adobe is addressing a few critical vulnerabilities in its software as well this Patch Tuesday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11d3iCi
Calling all GNOME 2 fans: Meet Fuduntu Linux 2013.1 It's no secret that mobile-style interfaces such as Unity, GNOME 3, and even Windows 8's Modern UI have met with only a lukewarm reception among many desktop PC users.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UEHHNE
Download Adobe Creative Suite 2 including Adobe Photoshop for free! Adobe’s Creative Suite is a collection of tools that are also available as individual products. The first two versions of the Creative Suite included Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Bridge and Version Cue.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WoVcz3
Jetpack update breaks WordPress 3.5 Jetpack, the popular stats plugin for WordPress, has released several updates recently. The latest, which came yesterday, January 6th, brought an unwelcome gift for those who have upgraded to the recent WordPress 3.5 platform.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XFcHSe
Dropbox rolls out Windows 8 app The cloud-based file storage service unveils its own dedicated Windows 8 app, though it's lacking some key features.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/XFc6Qt
Fix The Video Failed To Play errors in Windows 8 For the past couple of days I have experienced a strange error whenever I tried to play videos in an application on Windows 8.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XFbIl0
Google Says It Will Stop Blocking Maps from Windows Phone Google says it will stop redirecting Windows Phone users away from its mobile Google Maps website.

Read more at: http://on.mash.to/WlsC1d
Nvidia GeForce 310.90 driver update fixes security vulnerability A security vulnerability has been discovered recently in the NVIDIA display driver nvvsvc.exe belonging to the NVIDIA Driver Helper Service which is installed during the GeForce graphics driver installation.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UX9JWy
Protect your Yahoo! Mail account with SSL If you are using a Yahoo Mail account you have probably noticed that the account login is using SSL but that the mail interface itself after logging in is not.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Urgo7P
Switchblade, a portable troubleshooting toolkit Sometimes you do not know what you are getting in to when a family member, friend or colleague asks you for PC help.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UrfYhv
Google may need history lesson on blocking rivals' products Is there any good reason Google is blocking Windows Phone users from accessing Google Maps via the Internet Explorer browser?

Read more at: http://cnet.co/103HOZf
5 Predictions for Mobile Tech in 2013 If denial isn't just a river in Egypt, then mobile isn't just a city in Alabama. And if 2012 proved one thing, it's that there's no denying mobile is the present and future of technology.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/103HdXf
Wayward security certificates raise question of SSL reliability As consumers, we've been taught to trust the padlock icon that appears on the address bar of our browsers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/103GPIx
12 Security Resolutions for 2013 Among your typical New Year's resolutions—lose weight, stop smoking, be happier—you should consider making some pledges to better secure your digital life.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/103GlSC
Elite hacker gang pulls out another IE zero-day from bottomless pocket An elite hacker group credited last year with having an inexhaustible supply of zero-day vulnerabilities was responsible for digging up and first using the newest unpatched bug in Internet Explorer (IE), a Symantec manager today.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/103CNzD
Gmer 2.0 Anti-Rootkit software update released It is thanks to Sony that the concept of rootkits were made available to a larger audience. While they have been known before that for a while, it was not really a issue that many computer users had to deal with before that.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ULOo1e
Fix Firefox bookmark icon won’t show in address bar Mozilla has the strange habit of modifying the Firefox web browser in places where it may interfere with how users work with the browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ULOdmz
Microsoft's next Patch Tuesday won't resolve IE zero-day flaw Next week's patches will shore up holes in Windows and Office, but a permanent fix for the latest bug in Internet Explorer is still in the works.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/ULO5ne
Review: Linux Live USB Creator makes it easier to install Linux There used to be a time when Microsoft Windows ruled the operating system world. But in recent years, the free and open source Linux operating system has taken a big bite out of Windows' dominance.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ULNUZ3
Speedy 8Gbit, 16Gbit SATA Express systems coming this year The Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) Thursday announced that the ratification process has started for SATA Express, which standardizes PCI Express (PCIe) as an interface for client storage.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ULnMOQ
Google finds unauthorized certificate for google.com domain Google has taken steps to close potential security holes created by a fraudulent certificate for its google.com domain, discovered in late December.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ULm8g7
Microsoft to patch Windows 8, but stays mum on IE zero-day fix Microsoft today said it will release seven security updates next week -- including one rated critical for Windows 8 and Windows RT -- to patch 12 vulnerabilities in Windows, Office, SharePoint Server and the company's website design software.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UJAywe
How to install fonts temporarily on Windows I have to admit that I stopped worrying about fonts a long time ago. Back then I was experimenting with image editors and creating logos for websites and the basic fonts the system shipped with often did not cut it back then.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Un18bO
Listen to radio stations in Google Chrome I often listen to Internet radio on my PC if I’m doing things that do not require full concentration.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Un0J9i
Windows Offline Update 8.0 released Our last review of WSUS Offline Update dates back almost two years and yesterday’s release of version 8.0 is enough motivation to post an updated review here on the site.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Un0Amo
How to Sync All Your Calendars Onto One Smartphone It’s a simple request: I just want my online calendars to sync with my smartphone… is that too much to ask?

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/W3GWeu
How to remove previous Windows versions from your PC Installing multiple versions of Windows on a single PC may be useful for a number of purposes.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W3FMQ4
Internet Explorer had a very good 2012 It was a good year for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. According to the latest data from Net Apps, IE gained only slightly in December, but overall it reversed its fortunes from 2011 and recaptured a fair amount of lost market share in 2012.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W3Fw3G
An appy Christmas: Record breaking download numbers on Christmas Day as Apple's iPad takes the festive crown Apple's iPad has been revealed as the big winner in the Christmas gadget wards, according to record breaking figures for downloads on Christmas day.

328m apps were downloaded on the 25th December, with 51% of them tablets and 49% smartphones, according to mobile analytics firm Flurry.

'The big winners were Apple iPads, Apple iPad Minis and Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7" tablets,' it said.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RsAQYP
Anger as Google Music's scan-and-match feature swaps explicit songs with clean versions Users of a new Google Music feature have been left angry and disappointed after it replaced expletive-laden songs with the cleaner versions suitable for all ages.

The scan-and-match technology which had been rolled out just in time for Christmas drew early criticism from users who said the tool was weeding out explicit lyrics.

People complained that the new Google Play Music Manager feature swapped songs with explicit lyrics like Cee-Lo Green’s F**k You and Katy Perry's Teenage Dream album with the more child-friendly versions.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UjP3nW
Facebook forced into embarrassing last minute closure of 'Happy New Year' service over privacy flaw that could let ANYONE read messages Facebook was forced to take down its New Year's Eve message feature for several hours today after it was found to have a flaw that allows anyone to view and even delete personal messages intended for other users.

The social network last week launched its Midnight Message Delivery feature to allow users to send New Year's messages to friends that automatically arrive on the stroke of midnight tonight.

However, in a major embarrassment for the firm, one student blogger noticed that a simple tweak of the URL at the top of the page allows users to access messages written by total strangers - and even delete them.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UjOV83
Web technology: 5 things to watch in 2013 Don't expect a resolution to the Web standards fracas next year, but high-res images will happen, and new browsers might carve out a niche.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/UjpDqC
Apple Has Already Started Testing The iPhone 6 And iOS 7 It seems like the iPhone 5 just barely came out, but Apple is hard at work on the iPhone 6 – or iPhone 5S if that’s what they’re gonna call it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UjpaEG
Make 2013 the year you switch to Linux For many PC users, the prospect of switching away from Mac or Windows and onto Linux can be a nerve-wracking one.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UjoBuL
Show Windows update notifications on the Windows 8 desktop Microsoft has changed the way users are notified about updates in Windows 8. In previous versions, update notifications were displayed on the desktop so that you’d immediately know that an update was available.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ujohfp
Stop animations, background requests in Firefox 20 Are you using the ESC key on your keyboard to stop background requests or animations in Firefox?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UjnQSk
How to Install Windows 7 Without the Disc Many computers ship without Windows 7 installation discs. Instead they come with "recovery" discs and/or partitions that claim to restore your PC to its "factory fresh" state, but include a ton of bloatware (free trials, media players, useless utilities, and the like) along with Windows.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WbKrjj
Answer Line: Malware or false positive? If your antivirus program identified something as a Trojan before you ran it, and found no infections afterwards, there's a very good chance that the malware is protecting itself from security software. That's pretty common behavior.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WbJ9ot
Five Linux predictions for 2013 Now that the final curtain is about to drop on the year that was 2012, there's no better time to look ahead and try to anticipate what 2013 will bring.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Uh2gzj
Google's new VP9 video technology reaches public view The older VP8 hasn't taken the world by storm, but VP9 could give Google a fresh start in its attempt to popularize royalty-free video streaming.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/TruIQc
Malware targets Java servers Security researchers from antivirus vendor Trend Micro have uncovered a piece of backdoor-type malware that infects Java-based HTTP servers and allows attackers to execute malicious commands on the underlying systems.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TrusRp
Microsoft battles pirated software as a security risk Microsoft has launched a new anti-piracy campaign in China, which intends to highlight the security risks of buying counterfeit software.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WT6td9
Internet Explorer vulnerable, Security Advisory 2794220 released Microsoft has released security advisory 2794220 which details a vulnerability in the company’s web browser Internet Explorer that may allow attackers to execute code remotely on affected systems if the vulnerability is exploited successfully.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WT6f5U
Microsoft confirms zero-day bug in IE6, IE7 and IE8 Microsoft on Saturday confirmed that Internet Explorer (IE) 6, 7 and 8 contain an unpatched bug -- or "zero-day" vulnerability -- that is being used by attackers to hijack victims' Windows computers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WT64HS
OMG what a great soliloquy! The theatre offering 'Tweet seats' to patrons who just can't step away from their phone An American theatre is the latest to offer so-called 'Tweet seats' where audience members are encouraged to post comments about the performance on the social messaging site.

The Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has formalised a growing trend in theatre audiences to use their phones from within auditoria by giving obsessive tweeters a section of their own.

Its management have roped off a special balcony-level section of the theatre 'that will not be disruptive to other patrons' for the latest run of The Servant With Two Masters.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZLusAK
Are smart TV's too clever for their own good? Researchers find we simply want to watch our favourite shows Consumers are ignoring the 'smart' features of their TV and simply want access to online video services such as the BBC's iPlayer, new research has found.

Although manufacturers have given their latest sets the ability to tweet, view websites and even download apps, research firm NPD says all consumers really watch to do on their TV is watch TV.

'The Internet connected HDTV screen has so far failed to break beyond the bounds of its TV-centric heritage, with little use for the big screen beyond the obligatory video services,' said John Buffone, Director, Devices, NPD Connected Intelligence.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Wd2eaj
Get ready for the iWatch: Apple rumoured to be developing gadget you wear on your wrist Apple is believed to be secretly developing a 'smart watch' with a touchscreen.

Chinese online sites have reported the computer giant is working with chipmaker Intel on a wrist-worn gadget that has a 1.5inch screen and uses Bluetooth to communicate with other gadgets, which could include an iPhone.

The 'iWatch' will go on sale next year, the report claims.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Wd1UrT
YouTube cancels billions of video views after finding they had been 'faked' - but were hackers working for the music industry? The world's biggest recording companies have been stripped of two billion YouTube hits after the website cracked down on alleged 'fake viewers'.

Universal, home of Rihanna, Nicki Minaj and Justin Bieber, lost a total of one billion views in the video site’s biggest ever crackdown on artificially inflated figures.

Sony was second hardest hit, with the label behind such stars as Alicia Keys, Rita Ora and Labrinth losing more than 850million views in a single day.

The dramatic cuts came as YouTube conducted a crackdown on fake views, but music industry sources have blamed it on housekeeping related to the migration of their videos across different channels.

The unprecedented move left Universal with just five videos on the site - none of which were music - and Sony with just three.

'This was not a bug or a security breach. This was an enforcement of our viewcount policy,' YouTube announced.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Wd0NbO
FCC Order to Increase Availability of Airline In-Flight Internet Access The FCC issues a Report and Order allowing the use of satellite antennas on aircraft that would allow passengers to access the Internet while in flight.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VbrKh8
Landlines Left Behind as American Households Go Wireless Approximately 34 percent of all adults, about 80 million adults, lived in households with only wireless telephones, according to a CDC report.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VbroqO
Christmas Sets Record for iOS and Android Activations More tablets and smartphones were activated on Christmas than ever before, according to data from analytics firm Flurry.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Utbn13
How An App Makes Your Mac Faster And Makes Your Battery Last Longer It’s good to see Apple finally move into the 21st century and start to ship Macs with a sufficient amount of RAM.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VIOBP6
Security in 2013: The rise of mobile malware and fall of hacktivism It’s always fun this time of year to look back on the year we’re about to leave behind, and to make some predictions about what we might expect the year ahead to look like.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Tvagg3
2012's worst security exploits, fails and blunders A fool and his feeble p@$$w0rd are soon rooted, but if 2012 has proven anything, it's that even the most cautious security-minded souls need to double down on their protective practices, and think about the best ways to mitigate damage if the worst happens in our increasingly cloud-connected world.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Tv8aN6
GNOME 2: Still king of the Linux desktop It seems fair to say that Linux users enjoy a degree of choice that's unmatched by the proprietary players in the desktop computing world, what with the wide variety of both distributions and desktop environments from which they can choose.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Tv7OGi
10 third-party alternatives for 'missing' Windows 8 apps A desperate app selection calls for desperate measures.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/U3UoB2
Ultimate Windows 8 starter guide: Must-know tips, apps and utilities The year is drawing to a close, so there's a very good chance that you now find yourself staring straight down the gaping maw of Windows 8.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12Jpfbb
Make sure you only install Nvidia drivers you need If your computer is powered by a Nvidia graphics card you have probably also installed the driver package that Nvidia makes available for various operating systems.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12JonTY
What the ATI Catalyst Custom Installation options mean I published a guide about the NVIDIA driver installation process yesterday which looked at all the optional modules that get installed with the express installation option.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12JobnP
Five reasons 2012 was a great year for Linux The end of the year is always a good time to take stock of where things stand in any niche or field, and Linux is no exception.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12Jnwmn
Test your hard drives thoroughly with HDDScan This program can take your hard drive for a test drive, but that is not all it can do. It displays a selection menu on start where you can select a connected drive and either SMART or a test with a click on the test options.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZBYO8v
Domestic calls through Gmail to remain free in 2013 In what’s rapidly becoming a holiday tradition, Google announced Wednesday that it’s extended free calling in Gmail for another year.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W2rakn
Ransomware scammers push panic button with bogus claims Cyber extortionists shilling "ransomware" have upped the ante by pushing users' panic buttons with claims that their malware will wipe hard drives, a security firm said Monday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W2qRpG
Convert HTML files to Plain Text properly There are a couple of reasons why you’d want to convert local or online HTML files to the plain text format (.txt).

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UsGc6Z
Recycle your old PC and transform it into a gaming powerhouse...for around ÂŁ100 Most of us have an old PC lying around, which, until now, may be destined for the scrap heap.

But as Nvidia's Ben Berraondo explains, for a modest sum, this humble unit can be turned into a powerful games machine - making it a very affordable alternative to aging mainstream consoles.

'You don’t need a Gruffalo-esque PC to enjoy games looking their best,' he says.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YL5TCw
The internet is leaving children brain-dead: Inventor warns 'Google generation who spend life in front of screens are losing creativity and skills' One of Britain's leading inventors has warned that a 'Google generation' who rely on the internet for everything are in danger of becoming 'brain-dead'.

Trevor Baylis, who invented the wind-up radio, said children are losing creativity and practical skills because they spend too much time in front of screens.

The 75-year-old said he fears that the next generation of inventors is being lost, with young people often unable to make anything with their hands.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/YL408R
Your top 10 Windows 8 questions of 2012, answered [Year in Review] My most popular posts this year were about Windows 8. In fact, I continue to get emails every day asking questions I've covered in posts throughout the year.

Read more at: http://zd.net/TnwgcL
17 best apps to download for your new Windows 8 tablet The first time you boot up your shiny new Windows 8 tablet and witness Microsoft's live tiles in all their constantly shifting, multi-hued glory, it's only natural to want to dive into the Windows Store and try a few apps out for yourself.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UkjVY1
Adobe promises to soon patch 2-year-old Shockwave flaw Adobe plans in February to close a dangerous hole in its Shockwave application that causes the application to be downgraded when a user launches older multimedia content, allowing hackers to target years-old vulnerabilities.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/10ethc0
Welcome to the world of 'lifeloggers' - who record EVERYTHING (using technology like a mini camera that takes a photo every 30 seconds and uploads it onto the net) Some days in life will always be remembered, whether it’s your wedding day, the birth of a child or a perfect holiday.

Other days - a family row, a stressful time at work or last-minute Christmas shopping - are probably best forgotten.

But for a growing band of â€lifeloggers’, every single day is recorded in minute detail and stored for future reference.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WBBNgD
British amateur named world's top civilian cyber defender in hacking challenge staged by the U.S. military
World's top civilian cyber defender: Chris Doman, 26, from Essex finished second overall in the 2012 Digital Forensics Challenge

World's top civilian cyber defender: Chris Doman, 26, from Essex finished second overall in the 2012 Digital Forensics Challenge

A British software developer has been named the world's top civilian computer security expert in a competition run by the U.S military.

Chris Doman, 26, from Essex finished as the highest-ranked civilian and second overall in the 2012 Digital Forensics Challenge, held by the U.S. Department of Defense Cyber Crime Centre.

He beat competition from almost 2,000 cyber defenders from 53 countries, losing out only to a professional team from multibillion pound U.S. aerospace and defence firm Northrop Grumman.

The final standings provided further good news for the health of the country’s home-grown cyber talent pool as the UK contributed more participants than almost any other country.

Two more British amateurs, Matt Bartlet and Chris Moore, finished in the top 12.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WBBhPJ
Windows 8: setting default programs If you do not pay attention during app and software installations on Windows 8, you may end up with the wrong program being the default application that files open with.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UhMWTX
Sort your music collection with Tags 2 Folders If you have a large collection of unsorted music on your computer’s hard drive you may be interested in ordering that mess for better manageability and control over the collection.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UVxHyi
Flickr’s holiday gift – 3 months of unlimited storage Flickr, the popular photo-sharing app owned by search giant Yahoo, has both free and paid versions, but the service has a special gift for the holiday season. For a limited time — there is no word on exactly when this will expire — customers can grab three months of free unlimited storage.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UhMsNK
Chrome: No more silent extension installations Two new features have been added to Chrome 25. The first disables extensions that get installed via third party programs by default.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UVuG14
Mozilla: ok, you can have your 64-bit Firefox versions back 64-bit builds of Firefox were released by Mozilla in conjunction with 32-bit builds for nearly two years for the Windows platform. Mozilla about a month ago announced a change that stopped the creation and development of 64-bit Windows builds of Firefox in favor of concentrating resources on 32-bit builds and other projects.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UVtM4r
Security researchers identify malware infecting U.S. banks Security researchers from Symantec have identified an information-stealing Trojan program that was used to infect computer servers belonging to various U.S. financial institutions.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VkuCpS
The 'Linux Diversity' collection: One kit, 10 Linux distros With all the wide variety of free and open source software out there, it can sometimes feel like an insurmountable challenge to download and try each and every one that interests you.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UZaY3S
TuneUp cleans up your misnamed music files with a few clicks If you have a huge CD collection from pre-digital days, you may have decided to convert it all to MP3 format for listening on the computer or on the go, via your phone.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZqL8gx
NORAD switches from Google to Bing to track Santa Google isn't getting coal in its stocking this year, but Santa's helpers have decided to ditch the popular Google Maps for Microsoft's Bing service.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZqKyzp
IE beats Firefox, Chrome in Microsoft’s Penguin Mark Microsoft has released a new benchmark to demonstrate the power of Internet Explorer 10. Penguin Mark has been uploaded to the IE Testdrive website to test web browsers in a new taxing technology mix.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/U3u2ha
Meet the iFinch: The tiny headphones that can make a songbird change its tune (and could help us learn more effectively) Scientists have created a set of special bird-sized headphones as part of an experiment into how the brain adapts.

The team combined them with microphones to trick finches into thinking they were singing out of tune and adapt their songs.

They hope the research could eventual have implications for how human brains adapt, leading to new behavioral therapies for vocal rehabilitation.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UPMMS7
Discovery of the elusive 'God particle' by Large Hadron Collider tops the chart of the year's ten biggest scientific breakthroughs
The capture of the most wanted sub-atomic particle in physics was today named as Science journal's Breakthrough of the Year.

Scientists had been chasing the Higgs boson, nicknamed the 'God particle' for more than four decades.

In July the team from the European nuclear research facility at Cern in Geneva announced the detection of a particle that fitted the description of the elusive Higgs.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UPMsTk
A new state of matter, and a third type of magnetism: The discovery that could revolutionise computer storage Researchers at MIT have discovered a new type of matter, and a new type of magnetism - and say it could change the way computers store information.

The breakthrough adds to the two previously known states of magnetism.

'We’re showing that there is a third fundamental state for magnetism,' says MIT professor of physics Young Lee.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UPLVRp
Facebook to sell access to your inbox for a dollar at a time Facebook has launched a pilot scheme selling strangers access to users' inboxes.

The social networking website has introduced a fee, believed to be $1, to guarantee that messages are routed to a recipient's 'inbox' and not their 'other' folder, where they are likely to be ignored.

Facebook has billed it as giving users the chance to hear from people they do not know but who have an 'important' message for them. It argues the fee will actually cut down on the amount of unwanted messages.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UPLFBL
The new iphone that runs Android: Cheeky Brazilian firm cashes in on Apple's cult status with similarly named gadget
The new iphone will run on Android - and it has nothing to do with Apple.

A cheeky Brazilian technology company have made an attempt to cash in on the Apple gadget's cult status by marketing their own version.

And they have made a not too subtle attempt to circumvent the Silicon Valley firm's copyright by swapping the original's capital p for a lower case.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/V8Z1vy
Instagram waters down plan to make profit from photos in face of fury - but it STILL plans to use your profile picture in ads Instagram has vowed to water down its new terms of service after a backlash led by its many celebrity users - but says it will still use profile data to promote products.

There was widespread outrage yesterday after the photo-sharing app's new terms appeared to give it rights over all its users' photos and data to promote 'sponsored content'.

The service's celebrity users were among the many to join a chorus of criticism, saying they would cease to use Instagram if the new terms come into force.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/V8YNok
Try this incredible interactive two BILLION pixel image of Everest that lets you zoom in as if you were actually there on the mountain It is an astonishing image that shows the beauty and majesty of the Himalaya region.

A climber and filmmaker has created the stunning mosaic of images to show the effect of climate change on the the area surrounding Mount Everest.

The 477 individual images that make up the gigapixel image of the Khumbu glacier were captured by David Breashears during the spring of 2012, from the Pumori viewpoint near Mount Everest.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/V8Yzxk
Ofcom reveals superfast 4G phone network bidders in largest ever sale of mobile airwaves Vodafone and BT will be among seven bidders competing in next year's 4G auction in what marks the largest ever sale of mobile airwaves in the UK, it has been announced.

The firms are vying for a slice of airwaves to launch superfast 4G networks up to seven times faster than current 3G versions.

Ofcom said the auction, which kicks off in January, will herald 'better, faster and more reliable mobile broadband connections' for consumers across the UK.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/V8Yn17
Key iPhone patent used in $1bn lawsuit against Samsung REJECTED after claims are re-examined A key patent that Apple used to extract more than a billion dollars in damages from smartphone rival Samsung is under threat after U.S. authorities rejected its claims.

Apple scored a sweeping legal victory over its South Korean competitor in August when a jury found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad.

The jury had ruled that Samsung had infringed six of seven Apple patents and the Silicon Valley firm was awarded a mammoth $1.05billion (ÂŁ645billion) in damages.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/V8Yb1L
A new Galaxy? Samsung set to show off bending screen that could lead to 'unbreakable' phones Samsung is set to show off a 5.5in flexible 720p display at next month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, according to reports.

That Samsung is choosing to present the hotly anticipated technology at the world's premier electronics trade show strongly suggests it will be included on the company's next generation of smartphones out next year.

However the company will not just be presenting a tiny, phone-sized bendy screen at the event, but will also bring along a mammoth 55in version more suited for a television or monitor.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/V8XTIp
The astonishing maps that reveal how our brain organises everything we see Scientists have put together the first ever map of how the brain organises the thousands of images that come flooding in through our eyes every day.

A team at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that the brain is wired to put in order all the categories of objects and actions that we see.

To illustrate their findings, they have created the first map of how the brain organises these categories across the cortex.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/V8XKog
Change how long Windows 8 notifications are displayed Windows 8 ships with a new notification engine that display notifications on screen when events happen.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TZLuD5
Java 7 Update 10 introduces new security features Are you still using Java on your computer?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XLs7Ps
How to clean your laptop's cooling fans I've written about this subject in years past, but it's so important I feel obligated to repeat myself for those who might have missed it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XLryW0
So what is Bing Desktop? Bing Desktop is a free program by Microsoft that aims to bring the company’s search engine to the Windows desktop. The review could stop right here as that’s all there is to know about the program, but I’d like to dive a bit deeper into it nevertheless.


Read more at: http://bit.ly/UPKhzx
Opera 12.12 final has been released Opera users take note, a new version of your beloved browser has been released bringing the stable release channel version of the Internet browser to 12.12.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UPJZsf
Is your TV watching you? Security alert over Samsung's Smart TV as hackers claim they can access its hard drive and seize control of built-in cameras Samsung's Smart TV could used by hackers to watch everything that happens in your living room by gaining access to the device's built-in camera and microphones, it has been claimed.

Malta-based security firm ReVuln posted a video showing how its researchers had learned to crack the television to access its settings - including any personal information stored on it.

'We can install malicious software to gain complete root access to the TV,' they claim in the video.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12m48eT
The smart toilet you can flush from your PHONE (and you can even use it to close the lid if you forget) The Japanese have long been at the forefront of hi-tech toilet developments, having pioneered heated seats, musical playback and built in washing and drying systems.

However, Japanese firm Lixil has now introduced its most advanced model yet - and it can be controlled from a smartphone.

The toilet, which goes on sale in the Spring, can be completely controlled by a smartphone app, which can also track user's bowel movements to track their health.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UNLDdZ
How your phone could be able to smell, touch and taste by 2018: IBM reveals its vision for the future of technology If you've only just got used to talking to your phone, get ready for a major change.

IBM has revealed its predictions for the computer we will all be using in 2018 - and it believes they will have all five senses, and will communicate with us in radically different ways.

'Infrared and haptic technologies will enable a smart phone's touchscreen technology and vibration capabilities to simulate the physical sensation of touching something,' the firm said.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UNLbMR
How to get the Start menu back in Windows 8 Several third-party utilities can serve as Start menu replacements for Windows 8 users who aren't as keen on the new Start screen.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Zek6Jm
Gadget lovers rejoice: Introducing the Node - an amazing device that can measure just about anything, all via your iPhone The unassuming three-inch tube has a range of sensors that measure moisture, temperature, light, and colour
The basic motion-sensing device is already on sale at just over ÂŁ90, with the screw-on sensors ranging from ÂŁ16 to ÂŁ47


It can take your temperature from two feet away, scan your house for leaky insulation, and determine the dampness of your basement.

George Yu, a 30-year-old engineer living in Houston, has invented a multifaceted gadget called the Node, which he describes as 'a little Swiss Army knife of sensors'.

The three-inch tube records the world around it and beams the data to an iPhone via Bluetooth.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Rz0wEg
Amazon's unbreakable phone? CEO Jeff Bezos gets official patent for smartphone airbag system

With smartphones' glass-based displays prone to cracking and breaking, the search is on to find a more resilient touchscreen.

Some are looking into replacing the glass substrate with a yet-to-be-developed unbreakable plastic compound.

But Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos seems to have adopted a more tried-and-trusted approach.

He has officially been awarded a patent for a smartphone airbag system.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2248185/Amazon-CEO-Jeff-Bezos-officially-awarded-patent-smartphone-airbag-system.html#ixzz2FHyjMEYS
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Rz0n3D
A breakdown in communications: U.S. and UK refuse to sign treaty 'that could lead to greater government control of cyberspace' The UK and the U.S. today refused to sign the first UN telecommunications treaty of the Internet age, claiming it would lead to greater government control of cyberspace.

They were among a group of 20 nations which walked away from negotiations in Dubai after an ideological split over the nature of the Internet and who is responsible for its growth and governance.

Rival countries - including Iran, China and African states - insisted governments should have a greater sway over Internet affairs and sought to break the Western grip on information technology.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Rz0egC
Russian hackers will launch blitzkrieg cyber-attacks on U.S. banks next spring, security experts warn Experts have warned that hackers' plans to launch massive cyber-attacks on U.S. financial institutions are not just a possibility but a 'credible threat'.

According to a report released by internet security firm McAfee, the impending attack on banks - dubbed 'Project Blitzkrieg' - could result in millions of dollars of losses.

'McAfee Labs believes that Project Blitzkrieg is a credible threat to the financial industry and appears to be moving forward as planned,' the company said in a report published yesterday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Rz01tV
Is it the end of the road for the Oyster card? London buses now accept pay-by-tap credit cards Gone are the days of not being allowed to board a bus because you don't have the right change or because your Oyster card has no money on it.

From today passengers on London buses will be able to pay for the ride by credit card.

They will be able to use pay-by-tap credit and debit cards in the same way that commuters currently use Oyster cards, with the system taking payment directly from the bank account.

It means that you don't have to pay up front for an Oyster card, or run the risk of finding a driver who refuses to break a ÂŁ5 note.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RyZPL7
Online porn, the fight MUST go on: Furious charities hit out after ministers refuse to order an automatic block on internet filth Ministers were accused of putting the profits of internet giants ahead of the safety of children yesterday in the row over online porn.

Child safety campaigners said the Coalition’s decision to veto an automatic block – despite clear evidence that parents support the idea – had left them â€back at square one’.

Rather than forcing users to â€opt in’ for pornography, internet service providers will merely be asked to â€actively encourage’ parents to switch on filters if children are likely to be using computers in the home.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RyZFDE
Why Microsoft redesigned Windows New Windows chief Julie Larson-Green explains why the company felt the need to rethink the basic interface of its popular operating system.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/12ulGod
Botnet operators in FBI bust show little talent, expert says A criminal organization recently busted by law enforcement distributed malware on Facebook using two separate botnets built from tools that are easily found in the hacker underground, a security expert said.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12ulup3
Outlook.com cookie hijacking issue Users of outlook.com or hotmail.com, Microsoft’s two email services, should take note now. Information are stored in cookies when you use the site including whether you have successfully authorized your account or not.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12ulcP4
Qantas email scam plays on human vulnerabilities: IDC A Qantas email scam, which contains malware, shows that humans are still the “most vulnerable vector” for cyber criminals to target, according to a security analyst.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12ukvoL
How to activate Windows Defender in Windows 8 Like every new Windows release, Windows 8 is more secure than the operating systems that came before it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SXolTb
After three years, Slax Linux is reborn with version 7.0 There's no denying 2012 has been a fruitful year for Linux distributions in general, but something about it has also seemed to favor the rebirth of distros we hadn't heard from in years.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RuECC0
Banks fend off attacks designed to disrupt online banking access Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and U.S. Bancorp and other major U.S. banks seem to have stopped a group of hacker activists from seriously disrupting their online banking operations.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/Ut59vi
How to Cancel Stalled Print Jobs You know the drill: You send a document to the printer but nothing happens, so you open the Print Queue. There's the print job, all right, along with some kind of cryptic error message.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VGSlRy
Secuity firm warns of malware stealing bank data sent by SMS Several malicious Android apps designed to steal mobile transaction authentication numbers (mTANs) sent by banks to their customers over SMS (Short Message Service) were found on Google Play by researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VGRtwh
Information overload: There is so much data stored in the world that we may run out of ways to quantify it Not long ago, when talking about computer storage, the gigabyte was considered an enormous amount of space to have on a personal computer.

The likes of terabytes (1,000 gigabytes) were the domain of scientists and tech giants.

But in an increasingly online world companies such as Facebook and Google are storing never-imagined quantities of data.

So now they currently deal in terms of petabytes. And beyond that there are exabytes, zettabytes, yottabytes and... nothing else; there is no language to describe at amount of data larger than that.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UJFjC3
Is Internet Explorer leaking sensitive information? Do you use Internet Explorer? If you do, hopefully you’ve already applied the updates from Patch Tuesday earlier this week. But, even if you did it seems your browser might still be vulnerable to a potentially serious issue.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XiOX0F
Office wars: Microsoft, Google, and Apple jockey for position Most people have gotten past the sentiment that tablets can’t be used for “real work”. The simple reality is that a tablet is capable of doing most of the core functions a traditional PC can perform: email, Web surfing, social networking, instant messaging, and so forth.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XiOiwe
Linux 3.8 will drop support for Intel 386 chips Launched back in 1985, the venerable i386 processor has served countless PC users around the globe long and well, but recently the developers of the Linux kernel decided to drop support for it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XiNJT8
Internet Explorer flaw gives ad trackers a sneaky edge -- for now Some advertising analytics companies are using a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser for a questionable edge in figuring out if web users are actually seeing display advertisements buried within web pages.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XiM2VP
Will Samsung's next Galaxy phone have an unbreakable, flexible screen? Analysts claim 'Project J' handset could be on sale in April Samsung is believed to be secretly preparing a new version of its Galaxy handset that uses a radical 'bendable' screen that is virtually unbreakable.

Codenamed 'Project J' after mobile division chief JK Shin, development of the new Galaxy S IV could be released as early as April, according to analysts and tech blogs.

Experts believe that as smartphones increasingly look alike, an unbreakable screen could be a big selling point for the Galaxy, which is battling Apple iPhone to lead the $200 billion plus smartphone market.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UaLaC1
Your very own eye phone! The contact lens that can receive your text messages It may sound like something out of a sci-fi film, but reading text messages off contact lens in the eyes could soon be a reality - bringing a whole new meaning to the term 'instant messaging'.

Scientists have developed a new technology that allows electronic messages sent from mobile phones to be directly projected on to contact lens placed in the recipient's eyes.

The spherical curved LCD display, created by Belgian researchers at Ghent University, handle projected images using wireless technology.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UaKGvJ
Twitter rolls out its own photo editing and filter features after Instagram bans its pics from being seen in tweets In the next salvo of an escalating war between two giants of social media, Twitter has announced new versions of its iOS and Android apps to mimic Instagram-style filters and editing software just one day after the Facebook-owned picture app completely blocked user's ability to embed its photos in tweets.

The new Twitter app will allow users to take a pic, crop it, enhance it, run it through one of eight filters, and then share it, all without closing the app.

The filters were made by Aviary, a company that specializes in photo editing software for mobile apps.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UaHfoF
FBI arrest Facebook 'cybercrime ring' after they 'infected 11m computers with viruses and stole ÂŁ525million' Facebook has helped the FBI to bust an international hacking ring that stole more than ÂŁ525million from unsuspecting computer users.

The gang are said to have infected 11million computers with spyware that stole credit card numbers and bank details to net one of the largest cybercrime hauls in history.

They used 'Yahos' malicious software to steal the financial details and other personal information.

Ten suspects have been arrested by FBI agents in connection with the hacking.

One of the people in custody lives in Molesey, in Surrey.

The social networking site's security team helped the agents snare the gang after 'Yahos' targeted its users between 2010 and October 2012, the agency said in a statement.

They were able to help identify the criminals and spot affected accounts

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UaGjAH
Leaked images show 'the next Blackberry' - and it looks suspiciously like an iPhone! These pictures purport to show the phone which BlackBerry maker Research In Motion hopes will halt its seemingly inexorable slide out of the mobile business.

Sourced from a Vietnamese tech news site they show a gadget that's sleek, shiny and futuristic - and that looks suspiciously like an iPhone.

The images suggest Research In Motion has finally dropped the full keyboard that was their brand's virtual trademark in favour of a full touchscreen device.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UaEeVk
Save Internet files directly to Google Drive Google Drive is Google’s cloud hosting service that all Google account owners can use to store and sync data. Free users get 5 Gigabyte of online space and a couple of applications to access the drive contents directly on systems such as Windows, OS X or Android.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Z181qO
Prevent malware attacks on social networks: 3 tips Social networks like Facebook are fertile territory for cyber attacks. The nature of a social network is that it connects you with other people you ostensibly know and trust—so you're more likely to open a message or click a link without thinking twice, which is a bad idea.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Z17vcj
Coming in Ubuntu Linux 13.04: instant purchases from the desktop Canonical may not have published an official alpha release for its core Ubuntu Linux 13.04 OS last week—or a corresponding list of new features—but on Friday the company did reveal some specifics about what's coming in this next version of its popular Linux distribution.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TTJ7UW
Why, how and where to update your Windows 8 drivers Has your computer's hardware started freaking out, freezing up or behaving in weird ways since you've made the jump to Windows 8?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TTIXgi
WordPress 3.5: new theme, better media handling A new version of the popular blogging software WordPress has just been released. WordPress 3.5 “Elvin” introduces a new default theme, Twenty Twelve, and better media handling among other new features.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TTIISn
Yahoo! Mail update for all platforms launches Anyone here still using Yahoo! Mail? I still have a Yahoo email account from back in the days when people used Yahoo’s homepage as their homepage and Yahoo search for finding stuff on the Internet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TTIxqe
Final Patch Tuesday of 2012 includes five 'critical' updates Today is the last Patch Tuesday of the year. There are seven new security bulletins from Microsoft this month, and five of them are rated "critical." If you use Windows, Microsoft Office, or Internet Explorer, you’ve got some work to do to get these new patches applied.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TTIbQs
CDBurnerXP 4.5 promises better device detection CDBurnerXP is a free disc burning software for Windows that has been around for quite some time. I think I first came into contact with the program when Nero started to add feature after feature to its product which quickly turned from everyone’s favorite burning tool to a bloated product.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/X25R3x
Apple-Google Team Up for $500 Million-Plus Kodak Patents Bid Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. have joined forces to offer more than $500 million to buy Eastman Kodak Co. (EKDKQ)’s patents out of bankruptcy, said people familiar with the situation.

Read more at: http://bloom.bg/SQl1KQ
Working with the Bookmarks Bar in Google Chrome Google’s Chrome browser ships with a minimalistic layout by default which many users find beneficial as less chrome means more screen estate for the websites that you open in the browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SQjB2V
MaskMe: create disposable email addresses on the fly When you register a new account on a website or service you are usually asked to provide it with an email address. You may receive a verification email after the registration, or it may be used to send you notifications or make sure you are a unique user and not the same guy who has created a dozen accounts already on the site.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VqZR38
Download product manuals from Amazon The Internet is a great place to find product related information, instructions, tutorials and even full scanned manuals which are usually provided in pdf format.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UtDQSm
Backup WordPress to Dropbox WordPress may very well be the most popular software on the web these days, but most users don’t know it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UtDKKo
System Mechanic 11.5 review Making sure that your system runs as fast as on the first day is one of the things that computer users need to actively take care of. It is also one of the least favorable activities and therefore best automated as much as possible.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UtDqeP
Ubuntu Linux 13.04 hits alpha, but details are under wraps Even as Ubuntu Linux 12.10 “Quantal Quetzal” continues to make headlines following its release back in October, work is proceeding in earnest on its successor, Ubuntu 13.04 “Raring Ringtail.”

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UtCvuJ
Virustotal adds Malwarebytes engine to online virus scan Virustotal is probably the most popular online virus scanning service on the Internet. The main reason for this, beside the fact that it has been around for a long time, is that it is easy to use, does not require you to register an account first to scan, and provides you access to currently 46 different antivirus engines that your files get tested against.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/R9aUCt
WordPress: protect your blog against spam without taxing plugins I have tested many WordPress antispam plugins here on Ghacks, from Akismet which is more or less the standard plugin for many sites to plugins such as AntiSpam Bee and a couple of others that I can’t even remember the names of.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/R9a34R
5 tips to stay safe on the Internet Why is is that many computer users do not take better care of their systems security-wise? I think the main reason for that is that security does not matter for as long as you are not attacked or encounter situations where you need better security.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UGCohR
Apple iTunes 11 has been released The iTunes software is best described as a media player with library and store functionality. Most iOS device owners have iTunes installed to manage and transfer audio, video and apps between their devices.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SopmTZ
Convert Web Pages to PDF Every web browser supports the saving of web pages that you are on to HTML. Sometimes, HTML may not be what you are looking for, considering that a full download usually results in the saving of multiple files, the actual HTML page, images and scripts, to the local system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WsxW3G
CCleaner 3.25 update brings Chrome extension management capabilities CCleaner 3.25 has just been released by Piriform. It is a popular temporary file cleaner for Windows that is used to free up disk space and remove information from programs and files that are no longer needed.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WsxQJq
Windows XP countdown clock ticks under 500 days Retirement deadline for Microsoft's longest-lived OS is 'ticking time bomb,' says migration firm. Windows XP has fewer than 500 days left to live, according to Microsoft and third-party countdown clocks.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WsxLpd
Xtreme RAT malware targets US, UK, other governments The hacker group that recently infected Israeli police computers with the Xtreme RAT malware has also targeted government institutions from the U.S., U.K., and other countries, according to researchers from antivirus vendor Trend Micro.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WqX4If
How To Repair Internet Explorer Internet Explorer is an essential part of the Microsoft Windows operating system. It usually is the first browser there is and even if users switch to third party browsers it remains installed on the computer system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WqWN88
Swap the names of two files or folders You can’t create two files or folders with the same name and file extension in Windows in the same directory. If you need to rename a folder or file in a folder to a name that is already reserved by another file or folder, you are in for a lengthy name changing operation.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Td0Zr4
Firefox 17.0.1 to fix blurry font issue in the browser Some users of the Firefox web browser have reported issues with blurry fonts after updating it to the latest release version Firefox 17.0.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Td0jBV
Cybercriminals are increasingly abusing .eu domains in attacks Cybercriminals are increasingly using .eu domain names in their attack campaigns, according to data from multiple security companies.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SjoJLi
Find out which files use the most space on Windows The main hard drive of my desktop PC is a 128 Gigabyte Solid State Drive. While that is sufficient for the operating system and applications, it is important to make sure that free space does not drop below the 10% mark as it may affect the performance of the drive and may result in problems when saving data to it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Tl47DD
Symantec warns of malware targeting SQL databases Symantec has spotted another odd piece of malware that appears to be targeting Iran and is designed to meddle with SQL databases.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Tl3Wsd
GNOME: The traditional Linux desktop is coming back It would be difficult to imagine a more vivid testament to many Linux users' dislike of the new-style GNOME 3 desktop than the many alternative options that have sprung up in response.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Tl3CJL
Seven fresh reasons to try Linux Mint 14 'Nadia' It seems like the shiny new Linux releases are coming fast and furious this fall, and this week has been no exception.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QdHGAN
Clear the Skype instant messaging history The popular Skype messaging software keeps a log of all messages that you sent or receive when you use the software.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T8p0zo
Download full programs from Softonic, Cnet and other software repositories Several large software repositories in recent time have started to bundle all programs that they host on their servers with a web downloader.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T8oMsb
Mozilla adds Java 7 Update 7 to blocklist We all know that it is important to keep installed browser plugins up to date to protect the browser and underlying system from attacks that exploit potential vulnerabilities.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T8oBgo
Mozilla: no more Windows 64-bit builds of Firefox Where is the 64-bit version of the Firefox web browser for the Windows operating system? That’s a question that I have been asking myself for the past couple of years, probably ever since I updated to a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Tiv1fo
Why can't I use punctuation in a file name? Actually, the problem isn't anywhere near as serious as some might think. Of the 32 punctuation characters available on your keyboard, all but nine can be used in file names.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TiuIBn
Microsoft hands Windows 8 Pro to pirates by mistake For what is presumably a limited period, it's possible to just download Windows 8 keys directly from Microsoft -- keys that activate the Pro version of Microsoft's brand new OS.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/10wXD7a
Add-ons Manager won’t open in Firefox 17? Here is the fix Firefox 17.0 has been released yesterday by Mozilla and Firefox users have been updating their browsers ever since.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/10wUwvP
Pirates have found a loophole in the Windows 8 activation chain The most difficult part of installing and using a pirated copy of Windows 8, apart from making sure that it does not contain any hidden malware, is getting it activated.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SbKyxK
Troubleshoot Windows 8 update KB2770917 stops responding Some users of Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system are currently experiencing issues with an update that stops responding at 13% or 15%.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TeGb5K
Thunderbird 17 released, find out what’s new Thunderbird 17.0 is the last release of the email client before Mozilla’s de-prioritization of the client takes effect. What this means is that Mozilla is assigning engineers that maintained various Thunderbird related positions, like feature development, code review or marketing and engagement, to other projects.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TeFPwd
Opera 12.11 security and stability upgrade Opera 12.11 is a recommended security and stability upgrade for the browser, making it a mandatory update for all Opera users.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TeFzgt
Mozilla Firefox 17.0 Stable out later today Mozilla is currently preparing the release of Firefox 17.0 stable which will be later out today if no last minute issues emerge that delay the roll out of the update to all users of the stable version of the browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TeFcCK
AIMP 3.20 music player released AIMP is my music player of choice right now, because it is everything that Winamp used to be back in the days.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S4mZXB
Dropbox 1.6.0 promises better performance The Dropbox user base broke the 100 million mark recently, which not only highlights how successful and popular Dropbox really is, but also that you do not have to have the backing of Microsoft, Google, Amazon or Apple to be successful in the online world.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S4mNYj
Visit 100,000 stars in your browser with this Web app Never mind visiting every star in our galaxy, we're still a long, long way from being able to take an intergalactic cruise across the Milky Way. Fortunately, there are things like this Chrome Experiment called 100,000 Stars.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S4mBbM
Security team finds malware that hijacks USB smart cards A team of researchers have created a proof-of-concept piece of malware that can give attackers control of USB smart card readers attached to an infected Windows computer over the Internet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S4mmxm
Spybot Search and Destroy 2.0 has bloatware issues Remember Nero Burning Rom? The program was a lightweight burning software for Windows back in the days when first CD burners and coasters became available.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WdEnr6
Microsoft serves up 60-day trial version of Office 2013 A free, two-month evaluation version of Office Professional Plus 2013 is now available for those who'd like to try before they buy.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Wd0ttU
How to adjust the page zoom in Word 2010 What's working all this weird Word voodoo? No, it has nothing to do with font size: It's all about the zoom.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T7kCmO
Microsoft smooths out some of SkyDrive's rough edges Microsoft's answer to Google Drive continues to mature, as SkyDrive gains selective syncing powers, the ability to share from the Desktop, and mobile updates for Android and Windows Phone.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Wd0bmY
Get your Google homepage background image back Google announced some time ago that it would disable a feature on its homepage that enabled users to select a custom homepage background image for the site.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T7kkME
How to remove http://www.searchnu.com/406 from your browser Some of the free software programs that you install on your computer include third party advertisement offers that you may inadvertently install if you are not careful.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/WcZTfR
Microsoft moves to relegate Windows 7 to second-class status As Microsoft goes full speed ahead on Windows 8, a number of signs suggest that Windows 7 is fading fast in Redmond’s rear view mirror.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UDJqA6
How to remove IncrediMail MyStart from the Firefox browser Users of the popular IncrediMail may have noticed that the service has modified the default search engine and homepage of the Firefox web browser after installation.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XznFHM
Microsoft won't bring DirectX 11.1 to Windows 7 The latest flavor of the API suite that enables 3D animation and other multimedia effects remains exclusive to Windows 8 as Microsoft has no plans to port it over to Windows 7.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/XzngVU
IE10 preview for Windows 7 arriving tomorrow, report says Microsoft said last month that a preview of its Web browser would be released in mid-November.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Xzmd8x
The Malicious Safety OneCare Essential Defender: Straightening out Microsoft's confusing security tools When it comes to security, the folks in Redmond can go overboard with new products--or worse, new names for old products. What follows is a complete list of Microsoft programs, past and present, intended to help keep malware off your computer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SR3i39
Take a free online course in Windows 8 basics Windows 8: kind of confusing, right? There's no Start button (unless you install a third-party replacement), no straightforward way to shut it down, no Windows Media Center (unless you download it separately).

Perhaps worst of all, there's no instruction manual. So how exactly are you supposed to learn your way around the new OS?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q94Jhg
Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit Beta is out Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is without doubt one of the most popular and efficient tools when it come to protecting Windows PCs from malware and other malicious code. The free version of the product is limited in some regards, it does not protect the system in real-time for instance or offer heuristic protection.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UinbPU
Windows 8 security patches to be released Windows 8's first security patches will be part of a package of fixes released Tuesday during Microsoft's monthly Patch ritual.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q5UZEC
Social engineering, big data top security priorities for 2013: Gartner Security analyst Rob McMillian says organisations need to educate non-IT professionals about social engineering and understand how to protect data.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q5URoo
How to recover data from a damaged docx, xlsx or pptx document Interrupted transfers, system crashes while editing documents or malware may corrupt Office documents on your system. When Office fails to open a document that it opened previously or supports, you know that something is not right.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q5Uzy5
Ransomware threats are increasing, Symantec warns With increasing ransomware activity in Europe, the U.S., and Canada, Symantec expects it to spread to regions such as Australia, as well.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SWS68p
Firefox turns 8 and gets a key security boost “Eight years ago today, Mozilla launched the first version of Firefox,” wrote Johnathan Nightingale, vice president of Firefox Engineering, in a blog post earlier today.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SWOF1p
Quicken 2013 vs. Mint: Is Intuit's free service better than its flagship software? When it comes to using your computer to manage your money, Intuit's Quicken lineup was pretty much the only game in town—until the upstart cloud service Mint.com came along in 2006.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SW0rZS
8 worst Windows 8 irritations (and how to fix them) After spending more than a year conquering the operating system's overhauled (and nonintuitive) interface in its various prerelease iterations, I've now entered a second stage of frustration: I find myself cursing at Windows 8's major changes less and less, but shaking my fist and swearing like a sailor at its little irritations more and more.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SJAGbS
Ransomware crooks make millions from porn-shaming scams Ransomware is a growth industry that puts at least $5 million annually into criminals' coffers, Symantec said Thursday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SJxzAY
Out of date, vulnerable browsers put users at risk s your browser up to date? According to the results of a new survey from Kaspersky—a security software vendor—nearly a quarter of the browsers currently in use are out of date. Surfing the Web with a vulnerable browser is a recipe for disaster.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SJwitH
Google services blocked in China Google confirmed a dropoff in traffic to its sites in China on Friday, echoing an online report that the company's services are being blocked there.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SJvUeF
Microsoft dumps Messenger for Skype Microsoft has announced it is discontinuing its Live Messenger service and will be integrating it with the internet telephone service Skype.

Tuesday’s news was not a surprise considering the company had already bought up the popular VoIP service last spring.

The news first came through Skype’s CEO Tony Bates who said that Messenger will be retired in all countries in the first quarter of 2013, except in mainland China where Messenger will still be available.

“We want to focus our efforts on making things simpler for our users while continuously improving the overall experience,” wrote Bates in a blog post.

What is Skype?
Launched in 2003, Skype allows users to talk to each other via voice, text or video with another user, anywhere in the world, over the internet. It is typically used on personal computers but updated versions permit the service over televisions equipped with internet access, and, most importantly, smartphones.

The basic model is free, but users willing to pay are granted extra abilities, such as being able to call telephones.
Windows Live Messenger launched in 1999 with a text messaging system. Eventually, it added photo delivery, video calls and games.

Messenger has about 100 million users while Skype boasts about 663 million users worldwide who make voice and video calls over the internet. The amount of calling on Skype's network totalled 207 billion minutes last year, according to regulatory documents.

Users of both services will be able to merge their accounts and contact list – only those who use the Microsoft service will be required to make the transition.

The migration to Skype is helped by the fact the service offers broader support for all platforms including Android tablets and iPad, video well as calling landlines and mobile phones. An average of about 8.8 million customers per month pay to use Skype services.

Skype users can also share screens, video call with friends on Facebook in addition to making group video calls.

In October, Skype began testing ways for users to sign in using their Windows Live account.

Messenger users are being asked to download Skype 6.0.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SQY75y
Apple to ditch Intel Apple may dump Intel as its CPU supplier for the Mac.

The newswire quotes “people familiar with the company’s research” as saying Apple is “exploring ways” to use its own silicon in future Macs, as it has become frustrated with Intel’s inability to deliver chips that can be built into thin and light devices. Cross-platform integration is also said to be an issue Apple would like to tackle, the report says, paraphrasing one of three sources as saying Cupertino thinks it can make better products if all are based on the same silicon.

A move away from Intel would be stunning, given that it was only in 2005 that the fruity company proclaimed its decision to go with Chipzilla as a long-overdue and epoch-making partnership. Apple has since said very nice things about Intel’s chips and their ability to make Macs go very fast.

But since that 2005 tie-up with Intel, Apple acquired P.A. Semi and turned its technology into the Ax microprocessor range. Those chips now ship in the tens of millions, thanks to their presence in iPhones and iPads, products that dwarf Apple’s iMac business.

One can therefore imagine that Cupertino likes the idea of using its own silicon, instead of shipping cash to Intel.

Last week, CEO Tim Cook also reminded the world of Apple’s fondness for total control of its products by saying, in the announcement he was booting Scott Forstall out the door, that Apple products are “… the direct result of our relentless focus on tightly integrating world-class hardware, software and services.”

Any move away from Intel CPUs would almost certainly be a colossal hassle for Mac owners, given the enormous installed base of applications for Chipzilla’s kit. Compatibility issues would doubtless challenge even Apple’s usual mania for perfection (maps aside).

Yet if anyone can pull it off, Apple can as it has more experience than most in asking its users to walk away from old operating systems. In 1991 the company abandoned backwards-compatibility by introducing System 7. The 2005 shift to Intel imposed a similar burden on Mac owners whose computers ran Power chips.

If the rumour is true, it means Apple must be confident it can scale its Ax line to considerably greater heights.

Mac-using Photoshop fans won’t tolerate slower processing times, but the most recent Apple CPU, the A6x, is said to offer a 1.4 GHz dual-core processor alongside a slowish quad-core GPU.

Faster speeds and meatier specs would be needed to get the Ax line into the game on PCs, unless Apple has something extraordinary up its sleeve. ®

Read more at: http://bloom.bg/SQXTv9
Chrome gets apps launcher under Windows Are you using apps in the Google Chrome web browser or Chromium? If you are new to the browser you may need some background information on the difference between apps and extensions.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SPR50F
Quickly switch between two Firefox color profiles with Color Toggle Ever visited a website that used dark background and font colors that made it difficult to read? Or a glaring white background color that made it feel like you were looking right into the sun?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SPQUCA
How to print anything from anywhere: Your ultimate guide to mobile printing Printing anything from anywhere is no longer fantasy. In fact, it's often a necessity if using a smartphone, tablet, or laptop is an essential part of your daily workflow.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SPQAnm
HP bets big on Linux HP has long been a contributor to Linux and open source software, but on Monday it ratcheted up its support another notch.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SPPTKW
PC security: Your essential software toolbox Mobile malware is getting lots of attention these days, but you can’t forget about your PC’s security—after all, you probably still use it to pay bills, shop online, and store sensitive documents.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SPPAzE
How to rename and resize images in bulk for easy organization The advent of digital cameras has changed the way we take pictures. With film cameras, which offered a relatively tiny number of photos per roll of film, budding photogs used to take their time composing every shot and only snapped what they thought would be the very best pictures.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RTtsBj
What you should know about MIcrosoft's new BitLocker Management Encryption can be a bit of a double-edged sword for organizations. It is an effective and essential tool for protecting sensitive data, but it often comes with a healthy side of user confusion and help desk calls.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SPP4BU
Chrome update brings longer battery life, direct website permission access Do Not Track is not the only new feature that Google has implemented into Google Chrome 23, the latest stable version of the company’s own web browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SPOGmK
Windows 8 users now getting 'how-to' e-mails from Microsoft People who set up a Windows 8 PC or tablet using a Microsoft account will now receive two e-mails with tips and tricks on using the new OS.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/SPOunB
Google updates Chrome browser with battery-saving feature Google Tuesday released a Chrome browser update with a video decoding enhancement that the company claims will help users save battery life.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RTtWr1
How to rename and resize images in bulk for easy organization The advent of digital cameras has changed the way we take pictures. With film cameras, which offered a relatively tiny number of photos per roll of film, budding photogs used to take their time composing every shot and only snapped what they thought would be the very best pictures.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RTtsBj
How to delete the Windows.old folder after installation of Windows If you are installing Windows on a hard drive where Windows is already installed, and installing includes upgrading to Windows 8, you may end up with a Windows.old folder on the partition you have installed the new Windows version on.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PPv3g8
Start8 1.01 for Windows 8 brings lots of improvements Start8 is one of my favorite solutions when it comes to adding a start menu back to the Windows 8 operating system. While not free, it is reasonably priced at less than $5 considering that it is one of the best start menu programs for the system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PPupzs
Backup all Windows user folders with Gotcha Backup Utility It is likely that the bulk of Windows users make use of the user folder and its directory structure to save files and documents important to them.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PPtOh9
How to create a Windows 8 system repair disc Windows 8 ships with options to create a system repair disc from within the operating system just like previous versions of Microsoft Windows did. What you need to know before you get started is that you can only create a system repair disc for the operating system version you are using.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TV0tx1
Use Click-free Browsing for Chrome if you are tired of clicking Unless you are using a touch-enabled device, you are likely using a mouse to work on your computer. When it comes to web browsing, the mouse is used for a number of things, from activating menus and forms to scrolling or clicking on links to be taken to another destination.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SxKjwv
Introducing PCWorld's Windows 8 Starter Guide Windows 8 is the biggest change to Windows since the original Windows 95. Whether you've been playing with the consumer preview, intrigued by the direction Microsoft is taking, or worried that you may have to relearn Windows all over again, PCWorld can help you get started with the Windows 8.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SxIks3
Mozilla blames Microsoft for 9 million fewer Firefox downloads Daily Firefox downloads decreased by 63 percent during the nearly 15 months that Microsoft failed to show users of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 a court-mandated browser choice screen, according to figures released by Mozilla.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SxI9x5
Google Chrome Remote Desktop final released Google launched Chrome Remote Desktop about a year ago for the Chrome web browser and Chrome OS to add remote desktop features to both systems.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XXZvp7
Top Windows 8 shortcuts you should know to speed up your work If you have spend some time getting to know Microsoft’s newest operating system Windows 8 you have without doubt noticed the major differences to previous versions of Windows.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PFO58O
Mozilla wants to make bookmarks more usable Bookmarks have been part of web browsers for a very long time. They basically allow you to save a web page url in the browser to open it at a later time either by clicking on the link in the bookmarks or through search if the browser includes bookmarks in the list of suggestions.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PFM9NG
How to block advertisement in Internet Explorer 10 If you have bought the Surface RT device running Windows RT or a device by another hardware manufacturer that is running Microsoft’s latest operating system you may have noticed that the only web browser you can use on the device is Internet Explorer 10.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PDpgdv
Goodbye and farewell to Ubuntu Linux 11.04 'Natty Narwhal' For longtime users of Ubuntu Linux, it may feel like just yesterday that Ubuntu 11.04 “Natty Narwhal” first came out.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PhwD9d
How to block recurring spam in WordPress For the past week I have noticed an increase in comment spam here on Ghacks. The spam would arrive in bulk – meaning in the hundreds – in a matter of minutes on this blog with the vast majority of the comments slipping past the moderation queue.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SlPT62
Manage Context Menu items with Right Click Enhancer If you install lots of software on your system you may have noticed that the Windows Explorer right-click context menu has grown considerable in size ever since you started to install software on your computer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SlPCjn
Is the iPad Mini Worth Buying? Apple has unveiled a new member of the family: the iPad Mini. This device is a clear response to the market pressure the cheaper Amazon Kindle Fire HD and the Nexus 7 have placed on the existing iPad.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/SKlH1G
How to Get Windows 8 Now Microsoft officially launched its Windows 8 operating system Friday, but you will only find the software on brand new computer systems.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/SKlg7H
Windows 8 Upgrade: clean install possible? Microsoft is pushing the Windows 8 Upgrade offers ever since Windows 8 got released a day ago. In fact, you only can buy upgrades on Microsoft Store, if you want a retail copy, you need to buy it elsewhere right now as Microsoft itself is not making those available.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SKjpzI
Review: Ashampoo Uninstaller 5 makes program removal easy Ashampoo Uninstaller 5 purports by its existence to do a better job of uninstalling programs than the uninstall procedures provided by the programs themselves.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Y7bOP4
For a beginner-friendly distro, try Linux Lite 1.0.0 For all the media attention that goes to Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora, and the other leading Linux distributions, casual observers would have to be forgiven if they have no idea that hundreds of other distributions are out there as well, each with a particular purpose and target audience in mind.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Y7bmQR
Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant standalone If you are planing to upgrade your existing operating system to Windows 8 you probably want to know whether your PC’s hardware and software is compatible with Windows 8 before you buy the operating system from Microsoft.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/U3udrI
Latest Opera prefetches links on hover Norwegian company Opera Software has been working for quite some time on the next version of the Opera web browser, Opera 12.10 which is currently available as a development release.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/U3tDdw
Firefox 16.0.2, Thunderbird 16.0.2 released Mozilla is currently in the process of rolling out an update for the stable version of Firefox that is brining the web browser to version 16.0.2 This is in fact the second update in this release period, the first was released shortly after Firefox 16.0 was pulled by Mozilla due to security issues found in the version.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/U3t1EW
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo fix serious email weakness Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have remedied a cryptographic weakness in their email systems that could allow an attacker to create a spoofed message that passes a mathematical security verification.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/P6GdM4
Windows XP turns 11, still not dead yet On the same day Microsoft loudly proclaims Windows 8 in New York, the aging-but-still-going Windows XP today quietly celebrated its 11th birthday.

On Oct. 25, 2001, Microsoft launched Windows XP, unknowingly unleashing its most successful operating system ever.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/P6FB9h
Don't like Ubuntu's Unity? Try the new GNOME Remix instead We've known for some time that a “pure GNOME” version of Ubuntu Linux was in the works, and following last week's release of Ubuntu 12.10 “Quantal Quetzal,” the first GNOME Remix of the software has now made its debut as well.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/P6FgDl
Repair Internet Explorer with Browser Repair Tool If your favorite web browser is acting up, for instance after a successful malware attack on your computer system or other issues, you have have problems troubleshooting and repairing the issues that you are facing.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Svnvvx
Web still king, but email stages scam comeback Experts call for better filters, but urge users to 'be suspicious'.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Rj9stl
A faster, easier, tree-saving way to share documents I can't tell you many times I've gone to a trade show and been handed a folder full of product information—stuff I wanted, but certainly didn't want to carry around.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SeDZK8
Opt-out of sending add-on information to Mozilla Mozilla introduced the Get Add-ons dialog in the add-on manager of Firefox and Thunderbird in Firefox 4 and Thunderbird 5.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SeDKyS
Firefox finally getting H.264 support Google released its WebM video format back in 2010 and heralded it as an alternative to the widely used H.264 video format.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SeDEqX
Ubuntu Tweak: After three days 'dead,' user outcry brings it back to life There's nothing like absence to make the heart grow fonder, as the old saying goes, and that's apparently just as true for software projects as it is for people.

Case in point: Ubuntu Tweak.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SeDrUE
Some Android apps have serious SSL vulnerabilities, researchers say A team of researchers from two German universities has released a study asserting that many of the most popular free apps available through the Google Play store may be vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks -- seriously threatening user privacy.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S7yJ9b
Shuttleworth ruffles feathers with Ubuntu Linux 13.04 'Raring Ringtail' plans Canonical's launch on Thursday of Ubuntu 12.10 “Quantal Quetzal” was met with considerable jubilation from Linux fans around the world, not least because of the bold slogan that launched with it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S7xdUO
Apple drops Java after experts warn Mac users on its security Apple Inc is removing old versions of Oracle Corp's Java software from Internet browsers on the computers of its customers when they install the latest update to its Mac operating system.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/S7wq6f
DuckDuckGo for Firefox I switched to DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine back in the beginning of 2012, not only because I believe it to deliver better results on the majority of searches that I conduct throughout the day, but also because of its feature set it makes available.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ORkWG3
Why are they called that? The silly stories behind six tech brands When you stop and think about it, most tech brand names don’t make a whole lot of sense.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VkzAJE
Can You Fix a Scratched DVD with a Banana? I have two children; they have their favorite DVDs; and sometimes mommy needs them to be watching those DVDs. So when the favorite DVDs get scratched and stop playing, it's a problem!

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/Vkz0eW
One-click video conversions with EasyBrake If you need to convert videos into different formats but do not want to be bothered configuring the output first, EasyBrake may be the video converter you are looking for.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VkywWc
Ubuntu 12.10: what is new and how to test it If you take an interest in the Linux world you have probably already noticed that Ubuntu 12.10 has been released.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Vkygqc
How to not be a jerk on the Internet I've been a technology blogger for more than six years—four of them right here at PC World. And in that time I've developed a pretty thick skin.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VkxTfh
Apple removes Java support from Safari I have removed Java from my system some time ago and never looked back. I understand that some of you need Java for certain web activities, like online banking, but I think it is fair to say that the majority of Internet users does not need Java anymore, at least not in the browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ud4ceM
VLC Media Player 2.04 update released A new version of the popular VLC Media Player has just been released by the development team. Version 2.04 is already available for download at the official website or via the media player’s internal upload checker.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T3NA7x
Ubuntu Linux 12.10 'Quantal Quetzal' takes flight at last There's never any shortage of excitement and anticipation surrounding the major updates to Ubuntu Linux that arrive twice each year, and Thursday's brand-new release is no exception.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T3NnB9
IE10 may get a new test build for Windows 7 soon Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 is still alive, Microsoft officials confirmed. And another test build is coming in November.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Tvo4Ez
Chrome: get notified about unapproved extension installations Unauthorized installation of extensions is not something that only Google Chrome users face but the Google browser, unlike Firefox, is currently haunted by the mysterious Settings Protector extension that auto-installs itself in the browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/XkSsWf
Chrome: display extensions interacting with web page If you are using Google Chrome as your web browser you have probably installed a couple of extensions as well to improve your web browsing experience. If you do, you may have asked yourself whether extensions are active on a web page you are visiting in the browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RwC40I
Two new Asus laptops offer an Ubuntu Linux option I've already written at some length about the emerging class of Linux-powered PCs that have been hitting the market in recent months, and recently two more have appeared.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RwBEYe
Can I recover a stolen laptop? Yes, in the sense that it's possible to win the lottery. Actually, that's only the case if you haven't taken the proper precautions before it's stolen.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/To8N8t
New computer spying program linked to Flame authors The security company that has discovered some of the most sophisticated spying software unearthed to date says it found a related program, dubbed "miniFlame," which can carry out more precise attacks on targets in the Middle East.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/To7tCF
How to restore the menu header in Thunderbird 17 Thunderbird 17 is currently offered as a beta version. If you have installed the upcoming version of the email client on your system, you may have noticed the new look of the header area of the program.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/To3mX9
Advanced SystemCare 6 Free Advanced SystemCare is a popular system maintenance program for the Windows operating system that is available in a free and pro version.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/To2O3B
How to dual-boot Windows 8 and Windows 7 Windows 8 is coming. Although you may not be jumping for joy at this fact, I'll wager you're at least a little curious. Could the new OS make your computing life any better? Is the new interface a boon, or more of a boondoggle?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/To1zBo
Dell to continue offering Windows 7 after launch of Windows 8 Dell will continue offering Windows 7 even after the release of Windows 8 at the end of October, the company said.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ouyzea
Attention: Check Google Chrome for the Settings Protector extension Reports began to appear yesterday on Google Chrome’s official support forum about a new extension that installed itself automatically in the browser. Chrome users noticed that the Settings Protector extension appeared on the extensions page of the browser without their doing.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OuxP8L
Ashampoo UnInstaller 5 review Windows’ Uninstall a Program dialog is a basic control panel applet that enables you to remove previously installed software or Windows updates from the operating system. It is one of those programs that has not seen improvements in a very long time.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OuxjYx
The Cry Over the Loss of iGoogle and the Alternatives Available Back in July Google announced several services would be phased out, a process they carry out periodically. Mostly these are web sites and functions that the vast majority of people are not using, hence the takedown.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OuwZc1
Mozilla releases Firefox 16.0.1 to address four vulnerabilities Mozilla released Firefox 16.0.1 on Thursday in order to fix a publicly disclosed vulnerability and three other security flaws identified after the release of Firefox 16.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qn63bZ
How long will Microsoft support Windows 7? Microsoft will stop mainstream support on January 12, 2015. But the company will keep providing extended support until January 14, 2020.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qn2lyM
Thunderbird 16 has been released Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird are always updated at around the same time. It therefore comes as no surprise that Thunderbird 16.0 has been released a day after Firefox 16.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q2LsIi
Microsoft: Windows XP has the highest infection rate Microsoft has released its latest bi-annually Security Intelligence Report covering the first half of 2012 which offering a worldwide threat assessment for that period.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q2L7FK
Mozilla pulls new Firefox version over security concerns Less than a day after Mozilla released Firefox version 16 to the public, the browser had to be pulled from the Web over security concerns.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q2GKKH
Chrome: save web pages as PDF documents natively You can save web pages in any web browser as HTML documents. That’s usually all there is to do to archive certain pages that you are interested in.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RQa5vI
Comodo Releases Internet Security 2013 Beta Computer security and anti-virus company Comodo have rolled out the first beta version of their Internet Security 2013 suite of utilities.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RQ9wC6
Splitting passwords up to increase security Splitting passwords up could be the next big thing next to 2-factor authentication schemes which companies such as Google, Facebook or PayPal have offered as an opt-in service to their users.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RQ9lGM
Nitro PDF Reader 3.0 available for download Nitro PDF Reader 3.0 has just been released and is now available for download on the official website. The program is a popular Adobe Reader alternative that is offering more features than just the ability to display pdf documents in the program window.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W3hhpU
Configuring Windows Search to search file contents The search in Windows 7 and Windows 8 is configured to search file names and contents in indexed locations, and for file names only in locations that are not indexed.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RdKY3r
Penultimate version of Linux kernel 3.5.x released In the release notes to Version 3.5.6 of the Linux kernel, maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman warned users that there would likely be only one more version of that branch of the kernel, and that users should get ready to move to the 3.6 branch as soon as possible.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RdKBG1
Microsoft patches 20 bugs, including critical Word flaw Microsoft today patched 20 vulnerabilities in Word, Office, Windows, SharePoint Server, SQL Server and other products in its portfolio, including a critical bug in the company's popular Word program and another already used to attack the company's own online services.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RdKnP9
Windows 7 malware infection rate soars in 2012 Windows 7's malware infection rate climbed by as much as 182% this year, Microsoft said today.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RdKbiO
SlimCleaner 4.0: Slick system cleaning utilities with crowdsourced information SlimCleaner is by far one of the more useful multi-utility tools I've run across. Aimed primarily at cleaning the junk out of your system, it has the capabilities of several popular programs, including Piriform's CCleaner and Trend Micro's HijackThis. Version 4 adds several new features.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VT1OJ9
Cocoon privacy plug-in for Chrome watches your back as you browse Cocoon, a browser plug-in designed to protect your privacy and security online, is now available for Google's Chrome browser, according to its maker Virtual World Computing.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/VT0y8Q
Firefox 16.0 What’s New Mozilla is in the process of updating all Firefox channels in the coming ways. Firefox 15.0.1 will be updated tomorrow to version 16.0, followed by updates for the browser’s beta, aurora and nightly channels bringing the respective versions of the browser to 17, 18 and 19.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OP4zLv
TuneUp Utilities Releases 2013 Version There are a lot of utility apps available for Windows, but many of them you don’t actually want thanks to the plethora of malware posing as much-needed software.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OP3bbM
How to verify link targets before you click on links Yesterday’s post about a new virus attack on Skype has shown that it is important to verify link targets before you click on the links. Because if you do not, you may end up with some nasty virus, trojan or other malicious software on your PC.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OP2X4o
Adobe Flash Update 11.4 Fixes Internet Explorer crashes, vulnerabilities I have to admit that I’m glad that I’m no longer running Adobe Flash on my main system as a standalone plugin. It is still installed as part of Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer 10 n my second desktop PC. Adobe today has released a new Flash update bringing the version of the standalone plugin to Flash Player 11.4.402.287.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OP2DTb
Fixing the folder access denied error message in Windows Sometimes when you try to delete a folder in Windows you may get a folder access denied error message instead. It basically states that the user account you are logged in with has not the rights to delete the folder on the system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ta8v4B
Video to Video Converter review All you need is the right media player to play virtually all video and audio formats on your PC.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RkOqJP
Manage System Restore from the command line System Restore is a handy backup feature that Microsoft has integrated into newer versions of the Windows operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RkOb1w
Mozilla to notify Firefox users about oudated plugins Outdated plugins are a serious concern when it comes to security on the Internet. The main problem here is that a vulnerable plugin leaves the browser wide open for attacks targeting the vulnerability, and there is little that can be done about it to protect the browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RkNYeD
Cybercriminals plot massive banking Trojan attack Gang plans to use sophisticated malware to initiate illegal wire transfers, RSA says

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OIPue9
Three Linux distros get key updates, plus one fades away With so many Linux distributions out there, it can be difficult to keep tabs on all the updates that come out over the course of an average week or month.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OIPmve
Don’t Forget Avast for Mobile Security After posting an article yesterday regarding a new update coming to Lookout for Android, I received a nice email from an Avast representative pointing out they too offer a very good, and free, solution for the Google mobile platform.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OIBwck
How to know when it's time to replace your router If your router is more than 4-5 years old, you should definitely think about replacing it. Three reasons why:

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OIBgdm
Firefox for Windows gets a web installer If you want to download Firefox for a supported operating system right now you head over to Mozilla.org, click on the download button there and wait until the 20 or so Megabyte download completes.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UGhrjJ
Mobile devices are the new frontier for botnets and DDoS attacks op quiz: What has a dual or quad core processor, gigabytes of potentially sensitive data, and very fast Internet connectivity? The default answer is “a PC.”

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PxF2kk
SlimCleaner 4.0 final released The Windows maintenance software SlimCleaner has just been updated to version 4.0 by the developing company SlimWare Utilities.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/O3l8BJ
Fix Internet Explorer Runtime Errors When I was working in tech support for a large bank I sometimes had to deal with users who received runtime error messages in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/O3kNyJ
Windows 7 ups lead over XP as top OS The current flavor of Windows continues to outpace XP after winning the top spot last month, according to the latest stats from Net Applications.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/SYLukZ
igHome gives displaced iGoogle users a familiar home A couple months back I suggested three alternatives to iGoogle, the popular personalized Google home page that's scheduled to be switched off about a year from now.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SYLlOF
Four key new features in Linux 3.6 Just a little more than two months after the release of version 3.5, Linux creator Linus Torvalds on Sunday unleashed the next new version of the Linux kernel.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SYLce3
Automatically sort Firefox bookmarks Firefox bookmarks are not sorted automatically, which may be fine as long as you do not add more than a dozen or so bookmarks to a folder.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/W0BAmU
Make Thunderbird the chat powerhouse: add chat protocols Mozilla added chat capabilities to Thunderbird 15, the latest stable version of the desktop email client.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S9DWkX
New Microsoft.com website launches Microsoft back in June 2012 launched a preview of the upcoming Microsoft.com website which looked fundamentally different from the old homepage.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PzF78m
ExploitShield: new anti-exploit software for Windows Traditional options to protect a computer from malware and exploits often rely on knowledge of the exploit or an exploit family to detect it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PzEuMb
Now two years old, LibreOffice is going strong It's almost difficult to imagine that two years ago, LibreOffice was a newcomer to the world of office productivity software, having only just been forked from the longstanding OpenOffice.org suite that so many people had come to know and love.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PzDeZl
What you need to know about the Adobe certificate compromise Adobe announced plans to revoke one of its code-signing certificates after it was compromised and used to make malicious attacks appear to be legitimate Adobe tools.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PzAxac
Study finds Internet Explorer to be malware blocking king Which web browser, with its default configuration, is best at blocking malware?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/URvHdO
Avira Free Antivirus 2013 released Not everything that security company Avira did in recent times has received a positive reception by the company’s user base. Especially the bundling of the software with the Ask Toolbar has been criticized by users, even though it is completely optional.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Rmm4AZ
Google Docs and Apps: doc, xls or ppt format downloads removed Google’s document editing and hosting service Google Docs supports a variety of formats. You can upload Microsoft Office or Open Office documents for instance, to access, edit or share those documents online.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UZ7yAu
'Cotton Candy' Linux PC-on-a-stick ships at last There's been a seemingly endless parade of tiny, Linux-powered PCs entering the market in recent months, including most recently the $49 Cubieboard and the $89 UG802.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/UZ3ujM
DOSBox: Free, open-source DOS emulation DOSbox uses the SDL library to emulate the early operating environment of the PC.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q1A15H
Oh no, yet another Java vulnerability discovered Some time ago I made the decision to ditch Java completely on my system. I had to find a few replacement apps, for instance for the popular file hosting downloader JDownloader or the RSS feed reader RSSOwl, but other than that, I did not really miss Java once I kicked it off the hard drive.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q1zd0E
Mailstore Home 7.1: Email backup software update available Mailstore Home is my go-to software when it comes to backing up email and migrating email between programs and computer systems. I’m using it to speed up Thunderbird by backing up and removing old emails from the application to lighten its load, and to backup Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo Emails.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q1yM6q
Need to tune up your browser? Firefox Health Report can help It's no secret that browser performance can vary dramatically across installations thanks to differences in configuration and customization, among numerous other factors.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PXyaih
RoboHornet: independent browser benchmark The majority of web browser benchmarks are created by companies and organizations that develop browsers. Mozilla has its Kraken benchmark, Google its Octane benchmark, which many web developers believe are not as impartial as they should be.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QSYc5I
White Noise Sleep System for Windows If you are often irritated by surrounding noise when you are trying to work, relax or do fun things, you have probably tried various ways to block the noise.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QSXYvy
Firefox 18 to be delayed by a week Six weeks or 42 days, that is exactly the time it takes to release the next version of the Firefox web browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QSXG7U
CCleaner 3.23: update brings performance improvements CCleaner is one of the most popular applications when it comes to removing temporary files on a Windows system. It is small, lightweight, regularly updated, customizable and available as a portable version or installer for all recent versions of the Windows operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S3nCg3
Smile please! Click-free camera will capture a day in your life A groundbreaking camera that decides itself when to take a shot will go on sale in Britain in November, in the first consumer application of technology developed by the British maker OMG Plc.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/PT3z5j
3 Free Windows Alternatives to Media Center With the move to Windows 8 Microsoft has not killed Media Center as many had feared they would, but they have made it much less appealing in several ways. The popular home theater computer (HTPC) software will only be available as a paid add-on for the new operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PT34Z6
How the U.S. is winning the race to next-gen Internet With the worldwide supply of IPv4 addresses rapidly dwindling, the United States is pulling ahead of its global rivals in the deployment of next-generation Internet services based on the emerging IPv6 standard.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PT2QkN
Now in Ubuntu Linux 12.10: Amazon search results News about Ubuntu Linux 12.10 is coming fast and furious as the software's October release date approaches, but it seems fair to say that not even the project's Secure Boot plans have been as controversial as a new feature that came to light late last week.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PT2Cdd
5 serious business alternatives to Dropbox The word "breach" can send shivers down your spine. When it comes to data storage in the cloud, it's even more worrisome. Several weeks ago, Dropbox announced that the passwords for thousands of users had been stolen, leading some business executives to mandate that employees stop using the service.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S82NPY
Microsoft releases Fix-It for latest 0-day vulnerability A few days ago a new 0-day vulnerability was discovered that affects all versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer – but Internet Explorer 10 – on all recent versions of the Windows operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S82AMM
17 more top universities offer free cyber courses More leading universities are offering free online courses through the fast-growing education platform Coursera.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/QnaLbP
VSCD Free Video Converter review VSCD Free Video Converter is a free program for the Windows operating system that you can use for all of your media converting needs.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QnaAND
Banking group warns of heightened Internet threat A financial services industry group warned banks on Wednesday to be on heightened alert for cyber attacks after Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase experienced unexplained outages on their public websites.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/Qnac1E
How to restore deleted files on SkyDrive Microsoft is feverishly working on its cloud hosting and synchronization service SkyDrive. The service has seen a big transformation from a basic service that was not really anything special to one of Microsoft’s core services that gets a lot of attention from the company.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qn9t0r
How to create forms with Google Docs My Krav Maga trainer recently asked me if there was a way to collect data from hundreds of people online over a set period of time without knowledge of programming and databases and all that good stuff.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qn9gdB
Apple releases iOS 6 iOS 6 is upon us. Apple on Wednesday, as promised, released the new version of the operating system that powers the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qn9128
Will you be more secure if you abandon Internet Explorer? The German government is urging people to abandon Internet Explorer to avoid zero-day attacks currently circulating in the wild.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qn8TzJ
Prepare your business for digital disaster You don’t have to look hard to find tales of technological disaster. The Gauss virus infiltrated thousands of Middle Eastern PCs, where it could intercept online banking credentials.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S1LVuj
German watchdog warns of Internet Explorer breach The German government agency overseeing IT-safety is warning of a security breach in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and recommending people use other browsers until the problem is fixed.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/S1LboZ
Cloud-storage Box boosts its upload speed The Dropbox competitor says it can transfer files up to 10 times faster than before, thanks to a home-grown method for easing the strain on overloaded servers.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/S1L0K5
Display or clear Chrome Sync data on the Internet Chrome Sync is a feature of the Google Chrome browser that enables you to synchronize data with other Chrome installations.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S1KThK
New Internet Explorer 0-day Vulnerability (Sept. 2012) Microsoft has published a security advisory today that is informing system administrators and end users about a new 0-day vulnerability affecting Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8 and 9 but not IE 10.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S1KEU2
5 free open source alternatives to Microsoft Office While Microsoft Office is the industry standard in terms of , integrated applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, database management, email and desktop publishing.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Nyzlq6
Lower your game ping with Leatrix Latency Fix There are two basic requirements for playing games on the PC. Your computer needs to have enough processing power to provide you with a satisfactory gaming experience, and if you play multiplayer, your ping should be as low as possible.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OAS0D9
What do hard drive-related words like SATA, IDE, and RAID actually mean? Technical terms can get overwhelming, especially when they include too many TLAs (three-letter acronyms). Even people who use these terms sometimes need to step back and remember what they're talking about.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OARPYn
LastPass Sentry: automatic leak checks for leaks The online password management service LastPass has a new security feature that aims to reduce the time it takes to inform users if some of their account information, that is username and password, have leaked on the Internet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/U5xNGx
Flame malware continues to burn Over the past couple of years a new breed of malware has been making headlines. These new attacks are very complex, and seem to be directed at precision targets of national or military significance—suggesting that they’ve been developed by nation-states as cyber weapons.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/U5xdZx
New: Chrome notifications when extension updates require additional privileges Google about two weeks ago added a new feature to the Chrome web browser that improves the extension updating process of the browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/U5wKGF
Where to go when you need Google Chrome help Where do you go when you run into issues in Google Chrome that you can’t fix on your own?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/U5wdEO
Google Apps: Internet Explorer 8 support ends soon The Google Apps team just announced that support for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 web browser will end on November 15, 2012.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SsfRQw
Save Google Maps locations in Firefox You need to be signed in to a Google account to save Google Maps location in your web browser of choice.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PklZMt
Fix the Chrome Shockwave Flash Plugin Problem Many people use Google’s Chrome web browser for surfing the Internet because it’s fast, stable and generally reliable.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RX1GT0
Welcome to the beginning of a new PCWorld era Night and day. This is the difference between the PCWorld we just consigned to our recycle bin, and the bigger, bolder, exponentially more dynamic PCWorld that we unveil today.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TVZDoO
Adobe: Next Photoshop won't support Windows XP Windows XP has been tremendously popular, but support for the 11-year-old operating system is waning. The next Photoshop will require Windows 7 or later.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/R8jE5h
How to create Windows System Restore points at startup The system restore feature of the Windows operating system offers an option to revert the system back to a previous point in time.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Op6C2L
Google Chrome to get Do Not Track soon An option to enable Do Not Track headers landed in today’s Chromium release which web users can make use of to notify servers, websites and scripts that they do not want to be tracked on the Internet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Op6mRl
How to restore individual files from System Restore points Today I noticed that all of the files that I had saved on the desktop in Windows 7 were gone. The only icon that I saw on the desktop was the Recycle Bin. Since I needed to access the files, I started to investigate the issue. First thing that I did check was to make sure that I had not unchecked the show desktop files option.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Op5Oea
Intel: Clover Trail Atom chip won't work with Linux he forthcoming “Clover Trail” version of Intel's Atom chip will not work with Linux, the company reportedly confirmed on Thursday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Op5xb9
Microsoft finds malware on new computers in China A customer in Shenzhen, China, took a new laptop out of its box and booted it up for the first time. But as the screen lit up, the computer began taking on a life of its own. The machine, triggered by a virus hidden in its hard drive, began searching across the Internet for another computer.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/Py4zgW
Opus free audio codec now standardized You may have heard previously about the free audio codec Opus, for instance when Mozilla some time ago announced that support for it has been integrated into the Firefox web browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/O2jLUV
Mozilla experimenting with vertical tabs Firefox users can move browser tabs to a sidebar so that the tabs are displayed vertically with the help of extensions such as Tab Kit.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/O2jq4H
Chrome Browser for Android Gets Security Boost, Patches Google has upgraded its Chrome browser for Android devices, boosting its security framework and patching several security bugs.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QmX7Tm
New JavaScript Tech Will Make Firefox 18 Faster Things never stand still for long in the world of Web browsers, and Mozilla's popular Firefox contender is no exception.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QmWY2s
Canonical Ubuntu Management Tool Gets Hefty Upgrade Anticipating greater usage of Ubuntu within the enterprise, Canonical has released a significant update to its Landscape Ubuntu system management tool.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QmWGse
One-Click access to all of Google Chrome’s privacy settings There are numerous reasons to make sure that your web browser does not leak information to the Internet or the browser maker if that is not required for functionality that you use.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/U8hftl
Mozilla juices Firefox's JavaScript with IonMonkey Trying to keep competitive when running Web-based software, Mozilla is working to speed up its engine for running JavaScript software. Expect it in early 2013.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/OqSHi4
Microsoft preps its Office 2013 upgrade program Redmond is said to be getting ready to launch its latest Office upgrade offer this fall. Qualifying users are expected to get a choice of different Office versions to which they can move.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/OqRpUi
GoDaddy offers users one month credit following service outage The company is giving customers the credit for one month of service after an outage brought down a slew of hosted sites on Monday.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/OqR58a
Botnet Masters Hide Command and Control Server Inside the Tor Network Security researchers from German antivirus vendor G Data Software have identified a botnet that is controlled by attackers from an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server running as a hidden service inside the Tor anonymity network.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OqQEL2
Five new features in Ubuntu 12.10 'Quantal Quetzal' Beta 1 It's been just about two months since the launch of the first alpha version of Ubuntu Linux 12.10 “Quantal Quetzal,” and that release was followed by two more alpha iterations over the course of the summer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OqQoM2
Do PCs have a future? Intel thinks so Intel Corp showed off hybrid tablets and ultrabook laptops with voice and gesture recognition technology along with an upcoming low-power chip in a bid to convince Wall Street a slump in the personal computer industry is only temporary.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/OondcB
SlimCleaner 4 with software update checking SlimCleaner is a popular PC maintenance and optimization software for Windows that can best be compared to programs such as Advanced System Care or Comodo System Cleaner.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OolFiy
Why you need to check permissions before installing extensions in Chrome Whenever you install an extension in the Chrome browser, you see a prompt that you have to confirm before the extension gets installed.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OolvrC
Microsoft’s minimum certificate key length update may cause technical issues Microsoft will release an automatic update for Windows on October 9, 2012 that is making a minimum certificate key length of 1024 bits mandatory for digital certificates.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OolkfX
Microsoft Security Bulletins For September 2012 Released Yes it is that day of the month again. Microsoft will release security updates for all of its products later today. The updates resolve issues in Microsoft Server Software and Microsoft Developer Tools only, so that most Windows users won’t need to install updates at all on their systems.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ool2Ws
Godaddy is down! Sorry for the downtime, connection issues You may have noticed connection issues to websites such as ghacks.net and thousands of others in the past couple of hours. Responsibility for this has been claimed by a Twitter user associated with Anonymous.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qa20ll
Reduce Gaming Latency (Ping) in Windows When I connect to game servers I usually do not have a bad ping, provided that automatic match making is not connecting me to a server in Australia, Japan or the US (I’m from Germany).

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TKNQrG
Thunderbird 15.0.1 email client released Mozilla has just released an update for the email client Thunderbird that brings the version of the program to 15.0.1.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/TKNnWn
EarthLink Plans Fixed and Mobile Wireless Services Over Clearwire's 4G Networks EarthLink will resell wireless broadband on Clearwire's WiMax network starting early next year and later will launch a service based on that company's planned LTE network.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QzxPWg
GoDaddy goes down, Anonymous takes credit Popular domain name registrar and Web and email hosting provider GoDaddy is experiencing a severe outage, one that appears to have taken out not only its hosted services, but even those websites that have registered their domain names through GoDaddy.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QzuW7S
Toys R Us to launch its own tablet for children Toys R Us Inc is launching its own tablet designed for children, to be sold exclusively at its stores, as the world's largest specialty toy retailer gears up to battle online and big box retailers in the holiday season.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/Qzu5nM
Enable the Built-in PDF Reader in Firefox 15 Mozilla recently rolled out Firefox 15, the latest version of the browser in their new rapid-release schedule.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QyUkoQ
Password manager KeePass 2.20 released Regular readers of this blog know that KeePass is my go to software for all things that have to do with passwords.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ruhlie
Google Chrome: Control website permissions from the address bar If you are using Google Chrome 23 or higher you may have noticed a change to how website permissions are controlled in the browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RugRZh
JavaRa 2.0: manage Java on your PC JavaRa is a sweet little program that allows you to manage Java on your PC. It comes with functionality to uninstall old Java versions, update the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to the latest version, install the latest version of Java, and perform a number of other features related to Oracle’s Java technology.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/P2ZCJh
Google acquires online virus scanning service Virustotal My go to service for scanning individual files online for malicious code is VirusTotal. It scans files that you upload to it with 42 different antivirus engines that include the majority of popular engines of the industry.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/P2ZmKr
How to protect your privacy on the Internet With UK parties proposing to monitor the activities of all country residents come new fears of an 1984-esque government that with a single mouse click can find out everything there is to know about its citizens.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QlOv3B
How to uninstall the AVG Security Toolbar AVG Technologies AVG Security Toolbar is included in the company’s latest range of security software, as a standalone application, and as a third party offer included in the installer of software such as TuneUp Ztilities, SlimCleaner or PowerIso.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QlNSXS
Flash vulnerability: No Internet Explorer 10 update until October Microsoft will introduce the final version Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8 with no word on availability of the browser in previous versions of the Windows operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QhO3xI
Opera now blocks third party source addon installations Opera users who try to install an extension in the browser from a third party source website receive a notification for some time now that acts as a warning page.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qh6zGp
Foxit Reader 5.4 update released Foxit Reader is a popular Adobe Reader alternative that users like to install if they prefer faster pdf loading times or simply do not want to keep up with the security vulnerabilities that are discovered regularly in Adobe’s pdf reader.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qh4la2
AVG Antivirus Free 2013 download available AVG Technologies today has released the annual update for their AVG Free Antivirus 2013 security application for Windows introducing new and improved features as well as a new user interface.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qh3N3X
Firefox 15.0.1 update ready, expect distribution soon You may have read about the unfortunate bug in Mozilla Firefox 15 stable that is preventing the browser’s private browsing mode from working correctly.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qh3kPd
WordPress 3.4.2 Security Update released Most of the blogs that I own or administrate run a copy of the blogging script WordPress, and one common task is to take care of blog software and plugin updates.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qh2W3f
Best Tools to Stop Gadget Thieves A laptop is stolen every 53 seconds in the United States. To put that in perspective, one out of every ten laptops will be lost or stolen. So how do you prevent your device from joining these horrifying statistics?

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/Q15whP
Attention: Firefox 15+ Private Browsing mode broken Firefox’s private browsing mode is a special mode of the browser where no information about visited websites are recorded in the browser or on the computer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q15eYn
List of Chrome URLs and their purpose Just like Mozilla Firefox or Opera, Google Chrome ships with a set of internal URLs that you can access for various purposes.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PZs4zx
Microsoft releases Windows Server 2012 Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday is releasing the first major update to its server operating system since 2009, a prelude to releasing Windows 8 to consumers in October.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/PZrUbn
Time to Give Java the Boot? The programming language has become one of the weakest links in a PC’s and Mac's defenses against external threats, and is slowly -- and rightly -- being abandoned.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PElmf9
Monitor all Windows Explorer file activities We here at Ghacks Technology News have reviewed several applications in the past that allow you to monitor specific areas of the operating system. SpyMe Tools for instance lets you monitor the installation process of a software, while Reg from App and What Changed keep an eye on the system’s Registry.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PEl3Bb
Windows 7 overtakes XP as Mac OS X passes Vista More than three years since its release, Windows 7 is finally the world's most popular desktop operating system, according to new figures.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/PEfh2t
Hackers Shift Tactics, Study Warns Cybercriminals are shifting tactics to bypass corporations' first line of defense, which typically include antivirus software, firewalls, and intrusion prevention systems, a study released last week shows.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PEf3by
Linux Users Targeted by Password-Stealing 'Wirenet' Trojan Malware writers are interested in Linux after all. Russian security firm Dr Web has reported finding a shadowy Trojan that sets out to steal passwords on the open source platform as well as OS X.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PEeNJF
Office 2013 on Windows RT -- business as usual The first tablets bearing Windows RT are now appearing in reviewers' hands, along with Office 2013 optimized for touch. While showing promise, the handling of touch operation seems to be business as usual for Office use on tablets.

Read more at: http://zd.net/O4Mvfw
Parallels 8 retuned for Mountain Lion, Windows 8 The virtualization software for Macs now can marry OS X's dictation to Windows apps or Windows notifications to OS X. Also: Better Windows 8 screen-edge controls.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/O4Math
Play classic Atari arcade games in your browser Ah Atari, what a big name they were back in the beginning days of computer gaming.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/O4LRyH
Gmail: advanced search autocomplete predictions and three labs graduations If you are accessing your Gmail account in a web browser you have probably noticed that Google has been busy lately adding new features to its Google Mail service.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/O4LDaS
Warning: Java still vulnerable after patch Oracle pushed out a patch a few days ago that resolves the security issue In Java 7 Patch 6 and earlier. Polish-based security company Security Explorations however discovered a new vulnerability in Oracle’s patched version that attackers can exploit to get out of the Java sandbox on vulnerable systems to execute code on the operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/O4LtAa
Oracle fixes bugs in Java that expose PCs to hackers Oracle Corp repaired bugs in its widely used Java software on Thursday, several days after several computer security experts found flaws that they said opened PCs to attacks by hackers.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/NFplGK
Opera 12.02 final released, download now Norwegian company Opera Software has released a new version of its desktop web browser Opera to the public.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NFpaLG
Java 7 Update 7 emergency patch released You have probably heard about the latest Java vulnerability that is being exploited in the wild right now. The vulnerability, made public a few days ago, is affecting Java 7.06 and earlier.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NFp46K
The New 'Pure GNOME' Ubuntu Linux Is Coming This Fall Earlier this month fans of the good old GNOME 2 desktop environment got some exciting news when it became clear that a version of Ubuntu Linux featuring the classic desktop was in the works.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NFmwFQ
Thunderbird 15 Delivers Security Fixes and Chat Support Along with launching Firefox 15, Mozilla on Tuesday also rolled out the latest version of its free and open source Thunderbird email client.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OKzS6h
PasteAsFile: Save Windows Clipboard entries to files in Windows Explorer PasteAsFile is a free program for Windows that you can use to save Clipboard entries right from within Windows Explorer. It is a specialized application that you may like for its versatility.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OvXrOb
Oracle Knew About Currently Exploited Java Vulnerabilities for Months, Researcher Says Oracle knew since April about the existence of the two unpatched Java 7 vulnerabilities that are currently being exploited in malware attacks, according to Adam Gowdiak, the founder and CEO of Polish security firm Security Explorations.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OvWVzI
Are You Being Monitored At Work? A 2011 survey found that over half of US employers are monitoring their employees' computer usage. How can you find out if you are one of them? And if you are, what should you do about it?

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/OvShlo
Protect your WordPress blog with two-factor authentication As a webmaster I know that it is important to keep a close eye on the security of web properties. This includes updating scripts to new versions when they came out, making sure files and directories have the correct access permissions, and that all users with access to the site have selected secure passwords.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SSnEwn
Sony to exit PC-use optical drives, say reports Sony is getting out the optical disk business as it tries to restructure and shift to businesses that are more relevant to current device trends.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/OI6ltR
Lexmark to dump inkjet business, shares jump Printer maker Lexmark International Inc said it will stop making inkjet printers and focus on its more profitable imaging and software businesses, sending its shares up as much as 20 percent.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/SOAVG6
Thunderbird 15.0 final released Since Firefox and Thunderbird use a synced release schedule, it comes as no surprise that the stable version of the Thunderbird email client has been updated today as well.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SOAFHg
Six Ways to Protect Against the New Actively Exploited Java Vulnerability Security researchers have proposed several methods for users to protect their computers from ongoing attacks that target a new and yet-to-be-patched vulnerability in all versions of Java Runtime Environment 7.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SOAfkd
Unpatched Java Vulnerability Exploited in Blackhole-based Attacks Attacks targeting an unpatched vulnerability in the latest versions of Java 7 have become widespread after an exploit for the new flaw was integrated into the popular Blackhole attack toolkit, according to security researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OI5mKh
Latest Java software opens PCs to hackers: experts Computer security firms are urging PC users to disable Java software in their browsers, saying the widely installed, free software from Oracle Corp opens machines to hacker attacks and there is no way to defend against them.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/PWBACT
Reasons why you do not want Windows 8 After giving you ten reasons why you should upgrade to Windows 8, it is now time to give you reasons why you may not want to upgrade to Windows 8.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PWAJSD
Security app RogueKiller 8.0 with graphical user interface Today’s release of RogueKiller 8.0 comes with a new and improved graphical user interface that makes the program more appealing and easier to work with.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PWAqax
SuperAntiSpyware Trojan.Agent/Gen-Kryptik false positives If you are running the popular security program SuperAntiSpyware on your PC system you may have received a notification by the program in the last two hours or so that malicious files have been identified on the computer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Nym108
Firefox 15 launches tomorrow, downloads already available If everything goes as planned, Mozilla will released an update for Firefox 14.0.1 that will bring the version of the Internet browser to 15.0.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Nyl1ZZ
AMD Speeds up Virtual Desktop Delivery Through New Graphics Cards Advanced Micro Devices is looking to speed up the delivery of virtual desktops through servers with its latest FirePro S9000 and S7000 graphics cards, which the company started shipping on Monday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NykFlX
Macs at Risk From 'Super Dangerous' Java Zero-day Hackers are exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Java 7, security experts said today.

David Maynor, CTO of Errata Security, confirmed that the Metasploit exploit -- which was published less than 24 hours after the bug was found -- is effective against Java 7 installed on OS X Mountain Lion.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NykxD2
Display the browsing history of multiple browsers with BrowsingHistoryView for Windows Want to look up a web page again that you visited in the past week but can’t remember the web browser that you used to access it?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/R1T2T2
Learn the Basics of Ice Cream Sandwich with the Android 4.0 Cheat Sheet So your company just snapped up your aging BlackBerry and handed you an Android phone. Or you got fed up with Apple (it happens) and decided to switch platforms.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RfwwKG
Mozilla Firefox 17: better add-on security but some add-ons may break Additional security is always a good thing, right? Mozilla is currently working on a patch that is improving the add-on security of the Firefox web browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Rfv5Mo
Adobe Releases Six Critical Patches for Flash, AIR Adobe Systems released fixes on Tuesday for six critical vulnerabilities affecting its Flash multimedia application and AIR runtime, five of which could allow for remote code execution on a system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Pvl39q
Adobe Flash Player 11.4 released Adobe today has released Flash Player 11.4.402.265 to the public for all supported operating systems. What’s interesting for Firefox users is that Adobe appears to have fixed the losing focus bug in the browser that we have reported on yesterday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PbKZnm
How to protect your credit card with RFID chip from unauthorized scans According to latest estimates, more than 1 billion credit cards and IDs have been released with an RFID chip in the recent past. You may have heard about the new payment form that many larger retailers in the US support.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Pazj4l
Linux's '31 Flavors of Fun' Project: 19 Distros and Counting Fans of Linux may recall the “31 Flavors of Fun” project I wrote about last month through which ambitious developer Todd Robinson planned to “create, and release, a complete desktop operating system each and every day for the period of 31 days” over the course of August.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QjMA9n
How to get the classic Start menu back in Windows 8 RTM Three free utilities can replicate the classic Start button and menu in the RTM (release-to-manufacturing) version of Windows 8.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/QjMcYy
Ethernet's future: How fast is fast enough? Your PC may not need a faster network, but overall data usage on the Web is doubling every year. The big question: Can the venerable Ethernet standard handle a terabit per second?

Read more at: http://cnet.co/QjLZ7Q
Enable or disable Chrome extensions for specific websites Extensions in the Google Chrome web browser can either be enabled or disabled once they have been installed.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NYzqiF
Windows Upgrade Offer: all you need to know If you are buying a Windows PC with Windows 7 between June 2 and January 31 you may be eligible for a low-cost upgrade to Microsoft’s soon to be released operating system Windows 8.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NYzbEj
Antivirus Suites Struggle to Block Exploit-based Attacks Many antivirus suites are incapable of effectively blocking malware attacks against two recent and serious Microsoft vulnerabilities despite the fact that real exploits have been circulating since June, testing organization NSS Labs has found

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RaEjcD
Coming Soon: A 'Pure GNOME' Ubuntu Linux Linux fans in general and Ubuntu users in particular are already well-acquainted with the many desktop environments that are available for distributions of the free and open source operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/S7wnuj
A Sinister New Breed of Malware is Growing New threats like Shamoon, Flame, and Stuxnet represent a concerning evolution for malware attacks.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PrLE6E
Grab your 25 Gigabytes of Box.com online storage right now With cloud storage being offered by many companies, it often boils down to a person’s history with a specific company and the features set that becomes available after sign up.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PrLrQS
DiskCheckup: get warnings before a hard disk drive fails A failing hard disk drive can have severe consequences for the data that is stored on the drive. In the worst case, you end up with an unusable hard drive and data loss that even the best recovery programs can’t restore.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PrLdcj
Why I do not like Firefox’s new Download Panel If you are running a recent Nightly build of the Firefox web browser you have probably noticed that downloads are now displayed in the interface directly instead of a download window as they have been previously.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OCnRT6
Mozilla Firefox Release Schedule With four different versions of the Firefox web browser available at any time, plus special builds that pop up every now and then and ESR versions, it is quite difficulty to keep up with the browser’s rapid release schedule.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OCntnE
What you'll find on your new Microsoft SkyDrive page Microsoft has treated its SkyDrive users to a host of enhancements. So what's new about the site?

Read more at: http://cnet.co/SoAPAs
AT&T Suffers DNS Outage Some AT&T customers are being affected by a failure in the carrier's DNS (Domain Name System) servers that began Wednesday morning.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SoAoGy
Adobe Removing Flash for Android From Google Play Bye bye, Adobe Flash for Android.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SozZnx
Windows 8 Enterprise 90-day trial version Microsoft has released the Windows 8 RTM release on MSDN and Technet a few hours ago from where it can be downloaded by active subscribers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Soz9qQ
Firefox’s new tab page performance improvements incoming Mozilla introduced Firefox’s new tab page at the end of January 2012. It basically was the company’s take on Opera’s Speed Dial page, displaying nine frequently visited pages with options to pin select pages to the interface to have them available at all times.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/SowoFO
Mysterious Font Left by Malware Befuddles The most famous -- and mysterious -- font (yes, we're talking typeface) in the information security world right now is Palida Narrow.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Njgmfn
Microsoft and Adobe Keep IT Busy with Critical Security Patches t’s Patch Tuesday again. This month is busier than most because on top of Microsoft’s security bulletins, Adobe is also releasing updates for Reader and Acrobat.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RSx2zA
How to clean a Dorifel infection on your PC The Dorifel worm has hit computer systems in the Netherlands and to a lesser degree other regions of the world for the last six days or so.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RedWov
Microsoft Patches Critical Security Holes in Windows, Office, IE Microsoft has fixed 26 vulnerabilities in its software products, including several considered critical, the company said on Tuesday in its monthly security patch report.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RednLk
Add tabs to Windows Explorer Tabs have been an integral part of web browsers for a long time. Before that, users had to open a new browser window when they wanted to open multiple sites at once on their system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OovWdX
EaseUS Todo Backup Free 5.0 released Windows users have so much choice when it comes to backup software, that it is sometimes hard to keep an overview of the best solution for a particular computer system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OovufR
Configuring Outlook.com for maximum security and privacy We have reviewed Microsoft’s new mail service Outlook.com a few days ago, and even explained how you can migrate your Gmail emails and contacts to the new service.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/P4ZpbN
Free Gauss Detection Tools Offered Two security organizations have released online tools that let Windows users check for possible infections by Gauss, the newly-revealed cyber surveillance malware thought to have been built by one or more governments.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MN0c2i
Microsoft’s Windows 8 terminology If you think that Microsoft’s terminology or choice of words in regards to Windows 8 is confusing, you are not the only one.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/P9AC3M
How to migrate your email from Gmail.com to Outlook.com Microsoft launched the new outlook.com mail interface on the last day of July 2012 with the intention to replace its traditional email service Hotmail with the new service eventually.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MoNYLP
Apple's iOS 6: What We Know Apple didn’t lay out all its secret plans for iOS 6 during the company’s sneak peek at the next version of iOS in June.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PM8923
SUSE Linux Outlines Its Plans for Windows 8 Secure Boot Well the Secure Boot saga keeps going on and on as Linux distributions far and wide decide how they're going to work around Windows 8's planned restrictions, and this week we heard from yet another project.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PM6xoY
Microsoft Outlook.com Doesn't Play Well With Android Mobile One of the hot new features of Microsofts upgraded and renamed email service Outlook.com -- that devices without Office loaded onto them can open Office attachments in the cloud via a browser wont work with Android mobile devices.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PM6gm1
No DVD playback on Windows 8? Try these free alternatives So Microsoft has decided to remove DVD playback from Windows Media Player in Windows 8, which basically removes a feature from the player that has been there under Windows 7.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PM5UvL
10 Tips for Gmail and Google Calendar From remote calendar access to auto-declining appointments, here are 10 tips and tricks that will keep you focused, organized and productive.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QmPsmo
Gauss Malware: What You Need to Know Another day, another scary computer virus tearing through the Middle East. The latest piece of malware is called Gauss, and it's designed to steal bank account credentials while gathering as much information about the infected machines as possible.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QmP9b5
ACDSee Free available for download. Free Windows image viewer The image viewer ACDSee has been around for a long time.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QmOJl6
After Stuxnet, Flame and Duqu comes Gauss, another highly-targeted malware If you are into math, computers or computer games, you have probably come into contact with the Gauss name. If you are living in the Middle East, or are one of the unfortunate souls in other regions of the world that have been targeted, you’d also may have come into contact with a newly discovered form of malware known as Gauss.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QmNXEM
Restart Windows Explorer explorer.exe with a shortcut Windows sometimes displays a restart prompt when you install new software or update existing programs and applications on the system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QKcmbA
Virus found in Mideast can spy on bank transactions A new cyber surveillance virus has been found in the Middle East that can spy on banking transactions and steal login information for social networking sites, email and instant messaging, according to a leading computer security firm, Kaspersky Lab.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/QK9Qlw
iPhone running out of space? Use PhoneClean to free up disk space Your iPhone is constantly low on disk space and you do not really know what to do about it? Does it feel like it is losing space even though you are not installing new apps or media on the phone?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QK9ueD
LibreOffice 3.6 released, download via web or torrent The developers of LibreOffice have just released version 3.6 of the Office program. It is a lesser known alternative to Microsoft Office and OpenOffice that is available as a web download or as a torrent.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/O5FV55
Windows Essentials 2012 now available With all the name changing that is going on it is sometimes hard to keep an overview of what is going on. Microsoft has just released Windows Essentials 2012, which many of you probably know as Windows Live Essentials instead.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NCXx5d
Six Key Improvements in Bodhi Linux 2.0.1 t's been less than a year since I first wrote about Bodhi Linux 1.2.0, but already the popular, Ubuntu-based Linux distribution has reached its second major milestone.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/P0qhL0
OpenCandy explained: what you need to know about the technology OpenCandy is a technology that software companies can add to installers to earn money from optional software offers that are based on a system scan and the user’s location in the world.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Mp0mqv
Olympics fans use the Web to sneak around tape delay When the Olympics opening ceremony began last week, Erik Thauvin did what many tech-savvy sports fans would do after learning about the tape delay: search for a live stream of the event.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/MoZQJ7
Microsoft Net Framework Verification Tool update brings 4.5 support When you are experiencing issues with applications that depend on Microsoft’s Net Framework, you have a few options at hand to troubleshoot those issues.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OUZOg4
Hackers Increasingly Target Small Businesses, Symantec Warns The percentage of targeted attacks aimed at small businesses doubled in the first half of 2012, an indication that hackers are dedicating more resources to what they see as the most vulnerable marks, a major security vendor said.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OUZs9q
Burn videos to DVD with Freemake Video Converter Would not it be great if the process of burning video files to DVD would be as easy as copying regular files on a data DVD?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/O0pIxY
Mastering Mountain Lion and Plenty More Now that you and Mountain Lion have had the chance to get to know each other a bit better, the pressure's off: No more first date jitters.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T9U6YE
Defcon Wi-Fi Hack Called No Threat to Enterprise WLANs Enterprise Wi-Fi networks can keep using WPA2 security safely, despite a recent Defcon exploit that has been widely, but wrongly, interpreted as rendering it useless.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T9U0As
How Did Apple Allow Hackers to Access iCloud Account? The Internet is abuzz this weekend as a result of the Gizmodo Twitter account getting hijacked. That incident was traced back to the hack of an Apple iCloud account--allegedly accomplished through social engineering.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T9TLoX
MAC: Destroy Internet Tracking Files With PrivacyScan The following review is part of MacworldsGemFest 2012 series. Every weekday from mid June through mid August, the Macworld staff will use the Mac Gems blog to briefly cover a favorite free or low-cost program. Visit the Mac Gems homepage for a list of past Mac Gems.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T9TEJV
Back Up Safely With SpiderOak The SpiderOak secure online backup service protects you by encrypting your data with keys that only you know.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T9Tjad
Twitter Takes Social Spotlight at London Olympics Twitter is basking in the Olympic spotlight, with athletes tweeting about the games and fans around the world offering their support on the social network.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T9T5Qn
So what is a torrent exactly? After having received numerous emails in the past that asked me to explain what a torrent is, I finally decided to write this little guide to help everyone who wants to know more about torrents, how they work and how you can use them.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T9Si21
Microsoft Blames Last Week's Azure Outage on a Configuration Error A system configuration mistake caused the outage that affected Windows Azure customers in western Europe last week, according to Microsoft.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NUaRI8
Convert Files online with Online-Convert.com I prefer to convert files locally whenever possible as it is giving me more control and flexibility. The biggest advantage that I see is that I do not have to upload one of my files to another service to convert it, which can be especially important in a business environment.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OBsIlZ
Add Search the Internet to the Windows Start Menu The experts among you may already know that there is an option to add Internet search options to the start menu of previous versions of Windows.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OBqTpa
Firefox: Add the favicon back to the urlbar With Firefox 14 came a change to the browser’s address bar that many Firefox users did not agree with.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NaO4UY
LibreOffice 3.5.5 Addresses Multiple Arbitrary Code Execution Vulnerabilities Version 3.5.5 of the LibreOffice free personal productivity suite contains fixes for multiple security vulnerabilities that could be exploited to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the active user, according to The Document Foundation -- the organization overseeing the software's development.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OKz7fE
Shortcuts for Gmail: Learn Gmail hotkeys on the fly in Chrome Remember KeyRocket? A free for personal use application for Windows that is helping you learn keyboard shortcuts while you use supported programs such as Microsoft Office or Windows Explorer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T3G4aV
Amazon launches Instant Video app for Apple's iPad Amazon.com Inc launched a video application for Apple Inc's iPad on Wednesday, the latest effort by the world's largest retailer to get its digital content on as many gadgets as possible.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/T3EYvQ
Google's Chrome adds support for Retina Display Been wondering when Chrome was going to support Apple's Retina Display? Wonder no more. Also, Google throws a few more features into the latest Chrome release.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/OERSBg
Outlook.com Snares One Million Sign-ups in First 6 Hours More than 1 million people registered with the new Outlook.com email service on opening day, Microsoft said yesterday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/T3Eaah
Microsoft previews Hotmail successor, Outlook.com Redmond is rolling out a preview of a new e-mail service that combines elements of Exchange and Hotmail into a Metro-influenced client.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/MhIRhZ
5 Online Privacy Intrusions You Don't Know About, and Should Governments, retailers, wireless carriers, and others collect and use your personal data in ways you may not be aware of. Here's what you can do about it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MPClPj
Move the Firefox button to another location in the browser I have to admit that I do not really like the Firefox button that Mozilla at some point in development added to the browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Obnk5W
New Mac Trojan Targets Specific Individuals French security firm Intego discovered a new Mac Trojan horse this week that is being used to target specific individuals.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LVe6xK
Bypass can’t be opened messages on Mac OS X Mountain Lion Apple has integrated a new security feature into the newest version of its Mac OS X operating system that acts pretty much the same way as Microsoft’s SmartFilter technology.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NbgR9v
Steam account limited? Find out why and how to gain access to all Steam features Steam is probably the most popular gaming platform on the PC right now offering not only a game store and means to launch games from a single client but also community elements that include a friend system, groups and chat among other things.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Nbg20t
Safari for Windows discontinued? With Apple’s latest update for Mac OS X came Safari 6, an update to the default system web browser. And just like Microsoft does with Internet Explorer 9 and Internet Explorer 10, it looks as if the new browser version is exclusively tied to that operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NAgafE
iTunes Made Easy In this installment, I answer a number of questions on various topics: Podcasts, smart playlists, streaming audio, and what happens to your iTunes Store content when youre gone.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NbdnUp
Google Search: left sidebar moves to the top Google according to several sources in the US is currently rolling out a layout change for Google Search that is moving the left sidebar to the top of the results page. The left sidebar was introduced several years ago by the company to provide users with advanced search filtering options.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NN2bQV
Twitter Suffers Malware Spam Outbreak A widespread spam attack linking to malware has broken out on Twitter, according to the security firm Sophos.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NN22gm
Three Ways to Make Outlook Easier to Live With I've made no secret of my distaste for Microsoft Outlook. That said, it's a required piece of software for a lot of business users -- and even a desirable one for some.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NN1VSf
How to check your website’s tags on OpenDNS As a website owner you have to cope with a lot of situations. One of them is the classification of your website by services such as Web of Trust, business filtering solutions or OpenDNS.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NMU331
Google admits it did not delete Street View data Google Inc said on Friday it had not kept its promise to delete all the personal data, such as emails, its Street View cars collected in Britain and other countries in 2010.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/QnfJXN
Delete Google Chrome browsing data on exit Google Chrome offers its users several options when it comes to clearing the browsing data. One of the quickest ways is to use the Ctlr-Shift-Del shortcut...

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QnfADI
Mac OS X Targeted By Clever New Trojan A new Mac malware threat has been discovered. The OSX/Crisis Trojan is an insidious clever threat. Mac users should take steps to defend against this new malware, and proactively defend against future threats while they’re at it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qnf5d2
Currently for Chrome: weather and time on new tab pages re you one of those users who is not using the information that the Google Chrome browser displays on its new tab page? Or only infrequently?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MJ7S1w
Three Ways to Make Gmail Easier to Live With Making the move from Outlook (or another mail client) to Gmail can be jarring. It means giving up the folder system you've used for years, getting accustomed to an entirely new interface, and so on.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MJ7Fvl
Mountain Lion Upgrades Can Take Up to an Hour Apple reseller says Mountain Lion upgrades can take from 13 to 57 minutes, depending on the computer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MJ7m3B
New Mac operating system goes on sale Wednesday Apple Inc. will release its new operating system for Mac computers on Wednesday, with features borrowed from mobile devices and a tighter integration with online file storage.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/OYZ59G
Stuxnet thwarted by control code update German engineering giant Siemens has issued a fix for the software loopholes used by the notorious Stuxnet worm.

Read more at: http://bbc.in/MVs2UA
Windows Malware Hides in iOS App Windows malware slipped past Apple's eye and has been found tucked into software available on the company's iOS App Store.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/QhYyHl
Microsoft explains how Windows 8 smokes Windows 7 Microsoft outlines Windows 8 acceleration improvements vs. Windows 7. Faster rendering of text, geometry, and images are explained.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/QhYbwj
Hideman is a free VPN service with mutliple server locations A virtual private network (vpn) can be helpful in a number of ways. First, you can use it to hide your computer’s IP address when you are connecting to servers on the Internet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NUDErT
Webroot System Analyzer: Analyze your PC in less than 2 minutes I like to run PC auditing tools every now and then as they can provide me with insight that I may have missed or noticed to late otherwise.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NUDrop
How Iran Silences Its Citizens on the Web Imagine you live in a country where there is heavily restricted access to the Internet. Websites deemed objectionable are blocked. Even when government censors don’t directly vet content, writers practice a high degree of self censorship.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/MjG6b8
Tens of thousands receive same death threat via text message ome may find texts from their friends or loved ones annoying at times, but brief, pointless messages are nothing compared to seeing a death threat pop up on your smartphone screen.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/MjFOBd
Cisco to cut about 1,300 jobs Network equipment maker Cisco Systems said on Monday that it plans to cut about 1,300 jobs as part of ongoing efforts to restructure the company.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/MjFGRW
How to disable or remove Google Chrome plugins The Google Chrome web browser – just like Firefox and other browsers – integrates plugins automatically that it finds on the system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MjFwKq
Monitor your Internet Bandwidth with Cucusoft Net Guard Monitoring the bandwidth usage of a computer system can be beneficial in several ways. You can use the data to make sure you stay under a monthly limit, which may be very helpful if you are on a limited plan that is only providing you with a set amount of free traffic per month.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MjFjH6
Speed up Google Chrome, Chromium or SRWare Iron with IronCleaner There is not a lot that you can do when Google Chrome starts to slow down after you have used the web browser for a certain period of time.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MjE6zx
Cybersecurity Bill Rhetoric Heats Up in Washington Computer vulnerabilities and how they can affect Americans' security are on the agenda for the U.S. Senate, and strong rhetoric is being used to support new legislation.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NWyzCV
Use Msconfig to log which drivers get loaded during system boot Nothing really beats the excellent Autoruns when it comes to analyzing the files that get loaded during a system’s boot process.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NWuuPj
Three Reasons You Should Switch to Office 365 Office 2013 will soon be here, along with a new and improved version of the cloud-based Office 365. If you’re looking to upgrade, you have to decide whether the traditional desktop version of Office is the way to go, or if Office 365 is a better fit for your needs.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MhyPsq
Spam Halved With Grum Takedown An international effort by spam fighters has taken down the infamous Grum botnet, slashing in half the worldwide amount of spam e-mail.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MhyGoH
AMD has scary things to say about the PC market The chief executive of Advanced Micro Devices, the second largest PC processor supplier, had some pretty dire things to say about the state of the PC market.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/MAYQDV
Clean-up Windows Explorer menu items with CCleaner The more applications you install, the more likely the chance that your Windows Explorer menu fills up with context menu items.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MAYm0i
Firefox 16 What’s New Mozilla has just updated all Firefox channels, brining Firefox Stable to version 14.0.1, and moving the beta, aurora and nightly versions of the browser to versions 15, 16 and 17 respectively.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NIGYsQ
U.S. Charges Russian With Launching DoS Attacks Against Amazon.com A Russian man was arrested in Cyprus this week on charges the he carried a number of denial-of-service attacks on Amazon.com in 2008.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NEkmIH
Three cheers for Android browser competition There are reasons iOS and Windows RT hobble third-party browsers, but CNET's Stephen Shankland prefers the open approach Google takes with Android.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/NEk3xp
Jamendo Radio Relaunches, free Internet Radio with download option There is definitely no shortage when it comes to radio stations streaming their music and program on the Internet. You have got the Shoutcast directory for instance with thousands of stations, many regional stations that stream their shows on the Internet, as well as Internet-only radio station.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NEjFPt
Configuring Chrome’s Click to play feature I just read David Pierce’s How to fix Chrome in ten seconds on The Verge blog where he described how he got rid of crashes and slow downs in Google’s Chrome browser by activating the Click to play feature in it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NEdQBI
Linux comes to ultrabooks: Dell to preload OS on XPS 13 The open-source operating system is going to land this fall on one of Dell's best ultrabook offerings.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/NEdISL
Bugs & Fixes: iTunes Match Problems and How to Address Them Today's article looks at two symptoms that continue to harass iTunes Match users. It is a follow-up to my column, from last November, on "three essential" iTunes Match troubleshooting tips.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Mtc4nM
VLC 2.0.3 is now available for all supported operating systems The update to VLC 2.0.3 is a strange one. It has been released exclusively for Apple Macintosh systems yesterday introducing support for the latest version of the Mac OS X operating system Mountain Lion.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qi45w7
Major memory improvements coming to Firefox 15 Firefox 15 stable will be released in about six weeks and it will bring with it major memory improvements that could once and for all do away with the browser’s memory hog image.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Qeaqc3
XP and Vista users, no Office 2013 for you The new Office suite will support only Windows 7 and 8 on the desktop, leaving users of older Windows versions out of the running.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Qe9UuH
Firefox 14.0.1 available, Why there won’t be a Firefox 14.0 release Confusing times for users of the Firefox stable channel. The current version of the web browser, Firefox 13.0.1, will be updated in the next 24 hour period to Firefox 14.0.1 and not Firefox 14.0 which the majority of users may have expected.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OcARw9
Google Brings Antarctica to the Warmth of Your Home or Office The way Google and the University of Minnesota see it, most people would rather visit Antarctica in 360 degrees rather than -74 degrees, the temperature today at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ocq8Sm
Linux Developers Step Up to the Secure Boot Challenge The prospect of Windows 8's planned Secure Boot restrictions has caused no end of controversy in the Linux world, where distributors and users of the free and open source operating system have been struggling to figure out just what it's all going to mean for those who don't embrace Windows.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q3npym
Comcast buys Microsoft stake in MSNBC.com Comcast Corp, the parent company of NBC, has bought out Microsoft Corp's 50 percent stake in MSNBC.com for a reported $300 million to assume full control of the news website.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/Q3bjp5
Microsoft's jazzed up Office to run on tablets, cloud The newest version of Office will make better use of the cloud and social networks, and CEO Steve Ballmer says an uncompromised version will run on tablets.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Q3b5hD
MycView is a tiny fast Image Viewer for Windows When it comes to image viewers, sometimes speed is more important than functionality. If you want speed and functionality, you are probably picking a program like Fast Picture Viewer which is available as a free and professional version.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q3aQD6
Panda Cloud Antivirus 2.0 released Panda Software has just released version 2.0 of their Panda Cloud Antivirus application. Both the free and pro version of the security application are available for download at the Panda Cloud Antivirus website.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q3aoor
Skype Glitch Sends Messages to the Wrong Contacts Skype, a division of Microsoft, confirmed on Monday that a glitch in its software has led to instant messages being shared with unintended parties.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q38ynv
LinkedIn Unveils Redesigned Home Page LinkedIn unveiled an expected redesign of its home page on Monday, highlighting a cleaner interface and features intended to make updated content easier to find.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Q38kwO
Firefox 16 now with Address Bar Word Highlighting Sometimes it is the little things that are worth talking about. When you enter a phrase or word in Firefox’s address bar, you receive a listing with suggestions in a menu that opens up automatically.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MseViU
Why are People still selecting Weak Passwords? If you have followed the security news in the past days you have surely noticed that several sites had been hacked in one way or the other. One of them, the Yahoo Voices service, even saved user passwords and information in plain text, which is one of the biggest no-nos in the development world.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MbeuY0
Neglect Your Website, Annoy Your Customers Research by U.K. analyst 1&1 Internet has shown that people are still annoyed when they can't access company websites because they're "down for maintenance."

Read more at: http://bit.ly/O0V864
Yahoo Patches Password Leak Yahoo says it has fixed the flaw that allowed hackers to steal more than 450,000 passwords from one of its many services.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NpqO7i
Dell's Ubuntu Laptop Program Enters Beta, 'Blows Away' Expectations Fans of Ubuntu Linux may recall a project launched by Dell back in May to create an Ubuntu-loaded laptop specifically for developers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Nn60yj
Cure Sick Windows PCs with This New Linux 'Fix-on-a-Stick' It's no secret that Linux offers numerous compelling security advantages, including the infinitely useful ability to help fix Windows PCs when they get infected by malware.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Nn5dgQ
Microsoft's next Office: How, when will it arrive? Office 365 prepaid cards for sale at Walmart? That could be just one of the new distribution strategies Microsoft has up its sleeve for its next wave of Office 15 products.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/N7Nvyn
Local Apache Web Server Distribution XAMPP 1.8.0 released The open source software XAMPP provides webmasters with an easy way of installing an Apache web server on a computer system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/N7NkDl
Apple returns to environmental ratings list Apple Inc. said Friday that it is putting its products back on an environmental ratings registry, saying it made a mistake in removing them from the list.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/N7N3QG
Dropbox alternative Cubby now with invite system for extra space Remember Cubby? The file synchronization service launched back in April with features that Dropbox and many of the other file syncing solutions did not offer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/N7MTbX
Apple Scrambles to Patch App Store Hack A Russian hacker exploits an iOS flaw to trick Apple's App Store into giving free in-app purchases.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/N7MKVX
Microsoft Malware Prevention Troubleshooter now available Is your computer configured in the best possible way security-wise? If you are a tech-savvy users you probably won’t have any troubles confirming that it is, but what if you are inexperienced?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LlY1kw
Symantec anti-virus update makes some PCs inoperable A bug in an update of Symantec Corp's anti-virus software caused some Windows PCs to crash, making machines inoperable until they were serviced in an embarrassing episode that angered some customers.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/SkhX7K
Oracle to Release 88 Security Fixes Oracle is planning to deliver 88 security fixes next Tuesday for a wide range of its products, according to a pre-release announcement posted to its website on Thursday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LMN64S
Yahoo Security Breach Shocks Experts A Yahoo security breach that exposed 450,000 usernames and passwords from a site on the huge web portal indicates that the company failed to take even basic precautions to protect the data.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LMMUT4
Microsoft SkyDrive for Windows updated to 16.4.6003.0710 Microsoft is currently pushing out an upgrade for its SkyDrive for Windows desktop client that users of the service can install on their systems to synchronize files between their operating system and the cloud storage.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LMMv2S
What you can expect from Firefox 14 to 17 In ten days, Mozilla is going to release Firefox 14 to the release channel, Firefox 15 to the beta channel, Firefox 16 to Aurora, and move the Nightly channel to Firefox 17. What can users expect from these releases?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ob5oGW
Maxthon Browser 3.4.2 Update released The Maxthon browser has received some bad press lately over allegations that its operators were cheating on the HTML5test to artificially inflate the score of the browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ob4SbY
Intuit Announces Free Payroll App for Small Businesses Intuit will announce on July 12, the availability of a new, free app aimed at small business owners who don’t use accounting software or payroll services.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ob4oTc
Wikipedia Tool Allows Readers to Suggest Changes to Articles Wikipedia plans to ask users to provide suggestions to improve articles on its website, which could be incorporated into the articles by its editors, Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit charitable organization that operates the site, said.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ob3NRr
Microsoft Security Bulletins For July 2012 Released Yes, it is that day of the month again: Microsoft Patch Tuesday is here and it delivers nine security bulletin covering 16 vulnerabilities this time that fix issues in the Windows operating system and other Microsoft products such as Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Sever Software, and Microsoft Developer Tools.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/N10rWE
Bitdefender Total Security 2013 Review and Giveaway Bitdefender Total Security 2013 is BitDefender’s new top of the line security product that leaves little to be desired in terms of functionality that it provides. It combines all the offerings of the company’s Antivirus Plus and Internet Security products with additional features that only it offers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/N0ZGgw
Microsoft Fix-It to disable gadgets in Windows 7, Vista Rumor has it that Microsoft is going to kill gadgets in Windows 8, and while nothing has been confirmed yet it seems like a move that aims to get users to work with the Metro interface and the apps it provides. There could be another reason though, and it comes in form of a security advisory for Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MjD99w
Chrome’s Flash implementation now fully sandboxed, internal settings coming Google is continuing its work on integrating Adobe’s Flash Player into the Chrome browser. While the company has made great progress in recent time in doing so, the developers today announced that they have fully sandboxed Chrome’s Flash implementation on all versions of the Windows operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MjCHbl
Microsoft Signature, Crapware-Free PCs from Microsoft If you have ever bought a pre-manufactured PC, be it a desktop PC, laptop or other variant, you have probably noticed the abundance of programs that the system comes pre-installed with.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RRJjlq
How to create custom Post Templates with WordPress Sometimes you may want to customize the post template of a WordPress post. This can be the case for instance when you want to add something to the page the post is displayed on that should not appear on other post pages, or if you want to remove something, e.g. advertisement.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RRIsB4
Behind the threat: FBI Internet server shutdown On Monday, the FBI turned off servers that had allowed thousands of malware-stricken computers to continue using the Internet. The personal computers — both Windows PCs and Macs — are corrupted by a virus known as DNSChanger.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/L4u03U
DNSChanger Doomsday Threat Fizzled--Just as It Should Have Now that the feds have cut the lifeline for Internet users infected by the DNSChanger malware, we find that the result of that action wasn't quite the “Internet doomsday” that some had predicted.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/L4tumt
Firefox: Skip Addon Compatibility Check and What's New Page I'm running several Firefox versions on my computer. First the Firefox Aurora version that I use most of the time, then a Firefox Nightly version to check up on new developments in the browser when they are first introduced, and then a stable version for testing purposes as well.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OoFf8w
Thunderbird Alternative Opera Mail Having used Thunderbird for several years I was quite disappointed by Mozilla’s announcement to move development priorities to other projects.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NgMRbX
Microsoft's Tuesday Patch Douses Flame Malware When Patch Tuesday rolls around next week, Microsoft will address three critical security issues using an improved version of Windows Update that closes a loophole exploited by Flame malware.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NAao9S
How to quickly switch between themes in Windows Microsoft changed the way basic themes are delivered in Windows 7. The new theme engine basically provides the themes as .theme files that just need to be double-clicked to be installed and activated on the system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NQI5lE
Opera 12 a More Finely Tuned Modern Browser If Opera 11.5 ( Macworld rated 3 out of 5 mice ) was a browser that wanted to be an operating system, Opera 12 happily seems to abandon that dream.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NQHujT
Metro needs more customization options have been toying around with a copy of Windows 8′s Release Preview on my second desktop system for a while now, and have gotten used to the Metro interface rather quickly.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Lz0I3w
A How To For Running Windows 8 on Your Mac When it’s time to install the Windows 8 Preview Release in Boot Camp, make like you’re installing Windows 7. Apple’s dual boot manager hasn’t been updated yet to recognize Microsoft’s latest operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NPELHp
Advanced SystemCare with Antivirus 2013 Review and Giveaway Advanced SystemCare with Antivirus 2013 is a brand new product by the developers of Advanced SystemCare that combines the maintenance, optimization and cleaning options of the program with BitDefender’s 2013 antivirus engine.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PvZW8P
Caffeinated Is a Perky Google Reader Client for Mac I'm a creature of habit. No matter how many times I try to make a Google Reader client for Mac part of my daily routine, I always seem to go back to Google's web interface.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/PvZwz9
Bugs & Fixes: From iOS App Crashes to Email Problems Today's round-up ranges from late-breaking news of iOS apps that crash on launch to long-standing problems with email.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MaE38i
The Best Time to Buy a Laptop May Be Now: Prices at Record Lows If you've been waiting for the perfect time to purchase a new laptop, you may want ot grab your credit card now. Price-predicting service Decide.com says late June to mid-July is one of the best times of the year to get the best deal on a new notebook.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NcNdEe
Firefox Up and Coming Add-ons July 2012 Every month, we are going to look at some of the up and coming extensions for the Firefox web browser. Mozilla keeps track of extensions that rise in popularity faster than others, and we look at the top ten to keep track of what is hot and trending in the Firefox add-on world.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NcMJOA
Why I prefer desktop email clients over web-based services With Mozilla’s announcement that the company would put Thunderbird development on a backburner to concentrate on Firefox OS and other projects that it has identified as “pursue-worthy”, came two user reactions. The first group was disappointed by the move, while the second not so much as they were using web-based clients exclusively already.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NcMyTq
Microsoft to patch 9 security vulnerabilities on Tuesday Three "critical" vulnerabilities have made their way to Patch Tuesday, as well as six "important" issues.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/NcMtyY
Mozilla Clipping Thunderbird's Wings Mozilla is halting development on its free email program, Thunderbird.

The company isn't killing Thunderbird--it will continue to support the email client, it just won't be innovating for the program.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NcMovh
Updated Apps Crashing? Here's What You Need to Know Flaws in Apple's App Store have made the updates to well over 100 apps completely unusable, creating headaches for both developers and users over the holiday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/RnnMAM
AllPlayer 5.2 Media Player with Extras I find it quite surprising that I never heard about AllPlayer before, despite the fact that it is one of the most downloaded media players on several popular download sites on the Internet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NESBMx
Rapidshare relaunches RapidDrive, a file manager for Windows RapidDrive was first introduced by Rapidshare in 2011 as a way for users of the service to upload files to cloud hosting services.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LXrVX7
Malware may knock thousands off Internet on Monday Despite repeated alerts, tens of thousands of Americans may still lose their Internet service Monday unless they do a quick check of their computers for malware that could have taken over their machines more than a year ago.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/LXqQie
Google annoys Opera users with incompatibility warnings Opera users who are administrating a blog on Blogger, Google’s free blog hosting service, receive warning notifications as of lately that the browser is no longer supported by the service.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LXqoR2
Patch Tuesday Includes Shocking Update for IE9 Time flies. More than half of 2012 has already passed, and now—with the Independence Day festivities behind us—we turn our attention to the seventh Patch Tuesday of the year. There are nine new security bulletins expected from Microsoft next week, including a critical update for Internet Explorer 9.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LXq0Ss
Oracle Close to Phasing out Flash Support Portal Oracle may soon fully transition away from the much-maligned, Flash-based version of its support portal over to a new HTML edition next week, according to an official blog post on Thursday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LXpy6A
Targeted Attacks Against Aerospace Industry Use Sykipot Malware New email-based attacks, some of which target the aerospace industry, are distributing new variants of the Sykipot information stealing malware, according to researchers from security firm AlienVault.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/N9A7Y5
French Tax Inspectors Search Microsoft Offices in Dawn Raid French tax authorities have visited the headquarters of Microsoft France to conduct an inspection, a spokesman for the company confirmed Wednesday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/N7A2Rg
Zazoo for Chrome improves your music experience on YouTube If you like to listen to music on YouTube, you’d probably enjoy an extension like Zazoo for Chrome that improves your music listening experience on the website.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MIY9uJ
iGoogle Alternative Netvibes With iGoogle being shut down by Google in November 2013 I thought it would be a good idea to revisit some of the Internet startpage alternatives that users of iGoogle may switch to when that time comes.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MIXXLO
Toshiba Fined $87 Million for LCD Price Fixing; Won't Pay a Penny A jury in San Francisco on Tuesday decided to fine Toshiba $87 million for colluding with other vendors to keep LCD prices artificially high, but the Tokyo-based company doesn't expect to have to pay anything.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/N7zPRs
Cost of Protecting U.S. Classified Data Doubles Over 10 Years The U.S. government -- minus key spy operations -- spent $11.36 billion to protect classified data in 2011, according to the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO).

Read more at: http://bit.ly/N7yjPn
Mageia: A Linux Distro on the Rise Popularity is a fickle mistress, and that's just as true with Linux distributions as it is in the rest of life.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MULl2f
Check for Driver Updates with DriverPack Solution Lite While it is not really necessary to update computer drivers regularly, I’d recommend to check for updates on a regular basis to make sure you do not miss stability, security or performance updates.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/M4P38E
Google to retire iGoogle on November 1, 2013 Bad news for users of some of Google’s lesser popular and known services. The company has just announced another round of service cleanups on the official company blog.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/M4O88e
Big Brother is Watching Facebook and Twitter US DHS document shows social media sites including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and countless others being monitored and watched. Under the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law on 12/31/2011 and taking effect 01/01/2012, ANYTHING you say about the government or elected official, etc can be considered a "belligerent act" for which you may be indefinitely detained, without charge and without due process of law.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NhJi7h
IE hangs on to more than half of browser market Microsoft's browser took home a 54 percent slice of the market in June, leaving Firefox and Chrome each with around 20 percent, says Net Applications.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/MqeWDp
Upgrade Windows 7, Vista or XP to Windows 8 Pro for $39.99 Microsoft has just announced that the price to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro will be $39.99. But that is not the only thing that should get you excited about it. The company has done away with its complex upgrade structure of the past, to make things as simple as they can be for Windows customers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Mqdhh3
Crystal Anti-Exploit Protection new security software released The new security software Crystal Anti-Exploit Protection has just been released in a first beta version. The program adds another layer of defense to the system that protects applications that it protects from a number of exploits that they may be vulnerable for.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Mqa6ps
Top 20 Keyboard Shortcuts everyone should know Keyboard shortcuts can speed up your productivity on a computer significantly. They usually replace multiple operations that are performed with the mouse with a set of keys that you need to press more or less simultaneously.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Mq9DDO
Windows 7 hot on XP's tail as top operating system Windows 7 ends June with more than 41 percent of the OS market, compared with XP at around 43 percent.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Mq9ala
Deauthorizing iTunes on an Old Computer A colleague who shall go unnamed is in the process or moving and has unearthed what he believes to be tainted treasure.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Mq8Na8
Cisco Changes Privacy Policy for Linksys Routers After Uproar Cisco Systems said a privacy policy for the Cisco Connect Cloud service that alarmed some customers was a mistake and has been removed.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Mq7Xds
Why Do 26 Million Checked Bags Go Missing Every Year? Once as free as bags of peanuts, checked luggage is now a multibillion-dollar business for airlines. Barbara S. Peterson reports from behind the carousel to find out why - despite all that money and fewer checked bags - some 26 million suitcases go missing each year

Read more at: http://bit.ly/P1fq4h
Red Hat Unveils Hybrid Cloud, PaaS Plans Red Hat is planning to roll out a number of product sets for building hybrid clouds over the next few months, the company announced Wednesday at the Red Hat Summit conference in Boston.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MWOpeZ
TinyWall, a powerful Windows Firewall TinyWall has been designed to improve the default firewall of Windows Vista, Windows 7, and newer versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MWMYx7
WordPress 3.4.1 maintenance and security update released A new WordPress version has been released just a minute ago. The new release brings the popular blogging platform to version 3.4.1. Webmasters and administrators should see notifications in the admin dashboard that a new version is available.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MWMtCY
Google shows Apple: We made ours in the U.S.A. Google is making stuff in the U.S. Will Apple follow suit?

Read more at: http://cnet.co/MWL67n
Web Attackers Borrow Domain Generation Tricks From Botnet-type Malware Hackers have started to adopt domain-generation techniques normally used by botnet-type malware in order to prolong the life of Web-based attacks, according to security researchers from antivirus firm Symantec.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MWF6eY
What could be coming tomorrow in Chrome 20 Chrome 20 is out, and all that Google is saying about it is security fixes? There's likely much more going on. Here's what we think it could be.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/MWzPnN
Windows 8 problems still does nott give Linux a chance As much as some would like to see Linux rise from the depths of obscurity to give Microsoft and its Windows platform a serious run for its money, it isjust not going to happen, at least not any time soon.

Read more at: http://zd.net/MWyTzM
ATM Fraud Refunds May Not Come Quickly, If at All In early April, A$800 vanished from my account, the result of a late-night withdrawal from a cash machine in a Sydney neighborhood I'd never been to before.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KCo9T4
Orbitz shows Mac users higher-priced hotels After crunching the data, travel website Orbitz noticed that Mac users typically spend more per night on a hotel than PC users, so the company plans to feature the more expensive options higher up in their search results.

Read more at: http://on.msnbc.com/MZBQeO
FBI: International online fraud sting yields several arrests in NYC, around the globe Two dozen people on four continents, including alleged two hackers from New York, have been arrested in an elaborate sting targeting a black market for online financial fraud, federal officials said Tuesday.

Read more at: http://wapo.st/MZBi8I
Image Collector Extension for Google Chrome While it is relatively simply to download individual images using a web browser’s save image as option from web pages they are linked or hosted on, this method fails short when it comes to downloading lots of images from a website.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MZAuAB
The Two Most Feared Attacks -- And How to Avoid Them hese days when I'm consulting with big businesses, governments, and other organizations, two main topics come up over and over: pass-the-hash attacks and hacktivism.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MVQzb1
Microsoft Buys Yammer for $1.2 Billion Microsoft has agreed to acquire Yammer, a maker of cloud-based enterprise social networking (ESN) software, for US$1.2 billion [b] in cash, a deal rumored to be in the works for the past week and a half.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MwddKY
CCleaner 3.20 update brings Windows 8 Support, Context Menu Editor Our all-time favorite temporary file cleaning tool CCleaner has just been updated by its parent company Piriform.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Lbb3h1
Reset File Type Associations with Unassoc Even if you are a cautious meticulous user, you may at one point or the other have run into file association issues in the Windows operating system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Lb9P5F
Toshiba Caves to Industry Pressure, Cancels Call for Toshiba has cancelled National No-Print Day, a seemingly innocuous environmental campaign designed to get office workers to use less paper, after a loud outcry from printing industry trade groups, which called the initiative "ill-conceived".

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Lb8ZWh
Which Linux Is Best for File Servers? Survey Says: Debian and Ubuntu With so many Linux distributions out there to choose from, there's nothing like a good survey to offer fresh insight as to who's using which ones.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Lb7JTh
Online Tracking Accelerates In one year, the number of tracking firms has doubled and the amount of data they collect has grown more than 400 percent, says a study by Krux Digital.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OgfmgH
How to turn off Firefox’s New Tab Page Completely Mozilla is currently in the process of releasing an update for its Firefox browser that brings the version of the stable branch to 13.0.2. This update is likely linked to a caching issue of the browser’s new tab page.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ogbb4C
Live Capture is a versatile screen capturing program Taking full screen screenshots has always been an easy process in the Windows operating system. Just hit the print key and the current screen is saved to the Clipboard, from where you can be paste into an image editor to edit and finally save it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Oga98E
Geekbench benchmarks your PC and Mobile Benchmarks are ideal for comparing different hardware setups or configurations of a PC with each other. If you are the tweaking kind of user, you can use benchmarks to judge the effect of a particular tweak, or a program that tweaks the PC, to see how effective the procedure was in the end. While artificial in nature, they can provide you with the information you need.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Og9KTN
Another Crook Caught Because of Posting on Facebook Yet another criminal has managed to get himself caught after posting on Facebook.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Og9btc
Downloads Keeps All Downloaded Items Organized - MAC The following review is part of Macworld's GemFest 2012 series. Every weekday from mid June through mid August, the Macworld staff will use the Mac Gems blog to briefly cover a favorite free or low-cost program. Visit the Mac Gems homepage for a list of past Mac Gems.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Og8Czw
Apple Quietly Pulls Claims of Virus Immunity In the wake of the Flashback botnet which targeted Mac computers, Apple has removed a statement from its messages on its website that Mac operating system X (OS X) isn't susceptible to viruses.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Og7hZz
Malware Gets Snoopy The world of malware has, over the last couple of decades, morphed to become not just a mechanism with which to subvert people's computers and steal money, but also a way for corporations and sovereign states to conduct cyber espionage.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Og6SWX
Microsoft Drops Office Starter Edition Microsoft is dumping its Office Starter edition as Windows 8 and the next edition of the suite, dubbed Office 2013, near completion and release later this year and early next.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Og6Caz
Tech Security Savvy Varies with Age (and Experience Counts), Survey Finds Young, tech-savvy people pay substantially less attention to online security risks and are therefore more likely to experience security problems than older people.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ms21we
Save Websites to your PC with Local Website Archive When it comes to saving a web page locally, Internet users have quite a few tools at their disposal to do so. They can use the save as option in their web browser for instance, extract the data from the browsing cache, use a browser add-on like Mozilla Archive Format or use a third party program like Httrack or Local Website Archive for that purpose.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Nm9Y5F
BlueHat Hackers Stymie a Widespread Exploit Microsoft this week announced that each of the three finalists in the BlueHat Prize $250,000 security contest came up with ways to detect and stymie one of the most effective exploit methods now being used by hackers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Nm9sVp
Taming Your E-Mailbox Want to cut back on e-mail, but your mailbox is still flooded? Here's how to use email -- and alternative communication -- most efficiently.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Nm9ixb
The MacBook Pro Retina Display With the new MacBook Pro Retina Display, you can run Apple’s latest laptop with the pixel-density turned all the way up by using a program called SwitchResX.

By default, the new MacBook Pro ships in a pixel-doubled configuration, meaning you actually get an equivalent to a 1440-by-900-pixel resolution. This offers no actual increase in desktop space over that of the current standard non-retina MacBook Pro, but the increased pixel density means that items onscreen can appear much sharper than they did before.

A new settings pane on the retina model MacBook Pro gives you five screen resolution options, but none of the options let you turn the scaling off and use the display at its full resolution. Apple offers five scaled settings including the default pixel doubled option: 1024 x 640, 1280 x 800, 1440 x 900, 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200. Selecting any of these options gives you the effective desktop resolution of the setting, but Apple actually renders the screen at a higher resolution and scales it to fit the 2880 x 1800 panel. As a result of the upscaled rendering, there can be a performance and quality impact. There is also no default option for 2880 x 1800, which is understandable given just how tiny text would be at that resolution. Users will probably figure out how to manually add a zero-scale, 2880 x 1800 option.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MFFSuF
Why the Microsoft Surface probably won't be an iPad killer Questions around price, battery life and connectivity are among the issues that could minimize the threat to Apple's belle of the tablet ball.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/KE2cru
Bing improves image search part of website The Bing Team just announced that it is rolling out a new version of Bing Image Search. It seems that the changes will be available to a worldwide audience, which may be an indicator that Bing has finally come to the understanding that they can only compete with Google an an international level.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MeOCsX
Clotho lets you hide files or folders in other files If you want to hide files on a hard drive, you have quite the options at hand to do so. You can simply create a password protected archive, use True Crypt or another encryption software, maybe even with a hidden volume inside, or use an easy to use program like Clotho which allows you to hide files inside other files or folders.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MeMUrm
New to Linux? Zorin OS 6 Makes the Transition Easy As the dawn of the Windows 8 era approaches, there are more reasons than ever for longtime Windows users to consider switching to Linux.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MeM9P0
How to update Adobe Flash Player manually in Windows You may know that Adobe has implemented an auto-updater to its Flash Player that is running as a service, Adobe Flash Player Update Service, and a scheduled task in Windows’ Task Scheduler.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MeLLA5
Firefox’s New Tab Page Not Showing Websites or Thumbnails? Fix Inside I have been playing around with Firefox’s new tab page that you may have already come into contact with as well. Mozilla added the new tab page back in January to nightly builds of the browser, from where it was passed to aurora and beta builds before it was added to the stable Firefox 13 release back in the beginning of June.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MPicSQ
Deal With Your Internet Pet Peeves With These Chrome Extensions Let’s face it: No matter how enjoyable spending day after day online can be, as each hour adds up there are a few little things that just get more annoying.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NWkoO1
Flame virus can destroy computer files: Symantec The Flame computer virus is not only capable of espionage but it can also sabotage computer systems and likely was used to attack Iran in April, according to a leading security company, Symantec Corp.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/NWgO6o
How the Mac finally won me away from Windows After two decades of using Windows, the Mac -- with a little help from the Web -- wins away a user.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/LFEBD0
Adobe Flash Update 11.3.300.262 said to fix Firefox issues When Adobe shipped an update of its Flash Player earlier this month, reports began to emerge by Firefox users that something was not right.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFDbrV
Chrome uses way more memory than Firefox, Opera or Internet Explorer When you ask Internet users about their personal opinions about web browsers, some may tell you that they feel Firefox is using too much memory which is keeping the browser back, and that Google’s Chrome browser on the other hand is a slim fast browser that does not use that much RAM when running.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFCVtd
How to add a custom photo background to Gmail Gmail back in 2008 launched a themes engine that allowed users of the service’s web client to change the black and white design of the site to something that at times looked like a homepage from the 90s.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFCLSs
QuickMove lets you move files automatically in Windows The majority of files that I download from the Internet are all stored in a single download folder on my computer. That’s great for finding the files in record time, but not so great when it comes to looking through those files again to decide which to keep and which to delete.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFCJdd
Cisco Patches Vulnerabilities in VPN Client, Security Appliances Networking equipment vendor Cisco Systems released multiple security updates on Wednesday to address vulnerabilities in its AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client, ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances, Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series ASA Services Module and Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE) software.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFBESX
Twitter Struggles With Hours-Long Outage Twitter struggled with service disruptions Thursday morning Pacific time, although its status blog at one point said that the outage had been resolved.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFBuLj
Don’t like Chrome’s Download Bar? Then change it! When you download files in Google Chrome, all downloads are listed in a downloads bar at the bottom of the screen. While this can be practicable at times, for instance to open a downloaded file directly on the system, or to use the context menu to open the folder the files were saved in to.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFBivs
Meebo users, import your chat history to Imo Google acquired Meebo back in the beginning of June and it quickly became clear that the majority of services and tools that Meebo offered would be pulled from the Internet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KA2pvP
OfficeDrop Adds Right-click Upload Feature OfficeDrop first gained our attention with a document management system that allows users to scan documents to the cloud using nearly any scanner or mobile device. On Thursday, the company will announce a new element of its service that enables PC users to upload entire Windows folders to the cloud with a simple right-click of their mouse.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NV75yF
Tag and manage all your music files with MPTagThat A program that lets you tag your music files can be quite useful to improve the manageability and accessibility of a music collection. I personally prefer programs that come with capabilities to retrieve information from the Internet to make the whole process comfortable and to increase the amount of data that you can add to the files.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KUuaMc
Unpatched Microsoft XML Core Services Flaw Increasingly Targeted in Attacks, Researchers Say An unpatched vulnerability in the Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML) is being exploited in attacks launched from compromised websites to infect computers with malware, according to security researchers from antivirus vendor Sophos.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KUtMxn
Struggling BlackBerry maker begins job cuts Struggling BlackBerry maker Research In Motion said Wednesday it has started laying off employees as part of its restructuring plan aimed at saving about $1 billion this year.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/KUqFFv
Visa, Mastercard Credit Card Information Hacked? What you should do now Two days ago a hacker going by the name Reckz0r claimed to have gained over 50 Gigabyte worth of data from 79 banking companies that he hacked in to over the course of the past three months.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KUodij
Get a sneak peek of Firefox’s New Design If you are following the development of the Firefox web browser you have probably noticed that some Mozilla designers are currently working on a new design, or refresh, of the browser that they call Australis.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Puwdcx
Red Hat Releases NoSQL Database for Enterprise Java Enterprise open source software provider Red Hat has jumpedinto the emerging NoSQL market, releasing an in-memory data store as part of an update of its JBoss management platform.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LghR1f
Flash Player 11.3 Issues in Firefox, more troubleshooting tips Ten days ago Firefox users started to report issues with Flash contents in the browser. Some users noticed Flash Player causing freezes or crashes in the browser, while others could not get videos on sites like YouTube to work anymore. All these issues were linked to a Flash Player update that Adobe released earlier.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MdutVo
Automate the Shutdown of the PC or an application Configuring the automatic shutdown of a PC can be quite useful at times, for instance to shut down the PC after a download, backup or conversion completes. We have reviewed quite a few applications in the past that provide you with the functionality, among them DShutdown, Automatic Shutdown or Auto Shutdown for Firefox.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MtLcPB
Skype for Windows Phone gets minor enhancements and fixes Skype released an update today for its Windows Phone app, adding some improvements while fixing some known issues.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/KKAIlf
Google: We Find 9,500 New Malicious Sites Every Day It's no secret that the Web is full of malicious content, but Google on Tuesday published some statistics that reveal just how breathtaking the scale of that danger really is.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KKAvP2
Attack Code Published for Two Actively Exploited Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Software Attack code for two actively exploited vulnerabilities in Microsoft software, one of which has not yet been patched, was integrated into the open-source Metasploit penetration testing framework.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LhlZwi
Password-Protect Your Files, Folders, and Drives with File Secure Free Your data is like your business blood: It must be protected at all costs. That's why it's a good idea to safeguard your most important data, to back it up in case of disaster, to password-protect it in case of loss or theft, and to destroy it when it's no longer wanted.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MJrwrp
Password Manager LastPass 2.0 Released LastPass is a popular online password manager that is available for various web browsers, mobile devices, the desktop, and even as an online service.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MJrekr
Turn the Internet connection on or off Sometimes you may want to turn off your Internet connection in an instant, for instance if you have noticed that malware is running on a system to avoid it leaking information or data.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MJqDiE
Skype for Linux Gets a Big Update to Version 4.0 When Microsoft bought Skype just a little over a year ago, Linux fans far and wide feared the worst for Skype for Linux.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MJqrji
Linus Torvalds is livid -- directs middle digit at Nvidia Linus Torvalds gets graphic about his feelings toward Nvidia. Uses a few choice words to vent his anger about Nvidia's lack of Linux support.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/M0et8W
Find out what websites know about you Every time you connect to a server on the Internet, you automatically submit information to the server that may be used to for a variety of purposes. From creating a unique identifier and other tracking related activities, to malicious uses.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MXpo05
Free up disk space with Clean Temporary Places The first thing that I do when I discover a new temporary file cleaner is to find out if and how it differs from CCleaner. I think we can all agree that CCleaner is one of the best tools in the temporary file cleaning niche, and that every other application that gets created in the niche should be compared to it to answer the simple question why one should use it instead of CCleaner.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/L6JZnH
Flame Malware Illustrates Vulnerability of USB Drives While USB drives have long been a security threat, the Flame spying malware brought the use of portable storage devices to a new level of weaponry.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LvglEW
Spam Filters Grabbed Many LinkedIn Break-In Warnings Many of the LinkedIn e-mails alerts instructing users on how to reset passwords accessed by hackers were dumped into spam boxes, according to e-mail security vendor Cloudmark.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/L6JyK1
Repair Microsoft .Net Framework installation, update issues All recent versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system come with a version of the Microsoft .Net Framework preinstalled. Updates have been released for the .Net Framework that Windows users can install on their systems, and while those updates complete without issues on most systems, it can happen that they do not complete correctly on some.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/M2OQSj
Get a listing of all Internet cookies with CookieSpy Nearly every site on the Internet makes use of cookies. Some use those little files to store session information in and others for customizations the user has made on the site.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/M2OGu4
LulzSec Hackers Down but Not Out About three months ago, following the arrests of five members of an Anonymous spinoff hacker group, an FBI official declared: "We're chopping off the head of LulzSec."

Read more at: http://bit.ly/M2Oqvb
US Pushes Forward on Public-safety LTE Network The body defining standards for a mobile LTE network serving police, fire departments and other public safety agencies across the U.S. has finished testing radio-access gear and will start interoperability testing of packet-core equipment on July 9.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Lk2QLv
Just what is Windows RT, anyway? (FAQ) Microsoft has a supersecret announcement coming on Monday, and it may well be a tablet running Windows RT. Here's what we know so far about the mostly Metro, ARM-powered variation of Windows 8.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/LjZlVa
Firefox 13.0.1 Released Mozilla has just released a new version of Firefox stable, bringing the version of the browser to 13.0.1 for all supported operating systems. The release notes list both the changes that Mozilla made in Firefox 13 and the three bug fixes in the Firefox 13.0.1 release, which had been released two weeks earlier.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LjYzro
Thunderbird 13.0.1 Update Released Busy day for Mozilla. After releasing Firefox 13.0.1 earlier, an update for the desktop email client Thunderbird was released as well bringing the version of the application to 13.0.1. The Thunderbird update, just like the Firefox update, is fixing select issues in the browser only.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LjYeEW
Microsoft to buy Yammer for more than $1 billion: WSJ Business software company Yammer Inc has agreed to sell itself to Microsoft Corp for more than $1 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/LTqLB0
Dropbox Kills Public Folders for new accounts As it stands now, Dropbox users can make use of public folders to share files in those folders publicly. This should not be confused with the functionality to share a folder with other Dropbox users so that the contents gets synchronized between all connected users automatically.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LTqcqK
LibreOffice 3.6.0: A Look at What's Coming It seems like just yesterday the Document Foundation published the speedy new version 3.5.4 of its popular LibreOffice productivity suite, but already there's a new beta version of the next major iteration of the software available for testing.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LTpVUZ
Firefox: Send Tabs to Google Chrome The Firefox web browser has been my main Internet browser for the past years. Some time ago I decided to disable the Flash plugin in the browser, which sometimes led to a situation where I had to use a different browser to access Flash contents on the Internet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KNYXZf
Test your Internet Connection for issues with JDAutoSpeedTester If you need to troubleshoot or test an Internet connection that sometimes drops to a crawl, one of the things that you can do in that situation is to monitor the connection for a prolonged period of time that gives you a better understanding of what is wrong.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/OTij3u
Fast Networks Key to New Apps, Says White House WASHINGTON -Fast food franchises have a larger presence in many communities than next generation, high-speed gigabit networks, a fact the White House says it's attempting to address.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/L8ZF81
How to disable Email Notifications on Google+ I have recently been receiving quite a few email notifications from Google+ that informed me of new posts and comments on the social networking site. While I did not mind that in the beginning, it quickly turned into a problem as I started to receive quite a few emails per day.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KKU2Z9
Accused British hacker charged in U.S. over LulzSec attacks A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has indicted a 20-year-old British citizen on charges related to attacks by the LulzSec hacking group on the Fox and PBS television networks and Sony's film and TV studio, authorities said on Wednesday.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/KKTDG5
Block popular Software Updates on your PC Installing updates as soon as they are released is usually a good thing to do, considering that they more often than not fix issues that you’d otherwise experience or be vulnerable to.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KKTfat
Another YouTube redesign? Enable it right now I stopped counting the redesigns and design changes that Google made on its properties in the second half of 2011 when they started to be launched in a much faster interval.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KKSSN7
Bypass intermediary ad pages with Redirection Helper Depending on what you do online, you may sometimes encounter websites that link to downloads or other pages indirectly with the help of services like adf.ly, linkbee, lnk.co or urlcash. These intermediary pages display full screen advertisements and a timer that is running down.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KKSvSI
Why Google+ Can Still Beat Facebook Even as Facebook goes public and nears 1 billion users, Google+ still has a chance to become a major contender if it simply plays to its own strengths.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LVf6ho
Defraggler 2.10 Update, Boasts Performance Improvements With two Solid State Drives and only one platter-based drive in my main PC, defragmentation has become more of a non-issue lately.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/L9qAla
WordPress 3.4 Update Released A new version of the popular WordPress blogging platform has just been released. Webmaster running a WordPress blog should see update notifications right now on their sites in the admin dashboard.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/L9qgmz
8 Reasons to Gear Up For HTML5 Now Fortunately, HTML5 is ready to answer the call. While the cross-platform markup language won't be finalized by the W3C until 2014 there are significant reasons to get the bandwagon now.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LVcXlQ
Why We Need a Code of Ethics for the Web What do you do when you've stolen content from someone else's website? If you're FunnyJunk.com, you sue them for defamation when they call you a thief.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LVcH6q
5 Things Microsoft Doesn't Want You to Know Sure, Microsoft tout its ability to deliver both world-class products designed for on-premises datacenters as well as services that integrate those same products, along with their expertise in running huge, scaled-up datacenters-but the truth is that the company is cloud first now.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LVc5h0
Why the Internet Needs IPv6 The number of Internet-connected users, devices and applications are growing at such a rapid pace that the pool of available addresses for the original version of the Internet Protocol, known as IPv4, are IPv4 being rapidly depleted. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses and can support 4.3 billion devices connected directly to the Internet. The replacement protocol, called IPv6, uses 128-bit addresses and provides such a large number of addresses that it can only be expressed mathematically: 3.4 x 10 to the 38th power. A few skeptics question the need for IPv6. But most Internet policymakers and network technology experts assert that the shift to IPv6 is inevitable, and it is crucial to make the move now.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NwCgif
Apple kicks Google Maps off iPhone, adds Facebook Steve Jobs' vendetta against Google remains alive, eight months after the Apple co-founder died feeling betrayed by a company he once embraced as an ally.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/LHodWF
Google Chrome: First Metro version is out A few days ago I mentioned that Google was about to release the first Metro version of the Chrome browser. As you all know, Windows 8 will ship with two user interaces, the desktop interface that you are all familiar with, and the new Metro interface that is limited in terms of functionality when compared to the desktop.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MBdgSb
Chrome Fix: Extensions, apps, and user scripts cannot be installed from this web site On Google Chrome Canary, I have lately been getting the Extensions, apps, and user scripts cannot be installed from this web site error message when I was trying to install a userscript from userscripts.org, or an extension from a third party website.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NaG7mj
Industry Consortium to Tackle Open Spec for Software Use Across Multicore Devices Companies including Advanced Micro Devices and ARM have formed a consortium to provide an open specification for software to be written and deployed in a cost-effective manner across multiple hardware configurations, it was announced Tuesday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NaFARf
Microsoft Security Bulletins For June 2012 Released Microsoft a few minutes ago has enabled the security updates for June 2012 which Windows users can now downloaded via the operating system’s Windows Update feature. A total of seven different bulletins have been released which address issues in Windows, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and the .NET Framework.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NaCvka
Kaspersky Security Scan: Get a second opinion on your PC’s Security State Even if you are running security software that gets regularly updated by its development company, you run the risk of falling prey to dangers that lurk behind every corner on the Internet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/NaC75f
Apple takes on Google with own maps, better Siri Apple Inc took the wraps off its own mobile mapping service and improved the search capabilities of its Siri electronic assistant technology, as it rolled out souped-up software and hardware on Monday to help it wage war on Google Inc.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/KoLWvw
Some Flame code found in Stuxnet virus-experts Two leading computer security firms have linked some of the software code in the powerful Flame virus to the Stuxnet cyber weapon, which was widely believed to have been used by the United States and Israel to attack Iran's nuclear program.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/KoLhdF
Apple Releases iTunes 10.6.3 Update The new iTunes update, released Monday, adds support for iOS 6 beta and fixes several bugs.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KoKLfI
Linaro Offers Up to 100% Speed Boost for Android Developers at open-source nonprofit organization Linaro have posted a set of code tweaks for Android, enabling up to 100% increases in performance, compared to a vanilla version of Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0).

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LOwYKM
Apple's new Safari takes a page from Chrome The latest version of the Safari browser looks a lot like Google's Chrome, but with unique gesture support on the trackpad.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Lw07Mj
Siri to Get New Features, iPad Support with iOS 6 iri gets smarter with boosted knowledge of sports, restaurants, and movies. Apple also plans to add Siri support to the third-generation iPad.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LvZnGM
Flickr: List all Photo Sizes directly If you want to view a photo on the popular photo hosting site Flickr in its original size, you need to click your way through a number of pages before you finally reach the page where available photo resolutions can be selected.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LvZ3YJ
Anti-Twin, a sophisticated Duplicate File Finder for Windows Depending on how you store, download and transfer files on your PC, duplicate files may make up a portion of the used disk space on the computer. A program like Anti-Twin can aid you in listing duplicate files found on the system to give you the opportunity to delete duplicates to free up disk space.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LvYCxq
MySQL Vulnerability Allows Attackers to Bypass Password Verification Security researchers have released details about a vulnerability in the MySQL server that could allow potential attackers to access MySQL databases without inputting proper authentication credentials.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LvYePA
How Quickly Can Your Password be Cracked? Analysis: "Strong" isn't a detailed password-rating; go for a quintillions possible combos, add a symbol.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LgFpkA
Flash Player Update: Fix Freezes, Crashes in Firefox As you may know I do not have the Flash plugin installed in Firefox, which is part security precaution and part because I do not really access that many Flash-only contents in the browser. I do switch to Chrome for the occasional game or YouTube video, but that does not really happen that often anyway.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MwNbmu
Logitech to cut 450 jobs as part of restructuring Logitech International SA said Friday that it's cutting 450 jobs — including about 100 in the U.S. — as part of its restructuring.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/MYnYrH
Never Lose Your Keys Again With the Kinsight Kinect Hack We all lose or misplace our phones, keys, or wallets at some point. If it's not the mad scramble in the morning to recover your keys, it's the heart-stopping moment you reach for your phone to find it's not in your pocket. If you have a Kinect, though, no longer will these precious items be misplaced.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MpCyCL
LinkedIn's leaky network security Business network gets a pair of black eyes, while Flame continues to burn. Also: welcome to IPv6.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/MpBXAQ
Security tweaks, PDFs herald new Firefox builds Native PDF reading comes to Firefox 15, while on-demand plug-in protection, a new Web site identity indicator, and new gaming APIs graduate into Firefox 14 beta.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/MYmEVD
Highlight unloaded Tabs in Firefox If you are currently working with Firefox 12 or later and making use of the browser’s session restore feature, you may have noticed that only the active tab gets loaded during the start of the application. The remaining tabs do not get loaded until they are activated to improve the start up time of Firefox this way.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MpBgaW
Tech Wars: Can Apple stand up to the Google blitz? When Apple Inc kicks off its annual conference for software developers on Monday, all the power players in the Apple universe will be on hand, save the one that is in many ways driving the agenda: Google.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MYlolB
Hacking group Anonymous takes on India internet 'censorship' Members of the internet hacking group Anonymous have been staging protests across 16 cities in India, against what they say is internet censorship in the country.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MYkXHZ
Hotmail’s Redesign, Microsoft Goes all in on Metro I’m not a huge fan of Hotmail’s current layout and design, as I feel it is rather messy, and that this is keeping me from working effectively with the web mail client. There are simply to many links and options displayed on a single page, some even hidden beneath arrows that you need to click on to display them.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Lddjqm
Another Breach Reveals Weak Passwords: Will We Ever Learn? It has been 18 months since more than 188,000 passwords for subscribers to Gawker were snatched by hackers and posted to the Web, but consumers don't seem any more inclined to protect their passwords now than they were then.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFpI66
HyperCam 2: Screen Recorder now free The rise of video on the Internet has made screen recorders a popular software category. We have reviewed quite a few free applications for that purpose, for instance MSI Afterburner or WeGame to record game videos, or desktop recorders like Screen2Avi, Webinaria or ScreenToaster.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFpk7s
Bugs & Fixes: Hoped-for iOS 6 Fixes for Search and Navigation With iOS 6 almost certain to be announced next week at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference, I want to take a slight detour from reporting "bugs" and instead focus on some hoped-for "fixes." The new iOS is an opportunity for Apple to address some long-standing inconveniences with how users search and navigate around their devices.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFoFmL
Google Defends Against Claims of Rigged Search Results Google is aggressively defending itself against accusations it manipulates its search results based on ad payments, and it is encouraging users to go elsewhere if they don't like what the company does.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFnuDD
Software Options for People on a Budget I regularly review great, inexpensive software here on the Mac Gems blog, but I occasionally come across a great deal or bundle that lets you get some of those apps for even less cash. In the spirit of great software on a budget, here are three current software bundles that each include more than a few Mac Gems.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFmJdQ
Microsoft Vows to Plug IE Hold Found in Hacking Contest Next week's Patch Tuesday will feature a fix for a vulnerability in Internet Explorer that came to light at the celebrated Pwn2Own hacking competition held earlier this year at CanSecWest.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFmf7D
Improve your typing with Typing Stats for Firefox If you type a lot on your computer you are probably interested in improving your typing skills further to complete given tasks in a shorter period of time. We have covered quite a few typing tutors in the past here on Ghacks: Online Typing Tutor and Rapidtyping come to mind among other tools and programs.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LFlVFZ
On Password Security With the recent wave of websites and services that have been compromised, and the breaches that happened before that last wave, I’d like to take a look at password security on the Internet, and what we as users can learn from the breaches.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MSFVI4
5 Google Calendar Tips and Tricks for Power Users For busy people (and aren't we all?), work and personal calendars dictate the day, from meetings to appointments, from project deadlines and the kids' soccer games. Without the proper tools, managing a calendar--and the workweek--can be a headache.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Lqb7wA
Gmail Outage Likely Hit Several Million on Thursday Google's Gmail webmail service was unavailable for more than 90 minutes on Thursday, an outage that may have affected almost 4.8 million users.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KjCuTM
Google Buys Quickoffice in Preemptive Microsoft Strike In a move that could be designed to outflank Microsoft in the office productivity app market, Google announced Tuesday it had acquired Quickoffice, a mobile app that allows users to work on Microsoft Office documents on iOS and Android systems.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KjCbrU
Google vs. Apple: The Map War Begins Next week, rumor has it, Apple will show off a new mapping application that will soon replace Google Maps on iOS devices.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KjBONX
LinkedIn works with FBI on password theft LinkedIn Corp is working with the FBI as the social network for job seekers and professionals investigates the theft of 6.4 million member passwords, the company said on Thursday.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/KjBqPx
BufferZone Pro, Free Sandboxing Software, Sandboxie Alternative An effective way to reduce the impact of malware on a system is to sandbox applications. One of the most popular programs in this regard is Sandboxie which we can fully recommend.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KjAYAV
SRR Files, What are they, How to use them If you have never come into contact with .srr files before you are probably wondering what those files are used for. You may find them attached to downloads on the Internet, for instance if you download a rar archive via torrents or files from the Usenet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KjAMlf
Microsoft's Do Not Track default in IE10 violates new specs The company's attempt to set Do Not Track as a default option in Internet Explorer 10 runs counter to the latest DNT draft that says a user must be given a choice.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/KjA3Aq
Flame Authors Order Infected Computers to Remove All Traces of the Malware The creators of the Flame cyber-espionage threat ordered infected computers still under their control to download and execute a component designed to remove all traces of the malware and prevent forensic analysis, security researchers from Symantec said on Wednesday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KjyJO4
Microsoft's Reaction to Flame Shows Seriousness of 'Holy Grail' Hack The exploit of Microsoft's Windows Update system by the sophisticated Flame cyber espionage malware was a "significant" event in the history of Windows hacking, experts said today.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Kjyx1j
What IPv6 means for you (FAQ) The Internet has just changed forever, for real, thanks to IPv6. But chances are that you won't notice a thing -- at least not yet. Here's how IPv6 affects you.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/KTtmcL
Windows 7 Sales Push Past 600 Million Milestone Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system has reached an important milestone. During a keynote address at Computex, it was announced by Steven Guggenheimer, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of the division of original equipment manufacturer, that Microsoft has sold more than 600M licenses for Windows 7 globally.

Windows 7 has surpassed Windows XP as most popular operating system. It now has a 40.21% usage share of the global desktop OS market, compared to Windows XP, which has a 38.64% market share. The versatility and ability to run on everything from low-powered netbooks that were typically powered by Windows XP, to high-powered desktops and business machines has contributed to its success.

Read more at: http://dthin.gs/KTlBDG
Online Banking's Weak Security Link: Customers Banking and financial enterprises have taken information security more seriously in recent years than most other industry sectors. But that does not mean banking is safe. The number of vulnerabilities for a bank is roughly equal to how many account holders it has.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JXZ2yq
Google Announces Offline Maps, 3D Fly-over Views, and Street View Expansion Google's Mapping team goes offline with mobile Google Maps, shows off backpack-sized Street View contraptions, and wows with new 3D fly-over technology.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JXYgl9
Smart Referrer for Firefox Blocks Cross-Domain Referrers Whenever you follow a link on the Internet, the site that you are visiting receives information where you cam from. This is the so called referrer that website operators use to analyze their site’s traffic.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JXUTL1
Fix Java Error 1723. There is a Problem with this Windows Installer Package One of the biggest issues with Java, or more precisely the Java Runtime Environment, is that multiple versions of the software can be installed on the same system. This can be solely attributed to a lack of checks during installation to avoid that multiple versions of the Java Runtime Environment are installed on the system.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JXU4lc
Save Ink and Paper with Print Friendly for Chrome When it comes to printing out websites you often end with an output that is displaying more than what you actually needed in terms of information. You may see advertisement, menus, widgets and other elements in the printout that you really could care less about. More pressing than that however is the fact that you spend more ink and paper printing out the website than you really should have.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JXTyUg
Create a Professional Business Web Site in Minutes with IM Creator What's the first thing a startup needs? Right: lots and lots of cash. But what's the second thing a startup needs? A Web site, of course.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JXT94i
What’s New in Thunderbird 13 Just like Firefox has been updated recently, the email client Thunderbird has also received an update to version 13. If you have followed development of both programs you know that the developers decided to update them in sync every six weeks as part of the rapid release cycle that Mozilla introduced some time ago.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MDAz3q
Today IPv6 Launches, What you need to know Whenever a device or user connects to the Internet, an IP addresses is assigned to the device. This may be a temporary IP address that may get changed with every connection, or a static IP address that never changes. The Internet has now come into a situation where there are more requests for IP addresses than available addresses.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MDA0Xp
How to Speed Up a slow loading website I think we have all be in a situation where a website or web page that you are dying to access is not responding at all, or only slowly that it almost becomes unbearable to wait. But there are things that you can do that may speed up the loading of the web pages you are interested in, and some may even help you if a website is down or unavailable in your location.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KNmnlu
Google to Warn Users About Being the Victim of Nation-State Cyber Attacks If your Google account comes under cyber attack from a nation-state, you can expect to see this warning in your browser: Warning: We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your account or computer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KNlZDH
Yahoo Implements Latest Antispam Defense Yahoo said it will roll out globally this week a new antispam specification intended to make it easier for service providers to confidently discard suspicious email messages.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KNlyZZ
Napster founders reunite with social video service Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning, the "enfants terribles" whose Napster file-sharing technology helped dismantle the traditional music industry a decade ago, have joined forces again with a new service for friends to video-chat on the Web.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/Lo3eX0
Flame virus can hijack PCs by spoofing Windows Update Using rogue security certificates, the virus is able to exploit Microsoft's Windows Update service to infect unsuspecting computers.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/MaYFQC
Six Good Reasons to Download Firefox 13 Between its use of SPDY by default and speed gains through Mozilla's “Project Snappy,” Firefox 13 has been generating excitement for some time already. Now, the final version of the software is here at last.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MaY8Ov
'Speed Dial' finally comes to Firefox With the Firefox 13 update, Firefox no longer lacks a "frequently visited sites" New Tab page. The update also brings a new default home page and support for Google's faster, safer SPDY browsing protocol.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/MaXUXK
How to Backup and Move Firefox Bookmarks to another Computer Looking back at all the tutorials that I wrote about Firefox in the last six years or so, I noticed that I never ran a piece on how to backup and move Firefox bookmarks to another computer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KZm4CE
LibreOffice 3.5.4 Update brings huge Performance Boost Back in 2010 several OpenOffice developers decided to leave the OpenOffice development team to create their own fork of the popular open source Office suite.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KZlS6A
Windows Security Emergency Patch to fix Flame loophole You have probably heard about Flame, or Flamer, by now, a highly sophisticated and targeted malware that ran undetected for more than a year before it was discovered by security experts.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MuS5Xo
Run CCleaner Silently with a click on a Shortcut You probably know that you can run the popular temporary file cleaner CCleaner on schedule, for instance when the computer starts.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KZlp4a
National No-Print Day: Will You Take the Pledge? Toshiba, which sells a wide variety of printers, copiers, scanners, and fax devices, is asking you to use less paper. It's even sponsoring National No-Print Day on October 23, 2012, when it hopes the paperless office becomes a reality--if only for a day.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MuQAbW
Amazon Releases Kindle Software Update With Better Font, Support for Additional Formats Amazon on Monday announced the immediate availability of version 4.1.0 of the software that runs on the $79 Kindle--the non-touch screen version with no keyboard referred to as the Kindle With Special Offers (4th generation).

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KZkOzD
Google Acquires Social Media Toolbar Maker Meebo Google has acquired Meebo, a company that makes a toolbar that aggregates content from websites as well as displaying advertisements, the company said on its blog on Monday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KZkAZ5
Microsoft Assimilates Flash in Metro's IE10 Browser Microsoft said that it has embedded Adobe's Flash Player in the Metro version of Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) in Windows 8 and Windows RT.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KZkpgA
How to Skip Metro and go right to the Windows 8 Desktop If you need to work with the Windows 8 operating system but do not like the new Metro interface at all, you might prefer if your PC would skip right past Metro to display the good old desktop to you. At least for now, that is in the Release Preview, you can still get the start menu back in the interface so that you theoretically do not really need to switch back to Metro at all.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KuKqau
AutoUP, Scan for Software and Windows updates Keeping track of all installed programs and updates that get released for them can be quite the difficulty task. Some programs include automatic update options or at least notifiers that inform you of new program updates, while others do not come with that functionality.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ku9rm8
Get Temporary Full File Access With WinOwnership Depending on a file’s permissions in Windows you sometimes may not have enough rights to work with it. Maybe permissions are preventing you from accessing a specific folder on the system, or you are blocked from making modifications to a system file.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ku98HL
Tunlr: Access Hulu, Pandora, Netflix from Blocked Locations Whether you are an ex-pat who is missing TV shows from home, an enthusiast who loves to watch shows in their original language, or a fan who wants to watch shows as soon as their air, you may or may not be able to do that over the Internet depending on your location in the world.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/K6QHDa
Back Up PC Files With BitReplica If you are looking for an easy to use PC file backup software then Auslogics’ free BitReplica software might be worth a closer look. Each backup operation that you configure consists of three steps.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LbUcfQ
Firefox 13 Stable now available Firefox users who run the stable version of the browser may observe a recurring theme every six weeks or so. Six weeks is the interval in which Mozilla releases new major version updates for the browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LbTY8i
Give your PC a much needed Audit with Belarc Advisor Auditing PCs falls more in the realm of businesses and organizations, and not home computer owners. With that being said, home PC owners can benefit from an audit almost as much as businesses can.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LbTwqF
Internet Explorer 10 Tech Improvements Microsoft is currently working on the next iteration of its Internet Explorer web browser, IE10, which the company aims to ship with the Windows 8 operating system that is said to be released in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KU53KB
Display more Add-ons in the Firefox Addon Manager One of the things that I have come to dislike in recent versions of the Firefox web browser is the redesigned addon manager that Mozilla implemented some time ago.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KU4JeS
Microsoft ticks off advertisers with IE10 'Do Not Track' policy The "Do Not Track" feature will be turned on by default in Internet Explorer 10, a move that's upsetting the advertising community.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/KU4mRe
Developers, do you really need to autorun programs in Windows? Just because you install some piece of software doesn't mean you want it running all the time. Applications developers should think twice about helping themselves to starting up.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/KU3X1q
Hits and misses in Windows 8 so far As Microsoft approaches the home stretch for finishing Windows 8, we take a look at what the OS does well, and what it must fix to be a success.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/KU3oVk
Discover Hidden Features in iOS's Built-in Apps You've probably mastered your favorite built-in iOS apps, like Camera, Mail, and Safari. But other apps come preloaded on your iOS device, and they include some features you just might not have discovered yet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KU2TL0
Implementing a BYOD Policy on Your Network BYOD seems to be one of the hottest topics in IT security right now. Every day I read about new concerns which can arise when employees access networks with their own devices. From what I experience the adoption of BYOD is on the increase.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KU2sAh
PIE: A Chrome Extension That Can Help With Reading and Pronunciation English isn't the easiest language to learn. It has lots of words that are spelled nothing like the way they’re pronounced--take “colonel” or “neighbor” for example. This can make it difficult to learn English, and even if you speak English well already, it can make it hard to learn to read and spell unfamiliar words.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MiMt2z
Google files patent claim against Microsoft, Nokia Google is accusing Microsoft and Nokia of abusing mobile patents in a way that will drive up the prices of cellphones and other wireless devices.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/KNK2ky
More Indicators that Opera may be for Sale emerge As far as I’m concerned, it is all just a rumor at this point in time. I’m taking about Opera Software currently in talks with Facebook, and maybe other potential buyers. Two new indicators that came to light today make it look as if there is more to the rumor than initially thought.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KNILKn
Five Fun and Geeky Alternatives to Instagram Instagram is one of those apps that’s a little like brussels sprouts: you’ll either love sharing photos with fancy, vintage-style filters plastered on them, or you’ll loathe seeing the same filter applied to mundane shots of someone's lunch.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KNIh6V
Opera Mini 7 now available for Basic Phones Back at the end of February 2012, Opera Software released Opera Mini 7 for Apple’s iOS operating system, and about a month later for Google’s Android operating system. Only owners of basic phones had to work with Opera Mini 6.5 for some time while Android and iOS owners were able to benefit from the new version of the web browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KNFLh9
How to Download and Install the Microsoft Windows 8 Final Release Preview Get ready, beta testers. Microsoft Thursday debuted Windows 8 Release Preview, which is one of the last steps before a final release of Windows 8 this fall. Versions of the operating system are available for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KNEfvj
Judge Clears Google of Java Copyright Infringement A U.S. judge has ruled that the Java application programming interfaces used in Android are not protected by copyright, marking a defeat for Oracle in its high-stakes lawsuit against Google.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KNDVNe
Windows 8 Final Release Preview Impressions Microsoft's Windows 8 Final Release Preview demonstrates just how far the company has come with its new OS. Will it be enough to convert the naysayers?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KiFo0r
Fedora Linux 17 'Beefy Miracle' Makes Its Official Debut It was just a few short weeks ago that I wrote about the beta release of Fedora Linux 17, but on Tuesday the free and open source operating system--also known as “Beefy Miracle”--made its widely anticipated final debut.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LDbEHd
Bitly Redesign Enhances Bundles, Bitmarks, Bewilderment Like its cartoon pufferfish mascot, link-shortening service Bitly has expanded, now offering a bookmark feature and social media integration.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LDaxXO
Attacks on Iranian Oil Industry Led to Flame Malware Find The sophisticated cyber espionage malware known as "Flame" was discovered after computers within Iran's energy industry were wiped clean of data, a security expert said today.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LD7Nd4
The New DDoS: Silent, Organized, and Profitable Depending on how unscrupulous your business practices are, a denial-of-service attack can give you a competitive advantage. From keeping competitors offline to engaging in outright extortion, there are organizations (some more obviously criminal than others) now using DDoS attacks to make big money.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LD72kh
Put Aside, Quickly hide a group of applications in Windows If you want to access a shortcut on the desktop quickly, you probably use the Windows-m shortcut for that, or the show desktop button on newer versions of Windows. You can then do whatever you have to do on the desktop, before you use Windows-Shift-m to bring back the application windows.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LD6A5n
How to move installed programs in Windows Moving an installed program from one partition or hard drive to another in Windows is actually a straightforward process if you have the right tools for the job. You may have different reasons for this, from running out of disk space on the partition the software is installed on, to moving the folder into a folder that is synchronized with the cloud, to pure cosmetic reasons for moving a program folder.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LD6knc
6 Free Download Manager Features that you will like a lot We have reviewed the Free Download Manager application back in 2008 and liked it a lot back then. The developers of the download manager have not been idle in past years, and released several new versions of the program of which some introduced interesting new features to the program.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LD5Z3I
New Microsoft EULA fine print nixes class action Microsoft is changing its end-user license for unspecified consumer software and hardware products to eliminate users' ability to engage in class-action lawsuits.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Jz3ovy
CNET News Business Tech Faster Chromebooks unshackle Chrome OS: Hands-on For the cloud crowd, Samsung's new $449 Chromebook and $329 Chromebox give a much-needed performance boost to Google's browser-based OS. They're still not for most computer users, though.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Jz2KOR
Gartner Predicts Huge Rise in Monitoring of Employees' Social Media Use Corporations are starting to embrace technologies used to monitor employee Internet use, with 60 percent expected to watch workers' social media use for security breaches by 2015, according to a new report from Gartner.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Jz2BLb
Rare Working Apple-1 Computer to Be Auctioned by Sotheby's Sotheby's will put some Apple history on the block next month, including one of only six working Apple-1 personal computers. The auction house has estimated the motherboard will sell for up to $180,000.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/K85dAS
Powerful "Flame" cyber weapon found in Iran Security experts said on Monday a highly sophisticated computer virus is infecting computers in Iran and other Middle East countries and may have been deployed at least five years ago to engage in state-sponsored cyber espionage.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/K7QLJp
eHistory adds advanced Search Operators to Chrome’s History Page If you do not clear your Chrome browsing history regularly you surely have a good reason for it, like the ability to check back on sites that you have visited in the past. You may have noticed though that the search on the history page is far from ideal, especially when it comes to complex search queries.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Lya5xu
Google Chrome Tab Stacking I’m not really sure when Google introduced the tab stacking feature in the Google Chrome browser, only that it is available at least in the Windows Chrome Canary builds right now.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ly9vQu
Information of U.S. Federal Employees Exposed A hack in July last year of a computer used by third-party services provider Serco to support the Thrift Savings Plan run by the U.S. Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board resulted in unauthorized access to the personal information of about 123,201 TSP participants and payees, FRTIB said Friday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ly90FV
5 Common E-Mail Management Mistakes and How to Avoid Them E-mail managers have a lot at stake. After all, the volume of global electronic messages sent via e-mail dwarfs all other forms of electronic communication, including social networking.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ly8A2l
Researchers Identify Stuxnet-like Cyberespionage Malware Called 'Flame' A new, highly sophisticated malware threat that was predominantly used in cyber espionage attacks against targets in the Middle East has been identified and analyzed by researchers from several security companies and organizations.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ly89oK
Siren is a flexible freeware file renamer for Windows If your digital camera is only creating photos like CIMG0282.jpg you may feel the desire to rename those photos once they have been transferred to the PC for easier recognition in the future. While you could place them into properly named directories, you’d end up with the photo names being displayed in some occasions.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JGWWnJ
Premiere Pro CS6's Aesthetic and Workflow Improvements Boost Editing Efficiency Adobe Premiere Pro CS6's aesthetic and workflow improvements over the previous version are immediately obvious at first glance. Whereas Premiere Pro CS5's most notable features -- 64-bit processing and the Mercury Playback Engine -- were under the hood, the CS6 interface has undergone a comprehensive redesign that not only transforms the overall look and feel of the program, but facilitates a more efficient editing workflow

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JvhmP4
Gartner: Don't Trust Cloud Provider to Protect Your Corporate Assets When a family with a baby buys a new car, they don't buy a car seat from the vehicle manufacturer: There is specialized equipment to handle the family's most sensitive asset.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Jvh3Ea
Microsoft Delivers a Blow to Open Source with Visual Studio 11 Microsoft has already ruffled more than a few feathers with the exclusionary potential of its forthcoming Windows 8 operating system, and this past week the open source community has been up in arms again.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JvgN85
Indoor Navigation System for People with Visual Impairments University of Nevada, Reno computer science engineering team Kostas Bekris and Eelke Folmer presented their indoor navigation system for people with visual impairments at two national conferences in the past two weeks.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JCUHNp
MIT Develops a Magnetic Hypospray for Needleless Shots This new injection system shoots medication or vaccines at nearly the speed of sound. It is painless and the stream of medicine shoots out at high pressure--100 megapascals--and at a velocity of 314 meters per second (1,030 feet per second).

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KQ0ShF
Google to Warn 500,000+ of DNS Changer Infections Google plans today to begin warning Internet users if their computers show telltale signs of being infected with the DNSChanger Trojan. The company estimates that more than 500,000 systems remain infected with the malware, despite a looming deadline that threatens to quarantine the sick computers from the rest of the Internet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KspIF6
Core webOS Enyo Team Jumps Ship to Google A big chunk of HP's Enyo team has been hired on by Google. What does that mean for Open webOS?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LDEARW
Here comes Yahoo's own Web browser -- Axis Yahoo's search group attempts to take control of its destiny by launching its own browser. Surprise: It's good.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/LDE4U5
Do-it-all search pages do the fetching YOU whippersnappers might not remember, but libraries used to have something called card catalogues. Each book's index card told you which shelf housed the corresponding volume. You had to go and fetch it on foot.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Ksov0N
Cloud System Booster, Optimize, Clean and Repair Your PC Cloud System Booster is a free system optimizer, cleaner and repair program for Windows that combines features of programs like CCleaner with optimization and repair tools.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LDARnr
Nokia delivers live traffic, geocoding to Bing The company says Bing Maps will offer traffic information in 24 countries around the world.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/LDAkCd
MP3 Toolkit offers all the MP3 Tools you will ever need When it comes to mp3 files, you sometimes may need a set of tools to edit, convert or even rip them in first place. While you can use specialized tools for that which provide you with some of the functionality that you may need, a set of tools that Mp3 Toolkit offers may come in handy as well.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LDzWn6
Short on Funds? Don’t Buy—Use Online Barter Sites! The shaky economy has many of us thinking twice about parting with hard-earned dough. Maybe you’re bargain-hunting, cutting back on travel, or skipping the gym for home workouts.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LDzm93
Resolving a Software Purchase Hassle A reader in Papua New Guinea seeks help with a software purchase he can't complete; also, an antivirus software company drops a customer support firm for aggressive tactics.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LDyqBq
Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on for Chrome Many websites and services make use of Google Analytics, a web statistics service that is tracking web users on websites where the script is installed. Besides the tracking, there is also the aspect of loading times that are affected by the script.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JjgV5L
No, half a billion people won't be using Windows 8 next year Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's words were misconstrued earlier this week when a report claimed he said there would be 500 million Windows 8 users next year.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/JjfwfE
How To Access Removed Results On Google Search If you search on Google regularly, you may have noticed omitted entries on some search results pages. For those of you who have never encountered that, try searching for windows 7 torrent and scroll down to the end of the page.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JjeY9p
Yahoo kills 'Livestand' just 6 months after debut Yahoo has killed Livestand, a tablet magazine, just six months after its debut on the iPad.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/Jjesbq
Dell-Quest deal possible over weekend: sources Dell Inc is expected to reach an agreement to buy network security software maker Quest Software Inc as soon as this weekend after a previous deal fell apart, several people familiar with the matter said.

Read more at: http://reut.rs/JjdYSO
Aged Windows XP Costs 5x More to Manage Than Windows 7 Microsoft yesterday added ammunition to its increasingly aggressive battle to get users off the nearly-11-year-old Windows XP by citing a company-sponsored report that claims annual support costs for the older OS are more than five times that of Windows 7.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JjdyeZ
Microsoft Plagued by Software Piracy 500,000. That’s the number of takedown requests Microsoft has submitted to Google just over the past month related to copyright infringement and software piracy.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JjcZBV
Improve Your Laptops Battery Life With Battery Optimizer A recent trend in mobile computing is to make devices as slim as possible. We have seen Intel create the Ultrabooks brand for that purpose, and even though it is being used rather loosely, laptops tend to be slimmer on average than years before.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Jjc0BR
Rumor: Facebook To Buy Opera Software To Join Browser Wars Okay take this with some skepticism as there is no official confirmation about this yet, and the only source for the article is an unnamed one. According to web magazine Pocket-Lint, Facebook is considering buying the Norwegian company Opera Software, which developers the Opera web browser for various platforms.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JjbHae
Microsoft Turns Off Streetside Imagery In Germany Over Photo Blurring Concerns The company says it’s shut down Streetside imagery in Germany after complaints about the way the company was handling blurring requests. Microsoft spokesperson Thomas Baumgartner said that he’s not sure if or when Streetside will be reinstated in Germany

Read more at: http://selnd.com/Jhhugs
What Windows 8? Microsoft Pushes XP-to-Win 7 Migration What's the best operating system for businesses? If you were to ask Microsoft, you'd probably expect them to preach the virtues of the company's upcoming Windows 8 operating system, which arrives later this year on both PCs and tablets.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KXYNzJ
Who wins, who loses in Oracle v. Google Google has been vindicated over claims of patent infringement, but let's take a closer look at some of the winners and losers in this case so far.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/KXYrJA
Mobile Workers Work Longer Hours Almost two-thirds of mobile employees say they are working 50 to 60 hour-plus weeks, with most working weekends too, according to research.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KXXHnO
Google Privacy Inquiries Get Little Cooperation After months of negotiation, Johannes Caspar, a German data protection official, forced Google to show him exactly what its Street View cars had been collecting from potentially millions of his fellow citizens.

Read more at: http://nyti.ms/KXXnFC
Sales of Unused IPv4 Addresses Gathering Steam A growing number of U.S. carriers and enterprises are hedging their bets on IPv6 by purchasing blocks of unused IPv4 addresses through official channels or behind-the-scenes dealmaking.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KXWEEl
About 4.5 Million Catholic School Students to Get Office 365 About 4.5 million Catholic school students will get access to Microsoft's Office 365 cloud e-mail and collaboration suite as part of a 3-year deal the software vendor struck with the Catholic International Education Office (OIEC).

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JAusvJ
Researchers Propose TLS Extension to Detect Rogue SSL Certificates A pair of security researchers have proposed an extension to the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol that would allow browsers to detect and block fraudulently-issued SSL certificates.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JAtUpU
IE9 Says Yahoo Axis Slows Down the Browser Although Microsoft and Yahoo are search partners, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) may complain that Yahoo's new Axis search add-on is slowing down the browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JAtIXz
Google+ Android App Can Start Hangouts With Ease, Gets New Look The Google+ app for Android just received a big update that simplifies the way users can start Hangout video chats from their phones.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JAtm37
Move Over Instagram, Here Comes Facebook Camera Facebook might have acquired Instagram, but that’s not stopping the site from releasing a social photo-sharing app of its own.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JAt6Bd
Visual Studio 11: Only For Windows 7 or higher Windows 8 is not the only product that Microsoft is currently working on. The company is also working on a refresh of their popular Visual Studio product lineup, and boy, there will be changes that will certainly irritate part of the user base that is currently working with the product.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MpxNe9
Microsoft gives Flash a reprieve in IE10 Adobe's plug-in will be built directly into Windows 8's browser, optimized for touch, security, and power efficiency, a source says. But it's only a temporary move.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/MpwUlX
HP to Trim 27,000 Jobs as Part of Restructuring Program Hewlett-Packard will trim 27,000 employees as part of its long-term restructuring plan, the company said Wednesday when it announced quarterly financial results.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MpwgVp
Quick check your system for problems with System Security Guard As you may know, I like to run portable security programs from time to time on systems that I own or administrate as part of a system’s regular maintenance. For that, I also like to test new programs that come up, or have slipped passed me previously.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MpvCY9
Lunascape, A Triple-Engine Internet Browser When you look at the five major web browsers, that is Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari, you will notice many similarities, and less differences.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Mpv0Sf
Change Firefox shortcuts with the Customizable Shortcuts add-on Back when Mozilla introduced the Tab Groups feature I often hit the assigned shortcut accidentally triggering it. This was annoying and back then there were virtually no options to get around it.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MptK1t
Windows Phone users must update to 7.5 or else... Any user who wants to access Windows Phone Marketplace has to upgrade their phone to 7.5 or risk "seeing an error message when you try to download a new app."

Read more at: http://cnet.co/Mpta3V
Browser choice: A thing of the past? Devices using iOS and the future Windows RT hobble third-party browsers. Despite some good reasons for doing so, the change could undermine browser competition.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/MpsbAN
McAfee Reports Big Spike in Malware PC malware had its "busiest quarter in recent history," according to McAfee's quarterly security report released Wednesday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Mprmbb
Pwnium Hacking Contest Winners Exploited 16 Chrome Zero-days Google yesterday revealed that the two researchers who cracked Chrome in March at the company's inaugural "Pwnium" hacking contest used a total of 16 zero-day vulnerabilities to win $60,000 each.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MpqS4N
Verizon Looks to Alcatel's New Core Router for Capacity, Efficiency Verizon Communications on Tuesday became the first service provider to say it will use Alcatel-Lucent's upcoming 7950 XRS core routing system, which will bring the French-American equipment vendor into the carrier core routing business for the first time in about a decade.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Jvpqkn
EU say Google may have abused its dominance The top European antitrust official say that an investigation has found Google may have abused its online dominance to squelch competition and offered the company a chance to settle the allegations to avoid formal charges

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JvoZGK
RocketFrog Wants To Build The Largest Social Casino On The Web, Myspace Tom Joins As Advisor One of the hottest trends in gaming right now isn't mobile, social, or massively multiplayer games, but online casinos.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JvozjF
New Ways to Track You via Your Mobile Devices: Big Brother or Good Business? A new technology called IPS can track your every move--or help you find a departure gate at the airport. Should we fear it or embrace it?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JvnOHh
ICANN resumes bids for new Internet suffixes The organization overseeing a major expansion of Internet addresses has reopened its system for letting companies and organizations submit proposals.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/Jvnzfg
New ad zapper has TV networks worried about sales The maker of a new DVR that lets consumers zap away broadcast TV commercials at the touch of a button suggested Tuesday that the networks are being short-sighted in opposing the technology.

Read more at: http://yhoo.it/JvniJo
Make Firefox More Responsive With Suspend Background Tabs If you work with many tabs in Firefox, you may have some websites that leech away the computer’s processing power even when they are running in the background.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JvmKTM
Windows 8′s Boot Experience Will Be Different When there is something wrong with my Windows 7 desktop PC, I tend to hammer on the F8 key during boot to get into the advanced boot options. Here I can then repair or recover from issues that I may experience at that time.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JvmtQC
Banks Warned of Sophisticated New Online Scam The security vendor Trusteer is warning banks to look out for a sophisticated Trojan capable of emptying the account of an online customer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/Jvm9kV
Ballmer: Windows 8 Will Bring 'Rebirth' of Microsoft OS The upcoming Windows 8 will represent "a dawning of the rebirth" of Redmond's ubiquitous operating system, according to Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/JvlPmn
Web Browser System Requirements Overview When you are planning to install a new web browser on your system, or to upgrade one of the browsers to a newer version, you need to make sure that your system meets the requirements for that.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LfPwFm
Are You Prepared for the EU's New Data Protection Regulation? Big changes are coming to data protection laws in the European Union. Are you ready?

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LfNNjh
Microsoft set to improve Windows Multi-Monitor support Microsoft re-published the multi-monitor article on the Building Windows 8 blog that was published earlier this week and then pulled again.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LfMK2T
Wikipedia down? Try these alternatives Wikipedia in recent years has become the go-to address for Internet users when it comes to looking up information on the Internet.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KEpCZn
Is Internet Explorer On the Way Out? Not So Fast! StatCounter has declared Google Chrome the king of all desktop browsers based on recent market share data, but observers should take this claim to the throne with a grain of salt.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KEoEMQ
Chrome now world's top browser, but beware the math The browser, according to data compiled by StatCounter, topped Internet Explorer to become the world's most popular browser last week.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/KEmVqB
Keep Your PC Clean With Wise Disk Cleaner Some computer users say that there is not really a need to run disk cleaners like the popular CCleaner or the lesser known FixBee regularly on a system thanks to Terabyte-large hard drives.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KEmaxV
Linux Kernel Update Beefs Up Security and Graphics Support Linux creator Linus Torvalds on Sunday released a brand-new version of the Linux kernel, and it's packed with a range of goodies that promise to make life considerably better for users.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/KElJUg
3 Free Apps to Guard Android from Malware Mobile malware madness: Favorite target? Android. Here's how to protect your device.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/M8xR1U
Microsoft Silently Installing Windows Presentation Foundation Plugin For Firefox If you have recently opened your Firefox web browser you might have noticed a notification from the web browser that the Windows Presentation Foundation plugin was disabled to protect the user and the web browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MxxD70
Microsoft So.cl (Social) Silently Launched Oh no, not another networking site, please, for god’s sake. That was my first thought when I read about Microsoft So.cl when it was first announced.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MxvAzO
How To Run Java Applications On Systems Without JRE Great programs like the file hosting downloader JDownloader or the feed reader RSSOwl require Java to run. That’s fine if you have full control of a system, and not so great if you sometimes have to work on a system where Java, in the form of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is not installed.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MxuCnr
Cisco's Wireless Unit Shifts Emphasis to 'Mobility' Cisco's Wireless Networking Business Unit doesn't actually talk so much about wireless networking these days. Increasingly, its message aimed at IT groups is about the broader concept of "mobility."

Read more at: http://bit.ly/MxulRb
Facebook Faces $15 Billion Class-Action Suit Over Privacy A Facebook user is suing Facebook for violation of privacy issues. As a class-action suit, the amount the complainant believes Facebook should owe is $15 billion.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LqhYap
China Approves Google Acquisition of Motorola Mobility Chinese regulatory authorities have approved Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility, paving the way for the deal to close within the week, company officials confirmed Saturday.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LqhAsA
Facebook vs. Google: Who Will Win? Facebook is now officially a public company, scads of new millionaires are on a Silicon Valley spending spree, and media outlets near and far have yet to pipe down about the IPO, likely one of the most anticipated in history.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/LqhpNK
This City Never Sleeps, And Neither Do The Hackers The city is alive with Saturday night fever, and Pier 94 is just as awake, and perhaps a bit more drunk. Tequila shots (and plenty of beers) are flowing, along with Red Bull, Mountain Dew, and Energy Bites.

Read more at: http://tcrn.ch/LqhcKE
Microsoft Wins Ruling Forcing Change In Motorola Phones Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) won a federal trade ruling that will force Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. (MMI) to alter software on some of its Android-based mobile phones to keep bringing them into the U.S.

Read more at: http://bloom.bg/KFI4Bg

Welcome To protonic.com

Free Technology News, Views, Help, and More!

 
Got a headache with your computer and no budget to fix it...?  protonic.com is here to help. We offer completely free computer support and computer related information online and by E-Mail. We are a free service manned by volunteers all over the world, helping people fix technology problems. We enjoy the challenge of solving your problem, we are up to date and work as a team. We maintain our high standards through Quality Assurance sampling.

We do our best to remedy your problem and put the smile back on your face!

 

  What Our Clients Say...

1st rate support

" Great service! "  May 20th, 2013

" I am always so very impressed and grateful for the help i've gotten from protonic! sadly, this time didn't work out but it certainly was not the fault of bob or protonic! no question...i will be in touch with protonic in time of need. question: is it because your folks are volunteers that "remote access" is prohibited? just wondering... "  May 20th, 2013

Very helpful  May 20th, 2013

Bob ticked all the boxes as far as I was concerned...

" An excellent service, one I have recommended to many friends and collegues "  May 18th, 2013

I think peter is one of the highest quality gentlemen I have "known." he has the skills, integrity, knowledge and customer loyalty that are very rare qualities.

" Protonic is a most excellent resource for those of us who are technologically challenged. the only improvement I would make ias to clone about a million more peter expats. . . "  May 14th, 2013

Very efficient and knowledgeable knew all answers to my questions john

" Doing a great service john "  May 13th, 2013

Thanks, james. your guidances is very useful and helpful. in india, samsung is the brand of choice. using your guidelines, I can make my choice. i was losing hope that any help will be coming from protonic on this question. and, in fact, came to delete the question. when I saw your response. thanks.

" I was about to close the question when I saw the response. protonic does answer questions! thank you, folks at protonic. "  May 11th, 2013

I would just like to thank the technician who assisted me. my issue was a somewhat trivial one, yet he responded very quickly and answered the questions i had concerning this issue in a professional, yet easy to understand, way. tell him that I appreciate that very much. thank you very much, and I will continue to use protonic and recommend it to my friends.

" I cannot think of any improvements that you need for your service. your website is one of the only services on the web to actually offer "one on one" computer technical support for free. I will certainly consider making a donation in the future when my finances improve a little. in the meantime, please accept my sincere appreciation for your asssistance. "  May 8th, 2013

Paul was very prompt to reply and provided plenty of good sound advice. he also came across as friendly and helpful.

" Protonic is an excellent service. I can't see any way of improving as it's already perfect. thank you protonic. "  May 8th, 2013

Better service than you get from major computer retailers.

" Very hard to improve something that is this good. "  May 7th, 2013

What Would You Like To Do?


Ask A Technician
A Question


Chat
On The Forums


Download Free
Software


View The
proto.blog


Read The Latest
Industry News


Our FAQs
 

 

The Latest Industry News...

Click Article Title to see News item.

  Pushdo botnet is evolving, becomes more resilient to takedown attempts

A new Pushdo malware variant uses domain generation techniques to call home if normal communications fail, researchers say

Read more at: http://bit.ly/19SozkE
  Researchers uncover new global cyberespionage operation dubbed SafeNet

The attack infected computers belonging to companies, governments, and other organizations from more than 100 countries, Trend Micro says

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11PU3dg
  5 Gmail tips for power users

While there's no shortage of email providers, Gmail's simple design, ease of use and cool features continue to attract users.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/11PSrQJ
  Oracle renumbers Java patch updates, confuses users even more

New numbering scheme was necessary to take into account the increase in zero-day patches, Oracle said

Read more at: http://bit.ly/14CR4BP
  7 steps to securing Java

Java, the popular OS-independent platform and programming language, runs on just about every kind of electronic device imaginable, including computers, cell phones, printers, TVs, DVDs, home security systems, automated teller machines, navigation systems, games and medical devices.

Read more at: h... Show More
  In a sea of malware, viruses make a small comeback

Microsoft has noticed a small uptick in viruses that infect files

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15Xh6Er
  Internet Explorer 10 beats Chrome and Firefox at blocking malware downloads...

Internet Explorer 10 users are far less likely to suffer malware infections while Web browsing compared to users of Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Opera, according to a recent independent study by NSS Labs.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/13yliXr
  Just Manager is a promising, portable Windows Explorer alternative

The default Windows file manager Windows Explorer has not really changed that much in all its years of existence. Microsoft made only marginally changes to the program and while it is sufficient for basic file related operations, it lacks several features that third party tools offer.

Read more at:... Show More
  Windows 8 Vulnerable to Attack, Kaspersky Says

Kaspersky Lab product specialist Wayne Kirby says that the complex design of Microsoft's newest operating system (OS), Windows 8, increases its vulnerability to hackers.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12hcl2j
  Stealthy malware spreading among popular Web servers

Security company Eset says the Linux/Cdorked malware program targeting Apache servers now also affects Lighttpd and Nginx Web servers

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12hc5Am
  Windows 7 patch KB 2670838 fries Firefox fonts

For users with font-rendering problems in Firefox that can be traced to problematic KB 2670838 patch, here's an easy fix...

Read more at: http://bit.ly/12hbQW6
  Phrozensoft VirusTotal Uploader: check files for viruses online

Virustotal is without doubt one of the go-to services when it comes to scanning a file for viruses online. Its appeal is mainly based on the fact that it is using dozens of antivirus engines in file verifications.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/13v5DY7
  Windows Start button could make a comeback, Microsoft exec says

Julie Larson-Green, corporate vice president of Windows, says the company is having "meaningful discussions" about bringing older features of Microsoft's operating system to Windows 8.

Read more at: http://cnet.co/13v3hsk
  Reduce Computer Eye Strain With Flux

If you are finding yourself in front of the computer too many hours at night or when it’s dark, you may find that bright light from the display may be impacting your sleep and causing eye strain. Fortunately, there is a free utility that minimizes this problem. The program is called f.lux and is ... Show More
  Send mails faster with Auto Compress File for Thunderbird

Improvements have been made in recent time to tackle what I call the attachment issue in emails. Mail servers limit the maximum size of emails, and every email that exceeds that size is bounced back to the sender.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15mif7W
  Resize YouTube’s video player to full screen automatically

It is quite surprising that the video hosting site YouTube does not offer better video player controls.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/15mhMTl
  Microsoft admits zero-day bug in IE8, pledges patch

Microsoft late Friday confirmed that a "zero-day," or unpatched, vulnerability exists in Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), the company's most popular browser.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/18ofody
  Complexity of Windows 8 OS makes it vulnerable to attack: Kaspersky

The complexity of the Windows 8 operating system has increased its vulnerability, according to Kaspersky Lab A/NZ product specialist, Wayne Kirby.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/18offa8
  Internet's Very First Website Brought Back to Life

Twenty years ago this week the World Wide Web's technology became publicly available. To mark the event, the first-ever website has been recreated and republished.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZD9jaj
  Windows XP at risk as antivirus vendors jump ship

Virus Bulletin VB100 report, focused on fully updated Windows XP systems, shows antivirus manufacturers are giving short shrift to XP, despite its popularity

Read more at: http://bit.ly/ZD8NJe