Bacteria Could Soon Power Your Fancy New Computer

Neglect silicon; workstations of the fate would be able to be based incompletely around microbes. Researchers at the Imperial College London have built microbes to role as sensibility doors, fundamental parts utilized to construct electronic circuits. This is a paramount stride towards the making of organic computerized apparatuses--think living workstations. The microorganisms E. coli was utilized as the host for a hereditary AND gate.

Microsoft Windows 8

Microsoft is seting the groundwork to malware sweep and security check Metro applications submitted to its store. Metro applications should just be good to go through the newfangled store.Microsoft will back side stacking of requisitions for designers.

iPhone & Android Apps to Track Hurricane Irene

As the Hurricane Irene barrels up the East Coast, people in Florida and the Carolinas eagerly await updates on the storm’s projected path.
Luckily, technology has provided us with a number of ways to stay updated with current position of the hurricane.
Although social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are playing an important role in keep people updated, there are several mobile apps that could come handy, which concentrate on tracking Hurricane Irene and providing you with up-to date news.

Android, iPhone and Windows 7 Smartphone Apps to Track Hurricane Irene

Here are a few popular apps that will help you track the hurricane as it travels on its course. The list includes free and paid apps available for download for your Android, iPhone and Windows 7 Phone.

Android Apps to Track Hurricane Irene:

The Weather Channel (Free)

The Weather Channel for Android adds new features – a new user interface, integration of iWitness Weather and international language support.
It also includes customizable weather maps, animated radar maps, detailed weather conditions and forecasts, severe weather alerts, and a notification bar with the current temperature and severe weather alert indicator.
The app is available for download for iPhone users as well.

Hurricane Watch (Free)

Hurricane Watch is yet another free Android app available for download in the Android Market. The application designed to give you access to the National Hurricane Center forecasts for both the Atlantic and Pacific (US and surrounding area) oceans. The data is available in the public domain, and is ad supported.

Hurricane Hound (Free)

The app mainly works on a Google Maps background. It shows the tracks and forecasts of active hurricanes tropical storms, and highlights areas the National Weather Service (NWS) is watching for possible development.
The app is available for free, however it contains advertisements.

Hurricane Hound Ad-free ($1.99)

The ad-free version of Hurricane Hound supports current radar and weather satellite overlay. The radar is available currently from US based radars, while the satellite coverage is done in most of the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific basins. It offers a hurricane tracker using Google Maps as the background.
The app is available for $1.99 and can be purchased from the Android Market.

iPhone/iPad Apps to Track Hurricane Irene:

iHurricane HD (Free)

iHurricane HD is the most popular hurricane tracking app for iPhone/iPad and iTouch. It is among the best free hurricane apps available. Hurricane HD is a Hurricane Tracking System that integrates with HurricaneSoftware.com’s applications to give you the most up-to-date and reliable hurricane coordinates data and high resolution maps.
Its features include:

• • Latest coordinate active storm data
• • Distance from your location to storms location in miles.
• • Latest satellite information
• • National Radar
• • Historical data on this seasons past storms

Hurricane ($2.99)

Developed by Kitty Cole, Hurricane is one of the most top rated and popular app in the App Store for tracking hurricanes. The new version (3.6) offers the following features:

• • Invests in active storm list
• • Forecast wind radius for Atlantic/East Pacific storms
• • Pull down to refresh storm list

It is currently available in the App Store for $2.99, which is a 25% discount. You can purchase and download it using this iTunes link.

Hurricane Express ($2.99)

Hurricane Express contains the most important and interactive data for Hurricane tracking. Exclusive push alerts, forecast tracks, model data, animated satellites, and all the information straight from the professionals at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
It can be purchased from the App Store at a reasonable price ($1.99).

Hurricane Tracker ($2.99)

Hurricane Tracker is yet another popular app in the App Store. This app provides minute by minute update on Hurricane Irene with a live feed and frequent audio updates including, threat level maps, forecaster video updates, and detailed Push Alerts for: New storms, watches/warnings & intensity changes.
The app is priced at $2.99 and can be purchased from the App Store.

Hurricane HD ($3.99)

This app is exclusively for your iPad running iOS 4.2 or higher. It provides you with Active Storm features, Active Storm data and imagery and World Wide Broadcast Quality with Interactive Tracking Maps.
Some of its general features include:

• • 50+ animated World satellite images
• • Animated US local and regional radar
• • Tropical outlooks – Updated with official NHC info
• • Sea surface temperatures storm names
• • Saffir-simpson hurricane wind scale

Windows 7 Phone App to Track Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Software (Free)

If you're Windows Phone 7 users, then there's Hurricane Software developed by GenCode Systems, Inc. app available for free download.
It supports the following features:

• • Latest coordinate active storm data
• • Distance from your location to storms location in miles.
• • Latest satellite information
• • National Radar
• • Historical data on this seasons past storms

If you cannot afford to purchase any of the apps, or want to skip the process of downloading mobile apps, then you can make use of Twitter to get breaking news about the strom, by following @WeatherChannel, @MyWeather, @StormPulse and @BreakingWeather (AccuWeather) or just look for the #irene or #hurricane hashtags.
Please let us know which app you are using, and why you like it the most by adding your feedback in the comment section below.

A Better Way to Translate Office Documents

There are several easy ways by which you can translate your Microsoft Office documents or PDF files from one language to another.
For instance, you may upload documents to the Google Translation website, select the language translation pair and hit the Translate button. Then there's the Translator Toolkit, also from the Google stable, where you may not only translate documents but also edit the translated material. Microsoft also offers a free utility that brings translation capabilities right into all your existing Office programs (including Outlook emails).
There's however a limitation you should be aware of. While the Google Translate website makes it a one-click affair to translate lengthy documents, it doesn't preserve the formatting of your documents /presentations and turns them into almost plain-text after the translation.
If you want your translated documents to look just like the original as far as formatting is concerned, give DocTranslator a try. The user interface is horrible but the tool is pretty useful. You upload a document, select a target language and within a minute or so, it will translate all the text of that document in the required language while preserving the document formatting.
To give an example, here's the original document in English and the translated document in Hindi. If you compare the two, only the text has changed while all the styles are preserved. DocTranslater internally uses Google Translate itself and hence supports all language-pairs that are supported by Google Translate.
You may use the tool to translate PDFs, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, video sub-titles, OpenOffice documents and plain text files. Here's a video demo of the translation tool in action.

Generate Strong Passwords with Wolfram

Wolfram Alpha – an online engine that in some respects is more powerful than Google – can also be used for generating strong and unique passwords for your various online accounts.
To get started, go to the wolframalpha.com website and type a natural-language query like password of n characters to create your unique password (n is the length of the password).

Unlike other password generators, Wolfram Alpha offers a phonetic form for every password to make it a bit easier for you to memorize that complex string. It also shows the time it would take for a computer to break that particular password.
While the default settings in Wolfram are good enough to create strong passwords, you may also provide specific password rules like whether the password should have special characters, should every character be different, are number allowed and so on. Useful!

The Most Essential Android Apps

Android has gained enough popularity since its launch in late 2008, and is already competing tightly with Apple. The Android Market - the online software store hosted by Google - has over 460,000+ estimated apps available for both free and paid download, and as of July 2011, there were more than 6 billion downloads from the Android Market.

Google has managed to ship over 107 million Android devices in Q2 of 2011, and with the increasing number of sales in the mobile market, developers are continuing to develop more and more apps for Android phones.

Best Android Apps

If you have recently bought an Android powered smartphone and looking to download some of the best Android apps, then we have complied a list of apps that every Android owner should consider. The best thing is, they are all free!

Best Android Apps

News Republic

News Republic reports all breaking news that really matter to you. The app covers news on topics: Sports, Tech, Business and Celebrity and Entertainment. You can create your own personal topics and follow them. The app will accordingly organize relevant stories for you with an interactive interface. It displays you with complete stories from top quality news sources: Associated Press, AFP, ITN, WENN, eWeek, Adfero, New Media Age, BNO News and so on.

Springpad

Springpad lets you quickly save notes and tasks on your Android powered smartphone. With an amazing user interface, it’s not only easy to use but also a great way to organize and keep a track of all your notes and tasks. You can also look up for products, places, movies and get instant enhanced information.

Seamless Food Delivery

Seamless Food Delivery is a new app developed for Android users that uses the phone’s GPS system to find a location, and display a list of restaurants that will deliver nearby. You can sort through the restaurants ratings and menus and the items before placing your order. After you have placed your order, you will be sent a confirmation e-mail with an estimated delivery time.

ATM Hunter

ATM Hunter is developed by MasterCard that helps you find the nearest ATM anywhere in the world using your phone’s GPS location, and will even notify you whether the machine will charge you for any transactions or not. It also locates your own bank’s ATMs when you want to make a deposit or a withdrawal.

GasBuddy

GasBuddy is one of the best Android apps as it helps you find the cheapest and the nearest gas stations in your area. With just one click, you will locate all the gas stations near you along with their current gas prices. You can also report updated gas prices, and for every gas price reported, you’ll earn points toward prize give-away entries. Every week a $250 gas gift card will be awarded to those users who have reported the highest number of updated gas prices.

Google Voice

Sign up for a free Google Voice number and share it with your friends to make cheap international calls and send free text messages. It also allows you to listen to voicemail and read transcripts. However, the service is available in the US only, and will be available to other countries in the future.

Angry Birds

Got some free time? Or tired of working? Then here’s a perfect time pass. Start destroying the ugly looking pigs that hide in a ramshackle fortress built out of wood and ice using the unique powers of the Angry Birds. There are over 250+ levels and each of the levels require logic, skills, and of course, force to solve them. If you have some free time, this is one of the best Android apps you can get.

TuneWiki

Now sing along with the song that you are playing on your phone. TuneWiki is a music player that provides you with lyrics of the song that you are listening to, be it the song you are listing on the radio or the song that is already there in your phone. The app recently got a new feature called “discover” that brings up a map which displays songs being listened to through TuneWiki around you. You can then choose to follow music listeners with similar tastes, adding people from Facebook and Twitter. Maybe not one of the best Android apps but definitely worth the try.

Hound

Just speak out the name of the artist or song name, and instantly get handful of information and photos, including tour dates, lyrics and artist biography. It basically uses the concept of voice search instead of the conventional typing method.

Lookout

Lookout is an anti-virus app that provides you an easy way to protect your device and data by blocking malware, spyware and viruses. It allows you backup your contacts to the web or restores data to an existing phone. Additionally, it scans each app that you download to ensure that it is safe and virus free.

Prey Anti-Theft

Did you ever lose your phone and felt that it was nearly impossible to track it down? Well then, here’s an app that is quite helpful. Prey Anti-Theft app is an open source, cross-platform anti-theft phone tracker, which tracks down your lost or stolen phone. Once your phone has been activated and instructed to go into “missing mode”, the app automatically starts tracking the phone’s current location and locks the phone or deletes the files on it.

The Weather Channel

The Weather Channel app for Android updates you with the forecast based on your location using the phone’s GPS, severe weather alerts, and you can also set up automatically updating widgets on your phone’s home screen. It also offers the “find me” function that allows users to get weather forecasts for their location or search by city, ZIP code, street address or landmark. The app also includes interactive maps that are fully customizable and feature the functionality of Google Maps.

Adobe Photoshop Express

Adobe Photoshop Express is a photo editing app developed by Adobe Systems. The app lets you edit and share photos virtually anywhere by uploading them to Photoshop.com. With this app you can give artistic effects to your photos and impress your friends by sharing it with them.

What are the best Android apps for you?

I might have missed some of the best Android apps that were worth mentioning here, or have you stumbled across any interesting and essential Android apps that should be added to this list, please let me know in your comments. What do you think are the best Android apps?
The Tech Labs Tutorial - Free Adobe Air, Flash and Flex Tutorials

Step by step instructions to Remove Passwords from your PDF Files

You have a bunch of PDF files on your computer that are protected by a long and complex password. You know the passwords but it still feels inconvenient and boring typing them each time you have to open a PDF file.
Is there a tool available that can remove password protection from PDF files? Someone asked me this question on Twitter the other day and the answer is obviously yes.

Removing Password from a PDF File

There's a unlimited Windows utility called BeCyPDFMetaEdit that can help you evacuate passwords from PDF files* but without construct whatever possible update to the report. (I am not confident why the planners picked the embodiment of a unpredictable name for this suitable utility).
Here's what you need to do:
1. Launch the program and it will ask your for the location of the PDF file.
2. Before you select and open the PDF, change the mode to "Complete Rewrite."
3. Switch to the Security tab and set the "Security System" to "No encryption." Click the Save button and your PDF will no longer require a password to open.
[*] If you would like to test this tool but do not have a password-protected file, use this sample PDF (the password is labnol).
For more tips, check this detailed guide on PDF tools.

Index a DMCA Complaint with the assistance of Google Docs

The instant you distribute a revamped item on your online presence or web journal, the "net scratching" bots far and wide will spring into movement. They'll duplicate your items to distribute them on different homepages and the way that you syndicate substance through RSS channels produces their "duplicate-glue" work even less difficult.
These bots are regularly nonchalant – they could infrequently adjust your sections before republishing them – and therefore it ends up absolutely effortless for you simultaneously to recognize the destinations that are utilizing your substance without liberty. For example, I join a line "This story was basically printed at Digital Inspiration" to the food and along these lines a fast Google pursuit can uncover the names of destinations that are probably duplicating my stories.
The most straightforward gameplan to bargain with within the web based world written falsification is that you send a DMCA acknowledge to search applications, the network hosting supplier and the broadcasting associates (like AdSense) of the culpable destination. Google Search needs you to fax the DMCA perceives, AdSense offers a digital shape while most net accommodates receive DMCA over message.
Identify Copies of your Work with Google Docs
It is pretty effortless to compose a DMCA protest but there's one area in the frame that would include a small exertion – you ought to furnish a post of URLs of pages that "professedly hold encroaching material" and additionally the comparing URLs that hold the first work.
Since you have been searching for a device that can programmedly produce this record for you, take a glimpse at this Google Docs Sheet. Verify you are marked in with your Google Account and the utilization File-> Make a duplicate to make your particular working duplicate of the Google Sheet. Then put in your destination's RSS channel URL in the Cell B3 and the URL of culpable locale in Cell B4 and the sheet will make the information you require for the DMCA. 
What happens obsolete
Here's the means by which the above Google Docs sheet work-it take your RSS channel and figures the title and the URL of your 10 just printed stories utilizing the ImportFeed capacity.
The sheet then runs a marked Google Search for each and every of the 10 stories to figure if a story with the same title exists on the culpable post. Since a duplicate is found, the URL of that page is removed from Google Search utilizing XPath and ImportXML as demonstrated underneath.
=ImportXML(CONCATENATE("http://www.google.com/search?q=intitle:%22", A6, "%22 post:", $B$4), "//a[@class='l']/@href")
In the event that you are getting a N/A for some fields, it either demonstrates that the specific story was not found on the culpable destination or it might be interim situation with Google seek too.

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This story, File a DMCA Complaint with the help of Google Docs, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on August 21, 2011 under Dmca, Google Docs, Internet.

Deadline for PayPal Users in India to Update their Accounts

Ever since the Indian Government /RBI restricted the operations of PayPal in India, it became mandatory for PayPal users in India to provide bank account details and their income tax number (PAN) before they could receive payments or withdraw money from PayPal.
If you are using PayPal in India and haven't provided these required account details to PayPal yet, you should do so now because today – August 22 – is the last date.
Your account will continue to remain active but you will neither be able to receive payments into your PayPal account nor can you withdraw money from PayPal to your local bank in India if the Purpose Code, PAN and bank account details aren't available with PayPal.

Auto-Withdraw PayPal Money to India

One more thing. The RBI rules require that PayPal users do not maintain any balance in their online account and that all money received into PayPal must be transferred to an Indian bank within 7 days.
To comply with this rule, PayPal had added an 'auto-withdrawal' feature that you can enable and the money will automatically get transferred from your PayPal account into your bank account in India. You can access the setting under My Account –> Profile –> Bank Account.

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This story, Deadline for PayPal Users in India to Update their Accounts, was originally published at Digital Inspiration

A Look at Chromebook After Release: What Real Users are Saying

They are mist-registering based machines, and have taken an absolutely unexpected heading to supply mist figuring, when contrasted and the heading that the brand new Windows 8 managing framework vows. Google suddenly discharged the Chromebook in May 2011, and there was a ton of clamor regarding this late thought in private registering. The Chromebook is the first fully fog working framework. It is the first time we have perceived mist processing in this way. Chromebooks run on the Chrome OS, which is basically an augmented form of the Chrome program. In otherwords, your Chromebook, which looks similar to a laptop will ought to be within the web based world every last trace of the chance to do anything. You could probably consider it as a web browser that has every last trace of the projects and all items else on your machine, aside from, nothing is in reality on your PC. Every little item is archived in your Google record or different within the web based world areas. Windows 8 is taking a fully better go at, it is in addition going fog by permitting the same registering dialect of the web deal with your managing framework freely of your program, and still permitting more universal customizing dialects of requisitions capacity at the same time. With Windows, we get mist and not mist, at the same time. Thus, while just good to go in the US, what have we perceived so far with Chromebooks in a few shortmonths. Still More Tablet Like.Real user reviews are showing us that the Chromebook is more like owning a tablet with a keyboard. This means that we cannot really use one for getting all those tough jobs done, like doing design, producing super-cool presentations or maintaining a company network, for example. In other words, at this stage, the Chromebook is for of a casual internet surfer's mini-computer and can supply the needs of a student who needs to get some research and textual work done. That is not to say that we cannot do more than that, but the fact remains, the Chromebook is not for the mobile warrior. Cheap or Expensive.Google is shipping Chromebooks with payment plans that seem very attractive. Business can have them for about 30 dollars a month over 3 years, and students can get them for about 20 dollars a month for the same period of time. This includes all hardware and software updates. In reality, there will be no hardware updates, and software updates do not exist because there is nothing on the machine to be updated. When Chrome OS or applications are updated, they will not be on your computer anyway. While the price seems very cheap, considering what we are getting for our money, we could be buying a cheaper tablet for much less money. Only if Chrome OS and the applications improve greatly in a very short period of time, will we be getting the amazing deal it sounds like. Remember, the Chromebook is still not a replacement of a personal computer and running something like the new Windows 8 upgrade with improved features. As a matter of fact, it is nothing like a personal computer yet. It is like an oversized smartphone with a keyboard. Other operating system upgrades are usually very cheap, and updates and application updates, such as the Windows 8 upgrade, are cheap or already included in the original price. Internet Relative.Google Apps are numerous and if you are used to using the Google system of getting things done like using Gmail, Docs, and all that comes with it, you are probably used to Google Apps. There are applications to allow you to edit photos and movies, for example. At the same time, if your internet connection is not superfast, using these online applications can be a little frustrating for even novice users. Chromebooks come with 100G of online access per month, and this could easily be used up by someone, if they were a heavy user. 3g users know that some applications do not work as well as with other types of applications. VOIP calling applications still do not have the quality over 3g wireless networks like they do with land-based broadband and cable networks. If you think a Chromebook is a personal computer, as it stands, you are mistaken. It would be great to see the Chromebook provide the same user experience and features of a personal computer, and this is also further dependent on the speed and stability of wireless networks. It is doubtful wireless 3g or 4g networks will improve to match cable stability and speed for some time to come, if ever.

Accompany Facebook Pages Secretly [How To]

This post would be helpful to those Facebook users who don’t would like to impart what Facebook pages they are emulating to their contacts. It perhaps owed business explanations, or a political stunt, or would be you need to conceal any page taking after from your ma. Your security can be kept up hence following perusing this piece. But also yes, you are just 4 strides at a distance from taking after Facebook pages namelessly. Tricks to follow Facebook Pages Secretly : FIRST OF ALL :- The primary thing to do is to pilot the Facebook page that you have a desire to take after covertly. Recall, the page might as well have a ‘Wall’ so that the overhauls of it comes your direction. Typically, the vast majority of the conglomerations, either medium or impressive, do have a ‘Wall’ on their Facebook page.SECONDLY : Parchment down the Facebook page that you yearning to accompany furtively and recognize “Subscribe via RSS”. It should be on the other side sidebar in the middle of ‘Create a Page’ and ‘Report Page’.  THIRDLY : Basically right-click on ‘Subscribe via RSS’ channel. Some program might have order-click as a substitute for right-click. Select there ‘Copy channel address' or its comparable of your browser. AT LAST : Now head off to your best RSS book lover for example Google Reader and glue the connection in the ‘Add newfangled subscription’ field. Countless folks don’t have RSS bookworm. Making one is exceptionally straightforward. In the event that you feel a distinct desire to have Google Reader, basically on any Google record page for example Gmail and there you possess the choice of Google Reader. That would be all. Now you hold the protection to accompany any Facebook page subtly without working toward getting tracked by any of your contacts. Do remark beneath your tips and tricks about Facebook.

Step by step instructions to Keep Facebook Newsfeed Clean

Facebook food could frequently be bothering to you. You would not be able to be needing the sustains according to your wish. What you do then? Here are few tips what to do to keep the Facebook food clean according to your prerequisite. First and foremost click on the “Most Recent” choice in the News Feed. This will prepare the legit-time review of every last trace of the exercises of your associates. Anyway, Facebook indicates here just exercises presents of those mates with whom you interface the most. Now you could probably update this setting. Head off to the ‘Edit Options' of ‘Most Recent’ and afterward click on ‘Show presents from the sum total of your mates and pages.’ This will empower review every last trace of the exercises of all mates and pages as it happens. Well, this might be small feverish for you. Here is the means by which you are able to refine promote this view. You are able to conceal your companions from the food. Since you don’t need someones upgrades like Italian pizza is unbelievable! or Lolz m laughing almost too hard, essentially conceal such individual from the food. Basically float your rodent over any overhaul of the individual and click on the Cross symbol. You could probably conceal one exclusive upgrade or the sum total of the overhauls of the individual or page. The contact will never approach have prior experience with it. Isn't this is too much intriguing. You can also hide the same way in applications such as FarmVille or Twitter. Now, filter the feeds or posts by category you choose. Go to ‘Most Recent’ and from the option you just filter the feed as – by photos, by links, by status updates, and more. Suppose you want to have the feeds of limited people and not all such as only the activities of your family members or school buddies. Just go to Account at right top corner and click on Edit Friends. There you have an option ‘Create a List’. Submit title list there and select the contacts whose news feed you want to see on your wall. After doing it, go back to the ‘Most Recent’ and there you will see the friends list. It will be at the bottom of the drop-down. Click on it and you are done. Here you can play one more trick. You can put all the brands and media pages into a list and then through RSS of the Facebook you can get the updates on your reader such as Google Reader. Also Read : How to Follow Facebook Pages Secretly If all these still confusing to you, delete all the friends, pages and apps that you don’t need in your contact or you don’t care about. Simple. Do comment below about your ways of keeping the newsfeed clean according to your parameters.

The Customers Guide To Buying A New Computer

Buying a new computer today depends on a lot of things. But the overriding factor, perhaps, is budget. Recent technology advances have brought down the prices for most of the computer's internal components, and there is no good reason why one shouldn’t have a capable machine for under or around $500. This is good news for those brought to bear under the current economic malaise. Do Check: Why Buying A Cheaper Computer May Be A False Economy What the computer is to be used for is another important factor. Most people would want a computer for basic Web surfing, handling email, doing homework, record keeping and the such. Others would want a machine that could carry the heft of the multimedia possibilities, playing games, editing photos or video, downloading and burning music and movies. A little technical stuff will help the buyer in a good way. This article will explain components making up a basic computer model that could be had for around $500. The computer's main component is the CPU (central processing unit) chip. Today’s basic computer would have a CPU made by standard bearer Intel, or its sister AMD. Two-core or quad-core means the CPU acts as ’2 CPUs’ or ’4 CPUs’ at one time. This is good for the multitasking involved in games and video, and other heavy processing tasks. The CPU processes billions of bytes of data, gigabytes (GB), per second. ‘Hz’ stands for ‘hertz’, one processing cycle. An average, good performing computer would have a processing speed around 2-GHz, or less. The other important component is memory. There are two kinds, RAM memory and the hard drive. While it is working, the CPU stores everything temporarily in RAM. Today’s RAM typically comes in the form of DDR-2 chips, ‘DDR’ standing for ‘double data rate.’ Using RAM sticks with 1 GB storage capability, and depending on the computer’s operating system, the basic computer will have one or two sticks of 1 GB RAM. Optimal operating systems, such as Windows Vista, or Windows 7, require 2 to 4 GB. The more RAM the computer has, the better runs the CPU. Data is permanently stored on the computer’s hard drive. Technology on hard drives has improved explosively. Storage space has become cheap, with 250 GB, 500 GB, and terabyte (1,000 GB) drives becoming common. The budget machine would easily have around a 500 GB hard drive. These components make up the basic computer. Adding to them the mouse, keyboard, and monitor results in the basic 'desktop.' Several other accessories are standard with this model. They include a DVD-RW drive for reading and writing CDs and DVDs, USB ports for hooking up USB components, and a modem for internet connectivity. All this can be had for, around, $500, and enhanced for a few hundred more. Today's trend, influenced by the tablature design, is to pack the components into one unit with the monitor, the all-in-one model. The jury is still out on this phenomenon, but it certainly bears watching. The desktop model enables easy, accessible care and repair, and pretty good affordability. Dell Inspiron 15R 1570MRB 15.6-Inch Laptop (Mars Black) will be the perfect fit for those who are looking to buy computer within the $500 price mark. Looking for computer stores Perth? Austin Computers have 6 convenient locations across the Perth Greater Metro area, and if you ever need computer repairs, upgrades or servicing each store has it’s own service center.

The Best Chrome Apps for Writers

Chrome apps and extensions have steadily increased in both quantity and quality. There are now thousands of apps and themes to add color and enhance functionality of your Chrome web browser. As a student and a writer, I have made it a point to explore the Chrome web store every now and then to find more apps that can help enhance my productivity and make my research efforts slightly easier. I have broken down what I think are the best Chrome apps that I like into the following categories: Chrome Apps to Help You Focus In my opinion, there are two ways to stay focused: get rid of all the distractions or constantly time yourself. All those who are prone to procrastination will be glad to note that there are Chrome apps for both options. Stay Focusd If you are like me, staying focused can be very difficult. The solution is to block out the sites that tend to distract you (eg. Facebook, YouTube, Life, etc.). This app lets you easily block the websites that distract you and keeps them blocked for a pre-determined period. There are some pretty interesting features including a nuclear option that blocks everything except for the sites that you explicitly allow. One tip I can give you is to “hide” the Stay Focusd icon because you might have the tendency to disable it when the temptation becomes overbearing. Also enable the app to function in “incognito”, otherwise you might end up opening incognito windows to get back to your distractions. Timer Tab There are numerous timers out there. The one I am testing now is called Timer Tab. Just set the amount of minutes and it automatically counts down. It is very pretty but there are other timers with more functions including alarms, stopwatches, etc. Chrome Apps for Project Management There are also numerous Chrome apps project management. Some of the latest that I reviewed are Multitask and Gantter. Multitask This is visually a more appealing option and it allows you to upload MS project files (Google Docs integration option is said to be coming soon). What I like about this is the graphics, which is smooth and visually pleasing. Gantter This is what I am currently using, it is not as visually appealing as Multitask but you can customize more features including columns and other minor details. You can save and upload files from Google docs and Microsoft. In addition, this has relatively less glitches than Multitask. Chrome Apps for Notes Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any viable Chrome apps that can rival the likes of Microsoft's Office OneNote. The following are some apps that you could use in a combination. I actually use all of the following… Quick Note This allows you to make notes via Chrome and saves them on the cloud. You can sign up for this using a Google Account. You can open it on an existing webpage and it slides into view, taking up about 1/5 of the page. The problem is that it is not transparent and the size of the writing space cannot be customized. It is far better to open it on a new tab and start writing on it there. You can paste pictures and add some simple formatting. However, this is not even close to stand-alone note taking options like MS Office OneNote. Diggo Web Highlighter A very helpful tool when you want to highlight key text, add bookmarks or add sticky notes. You can visit the web page later and still access the highlighted bits and notes that you placed earlier. The tool is also not intrusive and interface is very simple. Google Screen Capture A neat little app for taking screenshots. You can take screenshots of the entire page, screen, or even parts of the screen. Once you have taken the shot, you can highlight and add annotations. In addition, you can save the files to a local folder. My tip would be to memorize some of the shortcuts, which can be especially helpful if you want to take screen clippings of PDF files. This is because in my experience, the only option that works is the “Capture Screen Region” and if you click on the app to access the option, the menu blocks the view. Easy Reader The easy reader helps you focus on one part of the page when reading. This is quite a nice app but frankly, I have never actually thought of using it much. I suppose it never crosses my mind to access it when I have something interesting to read. Not one of the best Chrome apps but still worth giving a try. iReader This is a great app for stripping a webpage of pictures or unhelpful alignment and just looking at the text. This may have a similar function but it is very different to Easy Reader. With this app, you can toggle pictures on and off, share (Facebook, Twitter or email), zoom and print. I would recommend customizing the size of the display via the settings. Postpone Adder This saves unread web pages to your Google reader so that you can read it later. It is very easy to use; a simple click would do. Google Dictionary The dictionary tool is quite useful. Simple double click a word and the meaning appears. For more detailed definitions, you will have to copy the word paste it on the app’s search box. Chrome Apps for Tab organization It is much easier to keep things organized while working on a computer. However, even when working on Chrome, opening up a ton of tabs will ultimately become a hassle to manage. Therefore, it is important to have a few Chrome Apps that let easily organize your tabs. Join Tabs If you have multiple windows all over the place, this app will help bring them all together into one browser. It is very convenient but be careful to avoid mistakenly clicking on it because you cannot undo the action. That is unless you have the next app. Tab Split when you have too many tabs and you want to put them into a new browser window, the traditional method consisted of removing them one by one. However, with this app, you can easily click on a particular tab (say number 5/10 tabs) and all the tabs right of it will be moved on to a new window. Session Manager This is perfect for those who need to shutdown their work in a hurry and access the same material when they resume work. The Session Manager saves the work as it is. You can access the saved session at any time and it opens all the tabs that were saved. This is very useful if you are doing a lot of research. Your Favourite Chrome Apps/Extensions If you guys have stumbled across any interesting Chrome apps that should be added to this list, please let me know in your comments. What do you think are the best Chrome apps? The Tech Labs Tutorial - Free Adobe Air, Flash and Flex Tutorials

Cisco’s Catalyst 6500 gets a refresh

Naturally, Cisco’s competitors came up during its official launch of the 6500 refresh, and according to Gainey, the Sup2T offers three times the performance of HP’s closest competing switch at a third the cost — at least based on an upgrade cost ($38,000, in case you’re curious).
With more than 25,000 customers worldwide and 110 million ports shipped since the Catalyst 6500 was launched in 1999, one of the main goals of the platform refresh was ensuring customers’ investments were protected. This isn’t a rip-and-replace upgrade. Quite the opposite, in fact. To get the benefits of the improved performance and scalability, all a customer has to do is upgrade to Sup2T, said Kumar Srikantan, vice president of marketing for Cisco’s Scalable Networks Business Unit (SNBU).
“Now it’s never perfect, but you can make the new technology integrate and work with the old linecards, and you can basically preserve 65 to 70 per cent of the old investment,” Srikantan said.
The 6500 Series refresh includes several new (or enhanced) products, including:

• 6900 Series 8-Port 10 Gigabit Ethernet Module, which provides 80Gbps of capacity and 256MB per port of packet buffering.
• 6800 Series 10 Gigabit and Gigabit Ethernet Modules, with fiber and copper versions of the 16-Port 10G Module and the 48-Port GbE Module, as well as a 24-Port GbE Fiber Module. The new modules are outfitted with distribution forwarding capabilities.
• Next-generation borderless services, including the Next-Generation Firewall (ASA-SM), Application Control Engine (ACE30), Network Analysis Module (NAM-3) and Wireless Services Module (WiSM2).

More than 200 new software features have been added to the 6500 Series of switches. The refresh is also meant to address four business challenges — the movement towards the Internet of Things (more devices on the Internet than people), rapidly increasing use of video, the progression towards the cloud, and more mobility.
The cost for all this fun? Only US$38,000. According to Gainey, upgrading an HP switch to the latest version requires a forklift upgrade and would cost $100,930 without getting the performance SupT2 provides. It looks like it’s another shot fired in the ongoing battle between two titans of the IT industry.
“We are literally squeezing the competition here. We’re beating them on price. We’re beating them on performance,” Gainey said.
It’s the improved performance and scalability that Cisco channel partners will be able to take to their customers as a way of differentiating from competing products, said Wenceslao Lada, vice president of borderless networks in the worldwide partner organization at Cisco Systems.
“With the new introduction of this platform, we have brought a very high level competitive platform into the marketplace,” Lada said.
Partners can find opportunities in both hardware and services sales. This also ties into Cisco’s lifecycle management message in which the company has been pushing channel partners to build lifecycle management practices within their networking practices. Network assessment and borderless networks services like TrustSec and MediaNet also play a strong role in this switch refresh.
“We have and always will be strategically invested in this platform,” Gainey said.

Informatics students discover, alert Facebook to threat allowing access to private data, bogus messaging

A Facebook security vulnerability discovered by a pair of doctoral students at Indiana University Bloomington's School of Informatics and Computing that allowed malicious websites to uncover a visitor's real name, access their private data and post bogus content on their behalf has been repaired, Facebook has confirmed.
The vulnerability discovered by Rui Wang and Zhou Li enabled malicious websites to impersonate legitimate websites, and then obtain the same data access permissions on Facebook that those legitimate websites had received.
Wang and Li said the vulnerability occurred when a user informed Facebook of his or her willingness to share information with popular websites like ESPN.com or YouTube. Whenever a website makes such a request to Facebook via the user's browser, Facebook passes a secret random string called an authentication token back to the requestor for identification. Whoever holds that authentication token can convince Facebook that they are, say, ESPN.com and then gain unfettered access to the shared data.
Facebook confirmed the discovery and in a statement said the problem was repaired and that the belief was that no sites had been compromised.
"Researchers at Indiana University reported a vulnerability in our Platform code to us, and we worked quickly with them to resolve it. It was fixed shortly after it was reported. We're not aware of any cases in which it was used maliciously," the statement said. "We thank the researchers at Indiana University for bringing this to our attention, and for demonstrating the value of responsible disclosure."
The researchers identified a flaw in the way the token was transmitted using two Flash objects: one inside Facebook's iframe passes the token to the second, which in this case would be embedded at ESPN.com. The transfer mode can be selected through "transport='flash'" with the security guarantee being that both flash objects are supposed to come from the same domain (i.e., Facebook) before they can talk.
The researchers found, however, that such a same-domain assumption is not always valid because Adobe Flash allows cross-domain communication with an unpredictable domain name that is prepended by an underscore symbol in the connection name. This allows an attacker website to steal an authentication token by choosing the transport='flash,' replacing the receiver flash with its own and then initiating a cross-domain communication with the flash inside the Facebook-controlled iframe to get the token and send it to the attacker's flash.
"This vulnerability has several implications," Wang said. "Basically, any user with a valid Facebook session loses anonymity and privacy to any website, even one with embarrassing or sensitive content."
Facebook allows some websites like bing.com to directly access a user's public data without explicit consent. This enables the malicious website impersonating that site to do the same. Moreover, if the user has ever granted any website, such as The New York Times, YouTube, Farmville or ESPN, the permission to connect to their Facebook account, further damage can be inflicted, including disclosure of private data that the user does not want to share with others, and impersonation of the user to post bogus news or comments on friends' walls. This form of propagation resembles the famous MySpace worm released in 2005, they said.
"Our attack utilized a feature of Adobe Flash called unpredictable communication, and an important distinction between an unpredictable communication and a normal communication is that the former is done through a connection where the name starts with an underscore symbol," Li said. "Therefore, Facebook could check for this symbol to determine if a potentially malicious website tries to do unpredictable communication."
And that is exactly what Facebook started to do once they were alerted to the problem by Wang and Li, who were working under the supervision of School of Informatics and Computing Associate Professor XiaoFeng Wang and Shuo Chen, a researcher in Microsoft Research's Internet Services Research Center.
XiaoFeng Wang, the students' adviser, said Facebook relies on same-domain communications that allow websites to specify Adobe Flash as the communication mechanism.
"In a normal situation, two flash objects can only do same-domain communications, and, in fact, security of Facebook's authentication crucially depends on same-domain restrictions," he explained. "However, Facebook allowed the Adobe Flash communication mechanism but did not disallow the unpredictable domain names. This is how a malicious website could establish a channel to enable two flash objects in different domains to communicate."
To portray the seriousness of the vulnerability, the team made a video demo that can be viewed here.
Facebook officials noted that a contact form at both the Facebook Help Center and from the "Whitehats" tab on the Facebook Security Page are available in the rare instances in which vulnerabilities are found.
"We also recently rewrote our responsible disclosure policy to make it even easier for researchers to let us know when they find a vulnerability, so we can fix it quickly and before it's exploited. Our new policy was praised by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a recent blog post here," the statement said.