Hi Readers,
Due to some personal reasons my new blog got delayed and is finally ready to shoot up this Diwali,
and it was due to the same reason that I was not able to update this blog between 14 Oct - 22 Oct,
I apologize for that.

Unlike this blog my new blog will contain more materials from my side rather than from the various sources all over the Intenet. It will contain my views, opinion, judgement so the name is

http://gauravsverdict.blogspot.com

and soon I will assign it a proper domain name.

We also have plans to introduce one more blog for Bollywood related news containing reviews, and all that kinda of stuff related to bollywood, and the named we have got is

bollyrev.blogspot.com

So this Diwali we will be introducing 2 new blogs.

So regularly check them out to stay tuned and connected to World.

- Gaurav Agrawal

Please be regular to my all blogs.

Though this news dates back to August 2008, but I feel, I should mention this in updates.
Intel is all set to release late this year, all new Intel Core i7,
with launch of this version Intel will be 2 generation ahead to it's closest rival AMD.

Here are some general information about the same,

Produced	From 2008
Common manufacturer(s)	Intel
Max CPU clock	2.66 GHz to 3.2 GHz
QuickPath Interconnectspeeds	4.8 GT/s to 6.4 GT/s
Min feature size	45 nm
Instruction set	x86, x86-64, MMX, SSE,SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3,SSE4.1, SSE4.2
Microarchitecture	Nehalem
Cores	4
Socket(s)	Socket B (LGA 1366)
Core name(s)	Nehalem, Bloomfield

With the launch of the Xperia X1 getting closer and closer (sometime towards the end of November) it seems like the handset is still undergoing a few cosmetic changes with the UI. Personally it all looks pretty good to me as the additions to the UI, at least from the images going around, are going to give the handset a much wider appeal.

Image Source 

The latest is a thumb optimized interface. Like most of the other higher-end WinMob handsets, for example, HTC’s Touch FLO and the Omnia’s quick access menu, this new system will allow users to completely negate the stylus option of input. Enlarged icons and options will allow users to navigate simply with their fingers.

I’m quite excited especially after the preview and I can’t wait to see what the finished product will be like, so stay tuned. When we know you’ll know. Considering the current financial situation let’s just hope SE can keep the price decently placed. 

AMD has introduced the ATI Radeon HD 4830 graphics card, raising the performance bar for graphics cards priced at less than $150. 

"The ATI Radeon HD 4830 graphics card is another example of how AMD's scalable design strategy is paying off," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD. "With a single chip we have been able to quickly and efficiently bring to market graphics card designs ranging from below $150 through $549 SEP, with leading performance in every segment. The ATI Radeon HD 4830 continues that great trend, providing tremendous value to gamers for less than $150."

"The $100-$150 graphics card price band represents the ‘sweet spot' of the desktop PC graphics market where the consumer gets the most graphics performance per dollar spent," said Dean McCarron, founder and principal, Mercury Research. "This is where the latest graphics technologies reach the mainstream PC audience, and this is the level that most PC games target."

For gamers looking to get even more performance out of their gaming rigs, ATI Radeon HD 4830 cards support ATI CrossFireX technology allowing gamers to combine as many as four cards in one PC.

AMD maintains that the ATI Radeon HD 4830 offers exceptional HD multimedia performance as well. All ATI Radeon HD 4800 series cards allow users to enjoy HD digital content with uncompromising visual fidelity while helping to enhance the definition and clarity of lower resolution visual media. AMD's second generation Unified Video Decoder (UVD 2.0) ensures users experience smooth HD video playback, and sharp, crisp images and vibrant colors through ATI Avivo HD technology. Combined with capabilities like picture-in-picture, and support for the latest HD audio technologies like 7.1 surround sound, the ATI Radeon HD 4830 graphics card serves up an impressive cinema-quality home entertainment experience.

The ATI Radeon HD 4830 graphics card is supported by a dozen add-in-board companies offering custom designs of the products. Partners include ASUS, Club 3D, Diamond Multimedia, Force3D, GECUBE, GIGABYTE, HIS (Hightech Information Systems), Jetway, MSI, Palit Multimedia, PowerColor, SAPPHIRE Technology and VisionTek. It is expected to be available immediately. 

Uttar Pradesh has teamed up with Intel, the chip manufacturing giant, for spreading computer literacy in the country's most populous state, an official said Friday.

"By collaborating with Intel, we would set up computer labs in nearly 5,000 schools across the state," said principal secretary of secondary education A.K. Mishra.

He said the computer labs would be initially set up in various schools of Lucknow and Allahabad districts and later to other districts. The move will immensely benefit students and teachers of rural and far-flung areas not enrolled in computer training programmes.

Unlike ICSE and CBSE, computer science is not a compulsory subject in the Uttar Pradesh board. The government's pact with Intel would be the first step to make computer science a compulsory subject in the Uttar Pradesh board, an official said.

Under the tie-up, Intel has already provided 50 computers.

By IANS

The evolution of the Windows client, involving both Windows Vista (now with Service Pack 1) and Windows 7, appears to be closer than Microsoft is ready to acknowledge officially. Of course, Windows XP, even with Service Pack 3, is the past, with the exception of customers abandoning Windows Vista by exercising their downgrade rights. Windows Vista, even with SP1, is a present that makes the future seem to not get here fast enough. And Vista SP2 along with Windows 7 and Windows Cloud (Strata) are the future. But at the same time, both Vista SP2 and Windows 7 are nothing more than the evolution of Vista, to a lesser, and respectively a larger degree.

Come the end of October 2008, and the start of November, Microsoft will deliver a rather consistent taste of where it is heading with Windows, not only Windows 7, but also Windows 7 Server and Windows Strata (the label continues to be unconfirmed by the company). Events such as the Professional Developer Conference 2008, Windows Hardware Conference 2008 and TechEd EMEA will be focused on Windows 7 and Windows Cloud, although less on Windows Vista.

While at TechEd Brasil, at the start of this week, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer indicated that the company planned to unveil a range of new products by July 2009. Microsoft's CEO mentioned that, by the end of June 2009, the software giant would offer "client operating system releases." Microsoft is, of course, already cooking Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7.

Ballmer stated that "Microsoft technologies: Windows, Windows Server, .NET, Visual Studio, Silverlight, SharePoint, Office (...) over the course of the 12 month period that ends June of next year, [are] just a subset of all of the exciting new innovations Microsoft will bring to market: client operating system releases, information management tools, security, gaming products and systems. The range of new technologies in some senses is growing and growing quickly." (emphasis added)

Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2)

Microsoft released Windows Vista RTM at the end of January 2007, not counting the business launch of the operating system in November 2006. Vista SP1 was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008 concomitantly with Windows Server 2008, but was only made available for download starting March 18. Now the Redmond company has already moved onward to Service Pack 2.

In fact Vista SP2 invites to the Beta program have already started to be sent out, according to Neowin. It is not Windows Vista SP2 that Microsoft is cooking, but also Windows Server 2008 SP2, Beta invites for which have also been sent out. Microsoft has yet to confirm anything officially, but the first Beta bits for Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 are reportedly going to testers in just four weeks.

Still, while Service Pack 1 was the catalyst that took Vista RTM out of coma, making the operating system worthy of a long forgotten and discarded Wow label, SP2 is bound to be nothing more than a standard service pack release. At best, SP2 will take Vista forward just as much as SP1.

The equation is rather simple for Microsoft. The company will end up with a repeat of the Windows XP SP2 – Windows Vista scenario in which both operating systems are available at the same time on the market, although this situation would involve Vista SP2 and Windows 7 RTM. The last thing that Microsoft needs is to evolve Vista with SP2 sufficiently enough that it will be capable to rival Windows 7. In this context, the answer is rather simple. The Redmond giant needs to keep Vista at a relative stand-still even with SP2, and focus all innovation on Windows 7.


Windows 7, or Windows 6.1, or Windows Vista R2, or Windows Vista but "a lot better"

The seventh major version of Windows, but only according to Microsoft's math, comes with no differentiation between the codename and the brand. However, Windows 7 will, for the sake of perpetuating the existing level of Vista software compatibility, be in fact Windows 6.1. At the same time, according to Ballmer, Windows 7 will be Vista, but “a lot better.” This makes Windows 7 an excellent candidate for the Windows Vista R2 label, just as Windows 7 Server is in fact Windows Server 2008 R2. Still, the early feedback on the Windows 7 moniker indicates that the management of the Windows 7 project made the right choice.

"There you have it, Windows 7 now has a name. It’s called – Windows 7,” revealed Steve Clayton, Microsoft's UK Partner Group CTO. “To be honest I was quite surprised but also pretty pleased. The naming decision as Mike Nash says is about simplicity. It’ll certainly save us from all having to unlearn the name we’ve all had for it to date. I expect this naming decision will be debated to death on all the usual sites, but me, I’m just happy we settled on a name. Now let’s get to the PDC and get the bits!"

"Win7 to officially be called . . . Win7" said Robert Hensing, Microsoft security software engineer. "I actually for once - LOVE that we are keeping the name of the OS simple and leaving it at Win7. I will admit – I was somewhat disappointed when XP's name was announced internally (internally it was known as Whistler) and I was downright horrified when we decided to call Longhorn "Vista" (my friends call it "Veesta"). Longhorn sounds cool . . . manly . . . Vista is pretty much the exact opposite in my mind . . . it sounds serene and 'pretty'."

"Steve Ballmer was at Gartner's Symposium/ITxpo conference today, talking about a number of issues. The big question was about Vista deployments and what should companies do. He answered by saying that the adoption rate for Vista, is two times that of where XP was after the same period," stated Neil Hutson, Microsoft evangelist. "Then in Jedi style, Neil MacDonald from Gartner said that 61% of respondents are thinking of skipping Vista. To that, Ballmer said that Microsoft would be ready for that outcome, but if he was the audience, he would not wait. I think that this is a good call. Vista SP1 is really stable and the big question is whether companies are going to wait for the first SP of Windows 7 before they deploy? That will leave them with a lot of very outdated machines and OS software that will take them a lot longer to replace."


Windows Cloud – To Strata or not to Strata?

At PDC2008 Microsoft plans to unveil the first Beta of Windows Cloud, which could be labeled Windows Strata, although the company has yet to confirm this aspect. Windows Strata goes beyond the Windows client and server operating systems, and is a new platform tailored to the Redmond giant's Software plus Services business model.

"We have our Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles in a couple of weeks, we're going to roll out new technologies and a new platform for this software plus services world. The new platform has a lot of work to do. First, it requires a new platform in the cloud. In the Microsoft kind of way of thinking every new major trend requires a new version of our operating system. So, we did Windows, then we did Windows Server, then we did Windows CE and Mobile. And you'll see us bring Windows technologies in a new form to the cloud," Ballmer explained.

Microsoft is essentially looking to keep up with the changes associated with the development paradigm. But what the company is doing is transition the Windows style of development to the cloud and make it available in the browser. Silverlight, .NET, Windows Presentation Foundation and Visual Studio will all contribute to enabling developers to built web-based solutions running on Microsoft's new Internet platform. In this regard, the software giant is working to ensure that services will "be available as a system construct in Windows Server, in Windows desktop and in Windows in the cloud," Ballmer stated, adding that "with this evolution to a new world of distributed computing, we Microsoft will introduce a new cloud platform, some new cloud services around Web 2.0, some advances to our development tools and development runtimes, as well as tools and technologies that really support new business models."

The question why the next iteration of the Windows operating system will be called Windows 7 is highly discussed among the technical inclined. The last days saw several posts pop up at various news sites like Cnet or DownloadSquad which all cited a post by Microsoft’s own Mike Nash who tried to explain why Microsoft is calling the next Windows operating system Windows 7.

Several theories circulated on various sites about the 7 in the name. Some suggested that it was the version number of the code used while others said it was because of the beauty of the figure. All of these speculations were far from the truth which is much simpler. Take a look at the table and find out how Microsoft came up with the 7.

Windows 1 (Windows 1)
Windows 2 (Windows 2)
Windows 3 (Windows 3, Windows NT)
Windows 4 (Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows ME)
Windows 5 (Windows 2000, Windows XP)
Windows 6 (Windows Vista)
Windows 7 (Windows 7)

Windows 7 is the “next logical significant release [after Windows Vista] and 7th in the family of Windows releases” and that is how the 7 was picked for the new operating system. Mike Nash did not fail to put an end to the speculation that Windows 7 would be a minor release because of the 6.1 codebase which some users argued who would consider a 7.0 codebase a major release:

Windows 7 (formerly codenamed Blackcomb and Vienna) is the next version of Microsoft Windows and the successor to Windows Vista.Microsoft has stated that it is "scoping Windows 7 development to a three-year timeframe", and that "the specific release date will ultimately be determined by meeting the quality bar."

Windows 7 will ship in both client and server versions with the client versions available in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions. The server version of Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 , will be released as 64-bit only.

Features

According to reports sent to TG Daily ^[20], the Milestone 1 build of Windows 7 adds support for systems using multiple heterogeneous graphics cards from different vendors and a new version of Windows Media Center.^[20] New features in Milestone 1 also reportedly include Gadgets being integrated into Windows Explorer, a Gadget for Windows Media Center, the ability to visually pin and unpin items from the Start Menu and Recycle Bin, improved media features, the XPS Essentials Pack being integrated, and a multiline Calculator featuring Programmer and Statistics modes along with unit conversion.

Reports indicate that a feedback tool included in Milestone 1 lists some coming features: the ability to store Internet Explorer settings on a Windows Live account, updated versions of Paint and WordPad, and a 10-minute install process.^[39] In addition, improved network connection tools might be included.

Many new items have been added to control panel including: Accelerators, ClearType Text Tuner, Display Color Calibration Wizard, Gadgets, Infrared, Recovery, Troubleshooting, Workspaces Center, Location and Other Sensors, Credential Manager , Biometric Devices, System Icons, Windows Solution Center, and Display.^[40]

In build 6780, the Windows Security Center has been renamed the Windows Solution Center (Windows Health Center in earlier builds) which encompass both Security and Maintenance of the computer.

In the demonstration of Windows 7 at D6, the operating system featured multi-touch, including a virtual piano program, a mapping and directions program and a touch-aware version of Paint.

According to released PDC 2008 (taking place in October 27-30, 2008) session information, Windows 7 discussions will cover "enhancements to the taskbar, Start Menu, thumbnails and their desktop elements"^[41], a new networking API with support for building SOAP based web services in native code (as opposed to .NET based WCF web services) ^[42], new features to shorten application install times, reduced UAC prompts, simplified development of installation packages^[43], and improved globalization support through a new Extended Linguistic Services API ^[44].

Source : Wikipedia

see more on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7

Microsoft gave computer makers a six-month extension for offering Windows XP on newly-shipped PCs. While this doesn’t impact enterprise IT — because volume licensing agreements will allow IT to keep installing Windows XP for many years to come — the move is another symbolic nail in Vista’s coffin.

The public reputation of Windows Vista is in shambles, as Microsoft itself tacitly acknowledged in its Mojave ad campaign.

IT departments are largely ignoring Vista. In June (18 months after Vista’s launch), Forrester Research reported that just 8.8% of enterprise PCs worldwide were running Vista. Meanwhile, Microsoft appears to have put Windows 7 on an accelerated schedule that could see it released in 2010. That will provide IT departments with all the justification they need to simply skip Vista and wait to eventually standardize on Windows 7 as the next OS for business.

So how did Vista get left holding the bag? Let’s look at the five most important reasons why Vista failed.

5. Apple successfully demonized Vista

Apple’s clever I’m a Mac ads have successfully driven home the perception that Windows Vista is buggy, boring, and difficult to use. After taking two years of merciless pummeling from Apple, Microsoft recently responded with it’s I’m a PC campaign in order to defend the honor of Windows. This will likely restore some mojo to the PC and Windows brands overall, but it’s too late to save Vista’s perception as a dud.

4. Windows XP is too entrenched

In 2001, when Windows XP was released, there were about 600 million computers in use worldwide. Over 80% of them were running Windows but it was split between two code bases: Windows 95/98 (65%) and Windows NT/2000 (26%), according to IDC. One of the big goals of Windows XP was to unite the Windows 9x and Windows NT code bases, and it eventually accomplished that.

In 2008, there are now over 1.1 billion PCs in use worldwide and over 70% of them are running Windows XP. That means almost 800 million computers are running XP, which makes it the most widely installed operating system of all time. That’s a lot of inertia to overcome, especially for IT departments that have consolidated their deployments and applications around Windows XP.

And, believe it or not, Windows XP could actually increase its market share over the next couple years. How? Low-cost netbooks and nettops are going to be flooding the market. While these inexpensive machines are powerful enough to provide a solid Internet experience for most users, they don’t have enough resources to run Windows Vista, so they all run either Windows XP or Linux. Intel expects this market to explode in the years ahead. (For more on netbooks and nettops, see this fact sheet and this presentation — both are PDFs from Intel.)

3. Vista is too slow

For years Microsoft has been criticized by developers and IT professionals for “software bloat” — adding so many changes and features to its programs that the code gets huge and unwieldy. However, this never seemed to have enough of an effect to impact software sales. With Windows Vista, software bloat appears to have finally caught up with Microsoft.

Vista has over 50 million lines of code. XP had 35 million when it was released, and since then it has grown to about 40 million. This software bloat has had the effect of slowing down Windows Vista, especially when it’s running on anything but the latest and fastest hardware. Even then, the latest version of Windows XP soundly outperforms the latest version of Microsoft Vista. No one wants to use a new computer that is slower than their old one.

2. There wasn’t supposed to be a Vista

It’s easy to forget that when Microsoft launched Windows XP it was actually trying to change its OS business model to move away from shrink-wrapped software and convert customers to software subscribers. That’s why it abandoned the naming convention of Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000, and instead chose Windows XP.

The XP stood for “experience” and was part of Microsoft’s .NET Web services strategy at the time. The master plan was to get users and businesses to pay a yearly subscription fee for the Windows experience — XP would essentially be the on-going product name but would include all software upgrades and updates, as long as you paid for your subscription. Of course, it would disable Windows on your PC if you didn’t pay. That’s why product activation was coupled with Windows XP.

Microsoft released Windows XP and Office XP simultaneously in 2001 and both included product activation and the plan to eventually migrate to subscription products. However, by the end of 2001 Microsoft had already abandoned the subscription concept with Office, and quickly returned to the shrink-wrapped business model and the old product development model with both products.

The idea of doing incremental releases and upgrades of its software — rather than a major shrink-wrapped release every 3-5 years — was a good concept. Microsoft just couldn’t figure out how to make the business model work, but instead of figuring out how to get it right, it took the easy route and went back to an old model that was simply not very well suited to the economic and technical realities of today’s IT world.

1. It broke too much stuff

One of the big reasons that Windows XP caught on was because it had the hardware, software, and driver compatibility of the Windows 9x line plus the stability and industrial strength of the Windows NT line. The compatibility issue was huge. Having a single, highly-compatible Windows platform simplified the computing experience for users, IT departments, and software and hardware vendors.

Microsoft either forgot or disregarded that fact when it released Windows Vista, because, despite a long beta period, a lot of existing software and hardware were not compatible with Vista when it was released in January 2007. Since many important programs and peripherals were unusable in Vista, that made it impossible for a lot of IT departments to adopt it. Many of the incompatibilities were the result of tighter security.

After Windows was targeted by a nasty string of viruses, worms, and malware in the early 2000s, Microsoft embarked on the Trustworthy Computing initiative to make its products more secure. One of the results was Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), which won over IT and paved the way for XP to become the world’s mostly widely deployed OS.

The other big piece of Trustworthy Computing was the even-further-locked-down version of Windows that Microsoft released in Vista. This was definitely the most secure OS that Microsoft had ever released but the price was user-hostile features such as UAC, a far more complicated set of security prompts that accompanied many basic tasks, and a host of software incompatibility issues. In other words, Vista broke a lot of the things that users were used to doing in XP.

Bottom line

There are some who argue that Vista is actually more widely adopted than XP was at this stage after its release, and that it’s highly likely that Vista will eventually replace XP in the enterprise. I don’t agree. With XP, there were clear motivations to migrate: bring Windows 9x machines to a more stable and secure OS and bring Windows NT/2000 machines to an OS with much better hardware and software compatibility. And, you also had the advantage of consolidating all of those machines on a single OS in order to simplify support.

With Vista, there are simply no major incentives for IT to use it over XP. Security isn’t even that big of an issue because XP SP2 (and above) are solid and most IT departments have it locked down quite well. As I wrote in the article Prediction: Microsoft will leapfrog Vista, release Windows 7 early, and change its OS business, Microsoft needs to abandon the strategy of releasing a new OS every 3-5 years and simply stick with a single version of Windows and release updates, patches, and new features on a regular basis. Most IT departments are essentially already on a subscription model with Microsoft so the business strategy is already in place for them.

As far as the subscription model goes for small businesses and consumers, instead of disabling Windows on a user’s PC if they don’t renew their subscription, just don’t allow that machine to get any more updates if they don’t renew. Microsoft could also work with OEMs to sell something like a three-year subscription to Windows with every a new PC. Then users would have the choice of renewing on their own after that.

Courtesy :-
Jason Hiner

Keeping a PC running in an optimal condition in today’s age of bloated software installs, sneaky trojans, adware, and fragmented HDDs is a full-time job. Most software that help you do it cost an arm and a leg, which only adds to the problem. However, quite a few freeware products get the job done pretty well, even if they don't offer quite the same level of functionality as paid products. Here's a list of five such products, divided into various categories.

The AV category is perhaps the one that's seen the most development, in terms of free software. After all, what can be a bigger nuisance to PC users than a pesky virus wreaking havoc? After checking out quite a few great options, we found that Avast! was easily the best of the lot.

Not only is the software free, it offers an IM scanner, an email scanner, a P2P shield, and of course a standard file scanner. It’s also updated daily and offers very good scanning speeds. When you combine all these, what you get is a fantastic product that offers functionality similar to paid products!

You can download Avast from here.

If a virus can be pesky and annoying, spyware can cause most people to tear their hair out. Fortunately there are some really good options available to clean out this crap. Among these the best is easily Spyware Search and Destroy.

That may seem a mouthful, but the truth is S&D has been around for a while. Not only does it offer comprehensive cleaning abilities, it can also be proactive – its ActiveShield can stop you from getting infected in the first place. We recommend it highly to keep those naked women adware from taking over your desktop

.

Thanks to Jayesh Masukhani.

Reliance Infocomm subscribers who sign up for its two-year wireless Internet
contract will now receive an Acer Aspire One Netbook bundled along with the purchase of a Reliance data card enabled net connection.

This comes at the cost of a monthly installment of Rs. 1500.


S Rajendran, Chief Marketing Officer, Acer India, said, "Acer is proud to be associated with Reliance Infocomm in this innovative initiative which we think is truly disruptive. With the power of the Acer Aspire One Netbook, that is engineered to provide the best net-centric user experience and with the enabling ecosystem that is being engendered by Reliance, we believe it is a new defining moment for bringing mobile computing to the common masses."

"With a population of close to 1.2 billion and only 12 million Internet connections, the growth potential of Internet Data Services in India is all set to trace the penetration curve of mobile services which are currently adding over 100 million new subscribers every year. The growth of Internet services in India is one of the key visions of Reliance Communications ", said Mahesh Prasad, President – Reliance Communications. "The next phase of growth of Internet penetration in the country is linked to the growth in PC and Laptop
penetration offering an opportunity to empower all Indians by making the overall cost of Internet access more affordable".

The 8.9-inch Acer Aspire One weighs in at less than one kilo, offers numerous connectivity possibilities, a full and easy-to-use software application suite and battery life of up to 3 hours.

Source _ Tech2

In its bid to clamp down on rampant software piracy, Microsoft Tuesday announced a global initiative under the banner of 'Global Anti-Piracy Awareness Day' that will include educating consumers as well as enforcing legal action.

Even though the initiative was rolled out in 49 countries, Microsoft's director of intellectual property in Australia told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper that the Redmond-based software giant would not be able to solve the problem fully ever.

"Are we able to solve absolutely every problem? No… there are some people who will always not want to pay for something and there are always people who will want to exploit," she said in an interview to the Australian newspaper.

The program, launched in 49 countries spanning six continents, aims to combat the trade of pirated and counterfeit software.

The initiative includes intellectual property awareness campaigns, engagements with partner businesses, educational forums, local law enforcement training, and legal actions against alleged software counterfeiters and pirates.

"Software piracy and counterfeiting is a sophisticated global trade and Microsoft is committed to working with industry partners in India and around the world to stay a step ahead of this criminal industry," said Vipul Sant, director - original software initiative, Microsoft India.

For the India chapter, the company has tied up with the Kolkata-based Computer Association of Eastern India (COMPASS) and the Guwahati-based North East Computer Traders Association (NECTA) to educate members on the pitfalls and risks of piracy.

"Sustained industry efforts have helped reduce software piracy in India by four percentage points in as many years and we are committed to continuing on this path and working closely with the government, law enforcement agencies and our customer and partner communities to protect legitimate businesses from this illegal trade," Sant added.

As part of its enforcement measures, Microsoft has taken 15 civil enforcement actions against resellers indulging in hard-disk loading case, involving Microsoft Windows and Office.

By IANS

Telecom operator Airtel Tuesday announced the launch of its direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television service.

The service will be available in 62 cities from Oct 9, a senior company official said here.

"This is a right time for Airtel to enter the market. We are very clear at Airtel and will take over as a leader of the sector as soon as possible," Airtel chief executive officer and managing director Manoj Kohli said.

According to Kohli, the company's DTH services will have universal remote for both set top box (STB) that receives signal from the antenna, and the television set, besides other features such as high STB memory, exclusive interactive applications, onscreen games and more efficient battery.

Originally posted by IANS

Today on my birthday, I am announcing all new techub.co.nr email services, soon we are going to provide free email services having premium feature like :- 

Geneva, 2 October 2008. Following the successful circulation of first beam in the LHC on 10 September, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instrument will be officially inaugurated at CERN¹ on 21 October 2008. Representatives of the governments of CERN’s Member and Observer States and other participating nations have been invited.

The LHC's start-up day went very smoothly, with the first beam being threaded around the ring to great acclaim in just under one hour.

"It's remarkable how quickly the LHC went through its paces on 10 September," said LHC project leader Lyn Evans, "and testimony to the rigorous preparation that has gone into building and commissioning the LHC."

After ten days of operation, the LHC is now on stand-by. A fault in one of its eight sectors is under investigation, which requires warming up the sector from -271 Celsius to room temperature. This will take several weeks, after which the repair can be made and the sector cooled down. The warm-up and investigation phases will take us into November, when the CERN's entire research infrastructure, including all particle accelerators and experiments, is shut down for annual maintenance until spring 2009. The LHC will then restart when the injector complex is ready.

"CERN personnel and colleagues from around the world have reacted to the current situation with their customary professionalism and determination," said CERN Director General Robert Aymar. "While the timing is undoubtedly a disappointment, a few extra weeks on a project that has been over two decades in the making is not very much. It is simply a fact of life in experimental physics at the frontiers of knowledge and technology."

The inauguration ceremony, which is by invitation only, will consist of speeches, exhibitions and a new audiovisual concert, "ORIGINS", an adaptation of "LIFE: A Journey Through Time", featuring the imagery of National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting and the music of Philip Glass, performed by the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Carolyn Kuan. It will be followed by a buffet of molecular gastronomy presented by Chef Ettore Bocchia. The event has been made possible thanks to the generous support of a range of sponsoring companies and organizations, most of which have contributed to the construction of the LHC. It will be followed by a party for the CERN personnel. Full details of the event are available at http://www.cern.ch/lhc2008.

enial of Service attacks aren’t new, yet persist in being effective methods of denying access to resources on the Internet. Now meet Sockstress, the newest version of DoS attacks, and heralded as potentially the most devastating of the bunch.
——————————————————————————————————————-

Security researchers Jack C. Louis and Robert E. Lee of Outpost 24 stumbled onto a relatively simple way to implement a Denial of Service (DoS) attack that does not require massive syn floods. The researchers aren’t releasing many details about the attack except for those provided in a very interesting interview with Brenno de Winter. Slashdot has an article “New Denial-of-Service Attack is a Killer“, with links to the mp3 interview. The interview includes several minutes of Dutch in the beginning and the file is quite large. For a slimmer version (converted from stereo and minus the Dutch) of the mp3, and several links that refer to Sockstress please check out the Gibson Research Corporation link, near the bottom of the page.

Controversy as to exact DoS process

There’s precious little to go on as to how the attack works. Fyodor (creator of Nmap and a hero of mine) was willing to offer his opinion of what the DoS process involved:

“The basic idea is to first firewall your source address(es) using a command such as iptables (on Linux) to prevent your own OS from interfering with your attack. Next you create hundreds or thousands of connections to the TCP port you are targeting (such as port 80 of a web server) as follows:

1. Attacker sends a TCP SYN packet to the target port from his own IP address (or one he controls) to request a connection.
2. The target port is open, so it will respond with a SYN/ACK packet-the 2nd step of the TCP 3-way handshake. Remember that Attacker sent the SYN as a raw packet from userland rather than using his operating system’s connect() API to establish the connections. So when Attacker’s operating system’s TCP stack sees the unexpected SYN/ACK come back, it would normally destroy the nascent connection by sending a reset (RST) packet. This is why the special firewall rule was mentioned-to prevent such interference by Attacker’s OS. Instead Attacker’s DoS client handles all these packets by sniffing them from userland (generally using libpcap) and building/sending the raw reply packets.
3. Using the initial sequence number and other information from the SYN/ACK, Attacker sends an acknowledgment packet (the final step of the 3-way handshake) to complete the connection.”

Robert Lee’s reply

Robert Lee was quick to point out on his Blog site that Fyodor isn’t exactly correct:

“In regards to Fyodor’s article: There are some really valid points made; While his article does describe some of how sockstress works and why it is efficient, it does not describe our attacks.

Jack (Robert’s partner) would like to stress that turning off server side SYN-Cookie protection will not help and will only make you open to syn flood attacks again (as stated in Fyodor’s article).

Also, scenarios that lead to systems being resource starved to the point of requiring a reboot is very attack and target specific. It is not as universal as causing a specific service to become unavailable. We have made this clear in all public communications, but it is worth saying again.”

Fyodor has some sage advice

When someone asked Fyodor if he knew whether his bug was the same one found by Louis and Lee, he answered:

“I don’t, since they have refused to release full details. But this sounds like the same fundamental bug. Robert and Jack are smart fellows, so, again, I’m sure that they’ve found ways to extend and improve the attack in certain situations.”

Fyodor further explains:

“My main issue is not with the research, per se, but with trying to hype the weakness in press interviews and the like before they are willing to share details about the claimed weakness. I don’t believe that sharing the details would cause any problems on the Internet, as there are already many simple and effective denial of service attacks against TCP services (including those listed on this page). Many of the same techniques used to defend against all the other TCP DoS attacks will work against these newer ones.”

Possible solutions

Since many of the details are still unknown, experts are advising to treat this as a typical DoS attack and block the responsible IP address. Sockstress apparently isn’t capable of IP spoofing, so blocking the IP address should work. Experts also mention that IDS/IPS software (like IPtables or Snort) should be able to detect the attack vector and prevent malicious TCP/IP connections.

Final thoughts

Between Kaminsky’s bug, the BGP vulnerability, and now DoS attacks aimed at TCP/IP stack flaws, it sure has been interesting lately. Adding to the excitement is the controversy about how Louis and Lee released their findings (prematurely according to some). In their defense, it’s my understanding that Louis and Lee have tried since 2005 and are presently working with the appropriate TCP/IP developers to find a solution.

Once again, it seems like there’s not much we can do, hopefully this will be another example of just knowing about the vulnerability will be helpful. Still we have to wait a few weeks before that can happen as Louis and Lee aren’t talking until T2′08, an international security conference in Helsinki Finland. So until then.
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Michael Kassner has been involved with communications for 40 plus years, starting with amateur radio (K0PBX) and now as a network field engineer for Orange Business Services and consultant with MKassner Net. Current certifications include Cisco ESTQ Field Engineer, CWNA, and CWSP.

Recently I had to write an article on Linux green computing. During the writing of that article I was sent on yet another quest to get some form of hibernate and or suspend working on a Linux laptop. This quest had me digging through nearly every configuration file and every package I could find in an attempt to get an off-brand laptop (Everex Zonbook) running Mandriva Spring 2008 to either suspend or hibernate. I was surprised at what I discovered and the results I came up with.

Let’s first chat about what I discovered. No I didn’t uncover the meaning of life, a cure for cancer, or proof that Linux will drastically lower TCO. What I did discover is that suspend and hibernate are two very different beasts and that suspend is still quite elusive in Linux while hibernate is not so challenging. How are they different? There are two different types of suspend: Suspend to RAM (suspend) and Suspend to Disk (Hibernate.) Suspend to RAM is when you save the laptop state to RAM so that it can be quickly brought back. Suspend does continue to consume a small bit of power so if you’re laptop is not plugged into a power source eventually the Suspend state could drain the battery. Suspend to Disk (Hibernate) takes the saved state and stores it in your Linux swap partition. This method isn’t an “instant of/instant on” state but it offers a few bonuses over Suspend. One bonus is that it uses zero power. Hibernate effectively shuts down your machine and, upon waking, brings the machine back to the exact state it was in when it was placed into hibernation. And because the state is saved to the hard disk, it is a bit safer than Suspend. On the con side of the fence, Hibernate does take far more time to put to sleep and wake up (although not as much time as it would to shutdown/boot.)

The good news and the bad news. The good news is that Linux can do Hibernate fairly well. AND there are even GUIS to help you configure Hibernate. The bad news is that Linux is a ways away from any sort of reliable Suspend.

Let’s look at one application that allows you to safely HIbernate your Linux laptop: klaptop_acip_helper. This command is part of the kdeutils_klaptop package and is run by simply entering the command klaptop_acpi_helper –hibernate. What happens when you run this the current state is saved, placed in your swap file, and then the laptop is placed in hibernation. To bring the laptop back up you simply hit the power button.

Of course having to hibernate a laptop from the command line isn’t much good to the average user. To make this easier you can configure a lot of options in the Klaptop system tray applet. In this applet you can configure everything from Power Control, Battery options, Warning events, and Button Events. One of the handiest configurations is the Button Events. Here you can configure your laptop to go into Hibernate upon closing the lid.

Of course there are configurations that must be taken care of that can not be done via the applet. If you look in the file /etc/suspend.conf you will see the following:

snapshot device = /dev/snapshot
resume device = #image size = 350000000
#suspend loglevel = 2
#compute checksum = y

#compress = y
#encrypt = y
#early writeout = y
splash = y

There are two things you need to do. First you need to replace with the actual path to your swap file. In my case it was /dev/sda5. The second thing do to is to uncomment compress = y.

Once you have taken care of these edits, save the file, and close the file.

Now close the lid on your laptop. After it is closed for a moment open it back up and you should see some text indicating how much of the state has been saved. Once the state reaches 100 % the laptop will power off. When you reboot the machine it will seem as if it just going through the boot process. But shortly you press the power button the progress bar will zip through the process and you will find yourself back where you were when you shut the lid.

Is this a perfect solution? No. But it does at least offer a means to save your battery life and give you a laptop-feature in LInux that all Windows laptop users enjoy.

I hope some day to see the Suspend to RAM function actually work. This would remove one of the biggest hurdles for Linux adoption in the laptop market. Give this application a try and report back here so we know the various laptop models it supports.

Source - TechRepublic

Nintendo's hit DS portable machine will come with a digital camera that will allow players to mix images, scribble on photos and create new faces, the Japanese game maker said Thursday.


The Nintendo DSi will go on sale in Japan on Nov. 1 for 18,900 yen ($180), and will be available overseas next year. Dates and other details for overseas plans will be announced later by the company's regional units later, President Satoru Iwata said.

Iwata said the revamped DS is meant to be the first toy camera for children and a tool for network-building and party fun for older people in the company's ongoing quest to make gaming popular with everyone - not just a niche crowd.

One in six Japanese already owns a DS, according to Kyoto-based Nintendo, which also makes Pokemon and Super Mario games. But the goal is to make the DS a must-have for every Japanese, Iwata said.

"We want to change the DS into something that's in every household to something that's for every person," he told reporters at a Tokyo gymnasium.

The improved DSi is thinner than the current DS model, and will have a bigger screen, he said.

Nintendo also demonstrated new game software for its hit Wii home console, including "Wii Music."

Players just need to jiggle their remote controller to feel as though they are playing any of 60 musical instruments, including a drum set, sitar, saxophone and piano, although there are only 50 preprogrammed melodies.

Users will be able to make those tunes play electronically from their Wii machines at their own speed and whim - guaranteed to not sound a single incorrect note.

They will also be able to add personal touches, such as choosing accompanying instrumentation and genres such as jazz, reggae and rock.

Nintendo's star game designer Shigeru Miyamoto said he loves to practice guitar at home alone but he is intimidated about playing in front of an audience.

"This removes all those obstacles to a jam session," he said.

Nintendo has sold 77.5 million Nintendo DS handheld devices worldwide, nearly 23 million in Japan, far outselling Sony Corp.'s rival offering, the PlayStation Portable, at 41 million globally - 10 million in Japan.

Iwata acknowledged that the pace of DS sales have been dwindling recently, and Nintendo was determined to reverse that with new offerings like the Nintendo DSi.

Data show that the PSP has been challenging the DS lately - at least in Japan. For five months straight starting in March, PSP sales outpaced the DS in Japan, according to Tokyo-based Enterbrain, which publishes game magazines and tracks video game sales.

In home consoles, the Wii competes against the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft.

Nintendo has sold 29.6 million Wii consoles worldwide so far. PlayStation 3 sales have lagged at fewer than half that at 14.4 million.

Microsoft Corp. doesn't disclose how many of the cumulative 20 million Xbox 360 machines sold worldwide were Japan sales. But it has been targeting reaching a million sold in Japan sometime soon.

IBM will announce Monday that it is launching a beta of “Bluehouse,” a social networking and collaboration service designed to link businesses with various partners.

The move, part of a broader effort to define IBM’s cloud computing strategy, will put it in direct competition with Cisco’s collaboration efforts and its WebEx unit. Big Blue says Bluehouse is designed to combine social networking and collaboration tools to connect businesses securely. IBM’s Bluehouse effort is a mirror image of Cisco and its SaaS plans
for WebEx.

Dave Mitchell, director of strategy, cloud services, says IBM is trying to provide an “organizing construct” around its efforts.  IBM, which has numerous cloud computing efforts, has been looking to better define its strategy as it expands its infrastructure and data center lineups. Big Blue has now boiled down its cloud computing portfolio to the following:

• Deliver its own cloud services to customers;
• Enable independent software vendors build cloud services. IBM said it launched a “SaaS Enablement Network” that runs on Big Blue servers;
• Help customers use the cloud;
• And provide cloud computing infrastructure to businesses such as
  software as a service providers.

IBM also announced:

• Lotus Sametime Unyte, which allows you to arrange quick Web  conferences via a browser. Unyte will ultimately tie in with Lotus Notes and Sametime.
• Rational Policy Tester and AppScan OnDemand. These software products are available via subscription. Policy Tester automates Web content scanning and AppScan patrols applications for security flaws.
• Telelogic Focal Point, which centralizes software investment information.

I couldn’t help but hear IBM’s pitch and think about how cloud computing has become an abused marketing pitch. Mitchell acknowledged the issue, but did say cloud computing “is clearly a term that people recognize and understand at a high level.”

It’s not often you can put “Microsoft” and “free” in the same sentence, but they do do (no jokes) surprisingly a lot which is free. Students have been able to use DreamSpark for a while now, but it’s still not very well publicised. I wrote about DreamSpark back at the very beginning and how it doesn’t provide a huge amount, and that it could offer more. Even though there have been no changes to the software they provide, some students may well still benefit.

If DreamSpark wasn’t there, you’d have to pay for them (naturally), and here are the costs:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Professional Edition
  Amazon says: $450.00 brand new
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Professional Edition
  Amazon says: $669.99 brand new
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Developer Edition
  Amazon says: $65.60, but second-hand
• Microsoft Expression Studio
  Amazon says: $399.99, brand new
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
  Amazon says: $899.99, but second hand

Microsoft provides these 5 products, worth just under $3,000, to students for absolutely free. Not only does it provide these, it throws in already free tools, such as the XNA Game Studio 2.0 and all of the Visual Studio Express editions. Some of these tools could be vital to inspiring student minds, getting them hands-on with developing and creating applications and games.

All you need is a Windows Live ID, which most people have, and your university/college login details at hand. The rest has already been done by your institution and Microsoft, linking the two, to verify who you are and what you are entitled to.

Not only that, we’ve heard from all over the place (primarily the gods at LiveSide, and they’ve really been going to town on their coverage) of the new Wave 3 of Windows Live, which I reported a couple of weeks ago, including a sneak preview at the pre-release version of Messenger.

Chris Jones wrote on the Live Wire blog today that the Wave 3 beta’s will be open to the public by the end of today. Considering I downloaded these last night courtesy of LiveSide’s heads-up, I’ve been having much fun with these new versions. If you can’t download yet, feel free to take a look at the some of the Beta 1 versions of the next wave of the Windows Live suite, until the download links open up.

Update: download links are up at http://download.live.com.

Webapp Trapster maps speed traps on roads near you, and offers mobile phone applications that will alert you when you're coming up on one as you drive. Trapster's trap maps are all user-generated—as one Trapster user drives down the freeway and spots a trap, she hits a button on her mobile phone's Trapster app to report it. When you approach the same area running Trapster on your phone, you get an alert, and then you can confirm that the trap is indeed in that area. Right now Trapster offers cellphone apps for Windows Mobile, the BlackBerry, the Nokia N95 and other S60 smart phones, and an iPhone 3G app is forthcoming. We haven't had a chance to test Trapster live on the road yet, but you can log onto the web site and check out the traps near you right at your browser.

Source - LifeHacker

Delivering 10x Faster Performance Than Current Oracle Data Warehouses

According to Canadian engineers at Queen’s University, there are now more than 8,000 satellites in orbit around the Earth. Of course, if they stop to work correctly, these satellites will not be able to be repaired from the ground and will become space junk. So these researchers have developed a robotic repair system to fix ailing satellites. Right now, they’re writing software to track these satellites. Their tracking software would then be used by an Autonomous Space Servicing Vehicle (ASSV) ‘to grasp the ailing satellite from its orbit and draw it into the repair vehicle’s bay. Once there, remote control from the ground station can be used for the repair.’ I’m somewhat skeptical about the idea, considering that the satellites in orbit have been launched by various countries and companies using very different technologies. But read more…

You can see above a computer-generated image of our planet showing debris objects in orbit currently tracked by NASA. These debris are shown as white dots. (Credit: NASA Orbital Debris Program) For more information, please read the FAQs and browse this Photo Gallery. The space map shown above has been picked from this page and here is a link to a larger version of this image.

This research work has been led by Electrical and Computer Engineering professor Michael Greenspan and other graduate students of his Robotics Computer Vision Lab, Michael Belshaw, Limin Shang and Babak Taati.

Here is a quote from Greenspan. “‘These are mechanical systems, which means that eventually they will fail.’ But because they are many thousands of kilometres away, the satellites are beyond the reach of an expensive, manned spaced flight, while Earth-based telerobotic repair isn’t possible in real time. Dr. Greenspan’s solution to this problem is the development of tracking software that will enable an Autonomous Space Servicing Vehicle (ASSV) to grasp the ailing satellite from its orbit and draw it into the repair vehicle’s bay. Once there, remote control from the ground station can be used for the repair, he explains. ‘The repair itself doesn’t have to be done in real time, since everything is in a fixed position and a human can interact with it telerobotically to do whatever is required.’”

The Queen’s team is now working to develop the ASSV with the aerospace company MDA Space Missions which is a subsidiary of the McDonald-Detweiller Associates Corporation and which earlier built the Canadarm and has been responsible for all Canadian systems in the International Space Station.

I guess this space robotic system will not be in the air before a while. Even finding — then grasping — a satellite is a serious challenge. “Computer vision is the main technical challenge of grasping the satellites, Dr. Greenspan continues. Since these objects circle the globe in ‘geosynchronous’ orbit, their speed is synchronized with the Earth’s rotation. The robotic system must recognize the satellite first, then determine its motion and match that motion before grabbing it.”

For more technical information, you can read “Satellite Pose Acquisition and Tracking with Variable Dimensional Local Shape Descriptors (PDF format, 6 pages, 340 KB). This paper was presented during the IEEE/RSJ IROS Workshop on Robot Vision for Space Applications held in August 2005 at Edmonton, Canada.

If you’re less skeptical than I am, please drop me a note.

Sources: Queen’s University news release, October 2, 2008; and various websites

In September, Nokia had announced their ‘Comes With Music’ service that was going to also be incorporated into some of their new handsets and be launched first in the UK. At the Nokia Remix event held in London and Singapore, Nokia announced the debut of this service. Customers who buy a Comes With Music device will be able to explore and enjoy a diverse catalog of music of international and local artists with unlimited access to millions of tracks for a year, keeping the music once the year is over.

"Comes With Music sets a precedent for consumer value and convenience that the rest of the digital entertainment industry is already copying," said Tero Ojanperä, executive vice president and head of the Nokia entertainment and communities business. "Trying out a music recommendation is spontaneous as customers can download without worrying about the cost of an album or a track - the freedom and simplicity of the service is unparalleled. And Comes With Music gives you unlimited access to the millions of tracks in the Nokia Music Store and the music is all yours to keep - because it's not a revolution unless you get to keep your music."

Comes With Music offers one year of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalog and customers can keep all the music that they have downloaded at the end of the year to continue enjoying their music collection. Comes With Music will be available across a range of Nokia devices, including the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, the Nokia N95 8GB and Nokia 5310 XpressMusic. EMI Music has joined as the latest major label to support Comes With Music.

Comes With Music will also feature a tremendous selection of independent music, courtesy of deals with The Orchard, Beggars Group, IODA, the Ministry of Sound, PIAS and Pinnacle. These companies join Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group in supporting Comes With Music. Nokia has also secured music publishing rights from CELAS on behalf of EMI Music Publishing, GEMA on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, SACEM on behalf of Universal Music Publishing, as well as the MCPS-PRS Alliance.

The United Kingdom will be the first market to offer Comes With Music with sales planned to start on October 16, 2008. The Nokia 5310 XpressMusic Comes With Music edition is expected to cost Rs. 10,747 (GBP 129.95).