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SmarTone-Vodafone Brings MusicXS for Mobiles 2008-03-07 00:11:00 Unlimited music downloadsMusicXS is the latest launched unlimited music download service for mobile phones, brought to you by SmarTone-Vodafone
, a leading mobile carrier from Hong Kong.MusicXS offers a huge music catalogue that includes basically all genres, from old to new, hip-hop to pop, rock to classical, dance to jazz or indie and so on. Users can download more than 600,000 songs from artists belonging to leading international and local music labels as well as from independent artists."For sometime now the demand for music online and on the go has been increasing rapidly", said Mr. Douglas Li, CEO of SmarTone-Vodafone.MusicXS is the first credible music service that meets the need for music enthusiasts and casual listeners alike.MusicXS comes in a PC-only version and an integrated PC
ATI Linux Display Driver 8.3 Released 2008-03-07 00:03:00 ...introduces Xvideo extension for video scaling and color space conversion!A new version of the ATI/AMD Linux
display driver was released last night, for both x86 and x86_64 platforms. This release introduces Xvideo extension for video scaling and color space conversion for Xpress 1200 series GPUs. The following issues were resolved in this release:• On workstation hardware 3D applications will no longer be corrupted if the screen width is not an integer multiple of 64 pixels, for example with a 1680x1050 wide screen display;• Display
flicker is no longer noticed when the gnome screen-saver starts;• Several image brightness and gamma-correction issues were resolved. Setting the gamma correction using xgamma, fglrx_xgamma, xorg.conf and in OpenGL games all work as expected now;• Di Read more:Driver
Download Free Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2 Straight from Microsoft 2008-03-06 23:54:00 Via the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC ImageThat's right! Microsoft
is offering access to free downloads of WindowsVista
and Windows XP SP2. I know it doesn't sound at all like Microsoft, but just bear with me, it will make sense in the end. Even though the Redmond company's Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer revealed in the past that open source was not the way to go for Microsoft and that a free version of Windows was completely out of the question, the fact of the matter is that it was not entirely true.Microsoft is indeed offering free copies of Windows, and not just XP SP2, but also Vista. I know that the hottest downloads, at this point in time, are related to Windows Vista
Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3, but I also know that you will jump at the ch Read more:Download
, Straight
Silverlight 2 Beta 1 Available for Download from Microsoft 2008-03-06 23:45:00 Along with the Silverlight SDKAt its web-centric conference in Las Vegas – MIX08, Microsoft
unveiled Silverlight 2 Beta 1. Along with the company's chief software architect Ray Ozzie, and Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of the Internet Explorer team, at this year's MIX, Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Division, took the stage and he unveiled Silverlight 2 Beta 1. The first beta for Silverlight 2 is now available for download. According to Tim Sneath, Microsoft group manager for client platforms, Silverlight's adoption rate is quite consistent, and the company expects it only to accelerate."Right now, we're seeing over 1.5 million installations of Silverlight per day; we're seeing the number increase every week and expect to see it increase still further a Read more:Download
All Hail AdWare, King of Malware 2008-03-06 23:42:00 In FebruaryAs per usual, every month the security companies release a Top Ten Most [something] malware chart, and when it was Kaspersky’s turn to present the world with its findings, the people there watched in awe how, for the first time ever, the virus branch of malicious programs was dethroned by adware.The situation is somehow similar to the old dynasties, that ruled their land for a while and then, when the decline was imminent due to cousins inter-marrying and giving birth to not-so-bright offspring as heirs to the throne, another came and took its place. The Middle Ages are full of similar stories, and it just goes to show that scraping the gene pool doesn’t pay.Back to security threats, the Virtumonde-gen adware package appeared the most frequent in the online scans conducted u Read more:Malware
Image Galleries in WordPress 2008-03-06 23:38:00 Solutions For Simple WebsitesWhen you need to present a product or a service through images in a few web pages, but you do not have the time to design the necessary HTML templates, you might be tempted to select a commercial ready made solution for your problem. Fortunately, free or open source alternatives exist. The simplest one is to take a free HTML template and include in it an image gallery script running on client side or server side.But if you plan to add more products in the future, depending on your web server hosting account disk space and database availability, you could choose a content management system that will allow you to implement an image gallery as a module or an add on. For example, even Wordpress content management system is destined for blogs creation, it can be eas Read more:Image
, Galleries
EVGA Exposed: Water-Cooled GeForce 9800 X2 2008-03-06 23:34:00 The graphics card unveils its internals, thanks to the Innovatek watercooling blockThe video industry is currently buzzing around the dual-GPU version of the GeForce
9800 graphics cards from Nvidia. Just as they get wider and wider implementation, EVGA has decided to claim that regular versions of the GeForce 9800 GX2s are "so last week" and introduced their own version of the GX2, cooled down with an Innovatek water-block.Apart from the obvious gains in temperature, EVGA's offering has an aesthetic advantage over the competitors': it reveals the graphics card's internals. The water-cooling block is made of CNC milled aluminum and will come not stock offering, but rather than a professional add-on, carrying a little premium.Innovatek's cooling block will accompany the standard GeForce 9800 Read more:Cooled
SteerMouse 3.9 Released. Available for Download 2008-03-05 11:17:00 Adds new functions to your Mighty Mouse, fixes earlier SteerMouse issuesFixes issues and that's it really, because that's pretty much everything new in this version. It has been confirmed that SteerMouse offers a few functions that Apple's driver doesn't, but are they really necessary and, if so, are they necessary to Mac users?The way SteerMouse 3.9's features are described makes it sound like the Mighty Mouse is crap and that Apple's driver is nothing compared to what this baby has to offer. OK then, let's see what it has to offer:1 - you can assign click, double-click or modifier click (right, and Apple's driver doesn't allow that...?)2 - display the process screen for switching applications (I can get that by squeezing the little rodent's sides – the force-sensing buttons on the Migh Read more:Download
Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Beta 1 Available for Download 2008-03-05 11:10:00 Well, not quite, but it's comingThe first public beta of InternetExplorer
8 is alive and kicking. Well, you have been waiting for it for more than a year. Microsoft has successfully kept the lid closed on the work it was doing with Internet Explorer
8, more so than on the work poured into Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3 and Windows Server 2008. After being dogfooded throughout 2007 over at Microsoft, IE8 first peeped outside of Redmond with the recent private Beta 1 testing program. Now, Microsoft is ready to open Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 to all Windows users."Welcome to Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, the latest test release of the most popular browser! This release contains some great advances in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and layout, programming model, performance, reliability, usabi Read more:Download
Mozilla Announces Firefox 3.0 Beta 5 – Releases Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 RC1 2008-03-05 10:56:00 Beta 5 the last development milestone for Firefox
3.0?Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 might very well be just around the corner, but it is not out at this point. And with Beta 4 still cooking, Mozilla
is now getting ready to put Firefox 3.0 Beta 5 into the oven. That's right, Beta 5. Initially, Mozilla planned to release the next version of its open source browser by the end of 2007. Citing quality concerns, the development of Firefox 3.0 was pushed into 2008, and judging by the current Beta pace, the final version of the browser will drop sometime after March 2008."The development team decided that a fifth beta milestone would be required based on the number of blockers remaining. This additional beta will ensure that changes which may affect website compatibility and changes which affect the user exp
Google Introduces Navigational Site Search Boxes 2008-03-05 10:48:00 Search in searchWhen Google
introduced Sitelinks, it attended to navigational searches. It’s not always when you know the URL you need to type, and by being the biggest search engine in the world, the Mountain View-based company had to address this special category of searches.Sitelinks provide users with a more in-depth approach, providing links to the various pages and tabs found on the main site of the queried item. In other words, the option gives an 8 to 10 link long list of popular places to be found on the site. Google said when the feature was added that it was a big step forward to optimizing the search experience and even a big time saver.The Navigational Search Boxes
that have been added are a means of going even deeper into the content of the site than the Sitelinks. It actua Read more:Search
Daylight Saving is Useless 2008-03-05 10:44:00 Daylight saving not saving anythingDaylight saving appeared originally in ancient times, but the first recorded proposal for the use of this convention came from Benjamin Franklin, during a visit in France, when he proposed that Parisians could make a more economic use of candles if they were to wake up earlier in the morning. In 1905, William Willett invented daylight saving time, or DST, also known in the United Kingdom as the summer time, and two years later he proposed it for implementation.Daylight saving time basically means that during the summer period, clocks must be set one hour in advance, so that the human species makes better use of the light received from the Sun. Aside the obvious advantages which descend from the use of such a time scheme, there is also the myth of electric Read more:Daylight
, Saving
, Daylight Saving
IE8 and Firefox 3.0 - the Beginning of the End for IE6 2008-03-05 02:15:00 It's about high timeInternet Explorer 6 has long been the most popular choice in terms of web browsers worldwide. IE6 was still holding the lion's share of the browser market as of August 2006 with a share of over 80%, according to data made available by Net Applications. Later that year, Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox
2.0 began eroding IE6's install base and converting its audience. However, it took IE7 well over a year to gain the upper hand against IE6.Only in December 2007 did IE7's 40.61% share of the browser market put it ahead of IE6, which had at that point only 35.18% left. Firefox 2.0 of course delivered its own contribution to tilting Internet Explorer 6, growing by the end of 2007 to a market share of no less than 15.80%. Since then, Firefox 2.0 jumped to 16.02% in January and
How Easy Could A CAPTCHA Be Broken? 2008-03-05 02:09:00 Factors Influencing The CAPTCHAs StrengthCAPTCHA systems are widely used to protect various Internet services or applications of unauthorized access of robots or other types of automatic attacks. These type of security systems are also called "reverse Turing tests" and are implemented in blogs to prevent spam comments, in forums to stop multiple postings, in email service registration to prevent multiple accounts creation and so on.The role of a CAPTCHA is to make the difference between a bot and a human, through the validation of a test easily to realize and understand by humans, and nearly impossible by robots. This definition of CAPTCHAs working principle is true from theoretical point of view regarding the robots (artificial intelligence) capabilities. In practice, many CAPTCHA systems Read more:Broken
D-Link Introduces Dual Channel Wireless Router 2008-03-05 02:07:00 The device can simultaneously blast wireless traffic on both 2.4 and 5 GHz radioWireless
specialist D-Link has just announced its Quadband DIR-855 Wireless N Router
, that is capable of separating network traffic by application. The router can support simultaneous 802.11n transmission over both 2.4GHz and 5GHz radio, in order to deliver up to 600 Mbps of bandwidth for multiple wireless devices.Usually, regular wireless routers cannot face the huge network traffic generated by continuous high-definition media-streaming or life-like online games, because the router cannot offer the necessary bandwidth.The new offering from D-Link comes with the company's StreamEngine Quality of Service (QoS) technology that prioritizes high-bandwidth data traffic that is more sensitive to latency, such as hig Read more:Channel
, Dual Channel
Amazon Launches MP3 Downloader for Linux 2008-03-04 09:47:00 Now you can buy whole DRM-free albums!Amazon
.com has released its MP3 Downloader for Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu and OpenSUSE. This will allow Linux
users to download - legally - whole albums. Before this release, a person had to download songs one by one, resulting in a bigger cost.In the B.D - Before Downloader - era, a Linux user had to use a web browser, go on Amazon.com and buy songs individually. The problem was the high cost that resulted from this type of transaction. The advantage offered by Amazon's application is that you can buy entire albums or queue up multiple songs purchases for download. The songs are DRM-free, so you can play them on any device or media player you might have.The MP3s are encoded using variable bit rates for the best audio quality and smaller file sizes, target
YouTube Music Video Lyrics 2008-03-04 09:39:00 Should you want to sing alongHave you ever been at a party and right when your favorite song comes on, somebody next to you starts singing the lyrics wrong, loud and completely aphonous? That must be unnerving, and many, many can testify that it is one of the moments you just feel like going berserk. Here’s a quick tip for everybody who’s found himself or herself in that position: the next day, send a message to the ‘singer’ containing this Firefox script that has the lyrics to most of YouTube
’s music videos, along with a joke about people who should not be allowed to sing. Ever.YouTube’s got it all, and ever since the record labels have become partners with the world’s biggest video sharing site, most of the songs are available, along with the official videos. The one thing Read more:Music
How To Select The Best Forum Software? 2008-03-04 02:58:00 Key Points To Follow In ForumSoftwareSelect
ionForums or discussions boards represent a type of content management system with content generated by users. The indexing of forums content is treated with a high priority by search engine spiders and as a consequence, every webmaster should have a forum installed because forums will generate a high traffic for a given website in certain conditions.The big problem appears when you need to install a forum software. By performing a simple search on any search engine, you will notice that the returned results are formed by many names of free or commercial software created on various server side programming platforms, with or without database support.Depending on your hosting account type, you must select an application (usually running on server
Storm Attacking Once Again 2008-03-04 02:51:00 It’s e-cards once againThe dangerous Storm
Trojan is out in the wild again and lurking, waiting to infect people’s computers, and this time the approach is a bit different. It’s no longer playing on people’s emotions for various holidays like in the past, with Christmas or Valentine’s, probably because there aren’t any around. But that can’t bring the production line to a halt.Various electronic greetings have been spotted by security firm F-Secure, all unexpected by the receivers. The catch line is very similar to those usually being sent, "Check out your ecard," it reads. Inside the email is a link to a website that will infect the user’s computer and turn it into a bot with the purpose of sending more email spam without the owner’s accord or knowledge.The redirected-to Read more:Attacking
, Again
, Once Again
Is Internet Explorer Safer Than Firefox, Opera and Safari? 2008-03-04 02:44:00 Just because it has less security vulnerabilities?The face-off for dominance on the browser market is essentially a four-horse race between InternetExplorer
, Firefox
, Safari
and Opera. Now, the truth of the matter is that Internet Explorer
has long become the preferred browser worldwide, starting with the moment it was bundled with Windows and offered for free in order to beat Netscape at its own game. Firefox comes in second in terms of install base, enjoying the backing of Google, with Safari in third place thanks to the Mac OS X and with Opera a distant fourth. But along with market share, security is another relevant aspect of the browser war.Now, Microsoft has been claiming throughout 2007 that Internet Explorer has the smallest volume of vulnerabilities compared to all rival product
Never Download Friends Via Your Mobile Phone 2008-03-04 02:38:00 While abroad, at least. Unless you want to pay a $21,000 billI'm sure many mobile users love Friends
, the TV sitcom originally broadcast between 1994 and 2004, but I'm not really sure how many Friends fans would pay $21,000 for some episodes of the show. I guess not even one.However, Daily Telegraph, the famous British newspaper, reports that a woman from UK used her husband's mobile phone to download four episodes of Friends. She "programmed" the downloads in the UK, but her husband, a city executive, flew to Germany on a business trip, so the (supposedly funny) Friends episodes were downloaded while on German territory.Since the man had and probably still has an unlimited plan from Vodafone, the data transfer would have been free inside the UK. Unluckily for him, outside the country thin Read more:Download
, Mobile
Netscape Offline 2008-03-03 10:08:00 The plug has been pulled on the once-leading browserOld school Internet users cannot but sigh when reminiscing about the good times they had using the now-AOL-owned Netscape
. As of the first of March, the legendary Netscape Navigator browser is no longer receiving any kind of support, and its faithful users have been once again asked to consider Firefox and Flock for their online browsing future.Once the proud choice of over 90 percent of surfers, Navigator saw its market share slip dramatically as users have moved on to the next generations of browsers, such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Mozilla’s Firefox, leaving it below one percent of the total. "Netscape had a critical role in taking all of these zeros and ones - this very academic and technical environment - and giving it a Read more:Offline
Scientists Get One Step Closer to Creating the First Nuclear Fusion Reactor 2008-03-03 10:02:00 Critical electromagnetic configurations identified!Bringing the Sun to Earth, that's what nuclear physicists dream of today. The imminent depletion of fossil fuels, the inefficiency of renewable power sources and dangers posed by the use of nuclear fissionable fuels point to only one future energy-production solution, nuclear fusion. More than two thirds of the Earth surface is covered with the substance containing the fuel required to power such nuclear reactor, and if developed, these devices could provide with more energy than we could ever dream of; not to mention that nuclear fusion is roughly the most clear energy-production process ever created.For now however, the project is dead in the water. The magnetic fields required to confine the nuclear fusion reaction draws so much power f Read more:Creating
, First
, Nuclear
, Reactor
, One Step
Old Hardware Gets New Lease of Life with Ubuntu 2008-03-03 03:23:00 Some sort of software CPR held by open-source software enthusiastsOpen-source fans worldwide have made a habit out of holding "install-fests", the equivalent of a practical training, where non-technicians get to know the benefits of using Linux and other open-source applications on computers.A San Francisco non-profit foundation went a little further with the install-fest idea and joined swords with Untangle, a San Mateo-based open-source vendor in order to co-sponsor an all-day "Installfest for Schools" event. The new approach to install-fests targets 500 refurbished computers with older hardware that will be donated to underpriviledged students attending the nearby schools.The 500 computers are outdated systems that have been donated mostly by businesses in the Bay Area, and have been th Read more:Hardware
, Ubuntu
What Could Google Represent? 2008-03-03 02:55:00 Local holidays and Feb 29th honored with doodlesDennis Hwang must have been busy over his ears with doodling for the weekend that has just passed, no less than 4 drawings of the Google
logo finding their ways onto the homepages in some countries.First off, there was one on Friday, for the once-in-a -four-years Leap Day. Usually considered as a scrappy day because it’s made out of time that was simply left over from the previous years, the 29th is also a special day for those born on the date. Celebrating your birthday only once every four years can’t be all that fun, so there must have been a lot of wild parties going on that night. The logo was a derivation from the plain Google you see almost every day, with the exception that the ‘l’ was replaced by a jumping frog. That’s a li Read more:Represent
Finally, the iPhone Gets Copy/Paste 2008-03-12 10:11:00 It calls for more than two commands, but hey, at least it worksiPhone
users have longed for a Copy/Paste feature on their touchscreen Apple devices for quite some time now. Apple reps have talked about it, merely pointing out why it couldn't be done and that it might be coming to the device some day, but the feature still isn't available. Oh, let me correct that: "wasn't" available, until now. iCopy is here!iCopy not only works with iPhone, but with iPod touch as well, since the latter uses pretty much every feature present with the iPhone, except telephony. Right. iCopy is, seemingly, the first copy past app for the two Apple handhelds, allowing users to copy and paste text and URLs between web pages, but also email copied blocks of text or URLs.All you need to do, according to Preston Mo Read more:Finally
Frugalware 0.8 Kalgan Now Available 2008-03-12 04:02:00 More than 4,000 changes made their way into Frugalware!Frugalware 0.8, codename Kalgan, for the i686 architecture was released, as announced by the Frugalware Developer Team. This is the eighth stable release of Frugalware, with a lot of bug fixes and changes since the release candidate, but no new features.The most important changes since Frugalware 0.7 are:• Updated base system: Linux kernel version 2.6.24.3, Glibc 2.7 and GCC 4.2.3• The latest desktop packages: KDE 3.5.9, GNOME 2.20, Xfce 4.4.2, OpenOffice.org 2.4rc2 and Firefox 2.0.0.12• The Czech language is now supported and, talking about support, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is now available, too.• A brand-new graphical tool, called FUN, for notifying the user about updates, is included. I wonder, will it be fun to use it o
Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 Download Now! Look Forward to Firefox 3.0 Beta 5 2008-03-12 03:56:00 On the heels of IE8 Beta 1On the heels of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, released by Microsoft the past week following the keynote address at MIX08, Mozilla has made available the fourth beta of Firefox
3.0. Just like IE8 Beta 1, Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 has a strong focus on developers, with Mozilla stressing the fact that the build is designed for testing purposes only, and not for general use. But just think of Beta 4 as yet another step on the Firefox 3.0 beta saga. An epic that has reached its 12th chapter after four Beta and 8 Alpha development milestones. At this point in time, Mozilla is already hard at work planning its next step, namely Firefox 3.0 Beta 5."New features and changes in this milestone that require feedback include improvements to the user interface: better search support in Read more:Download
, Forward
Potato Laptop for Student 2008-03-12 03:51:00 Scam!Buying a laptop cheaper than its market price is something most people only dream of, but it only happens to the lucky ones that are in the right place in the right time. You have to weigh you options very carefully and then know when to step in to make the kill, any bidding done too early might jeopardize the entire situation that was this far clearly in your favor. Those must have been the thoughts of the Portsmouth 27-year old student that was presented with the opportunity to buy a Sony laptop from two guys in a car. After quickly deciding what to do, he took the 600 quid deal and probably laughed on the inside.Unfortunately, the joke was on him, as when he opened the recently purchased laptop’s bag he found only potatoes inside. The student, who wanted to remain unnamed, accord Read more:Potato
, Laptop
, Student
Selenium Tests 2008-03-12 03:46:00 Selenium IDE Firefox Extension For Web Applications TestingThe overall performance and stability of any application is determined through a testing process. In case of web applications, the testing stage before a new release is the main factor that determines the success of a certain web application. The elaboration of testing strategies and practical results interpretation could take a lot of time in many situations. Fortunately, automatic testing alternatives, like Selenium, exist.In comparison with units testing which have the role to simulate a web browser, Selenium testing tool runs in browser alongside the web application.Selenium Core runs in Javascript and is compatible with multiple web browsers across many operating systems. As Selenium is made in Javascript, it cannot run indepe Read more:Selenium
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