Archive for November, 2009
November 30th, 2009 | 
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If camera phones have got people thinking twice about the need for a decent snapshot camera, no one’s told the camera manufacturers. Canon, Nikon, Sony, Panasonic, Fujifilm, Kodak, Pentax, Casio, Samsung, and Olympus all continue to produce point-and-shoot cameras in a wide array of shapes, sizes, and abilities. The variety is amazing, bordering on downright silly.
This is why the question “What’s the best point-and-shoot?” is difficult to answer; while one camera might excel in low-light conditions or photo quality, it’ll more than likely come up short in design, usability, performance, price, or in some other area. Sure, I can stack up some cameras with some similar features and prices, but Read the rest of this entry »
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Cloud computing is poised to win the title of most popular, and populist, buzzword of 2009.
It certainly is gaining traction outside of IT. In fact, the idea of cloud computing has become so popular that executives and employees who don’t even work in the IT department are starting to ask for it by name.
Budget-minded CEOs are telling IT managers to look into cloud computing to reduce the amount of expensive hardware running their data centers; CFOs are interested because they’ve heard the model can slash costs associated with new IT projects; tech-savvy employees are asking for it because they think it sounds cool.
To be clear, the actual number of corporations that have deployed cloud computing remains small; the Corporate Executive Board’s Infrastructure Executive Council doesn’t expect to see mainstream adoption — meaning at least 50% of corporations have embraced cloud computing — until 2012. And even then, they believe companies will only use some of the services that fall under the cloud computing umbrella.
Still, IT departments large and small feel obligated to at least look Read the rest of this entry »
Microsoft today confirmed that exploit code published last week can compromise PCs running older versions of Internet Explorer (IE), but said its security team has not yet seen any in-the-wild attacks.
The attack code, which was posted Friday to the Bugtraq security mailing list, affects both Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) and the newer IE7, Microsoft acknowledged. “Microsoft can confirm that the publicly available exploit code affects IE6 and IE7, not IE8,” a company spokesman said in an e-mail reply to questions today.
IE6 and IE7 account for more than 41% of all browsers used worldwide, according to the most recent data from metrics firm Net Applications. IE8, meanwhile, has an 18.1% market share.
Over the weekend, Symantec researchers took note of the exploit code, but said that it was shaky. “The exploit currently exhibits signs of poor reliability, but we expect that a fully-functional reliable exploit will be available in the near future,” the security company’s analysis team said in an entry on a company blog Saturday.
According to Danish vulnerability tracking vendor Secunia, the flaw is in IE’s layout parser, and could be exploited by hackers to hijack fully-patched Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) machines. Secunia rated the vulnerability as “highly critical,” its second-highest threat ranking.
Microsoft declined to answer questions about Read the rest of this entry »
Q:
What kind of attachments can contain viruses?
A:
Basically, anything that is executable (able to run). You’re generally safe with picture files, text files, and the like. However, it still pays to scan first.
Here is a very short list of the most common to watch out for:
exe
zip
scr
vbs
bat
com
pif
asp
doc
xls
Those are the most common; don’t misinterpret this to mean that if you get one of these files it’s automatically a virus. A “.zip” file may be nothing more than a set of compressed files your friend sent you to look at. A “doc” or “xls” file may simply be an MS Office file. It’s just that these type of files could also be viruses.
A couple other virus tricks you need to be aware of. First, MS Office files can contain what are called “Macro Viruses”. Without getting into too much detail, these files can run a “macro” (a macro is a mini-program run from within another program) that can be as destructive as any “regular” virus. So, my advice on MS Office attachments is not to open them unless you are expecting them. If they just show up, verify with the sender first.
The other trick you need to look out for is an extra extension added to an attached file. For example, you may have something like “mypicture.jpg.vbs”. In fact, if you don’t have your computer set to view file extensions, it may just look like “mypicture.jpg” and omit that last “vbs” part.
This may appear to be a jpg picture file, but it’s actually a Visual Basic Script file. If executed, it will happily infect your computer with a virus.
So, be careful out there.
In windows XP, you can store your data on hard disk using less space than normal size. There is no need to install any third party software to compress or decompress your data, you can use windows built-in data compression or decompression feature to manage disk space issue.
I think many users are worried about the security of their file and folder also, so another benefit of this feature, you can protect your compressed file and folders with password.
Follow the given steps to implement the compression and password feature to mange data:
First double click on “My Computer” and locate the disk where you want to create compressed (zipped) folder. For example, if you want to create this compressed (zipped) folder on C drive, then open C drive.
Here open the “File” menu, go to “New” then click on “Compressed (zipped) Folder” option.
Rename this folder according to data information and press Read the rest of this entry »
here have been a number of really bad viruses just within the past 6 months. We’ve seen the W32.Beagle, W32.Netsky, MyDoom, and so on. Most of these viruses were transported or replicated from pc to pc-using email attachments. These are easy to spot if you’re paying attention, simply because they are usually executable files, but not always.
Some attachments contain Macros (simple programs that run within other programs, all the titles in Microsoft Office use macros). If you’re not that familiar with spotting file extensions, don’t worry, that’s what I’m here to talk about today. If you are a little hazy on the whole “file extension” thing then let’s spend a few moments explaining it.
File extensions are what tell the program how to treat a particular piece of data. For example, most people are somewhat familiar with .doc or a .txt file extensions these are both text documents and when the user opens this file the Operating System looks at this extension and t Read the rest of this entry »
Today tip will help you to enjoy the quick and easy way to find lost files on your computer. Here I recommends you, try to search a file with its file extensions (for example for word file, type *.doc, Excel *.xls, Acrobat *.pdf, *.ppt and *.exe for executable files. If you don’t know the name of file but know that it contains a string of text then try to search for files containing specific text, type the text you want to find from any file or folder. This is time taking process but creates very precise result. In Look in, click the drive, folder, or network you want to search. To save time, always select the specified drive or location instead of whole computer.
Click Start Button, point to Search, and then click For File or Folders, a Search Results dialog box will appear. In Search for files or folders named, type the file name or folder name you want to find Read the rest of this entry »