GeekPolice Tech

Showcase of Windows Phone 7 Makes it Look So Awesome

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 03:24:00 +0000

Microsoft has done up a showcase for the new Windows Phone 7. I have to say the video pretty well done compared to some of their Bing videos. In the video, they mentioned that current smart phone let you use apps "only one at a time, in and out. So what do we do now? We start over."

It seems most of the Microsoft services and products such as Xbox Live, Office, Messenger etc. will now have low level integration with Windows Phone 7. Awesome.

Catch the video here: http://www.microsoft.com/showcase/en/us/details/e26bb54b-d47e-4804-9de7-caf9b6932e4f

Notable Features In The Upcoming Windows Live Essentials

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:59:00 +0000

Microsoft just unveiled the new Windows Live Essentials and the role it plays in completing the Windows experience. Essentials is a suite of free software and services which includes Messenger, Mail, Writer, Photo Gallery, and Movie Maker – as well as Sync and Family Safety.

We all take a lot of photos and videos that we love to share. Windows Live Photo Gallery and Movie Maker now comes with intuitive tools for organizing photos and movies, in addition to providing consumers with the tools to polish and then share their content online. Some of my favorites include:

- Photo Fuse. Allowing you to take the best parts of similar photos and fuse them together into one “perfect” photo

- Retouch. A great new feature which allows you to get rid of blemishes, scratches, bruises and stains on photos in a few clicks

- Precision Video and Audio Editing. Make it so simple for you to find the sweet spot for each video or audio clip

- High-Definition Formats (720p and 1080p). Now you can make your movies look even more polished and professional

Finally, a new tool introduced in the Windows Live Essentials family, Windows Live Sync. With Sync, you can access your files and folders on the web – even if your PC is offline.

Learn more about the new Windows Live Essentials at http://www.windowslivepreview.com

New Version of Hotmail Revamped With Tons of New Features

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Wed, 19 May 2010 02:10:00 +0000

Microsoft just gave a sneak peek to the new Window Live Hotmail, representing the next generation in personal email. Practical innovations has been introduced to help people manage the clutter and regain control of their inboxes – efficiently and the new features will become available to customers world-wide from mid-2010.

A quick overview of the key updates:

Stay better organized

Today’s inboxes are overflowing with mail that most people consider junk, even though it’s mail that’s legitimate. To help keep inboxes clean and organized, the new Hotmail delivers the first and only virtual broom, enabling customers to easily “sweep” unwanted mail out of their inbox. It also helps cut through clutter with intelligent filters that in a single click will filter the entire inbox to show mail just from contacts, just social network alerts, or just mail from the groups users belong to.

Manage your social networks from your inbox

With the new Hotmail, customers will be able to see rich previews of photos and videos from popular sites like Flickr, YouTube, Hulu and SmugMug, and see the status of tracked packages in real time, inside their emails. They’ll also be able to accept invitations to connect with someone on a social or professional networking site like LinkedIn – all from the convenience of their inboxes.

Increased attachment size

One of the biggest changes to Hotmail is the increased ability to manage and share personal photos and documents. Today, people are sharing over 1.5 billion photos and 350 million Microsoft Office documents per month in Hotmail. Still, the “attachment size problem” remains, regardless of which mail service people use. The new Hotmail lets’ customers send up 10 GB of attachments (200 attachments – each up to 50 MB in size) in a single message, erasing worries of attachment size limits.

You can also find out more at http://hotmailpreview.com

New Version of Windows Live Messenger Coming Soon!

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 08:45:00 +0000

Microsoft boss, Steve Ballmer, just gave a fantastic preview of the new Windows Live Messenger as part of a discussion with students at the Universidade de Sao Paulo. This marks the first official look at Windows Live Wave 4, with additional disclosure moments happening around Hotmail and Essentials in the coming months.

At the event, Steve highlighted some of cool features of the new Messenger. Some of my favorites include:

- - World’s best IM. Letting you enjoy rich, beautiful chat experiences that enhance your conversations with photos, videos and your webcam. Our goal is to improve those personal interactions with your close friends, so that you continue to connect in even richer ways with the people you care about most.

- - Best way to stay in touch with close friends and what they’re doing across the web. The new Messenger is the most complete view of what your friends are doing across the web with a specific focus on prioritizing and helping you stay in touch with the people that matter most and delivering this in a rich and enjoyable fashion

For more information, check out the links below:

· Watch a new Messenger launch video at www.messengerpreview.com

· Watch Steve’s presentation from Brazil at www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/windowslive/default.mspx

· Read the announcement blog post for details at windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowslive/default.aspx

Via Microsoft

Over 11,000 Domains Used For Rouge Antivirus Distribution

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 10:08:00 +0000

A new research during a 13 month period study at Google's malware detection infrastructure revealed that more than 11,000 domains were involved in the distribution of rouge antivruses.

"An analysis of 240 million Web pages collected by Google’s malware detection infrastructure over a 13-month period discovered more than 11,000 domains involved in the distribution of rogue antivirus (AV). While that may be a small overall percentage, Google’s research found that fake AV accounts for 60 percent of the malware discovered on domains that include trending keywords "

Simply looking at the list of well known Malware URLs listed on our forums show that a single rogue uses so many domains just to market themselves. Domains can have separate use for fake scanners, downloading, purchases, and "blocking websites" the victim is trying to visit.

Further reading: eWeek

Why did Google copy off of Yahoo!?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:15:00 +0000

In hopes of being short today on my thoughts about Google versus Yahoo! I think this whole copying thing is starting to get out of hand.

Long ago, Yahoo! made its own social bookmark/news service, called Yahoo! Buzz (2008). It is a lot like Digg, and has pretty good popularity.

However, Google very recently released their status update service called Google Buzz. Now, why did Google have to copy off of Yahoo!?

The difference between the two would probably be the privacy levels. Obviously they are two different services, so that is a no brainer there.

Now, it is unknown why this move was made by Google, but only time will tell of potential disputes between the two powerhouse search companies.

Is MySpace on its way out?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:05:00 +0000

Seems "Tom" was everybody's friend. Always the first friend due to child safety issues. It was the assurance that children's profiles were being watched. Now, that has changed with MySpace Today taking that place.

It seems Tom, better known as Thomas Anderson - co-founder of MySpace, has not logged in to his self-MySpace account since the end of January, and has not posted a status update since Christmas.

What is the big deal with this? Does that mean Tom has been replaced? No. But, instead of being President, Tom is now the Strategic Adviser.

What do Strategic Advisers do? They give advice on the spot, provide focus for the company, create options, and are the highest leaders.

Just being a Strategic Adviser seems like a low-blow to me. It is honorable that he is the co-founder, but he should at least be the chairman of the company, right?

It is bad enough that MySpace has dropped out of the top ten for several months now, update recently at spot 17 shows that MySpace is losing much popularity, compared to its rivals Twitter and Facebook. Even LinkedIn is showing a much better growth rate.

With MySpace slipping through the cracks of the rock bottom...OK not that far, but still...Owen Van Natta - former CEO - stepped down recently and gave his position to new co-presidents Mike Jones and Jason Hirschhor.

With MySpace's decline in GROWTH, does not mean that current users have QUIT. There are still well over 200 million users. But, the number of unique visitors per month has decreased from an estimate 65 million to 55 million in just 6 months. It is time to reverse that, if MySpace wants to stay alive as a highly popular website. What considers a website highly popular? If they are in the top 100.

There are still tons of MySpace users that will not convert to Facebook because of opinions such as "I don't like it" or "It sucks." But, that does not affect the conversion rate, because many Facebook users did not come from MySpace, but were unique new signups. That means that Facebook is attracting more attention from its global media rather than just the media talking about how good it is.

Facebook lately, however has lost some attention, because of GUI changes and privacy policy changes. Seems like both types of changes have been continual over the past year, with the privacy policy and GUI changing more than 2 times. Which is why many MySpace users are happy to stay home at MySpace.

Does the future hold poison for MySpace, or will MySpace beat the bad stuff in to burial and become a tough competitor to Facebook once again?

------------

DragonMaster Jay

Spam is still a continuous annoying force, and is not safe!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:49:00 +0000

Not sure how long you have been on the Internet, but I remember the 1990s and early 2000s when spam was already severe. Spam is the shameless plugs made by companies in order to gain an illegal advantage in advertising. Most spam is considered negative, and can really deteriorate certain websites.

There are three types of common spam:

1. Email spam, junk email, and social engineered email.

-Email spam is what most people know about. It just floods an inbox like a plague does a living body. For the non-savvy email user, spam is constant. For the savvy email user, these folks get 1-2 spam emails a day and their inbox is always clean.

-Junk email is like spam email, except this is just email sent from useless mailing lists, that you accidentally joined by submitting an email address to a survey site, mailing list, or other website.

Social engineered email is the most common infectious email. The attacker will usually fetch a long list of emails from the Internet by using a bot. This bot searches sites for email addresses, then indexes them. Once indexed, the email message containing the virus code is sent to all the indexed email addresses. When the email is opened by the user, one of two things might happen: A.) They get instantly infected. B.) They get invited to a website that appears to look safe in the email, but will infect the computer once the user goes to it. Frequently, this is the invitation to a botnet, which is a collection of compromised computers by a bot. Sometimes these compromised computers are geared up for a denial-of-service attack. Other times they are geared up to send more spam, and more malware in order to infect more computers.

2. Forum spam.

-No matter what, this type of spam is very typical as well. There are preventative measures available to stop forum spam.

3. Instant Messaging spam.

-Getting spam via Instant Messenger, is usual, and just to warn you, do not click on links referring to websites you do not trust.
__________________________________

You will find that increases in spam happen when a huge event occurs. For example, Valentine's day, Haiti earthquake, or Hurricane Katrina, etc. Or a big news story can also increase more spam, like the Michael Jackson death, etc.

An estimated 50% of worldwide spam gets generated by Brazil and the United States. These are followed by India and South Korea at an estimation of 38%.

No matter what, the danger of spam is still on the rise.

==

DragonMaster Jay

Minor stability issues continue with the Windows 7 Operating Systems

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:44:00 +0000

Microsoft has made many attempts lately, to throw the blame off of themselves. One attempt recently, is that they were saying certain hardware issues are not because of Windows 7. However, Intel and nVidia recently released updates for video cards because of Windows Sleep Mode failing to function properly. On resume from Sleep Mode, Windows would not recover properly, and would turn Windows Aero off.
The user would either have to restart their computer, or try to turn Windows Aero back on. With the updates from the graphic card vendors, Windows 7 will now flash the brightness setting 1-2 times on resume from Sleep Mode. So, problem NOT solved. At least Windows 7 does not lag on resume from it, but still the graphics card is not functioning at maximum on resume from Sleep Mode.

Talks about creativity issues, have sparked major reviews in Microsoft's behavior lately, and some have questioned Steve Ballmer's performance. Microsoft recently warned of lapsing Windows support, which addressed the end of support for Windows 2000, XP, and Vista users. It seems Microsoft is making cuts where needed, and suffering in the process.

Is Microsoft's creative side going sour? With Google making a new social tool, Microsoft might be swimming in a sea of doubt for competition. And now, Facebook dumping Microsoft ads, Microsoft is beginning to get nervous and if this continuous "unfriendly" cycle continues, Microsoft may be all by themselves.

How to access online safety resources easily (parental controls and child safety)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:57:00 +0000

In the online world, seems like parents are searching for ways to keep their children safe on the Internet.

I have provided some resources that will be of good use.

* OnguardOnline.gov
* WiredSafety.org
* Commonsense.com
* Ncmec.org
* TRUSTe.org
* ConnectSafely.org
* NetSmartz.org
* WebWiseKids.org
* AThinLine.org

Online safety is a good thing, so do not compromise your safety by being unaware. Get aware!

Why is just an antivirus, not enough?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:32:00 +0000

Seems in today's computer world, we have people who think that they are immune to attacks or do not need a bunch of protection - despite their disgusting browsing habits. Some people don't have an antivirus, some not a firewall, and most do not have antispyware.

Antivirus software is the number one most critical component to computer security. The number two most critical component is a firewall. Number three most critical component is antispyware.

Your data is at risk when you decide to get Internet access on your home computer. With great things like P2P software, torrents, etc - comes a great deal of malware as well. It is no wonder so many Internet users are infected. Most users I see only have an antivirus software. But, IF YOU WANT P2P SOFTWARE - USE A FIREWALL! It is critically necessary when using P2P software. However, I do not recommend P2P software and would wish anyone I saw to uninstall it. Why am I so mad for? I am tired of helping users clean up a messy computer full of cracked (stolen) software, and music downloads. What is the big deal about buying your music? What is the big deal about buying software? It is not that hard.

Now, antispyware is critical as well, as this helps to super-protect your private data. Spyware is one of the most widespread, and although some antivirus software can detect spyware - they have little capability to fully remove it. An antispyware software has the capability to detect in real-time your browsing experience to help safe-guard you against threats that want to spy on your browsing habits and steal your personal data. Most of the spyware today is aimed at getting your email address, your home address, your telephone number (includes cell phone), your social security number, your date-of-birth, and your credit card/banking information. It is time to cease that threat and go fetch antispyware software.

To encourage you too get the right security build for your computer, let me extend some good options/recommendations of my own that will help to get it right:

===FREE===
Antivirus: Avira Antivir Free (free-av.com)
Firewall: Tallemu Online Armor (tallemu.com)
Antispyware: Spybot Search & Destroy (safer-networking.org)

===Premium Internet Security Suites (choose only one)===
(This means you have all of protection in one piece of software)

Kaspersky Internet Security (kaspersky.com)
Avira Antivir Premium (avira.com)
ESET Smart Security (eset.com)
G-Data Internet Security (gdata-software.com)

=============

You see, those are just some options. Those are the most recommended by me.

Keep yourself secure and Happy Computing.

DragonMaster Jay

Twitter's New Mobile Interface Now Live

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 03:37:00 +0000

About a month after Twitter unveiled their new mobile interface at mobile.twitter.com. All the mobile traffic (on the iPhone at least) is being redirect from the old m.twitter.com to mobile.twitter.com. I noticed this at about 1700 +8GMT yesterday. Take a look at some screenshots of the new interface after the jump if you haven't already.

Chrome still faster than Firefox 3.6 to render JavaScript

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:19:00 +0000

Even after the release of Firefox 3.6, Chrome still holds the fastest speed for rendering JavaScript. Internet Explorer, as usual, is the slowest.

Firefox renders JavaScript three times faster than Opera 10 and more than four times faster than Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). But even with the JavaScript speed boost, Firefox 3.6 can't match Safari or Chrome. Safari is twice as fast -- and Chrome 4.0 nearly twice as fast -- as Firefox.

SunSpider JavaScript benchmark results. Times are in milliseconds. Smaller numbers are better.

Via Computerworld

How the Apple Tablet came about [Pic]

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:52:00 +0000

Via Mashable, Lalawag

Google vs Microsoft vs Apple vs Yahoo [Comparison Chart]

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 13:43:00 +0000

Via New York Times

What's new in Firefox 3.6 [Video]

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:47:00 +0000

Mike Beltzner, Director of Firefox Development, gives an overview of what's new in Firefox 3.6.

Download Firefox 3.6 from here.

This is what the Apple Tablet might look like

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:57:00 +0000

Apple Insider reports they have confirmation from inside sources that one rendered image in particular is “strikingly close” to the real thing.

Via Fotobear, Mashable

Firefox 3.6 Coming Soon!

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:59:00 +0000

Firefox 3.6 is scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning Pacific time.

Via Mozilla Blog

Nexus One Unboxing Ad [Video]

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:29:00 +0000

An ad for the Nexus One sponsored by Google using some ninjas to unbox it.

Apple Tablet and iPhone 4G to Launch on January 27th

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:41:00 +0000

Apple announced an event on January 27th. Though they did not state what will take place during the event, it should be clear that they are going to unveil the long-rumoured Apple Tablet and the iPhone 4.

According to Fox News:

"Apple just announced an event on January 27th that will no doubt dazzle us with what the company is calling its "latest creation." At the event, Apple will unveil the company's long-rumored tablet device.

Apple sent out invitations to selected media outlets this morning, asking people to "join us for an invitation-only event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco on January 27 at 10:00a.m." Fox will be live all morning long from San Francisco, bringing you all the fruit (and gadgets) that the Apple tree bears.

Reports suggest that this device has been years in the making (just take a look at this enthusiast-generated gallery of Apple table concepts, originally posted to Gizmodo two years ago)."

Via Fox News

Google might shut itself down in China

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:53:00 +0000

Google has announced a rather bold move today: It will no longer censor search results on Google.cn, the Chinese version of the search engine. Apparently they will maintain this stance, even if it ends in shutting down Google.cn.

According to a post on the Official Google Blog:

"We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China. "

Google explains that part of the motivation behind this action are the recent cyber attacks on Google as well as "at least twenty other large companies" over the course of the last month:

"These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered—combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web—have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China"

While it remains to be seen how the Chinese government reacts to this move, I couldn't be prouder of Google for making it. I hope that other major Internet properties follow suit and that perhaps we'll see an end of national filters and censorship one of these days.

Via Gizmodo

31 amazing Facebook facts you might not know of

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 04:39:00 +0000

Company Figures

1. More than 400 million active users
2. 50% active users log on to Facebook in any given day
3. More than 35 million users update their status each day
4. More than 55 million status updates posted each day
5. More than 2.5 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
6. More than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
7. More than 3.5 million events created each month
8. More than 1.6 million active Pages on Facebook
9. More than 700,000 local businesses have active Pages on Facebook
10. Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans

Average User Figures

11. Average user has 130 friends on the site
12. Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
13. Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
14. Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month
15. Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month
16. Average user becomes a fan of 2 Pages each month
17. Average user is invited to 3 events per month
18. Average user is a member of 12 groups

International Growth

19. More than 70 translations available on the site
20. About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
21. Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application

Platform

22. More than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries
23. Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications
24. More than 500,000 active applications currently on Facebook Platform
25. More than 250 applications have more than one million monthly active users
26. More than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since its general availability in December 2008
27. More than 60 million Facebook users engage with Facebook Connect on external websites every month
28. Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have implemented Facebook Connect

Mobile

29. There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
30. People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
31. There are more than 180 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products

From: Facebook

OMG, this laptop has a transparent screen!

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:25:00 +0000

This laptop has a super cool semi-transparent OLED screen! The screen's border is made of transparent plastic.

Manufactured by Samsung, they claimed it to be the world's first and largest transparent OLED prototype. Want to see it in action? View the video after the jump.

If you ask me, I'd definitely want one. Of course I wouldn't use it in public places, or else people could see everything I'm doing. It looks like it costs a bomb too.

Via Engadget

First Looks: Google's Nexus One

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:23:00 +0000

After Google Unveiled the Nexus One, here are some pictures of it.

Via PCWorld

Google Phone: Nexus One unveiled!

noreply@blogger.com (Milton) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:57:00 +0000

After an anticipated wait and much buzz in the blogosphere, here comes the very first Google Phone, the Nexus One!

Customers can buy the phone now at Google's site; Google.com/phone. It costs $530 unlocked, $179 with a T-Mobile contract. Vodafone and Verizon on the other hand are expected to make it available sometime in the first quarter.

Buyers must use Google Checkout to buy the phone and must have a Google log-in.

Google's Mario Queiroz holding the new Nexus One smartphone.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

The Nexus One, as shown on Google's product page.

More news resources related to the Nexus One:
iPhone vs Nexus One vs Droid [Comparison Chart]

Live coverage of Google's Android phone announcement
Google takes wraps off Nexus One
Preview of the Google Phone: Nexus One [Video]