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Android is not Google and Google is not Android anymore?

2012-02-07T09:03:00.001-08:00

I like Android a lot. It’s Linux’s biggest end-user success story. Android has great applications. Moreover, Android’s smartphone market-share is growing fast. Eventually Android will become the number one smartphone operating system in the world. If, that is, everything goes right.

Android’s biggest worry is not the iPhone, the Blackberry, or Windows Phone 7; it is that it will fragment into multiple incompatible, brand-specific versions. With a large number of custom versions of the Android platform emerging, the concern is that interoperability will be weakened because of the potential for applications built specifically for one variant or device not being able to work with others.

You see, all the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), like Motorola and HTC put their own software, Sense UI and Motoblur respectively, on top of Android. Then, all the carriers add their own special-sauce of applications. It can get messy.

If the makers of the number one mobile game in the world are concerned, it’s a real concern. It’s not just a scary story for baby programmers.

Android: in pieces?

If there's one complaint you hear about Google's Android platform, it is about fragmentation. It happens at the device level, the OS level, with the UI, and even with specific apps and services some carriers or manufacturers use. There are plusses and minuses to all of these, and it looks like Google has lost control, ceding the problems to the licensees. Google has almost lost control of Android and has zero chance of regaining it. Android has become something that is independent of Google.

Well there are five axes of fragmentation: Device, OS, User Interface, Marketplace and Services.

For a mobile platform, a different degree of fragmentation can exist along each of these axes. For example, Apple's iOS platform has almost no fragmentation along the Marketplace axis because Apple has been so hardcore about ensuring that the iTunes marketplace is the only marketplace supported. A relatively small amount of fragmentation on the User Interface axis exists because Apple has been extremely consistent with UI. Likewise, there is a bit of device fragmentation in iOS due to different generations of iPhones having different hardware capabilities (such as a front-facing camera).

The fragmentation of Android is severe, across all of these axes, regardless of how Google’s Eric Schmidt tries to spin it. In addition, because of the complexity of the mobile ecosystem (and the other ecosystems Android is part of), the effect is more multiplicative than additive.

Google's options: Google has some tactics that it might try (is trying) to use to rein in fragmentation. Like investing in the Nexus brand as Nexus is Google's "pure" Android play, Holding Back Access to the Latest Version of Android. However, none of these will have a significant impact; in fact, most will make fragmentation worse.

If you do not feel so good about so called fragmentation, check out - Google TV. Remember, Android is not just about mobile…

Apple unveils 'iCloud' storage, new operating system

2011-08-13T23:37:00.000-07:00

Apple's Steve Jobs on Monday announced a new service called "iCloud," which lets Apple product owners store documents and music on the Internet instead of on their own computer hard drives or mobile phones.

iCloud expands on the trend of cloud computing, which refers to the idea that computer users are storing more of their information "in the cloud" of the Internet rather than on their own storage drives.

All of a person's Apple devices -- iPhone, iPads and Mac computers -- sync wirelessly with Apple's iCloud, giving users access to their documents, photos, apps, calendars and e-mails from any location, not just on a specific gadget. "We think this is going to be pretty big," said Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, who has been on medical leave since January. But the service does have some limits.

iCloud stores photos for up to 30 days, and mobile devices store the most recent 1,000 photos. Users can store only 5 gigabytes of documents, which is more than some competitors allow. And in order to sync music that wasn't purchased from Apple's iTunes store, users must pay Apple a fee of $25 per year. All iCloud services except that music add-on are free, Jobs said. "This is the first time we've seen this in the music industry," he said. Consumers can use the iTunes portion of iCloud now, but only if they have iOS version 4.3. The rest of the features will be available to everyone in the fall.

The service replaces an old Apple product called MobileMe, which cost $99 per year. Daily back-ups on iCloud happen automatically in the background when a device is connected to the Internet over Wi-Fi, the company said. Big tech players like Amazon and Google, as well as smaller companies like Dropbox, already operate cloud storage services with various features.

Amazon created a stir in March when it announced a cloud music player. Apple typically uses its Worldwide Developers Conference or WWDC, as the event is called in tech circles, to announce a new version on the popular iPhone. But not this year. "If the hardware is the brain ... of our products, the software is their soul. And today, we are going to talk about software," Jobs said before a packed audience, wearing his standard uniform of a black mock turtleneck and jeans.

Analysts expect a new iPhone in September.

If anyone was doubting that iOS and OS X are converging, the use of the trackpad for gestures should convince you. It's incredibly tablet-like. But I wonder how much getting used to it'll take?" Gizmodo wrote on its live blog of the event, which started at 1 p.m. ET. A new version of Apple's mobile operating system -- called iOS 5, which is due out in the fall -- introduces a system of alerts for iPhones and iPads. A "Notification Center" organizes alerts by app, and these alerts pop up at the top of the screen where they can be more easily ignored. Currently, these alerts show up in the center of the screen and interrupt users.

The mobile operating system also integrates with Twitter, allowing users to tweet photos from within the Camera and Maps apps. "We want to make it easier for all of our customers to use Twitter," Apple's Scott Forstall said at the event in San Francisco. A new built-in app called Reminders lets users create to-do lists, and an update to the iPhone and iPad e-mail system will let people create messages in bold or italics, as well as encrypt the messages they send from mobile devices.

The new mobile operating system will also debut a new app called iMessage. With it, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users will be able to send text, photo and video messages to each other without having to pay the cell-carrier fees associated with texting.

Research in Motion has a similar feature called BlackBerry Messenger, which is quite popular among owners of those phones. App developers have been selling similar software for iOS and other platforms, and those will likely continue to be popular because they allow, say, an iPhone user to contact an Android phone. An update to the Camera app lets people take photos by pressing the volume-up button on the side of the iPad or iPhone.

The new Camera app also lets users edit photos on the fly, simulating features already available from many third-party app developers. iOS updates will be available for the first time "over the air," meaning users won't have to sync their devices with desktop computers to get new software. Users can also sync phones with iTunes over Wi-Fi.

How To Lock Your Computer With USB Drive

2011-07-02T06:41:00.000-07:00

Tired of people starting your computer when you are not around and messing up custom settings? Wouldn’t it be cool if you could lock your computer by just removing your USB stick from it? I’ll show you how you can use your USB stick, Flash Drive or Pen Drive what ever you call it to lock your computer, among other things…

Boot Lock

This trick will allow you to use your USB to BOOT into Windows. If someone tries to start the computer without your USB stick, it will display boot errors. Before begin, you playing with the BIOS and boot files of your computer may result in you not being able to boot into your Windows partition; so continue at your own risk!

Things you need: A 64MB or larger sized USB Stick, Windows Recovery Disk (just in case). Unhide hidden and protected files : Go to Tools > Options > View, check Show hidden files and un-check Hide protected system files.

From the drive where Windows is installed (normally C:\), copy the files boot.ini, ntdlr and NTDETECT.COM to your USB Stick.
Now, we need to go into your BIOS, so restart the computer and keep jabbing [F8] as soon as the computer starts.
Once in the BIOS, enable USB Drive as the first boot device. You might have to enable USB Legacy Support on older BIOSes.
Restart your computer, if all goes well, you should be able to log into Windows. If not, then unplug the USB Stick, return to the BIOS and change the First Boot device to your hard disk drive and repeat the steps above.
Once you are logged into Windows, go to your Windows drive and rename boot.ini to boot.bak.
To check if you have setup everything correctly, eject your USB stick and reboot the computer. You should get error messages on the screen such as Invalid Boot.ini” or “Windows could not start”.

That's it ! :)

Google launches 'Swiffy' that Converts Flash to HTML5

2011-07-01T22:43:00.000-07:00

Converting SWF files (the file format for Flash) to HTML 5 is now become possible with Swiffy.Googlelabs.com.

Yes, Google's Swiffy makes Flash files HTML5 friendly, indirectly Google comes with Adobe Flash killer.. !

Using conversation tool, you will be able to reuse Flash content on devices which are not having Flash Player. You just need to upload SWF file to convert Flash Swf to HTML 5 video.

Swiffy.Googlelabs.com has been started in 2011. Swiffy is launched by Google Labs to convert Flash File to iPhone Friendly HTML5. Swiffy tool is like Adobe, called as WallyBy. The main difference between Swiffy and WallyBy is that Swiffy is web-based tool and code is made and compressed in a way which creates editing difficult, while Wallaby is a type of client which only works on Windows PC or Mac and the code is intended to be edited and reused. You can convert maximum 512 KB Flash files (.swf) into HTML 5 content.

How it works?

You don’t require registration to Convert Flash SWF to HTML5 Video at Google’s free online tool. To convert files into HTML5 Video, just upload flash file from your computer. Once you upload it, you can open flash files in any computer that does not contain flash player. You can also convert flash file into HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and SVG. Currently, the output of site only works on webkit-based browsers including Apple Safari and Google Chrome and Swiffy supports a division of ActionScript 2.0 and SWF 8. It works only with animation and content prepared using Flash 8.

Pros:

Convert Adobe Flash animation SWF Files into HTML5 easily
Open HTML 5 video on any computer which has no Flash Player

Cons:

Convert maximum 512 KB Flash files (.swf) into HTML 5 content

Swiffy vs. Wallaby

It should also be noted that Adobe launched a similar tool known as Wallaby in March. Like Swiffy, Wallaby converts Flash to HTML5, and again, mainly for the purpose of converting ads. Google explains the differences between the two programs in its FAQ:

Wallaby is an installable tool that converts .fla files, whereas Swiffy is a web-based tool that converts .swf files. Wallaby focuses on reusing parts of a Flash file in HTML, and thus produces code that can be edited by the developer, whereas Swiffy generates an efficient format that is not that easily editable.

For what's it's worth, Adobe says it's happy about Swiffy:

Adobe is pleased to see the Flash platform extended to devices which don't support the Flash player. The result is that anyone creating rich or interactive ads can continue to get all the authoring benefits of Flash Pro and have the flexibility to run the ad in the Flash Player or HTML depending on what's available on the system. Google and Adobe look forward to close collaboration around efforts like these.

Have you tried using Swiffy yet to convert any of your flash animations to HTML5?

Megabytes, Gigabytes, Terabytes... What Are They?

2011-06-21T07:14:00.001-07:00

These terms are usually used in the world of computing to describe disk space, or data storage space, and system memory. For instance, just a few years ago we were describing hard drive space using the term Megabytes. Today, Gigabytes is the most common term being used to describe the size of a hard drive. In the not so distant future, Terabyte will be a common term. But what are they? This is where it gets quite confusing because there are at least three accepted definitions of each term.

According to the IBM Dictionary of computing, when used to describe disk storage capacity, a megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes in decimal notation. But when the term megabyte is used for real and virtual storage, and channel volume, 2 to the 20th power or 1,048,576 bytes is the appropriate notation. According to the Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary, a megabyte means either 1,000,000 bytes or 1,048,576 bytes. According to Eric S. Raymond in The New Hacker's Dictionary, a megabyte is always 1,048,576 bytes on the argument that bytes should naturally be computed in powers of two. So which definition do most people conform to?

When referring to a megabyte for disk storage, the hard drive manufacturers use the standard that a megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes. This means that when you buy an 80 Gigabyte Hard drive you will get a total of 80,000,000,000 bytes of available storage. This is where it gets confusing because Windows uses the 1,048,576 byte rule so when you look at the Windows drive properties an 80 Gigabyte drive will report a capacity of 74.56 Gigabytes and a 250 Gigabyte drive will only yield 232 Gigabytes of available storage space. Anybody confused yet? With three accepted definitions, there will always be some confusion so I will try to simplify the definitions a little.

The 1000 can be replaced with 1024 and still be correct using the other acceptable standards. Both of these standards are correct depending on what type of storage you are referring.

Processor or Virtual Storage	Disk Storage
· 1 Bit = Binary Digit · 8 Bits = 1 Byte · 1024 Bytes = 1 Kilobyte · 1024 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte · 1024 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte · 1024 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte · 1024 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte · 1024 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte · 1024 Exabytes = 1 Zettabyte · 1024 Zettabytes = 1 Yottabyte · 1024 Yottabytes = 1 Brontobyte · 1024 Brontobytes = 1 Geopbyte	· 1 Bit = Binary Digit · 8 Bits = 1 Byte · 1000 Bytes = 1 Kilobyte · 1000 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte · 1000 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte · 1000 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte · 1000 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte · 1000 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte · 1000 Exabytes = 1 Zettabyte · 1000 Zettabytes = 1 Yottabyte · 1000 Yottabytes = 1 Brontobyte · 1000 Brontobytes = 1 Geopbyte

This is based on the IBM Dictionary of computing method to describe disk storage - the simplest.

Now let's go into a little more detail.

Bit: A Bit is the smallest unit of data that a computer uses. It can be used to represent two states of information, such as Yes or No.

Byte: A Byte is equal to 8 Bits. A Byte can represent 256 states of information, for example, numbers or a combination of numbers and letters. 1 Byte could be equal to one character. 10 Bytes could be equal to a word. 100 Bytes would equal an average sentence.

Kilobyte: A Kilobyte is approximately 1,000 Bytes, actually 1,024 Bytes depending on which definition is used. 1 Kilobyte would be equal to this paragraph you are reading, whereas 100 Kilobytes would equal an entire page.

Megabyte: A Megabyte is approximately 1,000 Kilobytes. In the early days of computing, a Megabyte was considered to be a large amount of data. These days with a 500 Gigabyte hard drive on a computer being common, a Megabyte doesn't seem like much anymore. One of those old 3-1/2 inch floppy disks can hold 1.44 Megabytes or the equivalent of a small book. 100 Megabytes might hold a couple volumes of Encyclopedias. 600 Megabytes is about the amount of data that will fit on a CD-ROM disk.

Gigabyte: A Gigabyte is approximately 1,000 Megabytes. A Gigabyte is still a very common term used these days when referring to disk space or drive storage. 1 Gigabyte of data is almost twice the amount of data that a CD-ROM can hold. But it's about one thousand times the capacity of a 3-1/2 floppy disk. 1 Gigabyte could hold the contents of about 10 yards of books on a shelf. 100 Gigabytes could hold the entire library floor of academic journals.

Terabyte: A Terabyte is approximately one trillion bytes, or 1,000 Gigabytes. There was a time that I never thought I would see a 1 Terabyte hard drive, now one and two terabyte drives are the normal specs for many new computers. To put it in some perspective, a Terabyte could hold about 3.6 million 300 Kilobyte images or maybe about 300 hours of good quality video. A Terabyte could hold 1,000 copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Ten Terabytes could hold the printed collection of the Library of Congress. That's a lot of data.

Petabyte: A Petabyte is approximately 1,000 Terabytes or one million Gigabytes. It's hard to visualize what a Petabyte could hold. 1 Petabyte could hold approximately 20 million 4-door filing cabinets full of text. It could hold 500 billion pages of standard printed text. It would take about 500 million floppy disks to store the same amount of data.

Exabyte: An Exabyte is approximately 1,000 Petabytes. Another way to look at it is that an Exabyte is approximately one quintillion bytes or one billion Gigabytes. There is not much to compare an Exabyte to. It has been said that 5 Exabytes would be equal to all of the words ever spoken by mankind.

Zettabyte: A Zettabyte is approximately 1,000 Exabytes. There is nothing to compare a Zettabyte to but to say that it would take a whole lot of ones and zeroes to fill it up.

Yottabyte: A Yottabyte is approximately 1,000 Zettabytes. It would take approximately 11 trillion years to download a Yottabyte file from the Internet using high-power broadband. You can compare it to the World Wide Web as the entire Internet almost takes up about a Yottabyte.

Brontobyte: A Brontobyte is (you guessed it) approximately 1,000 Yottabytes. The only thing there is to say about a Brontobyte is that it is a 1 followed by 27 zeroes!

Geopbyte: A Geopbyte is about 1000 Brontobytes! Not sure why this term was created. I'm doubting that anyone alive today will ever see a Geopbyte hard drive. One way of looking at a geopbyte is 1₅267 650₄600 228₃229 401₂496 703₁205 376 bytes!

Now you should have a good understanding of megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes and everything in between. Now if we can just figure out what a WhatsAByte is......:)

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Google’s History: A Visual Look at the Search Engine’s Timeline

2011-06-06T00:14:00.000-07:00

Launch in 1998, the company founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, has continued to grow and always expanded more and more. Today when thinking of Google it isn’t just a search engine anymore but also one of the biggest advertising platform world wide (the biggest?), a software distributor and a mobile phone manufacturer. Google is rumoured to venture even further and recently announced Google TV, an operating system for television sets. Only yesterday the company announced that it is positioning itself better in the VOIP and telephony space as well. Nobody knows when the company will stop to acquire and expand its services.

'Techproceed' team had a look at the history and timeline of Google and all this info was compiled in an infographic.

100+ Sites to Download All Sorts of Things

2011-06-05T08:31:00.000-07:00

These days you can find all sorts of things online, from audio books to flash files, from sound effects to CSS templates. Below we compiled a list with over 100 download sites that serve that purpose.

We will also try to keep the list updated, so if your favorite download site is not here, let us know about it with a comment.

Audio Books

Librivox: One of the most popular audio libraries on the web. The LibriVox volunteers record books that are in the public domain and release them for free.

Podiobooks: Similar to podcast, Podiobooks are serialized audiobooks that are distributed through RSS feeds. You can receive book episodes or download directly from the site.

Oculture (Audio & Podcast): Offers a rich array of educational and cultural media. The site editor scours through the web to find the best cultural and educational media available.

Learn Out Loud: A one-stop destination for video and audio learning resources. You can browse through over 15,000 educational audio books MP3 downloads, podcasts, and videos. The site also contains various free resources.

BitTorrent

The Pirate Bay: The web’s largest collection of bit torrent trackers. The Pirate Bay banks on its member file sharers to cull the web’s torrent files and make these available to users.

Mininova.org : What started as an alternative to the now defunct Supernova that went offline in 2004, Mininova has become the biggest torrent search engine and directory on the web. The site provides easy-to-use directory and search for all types of torrent files.

Torrent Portal : This P2P and file sharing site works like Google by linking only to .torrent metafiles and captures the caches of those files. It does not store files nor transfer data which are content linked to by .torrent files.

Now Torrents: The site scans torrent websites on the internet to provide the best results to users. Now Torrents provides an advanced real-time search engine for bit-torrents while at the same detecting and removing fake or dead torrent sites.

Torrentz: This Sweden-based torrent meta-search engine also indexes various major torrents sites including Mininova, The Pirate Bay and Demonoid. It provides various trackers per torrent that would work when another tracker is not working.

Books and Documents

Scribd: A virtual place where you can publish, discover, discuss, and share original writings and document. With 50 million unique page views per month, Scribd is a great place to learn new things.

Sheet Music Archive: The web’s most popular music web site. The site contains more than 22,000 classical music pieces and more than 100,000 sheet of music. It offers hundreds of free music downloads and more for subscriptions.

Computer Books.us: The site offers high quality computer related books for free download. These computer books are all legally distributed and their authors have granted permissions for the site to distribute their works.

Docstoc: This is your ultimate resource for free legal and business documents. Docstoc does not only allow you to download documents for free but it also lets you upload and share your own documents.

Tech Books for Free Download: If you’re looking for free books on Java, Perl/Phyton or other computer programming related books, this site might be of help. It offers books covering technology subjects for free download.

Project Gutenberg: The most comprehensive repository of ebooks on the web. Project Gutenberg was built by volunteers and now houses more than 27,000 titles of ebooks in its catalog.

Free eMagazine Download – covers a comprehensive collection of free emagazines for free download.

eBooks

KnowFree: The site offers a virtual place to exchange ebooks freely., video training, and other educational materials . Know Free features a very nice search engine which enables users to search for a particular materias fast.

Spotbit: Providing a paperless solution to publishing and for selling e-books, Spotbit makes e-book available in a different digital format than what is available on the web lately. Spotbit offers a simple Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology for E-books format.

Ebookshare: Provides link to either an e-books torrent files or direct download to the file itself. E-books are categorized into broader subject and the site has a nice search engine to aid you in finding the e-book you want.

Ebookee: A free book search engine. Ebookee helps you in finding e-book titles that you are particularly looking for. The E-books listed on the site are organized in general subject categories.

Wowio: The site lets you access legally available high-quality e-books. Wowio lets you read complete books online for free. If you want to download the PDF versions, Wowio charges a minimal fee.

Internet Archive – With the aim of building an Internet Library, this site features texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in its collections.

Clipart

Open Clip Art Library: The site is an ongoing project to create an archive of user contributed database of clip art that can used freely. Open Clip Art Library upholds the Creative Commons and encourages users to participate in generating contents.

WP Clipart: Offers more than 29000 public domain clip art images which were designed specifically for use with Word Processors. WP Clipart provides thousands of color graphic clips, illustrations, photographs and black and white line art in lossless, PNG format.

Clker: The site offers royalty free clip art in SVG, ODG and PNG format which are in public domain. It lets you easily embed these images in openoffice documents.

Clipart.com: The web’s largest collection of royalty-free clipart, vinyl-ready images, photos, web graphics, fonts, illustrations, and sounds. Clipart offers paid subscription to its database containing 10 million+ professional-quality images in various formats including .EPS, .JPG, .PNG, and .WMF.

Download Hubs

Softpedia: The site contains more than 500,000 sofware programs Windows, Unix/Linux, Mac, Mobile Phones, Games and Drivers. Some of software programs in Softpedia are freeware while some are shareware.

Download.com: Cnet’s most comprehensive library of freeware offers free download. Download.com contains tons of Windows software ranging from security software, digital photo software, educational software and more.

Open Source Mac: A handy reference and useful tools that encourages users to utilize free and open-source software.. Open Source Mac offers a simple list of the best and free software for the Mac OS X.

Free Downloads Center: Hosts a collection of free software, games and other desktop goodies which you can download for free. Free Downloads Center also offers a Give Away of the Day licensed software which you can download during the day only.

Tucows: The web’s original software download site. Tucows contains more than 40,000 software titles which are freeware or shareware.

Phazeddl: Hosts download warez, games, torrents, movies, software, apps, scripts, TV shows, ebooks, templates as well as key-gen of crack softwares.

Freeware

A+Freeware: The site offers choice applications or “A+Freeware” which become useful only when combined with a valid operating system. A+Freeware lets you get copies of software for free.

Best Freeware Download: A free wares site which allows you to register and save links on the site’s member account areas. Best Freeware Download is categorized into communication desktop and games. Gamers would definitely want to check this site from time to time to check on new freewares to be added.

Free Ware Box: The site offers categorized summary of freeware software. Freeware Box contains open source software, public domain and other types of free software, all available for free download.

Freeware Zoom: This site offers freeware for free download. Freeware Zoom is updated daily and it contains no adware or spyware.

File Hippo: The site has considerable number of freeware, demo and shareware programs which are of high quality. File Hippo puts a premium on quality software rather than quantity. Hence the site offers only the best software.

Windows Downloads: Download.com’s Windows-only software download site offers softwre which were tested to be 100% free of malware.

Major Geeks: Offers only the serious software meant for the serious geeks. It hosts the most comprehensive collection of computer utilities available on the web.

Brothersoft: The site offers more than 100,000 software for free download. Brothersoft does not only offer free software download but also thoroughly evaluate all the software submitted to them.

Flash Files

Ffiles: The web’s richest repository of free Flash Files. Ffiles contains Flash files which you can download freely. It also allows you to upload your own Flash files that you want to share with other users.

Flash Kit: If you’re a flash developer, Flash Kit is the site for you. It’s the ultimate online resource for Macromedia Flash development.

Flash Den: This site contains everything that you need for your Adobe lash project. You can buy preloaders, templates and other things you need to finish your project. And most of these Flash components sell for as low as $1.

Fonts

Dafont: If you’re looking for some cool fonts to use for whatever purposes, you could probably pick up one or two font style at this site. Dafont offers freely downloadable fonts. You can browse fonts by author, by style or by popularity.

1001 Free Fonts: This site has a big collection of TrueType fonts which are either freeware or shareware. 1001 Free Fonts offers free fonts for both Windows and Mac platforms.

Download Free Fonts: A simply designed online resource for thousands of free fonts. Download Free Fonts contains free fonts for Windows and Mac. You can use the site’s search box to find the font you are specifically looking for or browse through the font categories.

Show Font: The site lets you download fonts for free. Show Font contains TrueType fonts for both PC and MAC. It also provides font editor and font management tools.

FontStruct: Aside from offering freely downloadable fonts, Fonstruct also has a font editor and font management applications available online. FontStruct lets you build fonts, share it with others and download fonts made by other people as well.

Games

Liberated Games: This is a simple listing site offering free downloads of legally available games. It’s a straight-out listing of these different games including their download links.

NDS-ROMS: This is a heaven sent site for NDS gamers. NDS-ROMs offer free downloads of publicly available ROMs.

Iwin: The Internet’s largest selection of free game downloads. You can choose to play games in the popular categories.

Donwload Full Version PC Games: This is a blog site containing 100 best legal, free, and full version of games. The site covers free action games, free action games and 3rd person games.

Abandonia: If you’re up for some good old DOS-based gaming experience, Abandonia may have those games. Abandonia offers DOS games which have been abandoned for so long.

Best of Games: The site offers various old games and certainly has many of them on the site. Best of all, Best of games offers these games for free download.

Free Games – A search engine for free games that can be played online or downloaded to your machine. It also covers cheat codes.

Movies

ZML: One of the Internet’s most useful download service. ZML offers update subscriptions and lets you find out about current movies by subscribing to ZML.

Free Documentaries: offer free Streaming Independent Documentary Films, Environment Documentary, Israel, Palestine, War, George Bush, Afghanistan, Iraq, 9/11, Globalization, Media, and more.

Moving Image Archive: A comprehensive library of free movies, films, and videos uploaded by the site users. Moving images include full-length films, news broadcasts, cartoons and concerts. Not all of the videos are free to download though.

MP3

eMusic: The world’s biggest online retailer of independent music and audio books. eMusic holds more than 40,000 independent labels and almost 5,000 titles of audio books from top publishers.

Jazz on Line: The web’s most comprehensive online resources of digitalized Jazz music. Jazz on Line hosts only songs which are in public domain.

Jimmyr: A search engine for mp3 music and other digital files. Jimmyr crawls through the various mp3 resources available on the web using Google Custom Search Engine.

Music Download: The ultimate source for legally available and freely downloadable digital music on the Internet. It’s from Cnet.com, so you are pretty sure that most of the files are safe to download.

beeMP3: A music search engine useful for finding mp3-audio files available on the web. BeeMP3 currently indexes around 800,000 mp3 files.

Download Any Stuff: A digital file search engine that provides download links to free stuff over the Internet. Download Any Stuff lets you search for MP3 files, softwares, drivers, games, movies, ebooks, even Torrents and more.

Skreemr: Another music search engine that you can use to locate audio files available on the web. Skreemr currently indexes and crawls more than 6 million mp3 files from 100,000 web sites.

iLike: A social music discover site that allows you not only to discover music playlists available on the web but also to share your own playlists to the world. iLike also links to iTunes and Amazon music stores.

eMP3 World: A free mp3 download site. eMP3 World currently holds around 85,000 mp3 download links on its database.

Jamendo/: An online community of free, legal and unlimited digital music content. Jamendo offers only those music which have been licensed under Creative Commons. The site lets you share your own music and create your own widget playlists which you can embed to your site or social networking profiles.

Online Video

Vixy:An online video converter that you can use to convert a Flash video / FLV file or YouTube videos to MPEG4 format. Vixy uses a compressed domain transcoder technology. You can enter a YouTube link to have it converted into MPEG4 online.

Keepvid: The site lets you download streaming videos from YouTube, Putfile, Metacafe and other video streaming sites. After downloading you need to convert it into another format depending on what media player you are using. Or you can use FLV’s own media player instead.

Javimoya: Another good video downloader site. Javimoya supports many video streaming sites including YouTube, Metacafe, MySpace Music, and more.
VideoDownloadx: The site allows you to download videos from YouTube and save these videos to your PC. You also need to download an FLV player to view the videos from your local hard drive or convert the file into other formats that can be read by your media player software.

Download YouTube Videos as mp4 Files: This blog post gives a detailed instruction on how to download videos directly from YouTube in mp4 format. No need to use a third-party site to scrape the video off from YouTube.

Kiss YouTube: Offers an easy and simple way of downloading and saving YouTube video directly to your computer. You can enter the URL of the video on the Kiss You Tube site, or add the word “kiss” on the URL of the YouTube video to download the file. Either way, you will still download the file from the Kiss You Tube site itself.

Download YouTube Videos: This site lets you download YouTube videos faster and easier. You just nee to enter the YouTube URL of the videos that you want to download

keepHD - lets you download HD videos off Youtube. It also lets download the mobile 3GP version for your mobile devices plus the standard MP4 and FLV format.

Photoshop and Design

Deviant Art Photoshop Brushes: A collection of artsy paintshop brushes used by Deviant Art members. You can download the paint brushes or share it to other people.

Adobe Market Place and Exchange: Adobe’s online resource containing tools, services, and innovations relating to Adobe’s various products. The site also let you discover Adobe AIR runtime applications.

Pixel Chick: Offers both free and paid Photoshop brushes that are compatible with CS2 and CS3.

Vecteezy: Serves as an index of free vector graphics that are available for download from the web. Vecteezy’s vector graphics were created by famous designers.

Busheezy: A huge collection of free Photoshop brushes and patterns. Busheezy is updated daily and also accepts submission of Photoshop brushes from online users.

Vector 4 Free: A free vector graphics site for Adobe Illustrator AI, EPS, PDF, SVG, and Corel Draw CDR. All the vector graphics are free for personal and commercial use.

Get Brushes: A directory of brushes personally handpicked by the site owners. Get Brushes contains various brushes including over abstract and text, gothic, coffee pills and more.

Q Vectors: The site offers free high-quality vector images and graphics. Q Vector also accepts user submissions.

Archive 3D: Host more than 17,000 3D graphics model. Archive 3D models ranges from Beds,Shkaps, Chairs,Tables,Sofa, Sanitary Ware, Decoration, NVAC, Tools, and more.

Vectormix – This site has a good collection of vector graphics submitted by users and arre free to download.

Sound Effects

Soundsnap: A library of more than 100, 000 high-quality sound effect and music loops. Soundsnap offers 5 free downloads per month, after which you need to pay a Pro membership to download more files.

FindSounds: A useful sound and sound effects search engine. FindSounds offers sound directory, keyword search and sonic similarity search functions.

Partners in Rhyme: The site offers royalty free music featured in Films, TV, Video and Websites. Partners in Rhyme also offers free music loops, midi files and audio software.

Stone Washed: An online resource for free sound effects, loops, button sounds and other multimedia files. Stone Washed offers various categories including sound effects, animal sounds, buy out music and more.

Stock Photos

Stock.Xchng: One of the web’s leading stock photography site. Stock.xchng offers a full gallery of high-quality stock photos available for free download or for sharing on blogs, social networks and other sites.

Free Digital Photos: Contains thousands of royalty free photos available for download and can be used for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Free Digial Photos does not require registration to download stock photos from their site.

Morgue File: The site provides high-resolution stock photography images for free regardless of whether the photos will be used for corporate or private use. Morgue File is the place to keep post production materials.

123RF – The site offers a daily dose of free high-quality images aside from the paid stock images that it sells.

System utilities

Open Drivers: A free driver download service. Open Drivers is categorized by device category and driver manufacturer. It also includes step-by-step process to install and uninstall the drivers.

DLL Files: A very useful site for users who keeps on getting the missing DLL prompt from the machine. DLL Files contains a comprehensive databased of dll-files that you could possibly need.

Download 3K: A huge archive of free and free-to-try software programs and games for Windows. Download 3K is categorize into 15 main categories and the site is updated with around 300 software everyday.

Free Codecs: The ultimate resource for all types of codecs available online. Free Codecs offers video codecs, audio codecs, codec packs, codec tools and more.

Open Office: Home of the free open-source office software suite. Open Office contains word processing, spreadsheets, database, presentations, graphics, and more.

Web Design

Open Source Web Design: A collection of web designs submitted by the community members. Open Source Web Design offers free web design for download that can be used for personal blogs to a full-featured content management systems for businesses.

Free CSS Templates:The site offers standards compliant CSS templates for free. Users are free to use the templates for personal or business purposes.

Template World: Offers top quality, creative and unique web site templates created by certified web professionals.

Iconspedia: The site offers free icons download. Iconspedia are arranged in various categories including animals, food and phones.

Free Icons Web: The site contains 15000 high quality icons for free downloads. Free Icons Web contains icons for Windows XP, Vista, Macintosh, and Linux. Icons are for personal use only. Commercial users have to pay a certain amount of royalty.

1000+ Classic Icons for Free Download: Probably the best collection of free icons available online. Icons are in png, icns, ico-formats as well as .EPS vector files.

Spotbit: The site allows you to publish and sell e-books using a fast, easy and free method. Spotbit lets you create your e-books and published it on Spotbit.

Smashing Magazine’s 40 Professional Icon Sets for Free Download: A list of 40 high-quality professional icons for desktops and web design which are all free for download. The icons can be used for private and commercial purposes.

Why do we need IPv6 ?

2011-05-01T11:37:00.000-07:00

The World will soon run out of IP Address. As only 8 to 9 percent of ipv4 addresses were left, and organizations needed to switch to the new standard of ipv6 as quickly as possible.

Currently, Organizations and government agencies in the United States use approximately 60 percent of the allocatable IPv4 address space and the remaining 40 percent is shared by rest of the world.

IPv4, used since 1980s when Internet became public. Was created with space for only a few billion addresses. At that time we’re using internet for only computers but now Human created so many things like cameras, mobile phones, video games which needs Internet access and each require its own IP address.

IPv4 is 32 bits IP address that we use commonly; it can be 192.168.8.1, 10.3.4.5 or other 32 bits IP addresses. IPv4 can support up to 2^32 addresses, but only 9 percent address are left so IPv6 is developed as a replacement.

IPv6 is 128 bits, can support up to 2^128 addresses to fulfill future needs with better security and network related features.

It’s very big move to implement IPv6, and it need big management task and network operation task… but still we have to implement it in future.

Hope the World soon going to accept IPv6 addresses. So that Every person in the world get Internet Access.

Difference between IPv4 and IPv6:

IPv4 :
IPv4 is 32 bits IP addresses.
It Support up to 2^32 addresses.
IPSec support is optional.
IPv4 header does not identify packet.
Must be configured either manually or through DHCP.

IPv6 :
IPv6 is 128 bits IP addresses.
It Support up to 2^128 addresses.
IPSec support is required.
IPv6 header contains Flow Label field, which identifies.
Does not require manual configuration or DHCP.

ONE STORY THAT EXPLAINS LIFE!

2011-02-02T10:01:00.000-08:00

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due 2 infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983.

He received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: "Why does God has to select u for such a bad disease?"

...to this Arthur Ashe replied:

50 million children started playing tennis,

5 million learn to play tennis,

5,00,000learn professional tennis,

50,000 come to the circuit,

5,000 reached grand slam,

50 reach Wimbledon,

4 to the semifinals,

2 to the final

and

when I was holding the cup I never asked God 'Why Me?'

and now in the pain I should not be asking God 'Why Me?'

What is the best operating system and why?

2011-01-30T20:25:00.000-08:00

Note: Both Mac OS X and Windows have come out with newer versions as of the writing of this answer. Some details may be different from what is written below, and the answer should be updated accordingly

The best desktop operating system to use depends on what its intended use will be and who will be using it. There is no specific operating system which can be called "the best" overall, and since most current operating systems share most common and advanced features there is much debate on the topic. A few of the most popular operating system, their pros and cons, and some of their best uses are described below.

Microsoft Windows

Pros:

The largest library of programs and applications.
Some commercial games work only with Windows and DirectX.
Almost all hardware has drivers which are compatible with Windows.
Most widely used.

Cons:

Prone to viruses, spyware, and adware if proper steps not taken such as installation of internet security software, which reduces performance speed.
Requires regular maintenance to avoid system errors and reduced performance.
Even with maintenance, issues can slowly accumulate requiring a re-installation of Windows to restore performance and fix software issues.
Purchasing a Windows license/install disk can be relatively expensive
Windows Vista, the most recent version of Windows, has high system requirements.

Notes:

Windows Vista has relatively high system requirements compared to its Windows XP and other operating systems. This has caused many individuals and businesses to continue using the older Windows XP.
The two most common versions of Windows are Windows XP and Windows Vista. Vista, although it has some issues, does have some new features such as search-as-you-type search and a 3D-accelerated desktop, features up until now only found in Mac OS X and some versions of Linux.
With the introduction of Virtual-machine software, Windows has become a popular add-on for Mac and Linux in order allow those computers to support Windows-only software or hardware when needed.
The Windows market share has seen some decrease in recent years and months.

Best uses:

Gamers
People who must use Windows-only software for work or school.
People or businesses looking for an inexpensive computer yet do not have the ability to use Linux.

Mac OS X

Pros:

Relatively simple and intuitive interface with many advanced features.
Not a target for virus or malware attacks, generally: there are no Mac OS X viruses in the wild, and with its UNIX base, it is fairly resilient. There are a small number of trojans (malicious software) which have been known to take effect through applications running in Mac OS X, though they are almost always found on illegal-content-based websites and are not of significant concern. Apple has begun integrating malware blacklists into Mac OS X to prevent infection.
Second-largest selection of software, with many high-quality Mac-only programs in existence, such as those found in iLife. Although at one point software for certain tasks were not Mac-compatible, most software is now either Mac-compatible or has an equivalent that is. Most advanced games have also recently became compatible with Mac OS X.
Reliable and high performance.

Cons:

Limited to Apple-manufactured hardware.
Some hardware does not have Mac-compatible drivers, though the number of this hardware has recently become small and negligible.
In some cases, it may be difficult to do cross-platform network hardware sharing for a Mac OS X based computer in a Windows network or visa-versa. For example, a printer's Mac driver may not support cross-platform printing to a Windows-connected printer, and replacement drivers may or may not exist.
Smaller library of applications in comparison to Windows.

Notes:

Macs occupy the medium-range to high-end computer market and as such are not sold for the same prices of some low-end PC brands (e.g. the low-end Mac Mini costs $600 USD yet many mainstream low-end PC brand desktops can be purchased for around $400-500). As a result, Macs are popularly considered to be more expensive than PCs, however Macs have been shown to have competitive pricing to comparable PCs (e.g. the Lenovo Thinpad X300 costs about $2,500 while the MacBook Air runs between $1,800 and $2,700 and outperforms the Thinkpad, or the Dell XPS One prices at about $150 higher than a comparable iMac. Additionally, the following factors can cause the total price of owning a Mac to be even less compared than that of a PC: Apple iWork is relatively inexpensive compared to Microsoft Office, PCs experience hardware or software failures more frequently than Macs, increasing service and replacement costs, Macs do not require the frequently expensive internet security software subscriptions.
Though Mac OS X suffers from relatively very few real-world hacks, security holes in Mac OS X do exist, just like in any other operating system. Also like in other operating systems, they are fixed with software updates upon their discovery.
With a relatively low market share compared to Windows, there are still individual programs which are only Windows compatible. However, virtual machine software with a Windows installation or compatibility layer software can allow those programs to run even on a Mac.
The Mac has seen significant market share increases in recent years and months, something which has also increased the amount of Mac-compatible software.

Best uses:

Students who are not required to use Windows-specific software (though Windows can easily be installed to use Windows software). A recent study indicated that the number of American students intending to purchase Macs has neared that of Windows-based PCs.
Home users looking for an easy and reliable computing experience who are willing to pay more than low-end PC prices.
Graphic designers and photographers.
Scientists.

Linux and other UNIX-based

Pros:

Low number of viruses and other malware, similar to Mac OS X
Usually free
Large selection of Linux distributions to choose from.
Has a large amount of free and open source software equivalents to commercial Windows and Mac software
More easily customizable
Can run many Windows programs with the use of a compatibility layer such as Wine. (Programs such as Cedega can be used to run many Windows games)
Reliable with good performance and low requirements.

Cons:

Advanced use and installation of some software may require more advanced knowledge than is required for use of Windows and Mac.
Many commercial programs do not support Linux
Small commercial game library

Notes:

There are a few main types of Linux: Debian, Fedora, Red Hat, and SUSE. Ubuntu, a type of Debian, is highly popular among home users, as is SUSE, to a lesser extent. Fedora is more popular among businesses.
There are many other (non-Linux) UNIX-based operating systems (with the same UNIX base as Linux), including Mac OS X and SunOS (which are based on Free-BSD). There are also some UNIX-like operating systems.
Through customization and software like Beryl, Linux can be made to have advanced desktop effects similar to Aero on Windows Vista or Aqua on Mac OS X.
"Dependency hell" can make installation of certain programs on Linux difficult even for advanced users.

Best uses:

Experienced computer users looking for a good, free operating system.
Businesses looking for reliable and affordable computing, so long as they do not need Windows-only software and have a competent IT manager.

Bottom line

Though there is no one clear best operating system, each does have its advantages and disadvantages, and different people will be best using different ones. Microsoft Windows is the most common operating system and is a reasonable choice for most people. Mac OS X is second-most popular (and gaining market share) and is an excellent operating system for those who can purchase a Mac. Linux is a very good advanced operating system available for free and is recommended for experienced users.

Mobile Operating Systems

Aside from the main question of which OS to use in your home or work computer, lightweight mobile operating systems are also used (and almost always pre-installed or even hard-wired) in mobile devices such as cell phones, smartphones, PDAs, and Internet Notebooks/Superportables (which are similar to downsized laptops with low specifications). There is not a great deal of choice among these, and features differences are based more on the mobile device itself, and less on the operating system. Windows Mobile is usually used in Pocket PCs and Smartphones; iPhone OS (based on Mac OS X) is used in the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch; Symbian is used in Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, and other cell phones; and Linux-based mobile OSes are common both on cell phones and small Internet Notebooks.

Install Mac OS X Snow Leopard in VMWARE Windows 7 Edition

2011-01-30T20:12:00.000-08:00

How to install Snow Leopard in VMWARE 7 and Windows host ? Virtualization of Snow Leopard (Client) is not officially supported/allowed by any virtualization solution. However a few modifications to the .vmx file and use a modified install disk as this will save a lot of trouble. Let me clear Apple licensing does not allow for the virtualization of OSX Client on any hardware and only allows for the virtualization OSX server on Apple hardware. Anything else is in violation of the license agreement. This article is for informational purposes only, you can never achieve full utilization of Mac OS X on VMWARE. So if you like the Mac then go ahead and buy a Mac.

Requirements

VMWARE 7 and Windows XP, Vista or 7
Retail DVD of Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6
Intel Based Machine, AMD isn’t supported.
Patience, a Cup of coffee or Energy drink whatever you like.
A pre-made Snow Leopard VMDK, dariwn_snow.iso Download (Rapidshare), (Mediafire) Or (Megaupload)

Instructions

Step One : Launch VMWARE Workstation and load the .vmx that came with the package you downloaded above. Now edit virtual machine settings for advance options.

Step Two : Edit the VMWARE settings eg: Memory, Processor, Networking Adaptors etc. Select CD/DVD drive options and in Connection select Use ISO image file and browse the Darwin_Snow.iso

Step Three : Now power on the virtual machine and keep your finger on F8 key.

Hit F8 very quickly on your Keyboard you will be prompted with the following screen

Step Four : Like Boot 132 method now you need to replace the boot cd with the Snow Leopard Retail Install DVD. Right click on the CD icon in bottom of the VMWARE windows and click on Settings option.

Now change the options from ISO image to use physical drive and make sure you have Retail DVD already installed.

Save and Exit

Step Five : Now navigate to boot screen and press “C” on your keyboard to select “Boot DVD”, again press F8 for advance options and type -v at the boot prompt then hit enter for booting with verbose mode.

Step Six : Now wait for 2-3 minutes and your Installation screen will appear. Now you can install Snow Leopard as usual. Before choosing the destination open Disk Utility and erase your Vmware HDD in to “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” format type. Under customization deselect printer drivers and language translations for trouble free installation.Once installation finishes your virtual machine will reboot automatically.

Step Seven : Follow Step Two again “Select CD/DVD drive options and in Connection select Use ISO image file and browse the Darwin_Snow.iso” now you can boot in to Snow Leopard you may need to force restart 2-3 times if Kernel Panic happens, once machine boot successfully you can set your preference etc.

That's it. Comments encouraged.

How does Facebook Make Money ?

2011-01-29T21:24:00.000-08:00

They say its free. They also say that Mark Zuckerberg – the guy who started Facebook – is one of the richest people around – a billionaire apparently. So how the hell does this guy give free accounts to its users and yet sit happily atop a goldmine? The figures going around about Facebook's annual revenue are heart-stopping to say the least. The numbers that did the rounds were all around the US$ 500 million mark, which means that since 2007, they've been more or less doubling their revenue. All this from a free website! So where is the money coming from? This article will answer the question, how does Facebook make money and solve the mystery for you.

How Facebook Makes Money?

Free account notwithstanding, Facebook is making money. And lots of it. How does Facebook make money? If only you knew how does Facebook work financially!

Ads

I'll solve the mystery for you in one simple word – ads. The same thing that runs most websites across the world. That is the big secret behind Facebook's burgeoning revenue. If you open your Facebook profile, you will see that the while right hand side of the page is full of ads. You can give the thumbs up to the ad or the thumbs down. The thumbs down will remove the ad and it will not come back.

How do these ads work? Well Facebook being a decidedly smart social networking institution knows which ad to put where. Like the Google AdSense, Facebook too provides ad to the pages based on the interests and the overall profile of the user. So, if you mention in your profile that you are a fan of Nike or any other sportswear brand, the related ads will appear on the right hand side of the page for companies and websites selling them. Facebook ads are not intrusive and hence people do not get annoyed with them, unlike we do with those super-irritating pop-up ads.

And their advertising system makes sense, since it ensures that the right ad is displayed to the right customer, since the ads are selected for an individual page based on the interests and likes of the user. This avoids unnecessary waste of adspace on the page where the chances of the ad being 'hit' are theoretically pretty low. Also, the ad system of Facebook, gives the user a 'thumbs down' option, which ensures that the particular ad does not appear again. That too is a pretty interesting thought, given that the ad hasn't a chance of being clicked and letting it sit in front of the users will continue to rile them.

Facebook Gifts

Ever sent a virtual gift on someone's birthday? You must have at some point, if you knew how to use Facebook. Well you do pay for some of them and a big slice of it goes into coffers of the company. While simply writing 'happy birthday' suffices for some, the 'send a gift tab' on your friend's wall encourages others to send a virtual gift – paid for online. All the money almost always goes to the company, but if the gift is provided by an outsider, then a portion of it goes there. But much of it is still retained by the website.

Application Performance

The beautiful thing about companies like these which work on different platform are the plethora of business ideas that they bring to the table. Performance advertising is a unique answer to how does Facebook make money. Let us take the example of Farmville, which is doing reasonably well on Facebook. Now the application is provided free for use for the users of Facebook and the parent company (Zynga) is getting a lot of traffic because of the game's popularity on Facebook. So isn't Facebook entitled to take a slice of that pie? After all, they are providing a platform for gaming companies like Zynga to their burgeoning user base. So Facebook makes a bit of money there too, as a 'rental' for using their users.

I guess that answers your questions about what is Facebook and how does it work and how does Facebook make money. Now this information on how Facebook makes money is largely speculative. Facebook is a privately held company and has the complete liberty to not disclose their financial details – and they don't disclose their revenues and the sources of their revenues either.

Partition a USB Flash Drive in Windows XP

2011-01-28T10:41:00.000-08:00

One way to Partition a USB Flash Drive from Windows XP and mark it active "bootable". Windows detects Flash Drives as "Removable Disks" and flash drives are typically shipped formatted as a "Super Floppy" (USB-FDD without a partition table) . The Windows built in format utility cannot create a partition table on Removable Disks. Furthermore, the diskpart utility in Windows XP will not allow you to partition Removable Media, although diskpart does work for partitioning a Flash Drive from Windows Vista/7.

To address the inability to Partition a Flash Drive in Windows XP, you need to use a third party low level partitioning tool such as BOOTICE, created by Pauly. BOOTICE Home Page

Note: I partition my flash drives as USB-HDD (with a partition table), simply because my computers support booting from Flash Drives formatted to be seen as a USB Hard Disk.

One way to Partition a Flash Drive from Windows

Download BOOTICE, unzip, and run BOOTICE.EXE
Make sure your "USB Flash Drive" is set as the Destination Disk
Click Parts Manage
Click ReFormat USB Disk
Select USB-HDD mode, and click Next
Select Format as Fat32, and click OK

FIGURES :

You should now have an active "bootable" USB-HDD Fat32 formatted Flash Drive, containing a partition table with a single partition. You should be able to Boot It as a Hard Drive.

Restore GRUB2 after installing Windows

2011-01-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

How I Restored GRUB2 after a Windows 7 Install. GRUB2 (Grand Unified Bootloader) is a universal bootloader used by Ubuntu and other Linux Distributions. If you have a Linux Distribution installed on a partition, and attempt to install Windows alongside it, your GRUB bootloader will be overwritten by the Windows bootloader, and your computer will only boot into Windows.

Recovering the GRUB2 Bootloader after a Windows Install is simple. When finished, your Bootloader should detect all installed Operating Systems and automatically add a bootable menu item for each of them.

Note: This GRUB2 Installation process assumes that a Linux Partition still exists. If you overwrote Linux with Windows, this tutorial will not work for you, as there is no Linux system to recover boot.

How to Restore GRUB2 after installing Windows:

Boot from an Ubuntu Live CD or Live USB
Once up and running, Open a Terminal
Type sudo su (press enter after typing each command)
Type fdisk -l
Note which device contains your Linux partition (IE: /dev/sda1)
Type mount /dev/sdx# /mnt (replacing x# with your actual device and partition number)
Type mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
Type mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
Type cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/etc/resolv.conf
Type chroot /mnt
Type grub-install --recheck /dev/sdx (replacing x with your actual device)
Type reboot (to reboot your PC)

Make sure to remove your Live USB or CD. Upon reboot you should be presented with a GRUB2 menu. However, Windows is missing. Now, I show you how to fix that.

Making GRUB 2 detect Windows Installs:

Proceed to boot into your Linux environment.
Open a terminal and type sudo update-grub (enter your root password when prompted)

If all went well, grub should have updated it's menu entries to reflect what it detected. Including existing Windows partitions.

99 ways to make your computer amazingly fast

2011-01-05T10:37:00.000-08:00

Over the last several years working in IT for various companies as a Systems Administrator, Network Administrator, and Help Desk professional, I’ve written and learned about many ways to increase the performance of not only my PC, but also of the many PCs on my networks ranging from Windows 98 to Windows Vista to Windows 7.

In this article, I hope to compile a complete list of all the different methods and tricks that I’ve used to get the last bit of juice out of a slow PC. Whether you are using an old PC or the latest and greatest in hardware, you can still use some of these to make your PC run faster.

Note that since I write blogs, I have previously written about many performance tips already which I will link back to throughout. If I have not written about it, I’ve throw in a link to a relevant article from some of my other favorite sites. This list is in no particular order, just written in the order that I could think of them.

There are probably a lot of great tweaks and performance hacks that I’ve missed here, so feel free to chime in with comments! Enjoy!

1. Defragment your computer hard disk using free tools like SmartDefrag.

2. You should also defragment your Windows pagefile and registry.

3. Clean up hard drive disk space being taken up by temporary files, the recycle bin, hibernation and more. You can also use a tool like TreeSize to determine what is taking up space on your hard drive.

4. Load up Windows faster by using Startup Delayer, a free program that will speed up the boot time of Windows by delaying the startup of programs.

5. Speaking of startup programs, many of them are useless and can be turned off. Use the MSCONFIG utility to disable startup programs.

6. By default, the size of the paging file is controlled by Windows, which can cause defragmentation. Also, the paging file should be on a different hard drive or partition than the boot partition. Read here on the rules for best paging file performance.

7. In Windows XP and Vista, the Windows Search indexing service is turned on for all local hard drives. Turning off indexing is a simple way to increase performance.

8. If you don’t care about all the fancy visual effects in Windows, you can turn them off by going to Performance Options.

9. You can optimize the Windows boot time using a free program called Bootvis from Microsoft.

10. Clean your registry by removing broken shortcuts, missing shared DLLs, invalid paths, invalid installer references and more. Read about the 10 best and free registry cleaners.

11. One of the main reasons why PC’s are slow is because of spyware. There are many programs to remove spyware including Ad-Aware, Giant Antispyware, SUPERAntiSpyware, and more.

12. If you have a deeper spyware infection that is very hard to remove, you can use HijackThis to remove spyware.

13. Remove unwanted pre-installed software (aka junk software) from your new PC using PC Decrapifier.

14. Disable unnecessary Windows services, settings, and programs that slow down your computer.

15. Tweak Windows XP and tweak Windows Vista settings using free programs

16. Disable UAC (User Account Control) in Windows Vista

17. Tweak your mouse settings so that you can copy and paste faster, scroll faster, navigate quickly while browsing and more. Read here to learn how to tweak your mouse.

18. Delete temporary and unused files on your computer using a free program like CCleaner. It can also fix issues with your registry.

19. Delete your Internet browsing history, temporary Internet files, cookies to free up disk space.

20. Clean out the Windows prefetch folder to improve performance.

21. Disable the XP boot logo to speed up Windows boot time.

22. Reduce the number of fonts that your computer has to load up on startup.

23. Force Windows to unload DLLs from memory to free up RAM.

24. Run DOS programs in separate memory spaces for better performance.

25. Turn off system restore only if you regularly backup your Windows machine using third party software.

26. Move or change the location of your My Documents folder so that it is on a separate partition or hard drive.

27. Turn off default disk performance monitors on Windows XP to increase performance.

28. Speed up boot time by disabling unused ports on your Windows machine.

29. Use Process Lasso to speed up your computer by allowing it to make sure that no one process can completely overtake the CPU.

30. Make icons appear faster while browsing in My Computer by disabling search for network files and printers.

31. Speed up browsing of pictures and videos in Windows Vista by disabling the Vista thumbnails cache.

32. Edit the right-click context menu in Windows XP and Vista and remove unnecessary items to increase display speed.

33. Use the Windows Performance Toolkit and the trace logs to speed up Windows boot time.

34. Speed up your Internet browsing by using an external DNS server such as OpenDNS.

35. Improve Vista performance by using ReadyBoost, a new feature whereby Vista can use the free space on your USB drive as a caching mechanism.

36. If you have a slow Internet connection, you can browse web pages faster using a service called Finch, which converts it into simple text.

37. Use Vista Services Optimizer to disable unnecessary services in Vista safely.

38. Also, check out my list of web accelerators, which are programs that try to prefetch and cache the sites you are going to visit.

39. Speed up Mozilla Firefox by tweaking the configuration settings and by installing an add-on called FasterFox.

40. Learn how to build your own computer with the fastest parts and best hardware.

41. Use a program called TeraCopy to speed up file copying in Windows XP and Vista.

42. Disable automatic Last Access Timestamp to speed up Windows XP.

43. Speed up the Start Menu in Vista by hacking the MenuShowDelay key in the registry.

44. Increase the FileSystem memory cache in Vista to utilize a system with a large amount of RAM.

45. Install more RAM if you are running XP with less than 512 MB or Vista with less than 1 GB of RAM.

46. Shut down XP faster by reducing the wait time to kill hung applications.

47. Make sure that you have selected “Adjust for best performance” on the Performance tab in System Properties.

48. If you are reinstalling Windows, make sure that you partition your hard drives correctly to maximize performance.

49. Use Altiris software virtualization to install all of your programs into a virtual layer that does not affect the registry or system files.

50. Create and install virtual machines for free and install junk program, games, etc into the virtual machines instead of the host operating system. Check out Sun openxVM.

51. Do not clear your paging file during shutdown unless it is needed for security purposes. Clearing the paging file slows down shutdown.

52. If your XP or Vista computer is not using NFTS, make sure you convert your FAT disk to the NTFS file system.

53. Update all of your drivers in Windows, including chipset and motherboard drivers to their latest versions.

54. Every once in a while run the built-in Windows Disk Cleanup utility.

55. Enable DMA mode in Windows XP for IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers in Device Manager.

56. Remove unnecessary or old programs from the Add/Remove dialog of the Control Panel.

57. Use a program click memtest86 or Prime95 to check for bad memory on your PC.

58. Determine your BIOS version and check the manufactures website to see if you need to update your BIOS.

59. Every once in a while, clean your mouse, keyboard and computer fans of dust and other buildup.

60. Replace a slow hard drive with a faster 7200 RPM drive, SATA drive, or SAS drive.

61. Changing from Master/Slave to Cable Select on your hard drive configuration can significantly decrease your boot time.

62. Perform a virus scan on your computer regularly. If you don’t want to install virus protection, use some of the free online virus scanners.

63. Remove extra toolbars from your Windows taskbar and from your Internet browser.

64. Disable the Windows Vista Sidebar if you’re not really using it for anything important. All those gadgets take up memory and processing power.

65. If you have a SATA drive and you’re running Windows Vista, you can speed up your PC by enabling the advanced write caching features.

66. Learn how to use keyboard shortcuts for Windows, Microsoft Word, Outlook, or create your own keyboard shortcuts.

67. Turn off the Aero visual effects in Windows Vista to increase computer performance.

68. If you are technically savvy and don’t mind taking a few risks, you can try to overclock your processor.

69. Speed up the Send To menu in Explorer by typing “sendto” in the Run dialog box and deleting unnecessary items.

70. Make sure to download all the latest Windows Updates, Service Packs, and hot fixes as they “normally” help your computer work better.

71. Make sure that there are no bad sectors or other errors on your hard drive by using the ScanDisk orchkdsk utility.

72. If you are not using some of the hardware on your computer, i.e. floppy drive, CD-ROM drive, USB ports, IR ports, Firewire, etc, then go into your BIOS and disable them so that they do not use any power and do not have to be loaded during boot up.

73. If you have never used the Recent Documents feature in Windows, then disable it completely as a long list can affect PC performance.

74. One basic tweak that can help in performance is to disable error reporting in Windows XP

75. If you don’t care about a pretty interface, you should use the Windows Classic theme under Display Properties.

76. Disable short filenames if you are using NTFS by running the following command: fsutil behavior set disable8dot3 1. It will speed up the file creation process.

77. If you have lots of files in a single folder, it can slow down Explorer. It’s best to create multiple folders and spread out the files between the folders.

78. If you have files that are generally large, you might want to consider increasing the cluster size on NTFS to 16K or even 32K instead of 4K. This will help speed up opening of files.

79. If you have more than one disk in your PC, you can increase performance by moving your paging file to the second drive and formatting the volume using FAT32 instead of NTFS.

80. Turn off unnecessary features in Vista by going to Control Panel, choosing Uninstall a program, and then clicking on Turn Windows features on and off. You can turn off Remote Differential Compression, Tablet PC components, DFS replication service, Windows Fax & Scan, Windows Meeting Space, and lots more.

81. Install a free or commercial anti-virus program to help protect against viruses, etc. Make sure to use an anti-virus program that does not hog up all of your computer resources.

82. Completely uninstall programs and applications using a program like Revo Uninstaller. It will get rid of remnants left behind by normal uninstalls.

83. If you know what you are doing, you can install several hard drives into your machine and set them up in RAID 0, RAID 5, or other RAID configurations.

84. If you are using USB 1.0 ports, upgrade to 2.0. If you have a Firewire port, try to use that instead of a USB port since Firewire is faster than USB right now.

85. Remove the drivers for all old devices that may be hidden in Device Manager that you no longer use.

86. A more extreme option is to choose a faster operating system. If you find Vista to be slow, go with Windows XP. Switching to Mac or Linux is also an option.

87. One of the easiest ways to speed up your PC is to simply reformat it. Of course, you want to backup your data, but it is the best way to get your computer back to peak performance.

88. Speed up Internet browsing in IE by increasing the number of max connections per server in the registry.

89. If you use uTorrent to download torrents, you can increase the download speeds by tweaking the settings.

90. If you have a desktop background, make sure it’s a small and simple bitmap image rather than a fancy picture off the Internet. The best is to find a really small texture and to tile it.

91. For the Virtual Memory setting in Windows (right-click on My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Performance Settings, Advanced, Virtual Memory), make sure the MIN and MAX are both the same number.

92. If you search on Google a lot or Wikipedia, you can do it much faster on Vista by adding them to the Vista Start Menu Instant Search box.

93. If you have a custom built computer or a PC that was previously used, make sure to check the BIOS for optimal settings such as enabled CPU caches, correctly set IDE/SATA data transfer modes, memory timings, etc. You can also enable Fast/Quick boot if you have that option.

94. If you have a SCSI drive, make sure the write cache is enabled. You can do so by opening the properties of the SCSI drive in Windows.

95. If you have a machine with an older network card, make sure to enable the onboard processor for the network card, which will offload tasks from the CPU.

96. If you are using Windows Vista, you can disable the Welcome Center splash screen that always pops up.

97. If you already have anti-spyware software installed, turn off Windows Defender protection.

98. If you are running a 32-bit version of Windows and have 4GB of RAM or more, you can force Windows to see and use all of the RAM by enabling PAE.

99. Buy a new computer !! ;) Pretty easy eh?

I’m sure I have missed out on lots of performance tweaks, tips, hacks, etc, so feel free to post comments to add to the list! Enjoy!

Apple iphone 4G Price, Features & Specification

2010-12-08T21:50:00.000-08:00

As it appears, the new iPhone's industrial design will depart from the tapered look of the two iPhone iterations that it will supercede. The seamless, curved, tapered surfaces that made iPhone 3G and 3GS look undeniably svelte will be replaced with a more boxy, industrial, utilitarian form factor that hints that of the iMac, Mac Mini and the iPad.

What's new with iPhone 4G aside from how it looks?

Last month, we reported that the 4th generation iPhone will be dubbed iPhone HD -- pointing to the fact that it will have a high-resolution screen. Well, I'm glad to report that that detail is pretty accurate -- if Gizmodo's initial disclosure of iPhone 4G specifications is to be believed.

Here's What's New and What's Changed in iPhone 4G (vs. iPhone 3GS) according to Gizmodo (via source link):

What's new

• Front-facing camera for video chat
• Improved regular back-camera (with larger lens) with Camera flash
• Supports Micro-SIM instead of standard SIM (like the iPad)
• Improved display - It's unclear if it's the 960x460 display thrown around before—it certainly looks like it, with the "Connect to iTunes" screen displaying much higher resolution than on a 3GS.
• What looks to be a secondary mic for noise cancellation, at the top, next to the headphone jack
• Split buttons for volume
• Power, mute, and volume buttons are all metallic

What's changed

• The back is entirely flat, made of either glass (more likely) or ceramic or shiny plastic in order for the cell signal to poke through. Tapping on the back makes a more hollow and higher pitched sound compared to tapping on the glass on the front/screen, but that could just be the orientation of components inside making for a different sound
• An aluminum border going completely around the outside
• Slightly smaller screen than the 3GS (but seemingly higher resolution)
• Everything is more squared off
• 3 grams heavier
• 16% Larger battery
• Internals components are shrunken, miniaturized and reduced to make room for the larger battery

Apple iPhone 4G Review

After the most popularity of Apple iPhone 3GS, Apple back soon with its new iphone its Apple iPhone 4G. Its really a good looking and a pack of updated features.

It is worth noting that this new iPhone should clearly provide features new and radically different generations of iPhone that it has known so far.

New specifications are as follows:

Frontal camera.
The camera lens is clearly superior to the iPhone 3GS.
The camera equipped with a flash.
Micro-Sim link of current SIM cards (as in iPad).
Improvement of iPhone 3GS higher display resolution, 960 x 460 pixels figures are advanced.
The presence of a second microphone that would negate outside noise communication.
The volume keys are in two parts in the form of metal buttons.
The back of the prototype is entirely flat in a matter as glass.

There is no doubt that it is of an iPhone because is recognized by iTunes XCode and profile system but it seems to work on a slightly different system firmware 4.0. In addition, it has a different product from that of the iPhone 3 G and 3GS ID and legal notices located on the rear hull seem correct.

In all likelihood, Apple would have disabled remotely this lost iPhone 4 G prototype. Nevertheless, nevertheless that a large number of changes are visible to the naked eye on this prototype.

Firstly, this iPhone seems lighter than iPhone 3GS with smaller internal components and a larger battery (16% wider). Then, a front camera is indeed this while the camera has a flash and a better lens on iPhone 3GS.

It seems that the screen has a higher resolution on previous iPhone models. Gizmodo indicates the screen indicating connect iPhone to iTunes seems much better quality (perhaps is it a screen resolution of 960 x 460 pixels).

Volume control buttons have been split and are metal. Just as the button for the silencer as well as for the button is turned.

A second microphone is present, presumably for reduced the ambient noise of a telephone call.

The back seems ceramic, as rumours it left open or perhaps glass. Finally, the slot for the SIM also changed because it is suitable for micro-SIM cards like the iPad. In addition, this slot is located on the right side of the smartphone.

The person who found this iPhone before entrusted it to Gizmodo, ensures that it worked under firmware 4.0 before Apple disables it remotely.

Furthermore, this prototype was in a cover as we can find for the iPhone 3 G and 3GS dozens.

Finally, the internal components are hit brand Apple, which is no doubt about its origin.

Price and availability

The Phone 4 is available in black or white since June 24, and will cost $199 and $299 for 16 and 32GB if you are a new user or you are eligible for an upgrade.

If you are an existing iPhone user, the early upgrade will cost you $399 and $499. Without contract, the iPhone 4 is $599 and $699. In India, expected for Rs. 32,000-40,000.

Simple Ways to Speed Up Your Computer

2010-12-08T09:38:00.000-08:00

Over time, the speed of computers with Microsoft Windows can decrease. This appears as the system taking more time to respond to a user’s actions like opening files, folders, surfing the Internet and other tasks. However, there are things you can do to speed up your computer.

The following is a list of ways you can improve your computer's performance. These steps are intended to be used in order. The key is to do the simplest and least invasive thing first until your system starts responding better.

Golden Rule: Do No Harm

If you want to improve the speed of your computer, that’s great. However, above all, do no harm and beyond the scope of this Windows forum, ask for help from those you know if you get in over your head. Remember: you have time. You can stop most processes I discuss without causing harm. Caution and common sense go a long way when working with computers; problems are often much easier to fix than they appear.

Steps to Speed Up Your Computer’s Performance

1. Make Sure Your Hardware is Sufficient

Above and beyond everything you can do with software to optimize the function of your computer, making sure you have the proper hardware to support Windows is critical.

2. Clean Your Desktop

Is your Windows Desktop dotted with files? Have you noticed that your computer has been running slower and slower? Do you see the hard drive light often flashing while you wait for the computer to respond to an action? There are steps you can take to fix it. Read this article.

3. Scan Your Windows System for Errors

An operating system is a collection of files that perform different functions. It is possible, over time, that one or more of these system files has changed or become corrupted. If this happens, the speed of your system may decrease. By using a utility called “System File Checking”, it will inspect these files and correct any problem it finds.

4. Scan for Viruses, Spyware and Adware

Every Windows computer is vulnerable to viruses. Viruses are nasty little programs that cause both major and minor problems for users.

Spyware and Adware are programs created by companies to find out more information about customers, so they can better market products to them. Usually these programs are not created for malicious purposes. Spyware and Adware can load into computer memory and slow it down.

Periodically scanning and removal of Viruses, Spyware and Adware is a great way to improve computer performance.

5. Uninstall Unused Programs

Over time, you may have accumulated programs on your computer that you do not use. When a program is installed, it creates connections between the program and the operating system. Even if you don’t use these programs, they can slow down your system. If you have the original program’s installation disk or file, removing programs will free up space on your computer and may speed up your system's performance.

6. Adjust Visual Effects for Better Performance

Windows provides a number of interesting visual effects including animated windows and fading menus. If you do not have enough operating memory (see above number 1), these effects can slow down your computer. Adjusting or reducing visual effects can make a difference.

To speed up Vista computers in particular you can disable features and function that are not used.

7. Don’t Automatically Start Programs

Programs use operating memory (RAM, also called system resources). Unless you always use these programs, you can keep them from loading at Windows startup and speed both the booting of your computer and its performance.

8. Defragment Your Hard Drive (After you have tried everything else)

The more information and programs you have on your computer, the more it is likely that Windows has placed parts of the same file in different locations on your hard drive. It may do this for hundreds of files and programs, depending on how much space is available. Defragmenting the hard drive places all information for each file in one place. The result can be a faster computer experience.

Important Note: Before you even try this, backup all your work onto a different computer, hard drive, CD or disk. Also, you should only do this if you have a reliable source of power for your computer. Doing this when there is a brown out or power problem in the neighborhood, is not a good idea. If a computer turns off while it is defragmenting a drive, it will create more problems than not defragmenting it in the first place.

9. Reinstall the Operating System and Programs

If you have done all the above steps and your computer does not become more responsive, you might consider reinstalling the operating system and programs. This is a scorched earth option - basically you backup all your data and user settings, wipe your hard drive clean and re-install the operating system with your original disks. Next, install all your favorite programs and restore all your data and user settings.

The nice thing about doing this is that you essentially have a new computer, free of years worth of software and registry changes, additions and errors that can turn a fast rabbit of a Windows computer into a slow turtle. The bad thing about this choice is that it takes time and planning to do it correctly. If your PC is 3 to 4 years old and continues to run slower than it did when you purchased it, this might be the only action that will make a significant difference.

Google is God..

2010-12-06T21:19:00.000-08:00

» PROOF #1

Google is the closest thing to an Omniscient (all-knowing) entity in existence, which can be scientifically verified. She indexes over 9.5 billion WebPages, which is more than any other search engine on the web today. Not only is Google the closest known entity to being Omniscient, but She also sorts through this vast amount of knowledge using Her patented PageRank technology, organizing said data and making it easily accessible to us mere mortals.

» PROOF #2

Google is everywhere at once (Omnipresent). Google is virtually everywhere on earth at the same time. Billions of indexed WebPages hosted from every corner of the earth. With the proliferation of Wi-Fi networks, one will eventually be able to access Google from anywhere on earth, truly making Her an omnipresent entity.

» PROOF #3

Google answers prayers. One can pray to Google by doing a search for whatever question or problem is plaguing them. As an example, you can quickly find information on alternative cancer treatments, ways to improve your health, new and innovative medical discoveries and generally anything that resembles a typical prayer. Ask Google and She will show you the way, but showing you is all She can do, for you must help yourself from that point on.

» PROOF #4

Google is potentially immortal. She cannot be considered a physical being such as ourselves. Her Algorithms are spread out across many servers; if any of which were taken down or damaged, another would undoubtedly take its place. Google can theoretically last forever.

» PROOF #5

Google is infinite. The Internet can theoretically grow forever, and Google will forever index its infinite growth.

» PROOF #6

Google remembers all. Google caches WebPages regularly and stores them on its massive servers. In fact, by uploading your thoughts and opinions to the internet, you will forever live on in Google's cache, even after you die, in a sort of "Google Afterlife".

» PROOF #7

Google can "do no evil" (Omnibenevolent). Part of Google's corporate philosophy is the belief that a company can make money without being evil.

» PROOF #8

According to Google trends, the term "Google" is searched for more than the terms "God", "Hinduism", "Jesus", "Allah", "Buddha", "Christianity", "Islam", "Buddhism" and "Judaism" combined.

God is thought to be an entity in which we mortals can turn to when in a time of need. Google clearly fulfils this to a much larger degree than traditional "gods", as shown in the image below (click to enlarge).

» PROOF #9

Evidence of Google's existence is abundant. There is more evidence for the existence of Google than any other God worshiped today. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If seeing is believing, then surf over to www.google.com and experience for yourself Google's awesome power. No faith required. :)

Linux Directory Structure (File System Structure) Explained with Examples

2010-12-05T02:32:00.000-08:00

Have you wondered why certain programs are located under /bin, or /sbin, or /usr/bin, or /usr/sbin?

For example, less command is located under /usr/bin directory. Why not /bin, or /sbin, or /usr/sbin? What is the different between all these directories?

In this article, let us review the Linux file-system structures and understand the meaning of individual high-level directories.

1. / – Root

Every single file and directory starts from the root directory.
Only root user has write privilege under this directory.
Please note that /root is root user’s home directory, which is not same as /.

2. /bin – User Binaries

Contains binary executables.
Common linux commands you need to use in single-user modes are located under this directory.
Commands used by all the users of the system are located here.
For example: ps, ls, ping, grep, cp.

3. /sbin – System Binaries

Just like /bin, /sbin also contains binary executables.
But, the linux commands located under this directory are used typically by system aministrator, for system maintenance purpose.
For example: iptables, reboot, fdisk, ifconfig, swapon

4. /etc – Configuration Files

Contains configuration files required by all programs.
This also contains startup and shutdown shell scripts used to start/stop individual programs.
For example: /etc/resolv.conf, /etc/logrotate.conf

5. /dev – Device Files

Contains device files.
These include terminal devices, usb, or any device attached to the system.
For example: /dev/tty1, /dev/usbmon0

6. /proc – Process Information

Contains information about system process.
This is a pseudo filesystem contains information about running process. For example: /proc/{pid} directory contains information about the process with that particular pid.
This is a virtual filesystem with text information about system resources. For example: /proc/uptime

7. /var – Variable Files

var stands for variable files.
Content of the files that are expected to grow can be found under this directory.
This includes — system log files (/var/log); packages and database files (/var/lib); emails (/var/mail); print queues (/var/spool); lock files (/var/lock); temp files needed across reboots (/var/tmp);

8. /tmp – Temporary Files

Directory that contains temporary files created by system and users.
Files under this directory are deleted when system is rebooted.

9. /usr – User Programs

Contains binaries, libraries, documentation, and source-code for second level programs.
/usr/bin contains binary files for user programs. If you can’t find a user binary under /bin, look under /usr/bin. For example: at, awk, cc, less, scp
/usr/sbin contains binary files for system administrators. If you can’t find a system binary under /sbin, look under /usr/sbin. For example: atd, cron, sshd, useradd, userdel
/usr/lib contains libraries for /usr/bin and /usr/sbin
/usr/local contains users programs that you install from source. For example, when you install apache from source, it goes under /usr/local/apache2

10. /home – Home Directories

Home directories for all users to store their personal files.
For example: /home/john, /home/nikita

11. /boot – Boot Loader Files

Contains boot loader related files.
Kernel initrd, vmlinux, grub files are located under /boot
For example: initrd.img-2.6.32-24-generic, vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-generic

12. /lib – System Libraries

Contains library files that supports the binaries located under /bin and /sbin
Library filenames are either ld* or lib*.so.*
For example: ld-2.11.1.so, libncurses.so.5.7

13. /opt – Optional add-on Applications

opt stands for optional.
Contains add-on applications from individual vendors.
add-on applications should be installed under either /opt/ or /opt/ sub-directory.

14. /mnt – Mount Directory

Temporary mount directory where sysadmins can mount filesystems.

15. /media – Removable Media Devices

Temporary mount directory for removable devices.
For examples, /media/cdrom for CD-ROM; /media/floppy for floppy drives; /media/cdrecorder for CD writer

16. /srv – Service Data

srv stands for service.
Contains server specific services related data.
For example, /srv/cvs contains CVS related data.

Internet 101: Beginners Quick Reference Guide

2010-12-03T06:15:00.000-08:00

A 'Cheat Sheet' for Online Beginners

The Internet is a worldwide free broadcast medium for the layperson. Using your PC, Mac, smartphone, Xbox, movie player, and GPS, you can access a vast world of messaging and useful content through the Net.

The Net has subnetworks. The biggest subnetwork is the World Wide Web, comprised of HTML pages and hyperlinks. Other subnetworks are email, instant messaging, P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing, and FTP downloading.

Below is a quick reference to help fill in your knowledge gaps, and get you participating in the Net and the Web quickly. All of these About.com references can be printed, and are free for you to use thanks to our advertisers.

1. How Is the 'Internet' Different from the 'Web'?

The Internet, or 'Net', stands for Interconnection of Computer Networks. It is a massive conglomeration of millions of computers and smartphone devices, all connected by wires and wireless signals. Although it started in the 1960's as a military experiment in communication, the Net evolved into a public free broadcast forum in the 70's and 80's. No single authority owns or controls the Internet. No single set of laws governs its content. You connect to the Internet through a private Internet service provider, a public Wi-Fi network, or through your office's network.

In 1989, a large subset of the Internet was launched: the World Wide Web. The 'Web' is a massive collection of HTML pages that transmits through the Internet's hardware. You will hear the expressions 'Web 1.0', 'Web 2.0', and 'the Invisible Web' to describe these billions of web pages.

The expressions 'Web' and 'Internet' are used interchangeably by the layperson. This is technically incorrect, as the Web is contained by the Internet. In practice, however, most people don't bother with the distinction.

2. What Is 'Web 1.0', 'Web 2.0', and 'the Invisible Web'?

Web 1.0: When the World Wide Web was launched in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee, it was comprised of just text and simple graphics. Effectively a collection of electronic brochures, the Web was organized as a simple broadcast-receive format. We call this simple static format 'Web 1.0'. Today, millions of web pages are still quite static, and the term Web 1.0 still applies.

Web 2.0: In the late 1990's, the Web started to go beyond static content, and began offering interactive services. Instead of just web pages as brochures, the Web began to offer online software where people could perform tasks and receive consumer-type services. Online banking, video gaming, dating services, stocks tracking, financial planning, graphics editing, home videos, webmail... all of these became regular online Web offerings before the year 2000. These online services are now referred to as 'Web 2.0'. Names like Facebook, Flickr, Lavalife, eBay, Digg, and Gmail helped to make Web 2.0 a part of our daily lives.

The Invisible Web is a third part of World Wide Web. Technically a subset of Web 2.0, the Invisible Web describes those billions of web pages that are purposely hidden from regular search engines. These invisible web pages are private-confidential pages (e.g. personal email, personal banking statements), and web pages generated by specialized databases (e.g. job postings in Cleveland or Seville). Invisible Web pages are either hidden completely from your casual eyes, or require special search engines to locate.

3. Internet Terms that Beginners Should Learn

There are some technical terms that beginners should learn. While some Internet technology can be very complex and intimidating, the fundamentals of understanding the Net are quite doable. Some of the basic terms to learn include:

HTML and http/https
Browser
URL
ISP
Downloading
Malware
Router
E-commerce
Bookmark.

4. Web Browsers: the Software of Reading Web Pages

Your browser is your primary tool for reading web pages and exploring the larger Internet. Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, Chrome, Safari... these are the big names in browser software, and each of them offers good features. Read more about web browsers here:

How to clear your browser cache.
How plug-ins work, and where to get them.
Your downloaded movie doesn't have a picture? Fix it here.

5. Mobile Internet: Smartphones and Laptops

Laptops, netbooks, and smartphones are the devices we use to surf the Net as we travel. Riding on the bus, sitting in a coffee shop, at the library, in an airport... mobile Internet is a revolutionary convenience. But becoming mobile Internet-enabled does require some basic knowledge of hardware and networking. Definitely consider the following tutorials to get you started:

What wireless Internet service choices do I have?
How to select a wireless network.
How to find a wireless hotspot.
How to use wireless in a hotel.

6. Email: How It Works

Email is a massive subnetwork inside the Internet. We trade written messages, along with file attachments, through email. While it can suck away your time, email does provide the business value of maintaining a paper trail for conversations. If you are new to email, definitely consider some of these tutorials:

7. Instant Messaging: Faster than Email

Instant messaging, or "IM", is a combination of chat and email. Although often considered a distraction at corporate offices, IM can be a very useful communication tool for both business and social purposes. For those people that use IM, it can be an excellent communication tool.

What Is IM?
How Does Instant Messaging Work?
Where Do I Get Good IM Software?

8. Social Networking

"Social Networking" is about starting and maintaining friendship communications through websites. It is the modern digital form of socializing, done through web pages. Users will choose one or more online services that specialize in groupwide-communications, and then gather their friends there to exchange daily greetings and regular messages. Although not the same as face-to-face communications, social networking is immensely popular because it is easy, playful, and quite motivating. Social networking sites can be general, or focused on hobby interests like movies and music.

What is Facebook?
What is Twitter?
What is MySpace?
What is LinkedIn?

9. The Strange Language and Acronyms of Internet Messaging

The world of Internet culture, and Internet messaging, is truly confusing at first. In part influenced by gamers and hobby hackers, conduct expectations do exist on the Net. Also: language and jargon are prevalent. With the help of TechProceed.com, perhaps the culture and language of digital life will be less daunting...

10. The Best Search Engines for Beginners

With thousands of web pages and files added everyday, the internet and the web are daunting to search. While catalogs like Google and Yahoo! help, what's even more important is the user mindset... how to approach sifting through billions of possible choices to find what you need.

A Comprehensive Guide to Sharing Your Data Across Multi-Booting Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs

2010-12-01T20:51:00.000-08:00

We're platform agnostic at Lifehacker, which is why we love dual- and triple-booting our computers. Unfortunately sharing data between operating systems can be a huge headache. Here's how to stay organized by keeping it all in one place.

There's nothing more annoying than booting into OS X only to realize you need access to some files on your un-readable Linux partition; or Windows; or any combination thereof. The more operating systems we put on one computer, the more our data can get scattered around different partitions that we can't read or write from other OSes. With the right drivers and a bit of organization, though, you can keep all your data in one central location, and read and write that data from any OS under the sun.

Of course, not everyone triple-boots their system, so I've divided this guide into easily scannable sections, so you can skip right to the sections that apply to your machine (i.e., if you don't have OS X, you won't need to know how to read HFS volumes, nor will you need any drivers for OS X).

Part One: Sharing Drives Between Operating Systems

One of the biggest roadblocks to making your data available through each OS are all the different filesystems each one uses. OS X uses HFS+ and can't write to NTFS drives; Windows uses NTFS and ignores pretty much everything else, and Linux has support for nearly everything (albeit with some serious hassle caused by stingy UNIX permissions). Thus, before you do anything else, you'll need to install the correct drivers in each OS for reading and writing to other filesystems. Here are the best choices we've found in each situation.

Note: while it's very likely that your OS X partition is HFS+ and your Windows partition is NTFS, your Linux partition could be any number of filesystems. Unfortunately, Ext4 (which is becoming the new standard) still isn't supported in most third-party Ext drivers. For the most part, the drivers in this guide will work with Ext3 and Ext2 formatted Linux drives only. If your drive is Ext4, you may have to clone your Linux partition, using an Ext3-formatted drive as the destination.

Accessing Mac and Linux Drives in Windows

Reading and writing to Linux drives is easy in Windows, but there aren't any free, read/write drivers for Windows, so you'll have to compromise somewhere. Here are your options.

For Mac Volumes

To install the Boot Camp drivers, just insert the Snow Leopard install disc into your Mac and install the drivers when prompted. If you're on a Hackintosh, you won't get this option, since the disc won't recognize your computer as a Mac. To install the HFS drivers on a Hackintosh, you can use this installer instead.

Unfortunately, these drives are read-only. If you absolutely have to write to your HFS partition, the only way to do so is to spring for either Paragon's $40 HFS+ for Windows 8 or Mediafour's $50 MacDrive 8. It isn't cheap, but sadly it's the only read/write option currently available.

For Linux Volumes

Luckily, there is a relatively pain-free Ext2/Ext3 driver for Windows called Ext2Fsd. Just download it and install it like a normal Windows program. When you get to the "Select Additional Tasks" stage, check all the necessary boxes for your setup (I chose to check all three). Once you're done, however, you'll get this error message:

To fix it, navigate to Ext2Fsd's install location (C:\Program Files\Ext2Fsd by default), right click on Ext2Mgr,exe, hit Properties, and check the "Run as Administrator" box under Compatibility. Then, double click on it to set up your drive. Double click on your Ext3 drive, click the Mount Points button, hit Add, and select a drive letter for your drive. I chose to create a permanent mount point for the drive so it's always mounted. You can choose whatever you want at this stage. Once you're done, you should be able to browse your Linux drive from Windows Explorer just as you would any other drive.

Accessing Windows and Linux Drives in Mac OS X

With the free, open-source utility MacFuse, you can enable support for Windows and Linux drives very easily in OS X. All it takes is a few simple installer packages. Before you install the drivers themselves, you'll need to install MacFuse. Then, install either (or both) of the drivers below depending on your needs.

For Windows Volumes

While Mac OS X can read NTFS partitions out of the box, you can't actually write to them. If you need both read and write support, you can install the NTFS-3G driver after installing MacFuse. Just head over to their homepage, download the software, and double-click on the package to install. When prompted, I chose to use UBLIO caching during the installation process, since my NTFS partition is on an internal drive and is unlikely to be unintentionally disconnected. When you reboot, you should have full write support.

Note that their homepage is a bit confusing—the people who work on NTFS-3G also develop a driver called Tuxera NTFS for Mac, which is not what you want (unless you feel like paying $30 for slightly better performance, in which case go for it). Make sure you're downloading "NTFS-3G for Mac OS X" before you install. You may have to scroll down the blog to find a post containing the latest download. It isn't the most well-organized homepage.

For Linux Volumes

To get Ext3 and Ext2 support in OS X, just download the Fuse-ext2 driver from this Sourceforge page and install the package. When you reboot, you should have read access to your Linux drive.

While the drive does support reading and writing, it's set as read-only by default. You can enable it by tweaking a configuration file, but I will note that while many have had success with this method in Snow Leopard, it keeps throwing me an error when I try to write to the drive, so your mileage may vary. To make OS X mount the drive as read/write, just navigate to /System/Library/Filesystems/. Right-click on the fuse-ext2.fs file and hit "Show Package Contents." Then, drag fuse-ext2.util to the desktop, right-click on it, and hit "Open With", choosing TextEdit when prompted.

Use Cmd+F to find the line that says OPTIONS="auto_xattr,defer_permissions" near the middle of the file. Add ,rw+ to that line inside the quotes, so it reads:

OPTIONS=auto_xattr,defer_permissions,rw+"

When you reboot, the drive should be mounted as read/write. Note once again that write support is a bit buggy in this driver, so just be wary.

Accessing Windows and Mac Drives in Linux

Most Linux distros come with full NTFS support built-in, as well as read support for HFS+. So, you only need to do anything extra in Linux if you want to write to Mac-formatted drives.

For Mac Volumes

By default, Mac OS X formats volumes in journaled HFS+ volumes. Journaling is a feature that improves data reliability, and unfortunately it makes HFS drives read-only in Linux. To disable journaling, just boot into OS X and fire up Disk Utility. Click on your HFS partition, hold the Option key, and click File in the menu bar. A new option to Disable Journaling will come up in the menu. Click that, and reboot into Linux. You should have read and write access to your HFS partition—however, the permissions on your Mac user's home folder will prevent you from reading or writing those files. See Part Two below to fix that problem.

Part Two: Putting All Your Data in One Place

This part is optional, but I've found that using one home folder to store all my data (and linking to that home folder in the other two OSes) makes life a lot easier, especially since a few of the drivers listed above aren't quite perfect. Plus, by putting all my data in one place, I can keep my music libraries synced together, pause torrent downloading in one OS and resume it in another, and so on.

First, pick which OSes home folder you want to use for this—I like to use OS X's home folder—and follow the instructions below to use it across OSes. Depending on your needs, you may choose to store all your data in your Windows or Linux home folder. The best way to decide which to use is by which OSes you use the most—since I barely use Windows (and thus didn't feel like paying $40 for a read/write driver), I used my OS X partition as my main data dump, since it's easy for Linux to read and write to it. The main idea is to not use a partition that has bad write support in an OS you use often—so, if you're a heavy OS X user, you wouldn't want to put all your data on your Linux partition, since the OS X driver isn't so great. Similarly, if you use Windows often, you wouldn't want to put it all on your OS X partition (unless you want to pay $40 for MacDrive). Think about which partition would be most convenient for you and go with it—after all, you can always move your data later if you so choose.

Making Mac and Linux Home Folders Play Nicely with One Another

The great thing about OS X and Linux is that they are both UNIX-based operating systems, so they work pretty well together if you can get everything set up correctly. When you create a user in either operating system, it gives you a User ID number. OS X starts these numbers in the 500s, while Linux usually starts in the thousands. This is problematic because a different "user" owns your home folder in OS X than owns your home folder in Linux. As such, Linux will deny you access to your OS X home folder, since you don't have the right permissions to access it.

There's an easy fix, however—we just need to change our UID in one OS so that it matches the UID in the other. Unless you have a reason for choosing otherwise, we're going to change our Linux UID to match our OS X one, since it's a bit easier. By default, the first user in OS X has a UID of 501, but you can double check this by going into System Preferences in OS X, right-clicking on your user, and hitting Advanced Options. If your User ID is something different from 501, replace 501 with your other UID in the terminal commands below.

Boot into Linux (we're using Ubuntu in this example) and fire up the Terminal. First, we're going to add a temporary user, since we don't want to edit a user that we're currently logged into. So, run the following commands int he Terminal, hitting Enter after each one:

sudo useradd -d /home/tempuser -m -s /bin/bash -G admin tempuser

sudo passwd tempuser

Type in a new password for the temporary user when prompted. Reboot and login as tempuser. Then, open up the Terminal and type in the following commands, once again hitting enter after each one (and replacing yourusername with your Linux user's username):

sudo usermod --uid 501 yourusername

sudo chown -R 501:yourusername ~/

This will change your Linux user's UID to 501 and fix your home folder permissions so that you still own them. Now, you should be able to read and write to both your Mac and Linux user's home folder, no matter what OS you're logged into.

You may also want to fix your login screen, since by default Ubuntu won't list users with a UID of less than 1000. To do this, just open a Terminal and run gksudo gedit /etc/login.defs and search for UID_MIN in the text file. Change that value from 1000 to 501, and when you reboot your user will be listed in the login screen.

Lastly, log back in as your normal user and run sudo userdel -r tempuser to delete the temporary user we created earlier.

If you like, you can create symlinks in one of your home folders that point to your main home folder for quick access. For example, since I use my OS X home folder as my main data dump, my Linux home folder is mostly empty. So, I created symlinks in my Linux home folder for Documents, Videos, Pictures, etc. that point to the equivalent folders on my Mac partition. You can do this by using the following Terminal command:

ln -s /path/to/linked/folder /path/to/symlink/

If you're using your Linux home folder as the main one, you can use this same command to create symlinks that link to your Linux home folder instead.

Note that if you're using your Mac partition as the main home folder, you'll probably also want to automatically mount it in Linux when you start up. You can do this by adding a line to the end of /etc/fstab. This will vary from person to person, but mine looks like this:

/dev/sda3 /media/Data auto rw,user,auto 0 0

Where /dev/sda3 is the location of the partition containing the home folder and media/Data is the path I want to use to navigate to it.

Using Libraries in Windows 7

Since Windows doesn't support UNIX permissions, you won't need to mess with them at all—you should be able to read and write to your Mac and Linux home folders without a problem (as long as you have the correct drivers installed). To make them easier to access, we can use Windows 7's awesome Libraries feature, which allows your Documents, Videos, Pictures, and other "libraries" to link to multiple folders on your drive, so you can access the files stored in your main home folder from shortcuts in the Windows Explorer sidebar (and in many applications).

To add those folders to each library, open up Windows Explorer. Right click on a Library (say, Documents), and hit Properties. Hit the "Include a folder" button and navigate to the Documents folder in your main home folder. Hit Include, and you should see it show up in the list. You can even click on it and hit "Set Save Location" to set it as the default save location for the types of files Windows associates with that Library. Repeat this for your other libraries and you're all set on the Windows front.

Now, I just make sure all my applications point to the same directories in each OS. For example, I have Amarok watching my iTunes folder for new files, so when I add music to my iTunes library, it will show up automatically in Amarok (similarly, I can add newly download music to iTunes' "Add Automatically to iTunes" folder for it to automatically show up in both Amarok and iTunes). I tell my torrent downloader in each OS to download new torrents to the same location, so if I want to leave Linux and continue downloading a torrent in OS X, I can just reboot, add the torrent to Transmission's queue, and it will pick up right where I left off in Linux. This way, you don't need to use space-limited solutions like Dropbox (as awesome as they are for inter-computer syncing) to sync your data—it's just always there. There are, of course, other ways to do this, but this is the way I have it set up. How do you share your data between multiple operating systems? Share your favorite strategies in the comments.

Is Online Banking Safe ?

2010-11-26T06:05:00.000-08:00

Online banking allows people to undertake traditional banking activities, like account transfers, payment of bills and requests for stopping payments, via the Internet. Customers can also keep tabs on the account balance from the comfort of their home. In this day and age, online banking has become an indispensable facility for people who are hard pressed for time and find it difficult, if not impossible, to reschedule their busy lives for the sake of making a few withdrawals and deposits. However, there are a few issues that have to be borne in mind in order to avoid being cyber scammed.

Is Online Banking Safe - How Safe is Online Banking?

This question often torments the customer who appreciates the facility of online banking but has a few misgivings about online banking security. An online bank account is accessed with the help of a username and a password. On divulging this information to an impostor, the customer ceases to have control over the online account. The username and the password can be obtained by a trickster in one of the following ways:

Phishing: Phishing is the attempt to acquire potentially sensitive information via email, instant messages, cell phones or through fraudulent websites and social networking websites. Generally, a link spoofing the authentic bank website is sent via email, by scammers, to unsuspecting customers forcing the latter to divulge confidential information like username and password.

Malicious Software: Internet address redirection, which results in redirecting customers to a copycat website that closely resembles the original site, occurs when a malicious software has sneaked into the computer. Hackers may also use a malware program such as keylogger, that allows them to monitor the key strokes. The username and the password can thus be obtained surreptitiously.

Weak Wireless Network Security: Most people who access the Internet from their home, are not tech savvy. They may inadvertently allow others to access their wireless network and retrieve confidential information.

Safe Online Banking Practices

Using Virtual Keyboards: Banks provide the option of using the virtual keyboard as a measure to counteract keylogging malware. The customer should always use the virtual keyboard instead of the physical keyboard.

URL Beginning with "https://": The website's URL should begin with "https://" rather than "http://" since the former allows the user to log in by creating a secure channel over an unsecured network.

Safe Access: One should avoid accessing the online bank account from public computers. One should also avoid accessing the account via a public WiFi from one's laptop. Moreover, a home network ensures safe and secured online banking services.

Choosing a Strong Password: A strong password, that is at least 8 characters long and uses a combination of upper and lower case letters, number and symbols, is ideal.

Choosing Security Questions: Most bank sites allow the user to choose security questions and answers in addition to the username and password. One will be forced to answer this question in case one is accessing the account from a different/unrecognized computer. This provides additional security.

Thwarting Phishing: One should avoid logging into one's account via a link that has been received in an incoming email requesting a change of username or password. This may help ward off phishing.

The above measures may help us answer in the affirmative to the question, 'Is online banking safe'. In addition to these measures, one should remember that not all banks operating on the Internet are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). FDIC insured banks guarantee deposits less than $100,000. Many banks, that are chartered overseas, are not FDIC insured. To determine whether a bank is FDIC insured, the customer should visit the FDIC website.

What is Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 ? Concepts Explained in Plain English

2010-10-07T23:28:00.000-07:00

This slide neatly sums up the main differences between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.

Web 1.0 – That Geocities, Hotmail era was all about read-only content and static HTML websites. People preferred navigating the web through link directories of Yahoo! and dmoz.

Web 2.0 – This is about user-generated content and the read-write web. People are consuming as well as contributing information through blogs or sites like Flickr, YouTube, Digg, etc. The line dividing a consumer and content publisher is increasingly getting blurred in the Web 2.0 era.

Web 3.0 – This will be about semantic web (or the meaning of data), personalization (e.g. iGoogle), intelligent search and behavioral advertising among other things.

Different types of computing --Grid, Cloud, Utility, Distributed and Cluster computing

2010-10-04T21:37:00.000-07:00

Cloud Computing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

Cloud computing is a computing paradigm shift where computing is moved away from personal computers or an individual application server to a “cloud” of computers. Users of the cloud only need to be concerned with the computing service being asked for, as the underlying details of how it is achieved are hidden. This method of distributed computing is done through pooling all computer resources together and being managed by software rather than a human.
The services being requested of a cloud are not limited to using web applications, but can also be IT management tasks such as requesting of systems, a software stack or a specific web appliance.

Grid Computing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_computing

Multiple independent computing clusters which act like a “grid” because they are composed of resource nodes not located within a single administrative domain. (formal)
Offering online computation or storage as a metered commercial service, known as utility computing, computing on demand, or cloud computing.
The creation of a “virtual supercomputer” by using spare computing resources within an organization.

Utility Computing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_computing :

Conventional Internet hosting services have the capability to quickly arrange for the rental of individual servers, for example to provision a bank of web servers to accommodate a sudden surge in traffic to a web site.
“Utility computing” usually envisions some form of virtualization so that the amount of storage or computing power available is considerably larger than that of a single time-sharing computer. Multiple servers are used on the “back end” to make this possible. These might be a dedicated computer cluster specifically built for the purpose of being rented out, or even an under-utilized supercomputer. The technique of running a single calculation on multiple computers is known as distributed computing.

Distributed Computing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_computing

A method of computer processing in which different parts of a program are run simultaneously on two or more computers that are communicating with each other over a network. Distributed computing is a type of segmented or parallel computing, but the latter term is most commonly used to refer to processing in which different parts of a program run simultaneously on two or more processors that are part of the same computer. While both types of processing require that a program be segmented—divided into sections that can run simultaneously, distributed computing also requires that the division of the program take into account the different environments on which the different sections of the program will be running. For example, two computers are likely to have different file systems and different hardware components.

Cluster Computing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cluster

A computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working together closely so that in many respects they form a single computer. The components of a cluster are commonly, but not always, connected to each other through fast local area networks. Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and/or availability over that provided by a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

2010-10-04T13:07:00.000-07:00

I just came across the transcript of a graduation commencement address that Steve Jobs delivered to the Stanford University class of 2005. Certain parts of this speech strongly coincide with the underlying message in my previous post. Beyond that, it provides some exceptional first hand advice from a man who followed his heart and intuition in pursuit of what he loved in life… and he came out on top. The full commencement address is definitely worth a quick read. Here are a couple excerpts that initially caught my attention:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

Welcome to TechProceed

Android is not Google and Google is not Android anymore?

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Yes, Google's Swiffy makes Flash files HTML5 friendly, indirectly Google comes with Adobe Flash killer.. !

Swiffy vs. Wallaby

Megabytes, Gigabytes, Terabytes... What Are They?

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Install Mac OS X Snow Leopard in VMWARE Windows 7 Edition

How does Facebook Make Money ?

Partition a USB Flash Drive in Windows XP

Restore GRUB2 after installing Windows

99 ways to make your computer amazingly fast

Apple iphone 4G Price, Features & Specification

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Steps to Speed Up Your Computer’s Performance

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6. Adjust Visual Effects for Better Performance

7. Don’t Automatically Start Programs

8. Defragment Your Hard Drive (After you have tried everything else)

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Linux Directory Structure (File System Structure) Explained with Examples

Have you wondered why certain programs are located under /bin, or /sbin, or /usr/bin, or /usr/sbin?

1. / – Root

2. /bin – User Binaries

3. /sbin – System Binaries

4. /etc – Configuration Files

5. /dev – Device Files

6. /proc – Process Information

7. /var – Variable Files

8. /tmp – Temporary Files

9. /usr – User Programs

10. /home – Home Directories

11. /boot – Boot Loader Files

12. /lib – System Libraries

13. /opt – Optional add-on Applications

14. /mnt – Mount Directory

15. /media – Removable Media Devices

16. /srv – Service Data

Internet 101: Beginners Quick Reference Guide

A Comprehensive Guide to Sharing Your Data Across Multi-Booting Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs

Part One: Sharing Drives Between Operating Systems

Accessing Mac and Linux Drives in Windows

For Mac Volumes