Upgrade to window 7 from Windows Vista
Upgrading is the easiest option. However, upgrading can take a long time. To upgrade to Windows 7 from Windows Vista

1. Insert the Windows 7 DVD into your DVD-ROM drive.
2. Click Run setup.exe from the Autoplay menu.

3. Click Install now on the Install Windows screen.

4. Setup will begin by copying files to your computer.
5. Accept the license terms and click Next.
6. Now click Upgrade and follow the instructions. You may get a compatibility report, which will help you determine what may not work properly after the upgrade.

 Nov. 7: A survey has found that men and women have different approaches when it comes to dealing with technological problems.  According to a gadget helpline, 64 per cent male and 24 per cent female callers do not read the instruction manual before calling up, and that 12 per cent male and 7 per cent female customers need only plug in or turn on their appliances.

Gadget Helpline surveyed 75,000 calls received between September 25 and October 23, 2009, and it found that 120,000 of its subscribers in UK, are over the age of 35.

The survey showed that women spent 32 per cent longer on the phone to their helpers than men – but 66 per cent of the helpline staff preferred speaking to them. “There is evidence of a gender divide in technology, although a lot of it comes down to interpretation,” the ‘BBC’ quoted Joanna Bawa, chartered psychologist and editor of the ‘Usability News’ website, as saying.

In general terms, men treat technology as something to be understood and conquered while women are more motivated by appliances that benefit them. Gadget Helpline’s founder and chief executive Crispin Thomas said the company’s busiest times are Monday mornings and Boxing Day.

Getting gadgets to communicate with each other was the subject of a large number of requests for help. “Syncing one gadget with another causes problems,” he said.

Newly released products also seem to cause teething problems – many of Thomas’ customers had difficulty setting up their Blu-Ray players in 2008 when they first became mass market. He does not believe that appliances are becoming more complicated, but thinks that they are expected to do a lot more. “Generally speaking, in a production run, 5 percent of appliances will contain a manufacturing fault,” he stated.

“But 15 per cent – 20 per cent get taken back to the shop for return,” he added.

London: The world could well run out of Internet addresses next year, unless urgent action is taken to switch to a new generation of net addresses, the European Commission has warned.

According to the commission, businesses urgently need to upgrade to Internet protocol version six or IPv6, a new version of the Internet’s addressing protocol, which will hugely increase the number of available addresses.

The IPv6 system has been ready for over a decade and is providing 340 trillion, trillion, trillion web addresses. But, not many companies are actually ready to migrate to the new platform.

In fact, a survey, conducted by the Commission, found that few companies are prepared for the switch from the current naming protocol, IPv4, to the new regime, IPv6, ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reported. The IPv4 and IPv6 protocols refer to the way in which web addresses are created and assigned. Each website has a unique IP address, represented by a string of numbers, such as 192.168.1.1, which are then given a user-friendly web address to make them easier to remember.

The IPv4 protocol uses 32-bit addresses, which enables the web to support around 4.3 billion unique addresses while IPv6 uses 128-bit web addresses, creating billions of possible new web addresses.

The EC survey found that of the 610 government, educational and other industry organisations questioned across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, just 17 per cent have upgraded to IPv6.

The Commission has warned that the timely deployment of the protocol is vital to the growth and stability of the Internet. Detlef Eckert, Director in Commission’s information society and media directorate-general, said: “In the last 10 years, the Internet has become hugely important worldwide from a socio-economic perspective. “Only by ensuring that all devices connected to the internet are compatible with IPv6 can we stay connected and safeguard sustainable growth of the Internet and the global digital economy, now and in the years to come.”

People running the risk of Internet addiction have help at hand with the first of its kind residential rehab clinic in the Seattle suburb of Fall City, Washington.

The ReSTART clinic reportedly costs 9,000 pounds for 45 days of live-in treatment, including taking care of the farm’s goats, building a chicken coop, long walks around the greens, receiving counselling and massages.
The rehab treats the addiction in many forms such as excessive gaming, inordinate online social networking, uncontrolled online shopping or gambling. Co-founder-psychologist Dr Hilarie Cash warned how internet addiction was fast becoming a growing global problem.
“Wherever the technology exists, the problem follows. The internet can be as addictive as alcohol or gambling,” the Daily Express quoted Dr. Cash as saying.

But the treatment has sparked debates since the American Psychiatric Association does not recognise internet addiction as a legitimate disorder.

In the mean time, Dr Cash offered pointers to judge if one is addicted or not, explaining: “If you do it compulsively, despite the negative consequences, then we’d say that’s an addiction.”

Melbourne-based Swinburne University has launched a unique online treatment clinic for people with anxiety disorder.
The online assessment and treatment clinic has been developed by the University’s National eTherapy Centre and is said to be one of its kind in the world. “Anxiety Online is the first full-service online psychology clinic in the world,” David Austin, Co-Director of the National eTherapy Centre said in a statement.

“It is the first to offer a complete service online, from assessment through to clinical treatment, in the convenience of a person’s own home” he said. The service includes free online psychological assessments, diagnoses and educational information on anxiety disorders such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Panic Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Social Phobia.

“The service can be accessed by people from remote and regional areas anywhere in the world, people who don’t have a choice in regards to accessing face-to-face psych services because they simply don’t exist,” Austin said.

Austin also expects the online treatment service will appeal to people who aren’t comfortable visiting a therapist face-to-face

Researchers have produced an all-optical switch within a plastic optical fibre (POF), which could vastly increase Internet data speeds.
The high-speed backbone of the Internet is based on networks of glass optical fibres. But this is too fragile and expensive to install in the small distances between local exchanges and the home.

A cheaper alternative is to use POF, but this has been unable to transmit data with the kind of speeds that would make it worth replacing copper. That may soon change. In recent years, POF with a bandwidth of 1 gigabit per second over 100 metres has been demonstrated.
Now, Polycom, a European Union-funded collaboration between researchers across Europe, has shown how to squeeze more data into a POF, bringing it a step closer to the market. Polycom has produced an all-optical switch within a POF that can turn an optical signal on and off on in a matter of femtoseconds.

Using an array of these switches it is possible to introduce a technique called time division multiplexing, in which two or more data streams are divided into small chunks of short duration before the various segments are interleaved together and sent down the same fibre.

The new optical switch can be turned on and off so precisely that it could help separate out the time chunks belonging to a specific data stream, and recombine them. The POFs used by the Polycom team are composed of a transparent plastic, PMMA, doped with around 0.02 per cent by weight of a polyfluorene.
The fibres demonstrate good gain properties, which means a data signal passing through them can be amplified. That is necessary to maintain signal quality at optical-fibre splitters, where the signal is divided and sent along several fibres.
The boosting is achieved by first exposing the doped polymer to a short laser pulse, which excites an electron in the polyfluorene. In a typical inorganic semiconductor, the excited electron is free to move around, leaving behind a hole.
But in the polyfluorene the electron and hole remain tightly bound, creating a quasiparticle called an exciton. “If a data signal comes through the fibre now it gets amplified by stimulated emission through interaction with the exciton,” said Jenny Clark of the University of Cambridge, a member of the Polycom team.
“We found that if you physically isolate the polymer chains, you can isolate the charge to one dimension along each polymer chain. The charges are confined, with nowhere to go, so they recombine quickly,” she added

For people fed up with their mobile telephone or iPod batteries running out, Japan’s Toshiba Corp announced today the launch of a portable fuel-cell that can power up digital gadgets on the move.

With an injection of methanol, the fuel-cell generates electricity through a chemical reaction with oxygen to recharge mobile digital electronic devices via a USB cable. The high-tech giant, which sees a bright future for fuel cells, said battery exhaustion had become a “major concern” due to the rising power consumption of mobile electronic devices.
It said the palm-sized fuel-cell, called Dynario, “delivers almost instant refuelling that untethers electrical equipment from AC adapters and power outlets.”

A single refill of methanol from a dedicated cartridge can generate enough power to charge two mobile telephones, said Toshiba, which describes itself as a world leader in the development of fuel-cells for handheld gadgets.
The company will put 3,000 of the devices on sale in Japan through its direct-order website at a price of 29,800 yen (326 dollars) each. The fuel cartridges cost an additional 3,150 yen for a set of five

Magic Burning Studio is a useful tool that makes it really easy to create and copy your own data, video, audio and multisession CDs, DVDs discs.Many current CD/DVD burning programs are universal everything-including-the kitchen-sink applications that are overloaded with countless confusing functions. Magic Burning Studio makes life easier by concentrating on what you really want to do!Magic Burning Studio also helps you to save money on CD/DVD blanks. Since it produces multisession discs you can always add more files later provided that the disc isn’t completely full.

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Version 3.2 of Google Maps for mobile is now available for Blackberry also.Google has already released 3.2 google maps for Windows Mobile and S60 mobiles back in july.

This 3.2 version of Google Maps for mobile allows you to view many layers of information on your map at the same time. Layers make it easier and more useful to find and interact with geographic content, like public transit, traffic, local search results, Latitude friend locations, Wikipedia and more.

Download Google Maps for mobile to your phone, and never carry a paper map again.

You can Download Google Maps for Windows Mobile,S60,Blackberry or any other phones by pointing your particular mobile’s browser to m.google.com/maps

Scratches Description:

Isolated by a washed out road, and in search of clues, you delve into every dark corner of the sinister Blackwood Manor and its untended grounds via a point-and-click interface.

Alternate ending and 2 additional hours of gameplay are included in a new chapter to this popular atmospheric mystery adventure game for the PC, brimming with eerie twists and terrifying surprises. Set in and around a solitary Victorian Mansion concealing a terrible secret, a long since forgotten story from the past emerges to haunt the present. A careful combination of inventory-based and deductive-style puzzles, integrated with a riveting storyline, non-linear gameplay, intricately detailed graphics, and an entrancing soundtrack, immerse you in a haunting Gothic atmosphere.

Scratches Features:

- Alternative original ending
- Exciting new chapter! Before Blackwood Manor is demolished, a reporter sneaks inside The Manor to gather clues about the mystery…but what he will find is a terrifying surprise!
- New clues to understanding the story
- New revealing thoughts from the main character in “Michael’s Diary”
- Higher supported resolution
- New default control method with fixed mouse, FPS-like movement

Scratches Requirements: No special requirements

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