Hansika Motwani Profile:
Name: Hansika
Birth name: Hansika Motwani
Birthdate: August 09, 1991
Birth location: Mumbai, India
Height: 5' 5" (1.65 m)
Sex: Female
Profession: Actress
Debut Film: Koi... Mil Gaya
Education: Podar International School
Brother: Prashant Motwani
Father: Pradeep Motwani
Mother: Mona Motwani
Claim To Fame: 10-year-old mentally challenged girl in the Film 'Jaago'
Patrick Verner announced a few days ago the third maintenance release of Parted Magic 3, a Slackware-based Linux distribution designed to help users with partitioning tasks. Parted Magic 3.3 contains a few new applications, brings improved support for video drivers, adds NFS support, and updates various packages. On top of that, the USB edition of Parted Magic 3.3 was drastically cleaned up (see the following quote for details).
"Files in the USB version have moved. GRUB files are in the /boot/grub folder and syslinux files are in the /boot/syslinux folder. The proper command to boot the USB is 'syslinux -d /boot/syslinux /dev sdXX' for Linux and 'syslinux -ma -d /boot/syslinux X:\' for windows." - said Patrick Verner in the official release announcement.
Changes since Parted Magic 3.2 release include:
· Improved support for video drivers by downgrading the xorg-server package to version 1.4.2;
· Included all the extensions and drivers, such as GLX and DRI, from the standard build;
· udhcpc is no longer used for obtaining DHCP leases;
· NFS daemons will automatically start at boot. To cancel them use the nonfs boot parameter.
The following packages were updated in Parted Magic 3.3:
· NTFS-3G 1.5130
· Udev 135
· GParted 0.4.1
· Busybox 1.13.1
· hdparm 9.3
· XArchiver 0.5.2
The following packages were added in Parted Magic 3.3:
· gFTP 2.0.19
· dhcp 3.0.7
· dhcpcd 2.0.8
· Portmap 6.0
· nfs-utils 1.1.2
Parted Magic is a business-card operating system, based on Slackware Linux, with programs that allow you to partition hard disks with ease. Programs like Partition Image, TestDisk, fdisk, sfdisk, dd, ddrescue, and a good documentation will help you in your partitioning tasks. Parted Magic is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and it can be downloaded right now from here and here.
Source: http://linuxarticle.blogspot.com/
Clement Lefebvre and the Linux Mint community proudly announced last night, on the official Linux Mint Blog, the final release of Linux Mint 6 (dubbed Felicia), a popular Linux distribution based on the Ubuntu operating system. Linux Mint 6 is a new and important step in the evolution of the Linux Mint OS, it is based on Intrepid Ibex (Ubuntu 8.10), and it includes all the latest technologies, such as Linux kernel 2.6.27, GNOME 2.24 or X.Org 7.4. Why is Linux Mint 6 so important? Because it now offers a new, in-house tool called mint4win, which will allow everyone to install the Linux Mint operating system directly from Microsoft Windows!
"The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 6 “Felicia”. Congratulations and thanks to all the people who contributed to this release, to all the translators, to the upstream developers and projects which made this possible and above all to the development team for their continuous support." - said Clement Lefebvre, developer of Linux Mint, in the official release announcement.
Highlights of Linux Mint 6:
· mint4win allows you to install Linux Mint from the Microsoft Windows operating system;
· mintInstall 5 with a new offline interface, software versions information and support for multiple portals;
· mintUpdate 3 with a revamped GUI, proxy support, updates history;
· mintUpload 2 with support for FTP transfers;
· mintNanny, a useful parental control tool;
· Giver, a LAN (Local Area Network) transfer tool;
· Gufw, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) frontend for the ufw firewall;
· Flegita, an utility for scanners.
On top of that, the Linux Mint team is proud to present the introduction of the Linux Mint Universal Edition, a customized version of Felicia, available as a Live DVD. The Universal Edition contains the following features:
· Installs all the missing audio and video codecs;
· Offers support for English, Italian, German, Spanish, Indonesian, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Polish, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Urdu, Finnish, Chinese, Japanese, Danish, Filipino, Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Thai, Arabic, Hebrew, Korean, Catalan, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian and Farsi languages;
· Available as a Live DVD.
What are recommended system requirements? To install Linux Mint 6, you will need minimum 512 MB of RAM (however, the system will work very well with 256 MB of RAM after installation). Be aware that the installation may hang if you have less than 512 MB of RAM. As a solution, you can try to repeat the installation process several times. Also, you must have at least 3 or 4 GB of free hard drive space.
What is Linux Mint? Linux Mint is an elegant, easy to use, up-to-date, 100% free and comfortable Linux desktop distribution based on the very popular Ubuntu operating system. It offers paid commercial support to companies and individuals. Also, free community support is available from the forums and the IRC channel. If you want to give Linux Mint 6 (Felicia) a try, download it right now from here, here (torrent). The Linux Mint Universal Edition can also be downloaded from here.
Source: Linux Articles
As we are approaching the now inevitable release of the 55nm GeForce GTX 285, more details regarding said card surface on the Internet. NVIDIA's new GeForce flagship graphics card is expected to come as an overclocked version of the company's current GeForce GTX 280.
Also, unlike the current card, the GPU of the upcoming GTX 285 takes advantage of a 55nm process technology, which basically allows for better performance and overclocking capability, while it should also provide a better power consumption level.
According to a recent post on the Chinese language Expreview, the upcoming single-core GTX 285 is expected to boast frequency levels a bit over those available for NVIDIA's current GeForce GTX 280. The core speed of the GTX 285 should settle at 648 MHz, compared with the 602 MHz available with the GeForce GTX280. The Shader and Memory frequencies have also been brought up to 1476MHz and 1242MHz, respectively.
Given that the 65nm-based GTX 280 has Shader and Memory clock speeds of 1296MHz and 1107MHz, the performance boost might not be all that impressive. Still, the performance of the GTX 285 is expected to surpass that of ATI's HD 4870 and to come close to what the HD 4870 X2 can now provide. We are yet to see a comparative review between any pair of aforementioned cards, but we should keep our peeled for one such piece as it would give us a general idea of what we should expect from NVIDIA's next-generation GeForce graphics card.
After the release of the GTX 280 and the dual-GPU GTX 295, the Sunnyvale, California-based AMD is also expected to unveil a new range of cards as well. The rumored Radeons are to compete directly with NVIDIA's upcoming 55nm range of products. What is yet unclear is whether said cards are to remain at 55nm, or whether AMD plans to jump straight to 40nm.
Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com
Kris Moore from the PC-BSD development team announced today the immediate availability of the second maintenance release of PC-BSD 7.0 (Fibonacci Edition). "The PC-BSD Team is pleased to announce the availability of PC-BSD 7.0.2, with an updated FreeBSD 7.1-PreRelease under the hood and the latest KDE 4.1.3." - said Kris in the official release announcement.
Therefore, PC-BSD users can upgrade their systems today with the new version, which includes KDE 4.1.3, improved support for NTFS partitions, better desktop performance for owners of Nvidia video cards, enhancements and fixes to HAL, bug fixes to the installation.
Here are the changes since PC-BSD 7.0.1:
· Updated KDE to version 4.1.3;
· Updated HAL to version 0.5.11_8 (fixes an issue when trying to eject a CD/DVD in KDE4, and offers enhanced NTFS-3G support);
· Resolved an issue with the scanner permissions that prevented users to scan;
· Resolved an issue with PBI updates;
· Fixed knotify4 bug, which made the computer hang at shutdown sometimes;
· Better Online Updater utility, which now supports proxy servers and allows the use of TMPDIR;
· The sound-detect script was updated to support various new cards;
· Nvidia cards owners have now a new script (automatically activated on startup), which improves the desktop performance (lag and compositing effects);
· Fixed some empty hard drive installation issues;
· Resolved three System Manager bugs.
How to upgrade? Just apply the update and reboot your PC-BSD system. Remember that it may take 15-25 minutes to complete (depending on your system's specs).
If you want to install PC-BSD, it is recommended to have at least a Pentium 4 or higher CPU (or AMD64 alternatives) with 512 MB of RAM, minimum 12 GB of free hard drive space (either a partition, or an entire disk), a network card, a sound card and a 3D-accelerated video card (Nvidia or Intel).
PC-BSD is a free operating system, based on FreeBSD, created with ease of use in mind. Like any modern system, it allows you to watch movies, listen to your favorite music, work with office documents, and install your favorite applications with a couple of mouse clicks (and a nice setup wizard).
PC-BSD 7.0.2 can be downloaded right now from Here (Link 1), Here (Link 2).
Source: Linux Articles
Microsoft is attempting to kill the “Blue Edition” of Windows XP. In mid-2008 the Redmond company discontinued the availability of retail and OEM licenses of Windows XP, with the exception of copies of the operating system going onto ultra-low-cost laptops and desktops. However, XP “Blue Edition” is by no means a part of Microsoft's efforts to focus consumers and partners on Windows Vista and beyond. Killing XP “Blue Edition” is an illustrative example of the company's actions to stop the software counterfeiting phenomenon affecting its products.
According to Microsoft, “Blue Edition” is nothing more than a fabricated marketing program used to market and sell pirated copies of Windows XP. In this regard, the software giant informed that it had debuted legal actions against multiple online auctioneers worldwide, which were allegedly responsible for selling pirated copies of XP “Blue Edition” and not only via various global marketing schemes.
“Dishonest auctioneers are too often using these online auction sites to sell counterfeit and illegal copies of Microsoft software, taking advantage of unsuspecting customers around the world,” revealed David Finn, associate general counsel for Worldwide Anti-Piracy and Anti-Counterfeiting at Microsoft. “These dealers are peddling bogus products that can put customers and their personal information at serious risk.”
Microsoft has indicated that auctioneers in 12 countries around the world are now facing lawsuits for selling counterfeit software on online auction sites. A total of 63 legal actions involve lawsuits in the US (16), in Germany (12), in France (12), and in the UK (7). In addition, the software giant is also going after software counterfeiters in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Mexico and New Zealand.
“By taking legal action against these and other alleged counterfeiters, Microsoft is helping ensure that consumers around the world are protected from those who sell counterfeit software over the Internet,” Finn added. “We are also continuing to arm our customers with the information they need to keep from falling victim to counterfeit software. Consumers should be aware that the so-called ‘Blue Edition’ software is nothing more than low-quality counterfeit software burned onto a CD.”
Source: http://microsoftarticles.blogspot.com
Having released Opera 9.5 and Opera 9.6 in 2008, the Norwegian browser maker is now offering the first taste of Opera 10.0. While Microsoft and Mozilla are laboring to hit the Release Candidate stages of Internet Explorer 8 (now at Beta 2) and Firefox 3.1, respectively (now still at Beta 1, and on the verge of Beta 2), Opera is also cooking the next iteration of its browser. The first Alpha development milestone for Opera 10.0 is now available for download.
“It seems like yesterday we released Opera 9.6 and now you can all get your hands on Opera 10.0. Rather than ramble on, here's a quick list of what's new: Presto 2.2 Engine; performance boost; 100/100 and pixel-perfect on the Acid3 test; auto-update; inline spelling checker; Opera Mail improvements, including rich text composition and delete after X days; Widget Improvements on Linux,” revealed Adam Minchinton, Opera Mac developer.
Opera has tweaked and optimized the core of the browser, and has taken Presto up to version 2.2 from 2.1 in Kestrel. In this context, now Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 passes the Acid3 Test for web standard support to perfection, the browser maker claims. At the same time, the evolution of the engine has delivered a new level of performance, not only in terms of speed, but also in regard to how the broser handles CSS, XML printing, and RGBA and HSLA support.
“The long awaited auto-update functionality is here! That's right, Opera will now update itself as new versions are released. And for those of you who want every single snapshot release just enable the 'Download All Snapshots' setting (opera:config#AutoUpdate). Please be aware that if you do so, you will be upgrading to all snapshots - and, as you know: snapshots contain the latest changes, but may also have severe known issues, including crashes and data loss situations. In fact, they may not work at all,” Minchinton added.
Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 for Windows is available for download here (Link 1), here (Link 2), here (Link 3), here (Link 4), here (Link 5).
Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 for Linux is available for download here (Link 1), here (Link 2), here (Link 3), here (Link 4), here (Link 5), here (Link 6).
Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 for Mac OS X is available for download here (Link 1), here (Link 2), here (Link 3), here (Link 4), here (Link 5), here (Link 6).
MySQL Administrator is a powerful visual administration console that enables you to easily administer your MySQL environment and gain significantly better visibility into how your databases are operating.
MySQL Administrator now integrates database management and maintenance into a seamless, single environment, with an intuitive and clear graphical user interface.
By using MySQL Administrator you will be able to:
- Achieve higher database availability through improved management
- Reduce errors through visual database administration
- Lower database administration costs through improved productivity
- Deliver a more secure environment through easier privilege management
MySQL Administrator enables developers and DBAs to easily perform all the command line operations visually including configuring servers, administering users, and dynamically monitoring database health.
Other common administrative tasks such as monitoring replication status, backup and restore, and viewing logs can also be performed through the MySQL Administrator graphical console.
User Administration in Minutes
Administering users, granting privileges and viewing user privilege information has never been easier! Now you can leverage the full power of MySQL's user management and privilege capabilities to fully protect your MySQL server host using an integrated graphical user administration console.
For example, a form-based interface provides a simple method for adding users, assigning passwords and including user profile information. Plus, assigning and revoking global, database, and table/column privileges is as easy as adding and removing privilege items from an available list. Finally, an explorer interface provides a hierarchical view allowing you to easily view user privileges by privilege type.
Single View Dynamic Health Monitoring
Dynamic health monitoring gives you an immediate view into the key indicators of the health of your MySQL environment. Dynamic graphs enable you to easily view percentage of memory usage, connection usage, hit rates, as well as the number of SQL queries on an ongoing basis, as your system runs.
The Disk Health tab gives you an overview of the amount of hard disk space, tablespace, and log files being used. You can also use the visual health monitoring feature to get a hierarchical view into status and server variables such as the number of outstanding connections, number of bytes sent and received by clients, buffer allocations size and more.
Quickly Optimize MySQL
MySQL Administrator now allows you to easily view and setup key parameters so you can quickly optimize the performance of MySQL. Using a graphical forms-based environment, you quickly fine tune general and advanced parameters. For example you can set memory usage parameters and configure server start-up parameters related to the MyISAM and InnoDB table types.
Rapid Disaster Prevention and Recovery
Now you can rapidly create consistent backups and restore data by simply visually selecting the schemas and tables you want to back/restore from your hierarchical data directory. The graphical environment gives you additional visibility into Tabletype, Rows, Data Length, and Update time.
Server Information At-a-Glance
The server information section of MySQL Administrator allows you to quickly view basic information about the server and client. This view gives you immediate visibility into items such as server status, client and server version numbers and IP address, as well as connection information.
View Replication Status
Now you can quickly set up replication to increase the robustness and speed of your MySQL environment. The replication features within MySQL Administrator allow you to easily view the network topology of your replication master and slaves. Plus, the graphical environment provides additional visibility into IP addresses and logfiles.
View Server Logs from a Centralized Administration Environment
Now you can view all the MySQL log files including error logs, binary logs, and InnoDB logs from a single, centralized administration environment so you can diagnose server problems quicker and track database changes.
Service Control
Gain complete control of service creation and overcome the time consuming task of installing and setting up services. Plus, start and stop MySQL servers and view corresponding log messages.
Browse Catalog
Browse your catalog and view corresponding tables with columns, all indices and users with privileges to access selected databases. From here you can monitor and optimize tables.
Cross Platform
MySQL Administrator will initially be available for Microsoft Windows and Linux, and be compatible with MySQL version 4.0 or later.
MySQL Administrator for Windows 5.0 r10 is available for download here (Link 1)
MySQL Administrator for Windows 5.0 r10 is available for download here (Link 2)
The Windows 7 Troubleshooting Platform - Windows Vista could have used this level of advanced troubleshooting. Microsoft has kicked the troubleshooting capabilities of Windows to the next level with the introduction of Windows 7. And as early as Windows 7 pre-Beta Milestone 3 Build 6801, the Redmond company is offering a taste of the full capabilities of the operating system, capabilities that could have been life savers for Windows Vista users when the RTM build initially hit the shelves. According to the software giant, Windows 7 comes to the table with a comprehensive and extensible Troubleshooting Platform capable of identifying and resolving a wide array of problems on its own.
This mainly because the platform has a PowerShell-based mechanism at its core. Microsoft indicated that the platform was in fact a collection of components. The troubleshooting package, engine, and wizard all combine in order to deal with potential problems that the end users might come across.
"The troubleshooting pack is a collection of PowerShell scripts and relevant metadata. The troubleshooting engine launches a PowerShell runtime to execute a troubleshooting pack, and exposes a set of interfaces to control troubleshooting pack execution," Microsoft revealed. "The troubleshooting wizard provides a consistent experience across troubleshooting packs, communicating with the troubleshooting engine to troubleshoot and resolve problems that are specified in a troubleshooting pack."
As you can very well see from the image on the left, the Troubleshooting Platform is designed to deal with a range of issues spanning from the programs running on top of Windows 7 to those affecting devices, networking, printing, display, sound, performance and the Windows operating system itself.
"The Troubleshooting Platform seamlessly integrates with the Windows 7 PC Solution Center, enabling other applications to execute diagnostics in a similar manner as part of their PC management regimen. The Troubleshooting Platform is configurable by IT professionals through Group Policy for use within the enterprise, and a Windows Troubleshooting Toolkit that allows developers to author troubleshooting packs is also available," Microsoft added.
Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com/
Windows 7 Pre-Beta Build 6801 Leaked and Available for Download - Via torrent websites. The past week, Microsoft delivered the first consistent taste of Windows 7, offering the pre-beta bits of the operating system at the Professional Developers Conference. On October 28, developers attending the event got their hands on a 160 GB drive pre-loaded with various goodies including Windows 7 Build 6801 in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. Subsequently, as it was the case with previous beta or final releases of Windows, the pre-beta bits for Windows 7 Build 6801 were leaked and made available for download via torrent websites.
Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, managed to keep Windows 7 under a translucent veil throughout the development process ahead of PDC2008. However, the conference focused on Windows 7 made the successor of Windows Vista as transparent as possible, as well as “free for all” users with a BitTorrent client. All major torrent hotspots are currently offering downloads of Windows 7 pre-beta build 6801, advertised as untouched.
The pair of Windows 7 pre-beta releases on the original 160 GB drive are: Windows 7 32-bit - 6801.0.080913-2030_Client_en-us_ULTIMATE-ULTIMATE_GB1CFRE_EN_DVD.iso and Windows 7 64-bit - 6801.0.080913-2030_Client_en-us_ULTIMATE-ULTIMATE_GB1CXFRE_EN_DVD.iso. With the pre-beta bits of the next iteration of Windows available outside of Redmond, the software giant promised that the fully fledged Beta of Windows 7 would be delivered early in 2009.
“Windows 7 will offer improved navigation, a new taskbar and a streamlined UI so that common tasks done in Windows are done easier and more quickly. You will be able to share data to all your PCs and devices in your home network or at work. With Windows 7 + Windows Live, you will be able to stay connected to the people that matter to you, and with Internet Explorer 8 you will get a faster, safer, more productive Web experience,” revealed Mike Nash, Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Management.
Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com/
RapidShare CAPTCHA has always been hacked no matter how tough they made it. Usually whenever RapidShare updates their CAPTCHA, it only took a few days for third party download tools to auto recognize it. One of the toughest CAPTCHA was with cats and dogs in them and it took 3-4 weeks to be cracked. A few days after the cats and dogs CAPTCHA has been cracked, RapidShare installed a new CAPTCHA system called TEABAG_3D.
The TEABAG_3D is developed by OCR Research Team and they are a bunch of CAPTCHA hackers too. They claim that after defeating several CAPTCHAs, they decided to make a CAPTCHA which is hard to break. I’ve been in communication with the developers of CryptLoad and jDownloader to keep track of the progress in defeating the latest 3D CAPTCHA in RapidShare. They were in 50% progress and suddenly RapidShare decided to eliminate the captchas to simplify the use of RapidShare’s free services significantly but with a catch that the download speed limit has been limited to 500kilobits per second, that is only 62.5KBps.
1. CryptLoad
- The interface is in English and configurations is not complicated. Other than downloading from RapidShare, it can also support downloading from many other One-Click hoster such as megaupload, gigasize, depositfiles and etc. Currently CryptLoad can only run on Windows with Microsoft .NET Framework and the next major update version 2 should support Mac OS and Linux as well. Supports automatic updates.
[ Download CryptLoad ]
2. JDownloader
- This tool has not been mentioned here before but I now tell you that this is a really good downloading tool for one-click-hosters website. JDownloader is open source, platform independent and written completely in Java. It simplifies downloading files from One-Click-Hosters like Rapidshare.com or Megaupload.com - not only for users with a premium account but also for users who don’t pay. It offers downloading in multiple parallel streams, captcha recognition, automatically file extraction and much more. Of course, JDownloader is absolutely free of charge. Additionally, many “link encryption” sites are supported - so you just paste the “encrypted” links and JD does the rest. Because it is written in Java, you can run JDownloader on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Support automatic updates. Try it and you’ll love it!
[ Download jDownloader ]
3. CandiSoft Load!
- Load! also has not been mentioned at this blog before. The interface is in German but it shouldn’t be too hard to understand as some words are pretty similar to English. You can always make use of Google Translate to help you translate from German to English. Runs on Windows and supports automatic updates. It also supports other one-click-hosters such as megaupload, netload.in, uploaded.to and etc.
[ Download CandiSoft Load! ]
4. RS Downloader
- This tool has been mentioned at this blog before and the interface is in German. It runs on Windows, supports automatic updates and can only download from RapidShare. Can also automatic decrypt and recognized encrypted rapidshare links using YouCrypt plugin.
[ Download RS Downloader ]
5. Universal Share Downloader (USDownloader)
- USDownloader is another popular and powerful one-click-hoster download manager. It supports a lot of free hosting services, including the most popular ones like RapidShare, MegaUpload or YouSendIt. You can select up to 26 types of languages for the program’s interface and it runs on Windows. When want to do an update on USDownloader, you’ll have to use the server http://usd.cap-cap.ru/ because the one in the list doesn’t work. [ Download USDownloader ]
Source: raymond.cc
Automate your PC shutdown, power off, log off, lock work station, hibernate, stand by or screen save etc. It can be started without the user having to login to the machine.
With Auto Shutdown Genius, you can automatically shutdown, power off, log off, lock workstation, hibernate, stand by or screen save your computers at schedule date and time, when the computer is idle or when excessive CPU usage.
Auto Shutdown Genius gives you different ways to schedule the shutdown events, such as daily, weekly, only once, the computer idle and CPU usage.
During the shutdown, it can clean up recycle bin, temporary files, IE cache, IE cookies, IE history and recent document list to improve system performance and protect your privacy.
The main program is a windows service. It can be started without the user having to login to the machine and it won't die after the user logs off. This feature is very useful and powerful for server manager and network administrator.
Download: Shutdown Genious 2.2.8 (link 1)
nLite is a GUI for permanent Windows component removal by your choice. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines. So that means that with nLite you will be able to have Windows installation cd which on installation doesn't install, or even contain on cd, unwanted components.
Maybe you won't believe it at first but it's not easy to not install what you don't want when it comes to Windows. It involves many setup files to be edited carefully without interfering with basic Windows components.
Download: nLite 1.4.8
AutoCollage 2008 is a project developed by Microsoft Research Cambridge and made available for download as of September 4, 2008.
The tool is no longer just a research prototype, as it has been made available for purchase via the Microsoft Store (UK) and the Windows Marketplace (US).
At the same time, Microsoft Research Cambridge is offering end users a taste of AutoCollage 2008 via a 30-day downloadable trial version. Designed to enable end users to put together collages of digital photo collections, AutoCollage 2008 is in fact the first example of an incubation project offered to the general public by Microsoft Research Cambridge.
"The most significant feature that differentiates AutoCollage is that it offers exceptionally sophisticated blending technology for photographs, powered by state-of-the-art computer vision techniques," explained Alisson Sol, development manager at Microsoft Research Cambridge. "It’s great that we can give everyone the opportunity to play with and use this compelling technology, and we’re looking forward to seeing what collages they come up with."
According to Microsoft, AutoCollage 2008 does much more than simply blending images into a collage. The tool builds a seamless canvas using the photographs made available while avoiding duplicates and ensuring that no one image comes into focus all by itself. The Redmond company indicated that AutoCollage started along back in 2005 in Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, in 2005, after which it was moved to the Cambridge Incubation team. Microsoft researchers from China and Redmond collaborated with the Cambridge team on the development process. AutoCollage 2008 is designed to integrate seamlessly with Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3.
Download: Microsoft Research AutoCollage 2008 1.0
Microsoft has made available for download a free synchronization tool tailored to Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and to Windows XP Service Pack 3, but also to earlier versions of the two clients such as Vista RTM and XP SP2.
SyncToy 2.0 has been taken out of Beta stage, and the gold version of the code is live as of the end of the past week. Essentially a file management tool, SyncToy 2.0 is designed to permit users to "copy, move, rename, and delete" items between both folders and computers. Liam Cavanagh, senior program manager, Data Replication and Synchronization, revealed that SyncToy 2.0 has as its basis the Microsoft Sync Framework.
The Redmond company is presenting the PowerToy as the right tool to do all the heavy lifting for users when it comes to file synchronization. However, SyncToy is intended only as an enhancement of the Windows operating system and is not supported by the company. In this context, SyncToy has only been tested on a few operating systems, with the focus on Vista and XP, although it is possible that the tool will also integrate with additional platforms including Windows Home Server with Power Pack 1.
Dynamic Drive Letter Assignment, True Folder Sync, Exclusion Filtering Based on Name, Filtering Based on File Attributes, and Unattended Folder Pair Execution are just some of the new additions introduced in version 2.0. Cavanagh revealed that "based on the feedback from the SyncToy Forum and Windows XP Professional Photography web site, the following features were added to this release of SyncToy: Drive letter reassignment will now be detected and updated in the folder pair definition. Folder creates, renames and deletes are now synchronized for all SyncToy actions. File exclusion based on name with exact or fuzzy matching. The ability to exclude files based on one or more file attributes (Read-Only, System, Hidden). Addressed issues related to running scheduled folder pairs while logged off."
But at the same time, SyncToy 2.0 final will offer users the possibility to share end-point folder pairs (Folder Pairs With Shared Endpoints), improved management via the command line interface, a rearchitected synchronization engine, increased reliability, support for encrypted files and for - 64-bit Windows operating systems.
In addition, the tool offers "Sub-folder Exclusion Enhancements: Descendents created under excluded sub-folders are automatically excluded. Usability improvements for the sub-folder exclusion dialog. Folder Pair Metadata Moved: Folder pair metadata removed from MyDocuments to resolve any issues with server-based folder pair re-direction setup. Setup Improvements: Integrated setup with single self-extracting archive file and no extra downloads if you already have .NET Framework 2.0 installed. Enabled silent install for the SyncToy Installer file. And removed combine and subscribe actions," stated Cavanagh.
SyncToy is an easy to use, customizable utility that will help you move, copy, rename and delete files between computers and folders.
There are new sources of files coming from every direction: digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops. Increasingly, computer users are using different folders, drives, and even different computers (such as a laptop and a desktop) to store and retrieve files. Yet managing hundreds or thousands of files is still largely a manual operation.
Download:
SyncToy 2.0 (x32)
SyncToy 2.0 (x64)
Source: softpedia.com
It's a freeware utility to defrag registry. Quicksys RegDefrag is small, clear and easy. Registry data is constantly being written to and removed during a normal Windows operation. Over time this data becomes fragmented.
What does this software do?
Quicksys RegDefrag optimizes your registry by removing gaps, fragments and wasted space in Windows registry files. The program does not modify any registry entries.
Benefits?
Of course! The defragmentation improves performance and boosts access to the registry. 
System Requeriments
* - Pentium 233 MHz
* - 128 MB RAM
* - 1,6 MB of available space
* - Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008
What's new in this version?
Version 2.0
* - Improved new algorithm to defrag registry.
* - Improved HTML report with defrag information.
* - Improved alert about necessary free space to defrag registry.
* - Improved ascending sorting of column at Registry Information.
* - Improved new multi-language system with separate language files.
* - Improved perfomance in Windows x64.
* - Fixed text in Defrag Analysis. Example: changed "/REGISTRY/MACHINE" to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE".
* - Fixed bug in backups. The backups files are stored at default registry folder.
* - Added new option to remove backups at Uninstall.
* - Memory usage optimizations.
* - Added new languages: Italian and Spanish.
* - GUI improvements.
* - Minor bug fixed.
Download : Regdefrag 2.0
Elive team proudly announced last evening yet another development release of their GNU/Linux Live CD, Elive 1.9.18, which brings a new and improved kernel, better network configurator and many other updates. "This version includes a greatly improved new kernel and a lot of upgraded packages." - said the Elive developers in the official release announcement.
As mentioned, the kernel package has been updated (to version 2.6.26.8), and includes the following improvements:
• Wireless improvements: The kernel now contains all the available wireless drivers, including ath9k from Atheros;
• Apple MacBooks improvements: With the introduction of the ath9k wireless driver, the WEP encryption bug in MacBooks has been solved.
The Net-Connector tool introduced in the 1.9.10 release has finally been finished and it is now working at full capacity. The Net-Connector will help Elive users easily configure their networks (wireless and wired).
Last but not least, the Elive team added new and useful bookmarks for the Mozilla Firefox web browser. For example, you will now find a good list with links and tutorials for The Gimp, and some bookmarks with articles about Elive and the EFL development.
Elive is an operating system created using Debian GNU/Linux as its basis. It offers a lot of eye-candy while keeping the resources consumption very low with the help of the Enlightenment window manager.
Elive Linux sports a large number of applications, ranging from office and Internet related applications, to games and entertainment. With Elive, you can watch movies, listen to your favorite songs or chat with friends. E17, the development version of the Enlightenment window manager that comes with Elive Unstable, is brought to you from CVS, and is updated on a regular basis through Elive's testing repository.
If you want to use Elive, it is recommended you use a computer with minimum 128 of RAM and a 300 MHz CPU. Remember that this is an unstable release and it should not be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only! You can report bugs to Elive's Bug Tracker.
Download Elive 1.9.18 right now from Here.
Source: http://linuxarticle.blogspot.com/
Windows 7 Direct3D 11 Features - A taste of DirectX 11 is already available for download. As of November 2008, Microsoft is delivering the first taste of DirectX 11 for Windows 7 for download. A release aimed at developers, The November 2008 DirectX Software Development Kit, brings to the table the successor of Direct3D 10.1, namely Direct3D 11. In the SDK package, the Redmond company is offering a technical preview of Direct3D 11, but also the adjacent components and tools. Backwards compatible, content developed for Direct3D 11 hardware will also be compatible with earlier products supporting Direct3D 10 and 10.1 (in Vista SP1). Via the Windows 7 Developer Guide, Microsoft provides an insight into the new features made available by Direct3D 11.
“Geometry and high-order surfaces can now be tessellated to support scalable, dynamic content in patch and subdivision surface representations. To make good use of the parallel processing power available from multiple CPU cores, multithreading increases the number of potential rendering calls per frame by distributing the application, runtime, and driver calls across multiple cores. In addition, resource creation and management has been optimized for multithreaded use, enabling more efficient dynamic texture management for streaming,” Microsoft revealed.
According to the Redmond company, version 11 is designed to deliver an evolution of the functionality of the Direct3D 10 pipeline for Windows 7. In this regard, Microsoft has positioned Windows 7 to take advantage of the next generation of GPUs and multi-core processors when it comes down to the way the operating system will handle games and 3D applications. The software giant has indicated that Direct3D 11 in Windows 7 will support: Tessellation; Compute Shaders; Multithreaded Rendering; Dynamic Shader Linkage; Windows Advanced Rasterizer (WARP); Direct3D 10 and Direct3D 11 on Direct3D 9 Hardware (D3D10 Level 9); Runtime Binaries; D3DX11; Completely Updated HLSL and Direct3D Compiler; D3D11 Reference Rasterizer and D3D11 SDK Layers.
“New general-purpose compute shaders have been created for Direct3D 11. Unlike existing shaders, these are extensions to the programmable pipeline that enable your application to do more work completely on the GPU, independent of the CPU. DrawAuto, which was introduced in Direct3D 10, has been extended to interact with a compute shader. Several improvements have been made to the high-level shading language (HLSL), such as a limited form of dynamic linkage in shaders to improve specialization complexity, and object-oriented programming constructs like classes and interfaces,” the company added.
The November 2008 DirectX Software Development Kit is available for download here.
The November 2008 DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer can be downloaded via this link.
DirectX End-User Runtimes (November 2008) is up for grabs here.
Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com/
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Guardian Angel has announced the release of EnGarde Secure Community 3.0.20. Included in this release are some feature enhancements to the EnGarde Secure Linux Installer and the SELinux policy, and also various bug fixes and updated packages.
Ever since its first release in 2001, EnGarde Secure Community has been one of the leading distributions involved in providing organizations with complete, secure Web functionality. Being one of the first security platforms developed from open source alone, this server-only OS provides services like DNS, database, e-mail and even e-commerce.
EnGarde has some very useful features, which enable you to:
-Enforce robust SELinux policies with ease;
-Build and maintain secure Web sites;
-Monitor Networks using advanced Intrusion Detection;
-Protect user with Web and e-mail content filtering;
-Control access to Internet resources.
This release fixes some of the bugs previously reported, among which:
-Installer thinks the disk is read only
-Does not install
-DCHP package fails to start after update
-Drivers for AMD 690G
-Domainkeys
-Typo in apache.pm
This release also brings several new packages such as:
-cups 1.3.7
-lockdev 1.0.1
-perl-Crypt-OpenSSL-Bignum 0.04
-perl-Crypt-OpenSSL-RSA 0.25
-perl-Crypt-OpenSSL-Random 0.04
-perl-Digest-SHA 5.47
-perl-Mail-DKIM 0.32
Also included are the latest stable versions of:
-ImageMagick 6.4.2
-MySQL 5.0.51b
-alpine 1.10
-apache 2.2.9
-bind 9.4.2-P1
-gdb 6.8
-iptables 1.4.1.1
-kernel 2.6.26
-openssh 5.0p1
-openssl 0.9.8h
-php5 5.2.6
-postfix 2.5.2
-samba 3.2.0
-sudo 1.6.9p17
-syslog-ng 2.0.9
-vim 7.1.330
-and many others
This release should be downloaded by all new users, but the machines already running EnGarde Linux Secure can upgrade via the Guardian Digital Secure Network WebTool module.
Source: http://news.softpedia.com
The whole week was pretty slow when it came to what everybody expected to come true, Yahoo! accepting the offer that Microsoft put on its table, so everything else kind of remained in this deal’s shade. Nevertheless, the Redmond-based company managed to keep its employees focused on their tasks at hand, so Monday, Windows Vista Service Pack 1, the apple of so many engineers’ eye, was released to manufacturing alongside Windows Server 2008.
The date for the release of SP 1 was not pinned, but it is said to come somewhere in March, while Windows Server 2008 will be available to new clients as of March the first, and Microsoft Volume Licensing customers that have an active Microsoft Software Assurance coverage, or an Enterprise Agreement, will be able to download it earlier. There will be an event to mark it, part of the joint Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 "Heroes Happen Here" launch.
The Windows Vista Service Pack 1 was expected for over one year, ever since
the official launch of the Operating System. What was broadcasted at the time as the best Windows to come so far turned out to be a bitter disappointment to some, who saw numerous vulnerabilities shipped along with the OS. Patches and updates that came afterwards managed to smooth the transition from XP to Vista in reliability and performance, but they were never enough. The wave of complaints will finally come to en end in March… hopefully.
Meanwhile, on the Yahoo! front, Google’s David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, jumped at Microsoft’s throat, claiming that the unsolicited bid would "extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet."
Tuesday was the first day of the Microsoft Office Visio conference 2008, where delegates got to take a peak at the features that are to come with the next release of Visio. Add to that a keynote addressing the company’s future vision for the product, delivered by Jeff Raikes, the President of the Microsoft Business Division, and you can see why 250 seats weren’t enough.
"The fundamental premise behind Visio is that a picture is worth a thousand words. The ability to represent data in a visually-rich way really brings information to the surface in a way you just don’t get from raw data. Visio allows users to zero in on the relevant information to get the clarity they need to drive timely, informed decision-making. This is a capability that’s becoming more and more valued by organizations amid the ever-increasing volume of data they face, and we’re certainly seeing Visio’s problem-solving capabilities pretty squarely aligned with some of the biggest growth opportunities for organizations today," Richard Wolf, General Manager told Press Pass.
Apparently, the next Visio release will attend to what users have been asking for a long time, such as a new ‘fluent’ user interface, which is very important because it allows more of the product’s functionality to be exposed. It will also smoothen the learning curve for new Visio users by being able to use the ribbon (another way Wolf called the fluent user interface) just in the same manner as they would any of the Office tools.
News that Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, called CEO Jerry Yang in order to offer his company’s help surfaced, and Microsoft suddenly started having chills running down its spine.
The middle of the week brought the best news for small businesses and their owners, as Microsoft decided to give the world a version of Microsoft Outlook 2007, complemented with Business Contact Manager on Wednesday. "Small-business owners need effective solutions for managing their customer base. […] Currently, many small and home-based businesses keep their contacts in several different places — some in Rolodexes, some in spreadsheets. We understand the importance of good customer management and are providing simple and affordable solutions to help small businesses centralize their customer information so that keeping track of customers is more effective and less time-consuming," said Takeshi Numoto, general manager of Microsoft Office 2007 at Microsoft.
The new standalone product offers all the functionality of MS Office Outlook 2007, and thus making it easy for small businesses to track their sales and market activities ‘under one roof’. It was released due to the success that the 2007 edition had, that noted nearly 2 million registered users, taking advantage of the 28 languages the product comes in.
Google decided to stop Microsoft’s attempt to take over Yahoo! by all means, so it started lobbying at Capitol Hill, figuring that it’s payback time for the time MS told on its acquisition of DoubleClick. Important people from the Mountain View-based company have highlighted just why the deal shouldn’t go through in front of the lawmakers, leaving Microsoft’s lobbying somewhere in the shade.
Privacy and security first and foremost, cried Microsoft Corp, Google, Yahoo! and IBM on Thursday, as they all joined the OpenId Foundation. They sat at the round table and each brought forth what it had to offer, namely expertise in Internet and security technology.
The point of the Foundation is to empower users with portable Internet identities, or OpenIDs, that would let people have control over the way their personal information is to be used online, not to mention that it would simplify the management of digital identities. "With this support from these new company board members, the OpenID Foundation will be able to continue to promote and protect the technology and its community moving forward. […] The community has expanded quickly since the inception of the foundation, and these companies will help bring OpenID into the mainstream markets," said Bill Washburn, executive director of the OpenID Foundation.
Yahoo decided to level the playing field in the small businesses area, and although it did not roll out a competitor to Microsoft’s Outlook 2007 doubled with the Business Contact Manager, the Sunnyvale-based company announced that they have leveled all the fees they charged for hosting the services and for the traffic they had. To top that already marvelous piece of news, an "unlimited storage" sticker was glued on its cover and it was ready to ship and skyrocket Yahoo!’s customer base.
Jerry Yang addressed a second mail to all his employees, letting them know that no decision had been taken.
Friday, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, addressed Yahoo! indirectly and let the world know that the Sunnyvale-based company’s brand will remain untouched, should they decide to accept the unsolicited bid. Many casualties are to come, due to the similarities of services both Microsoft and Yahoo! offer. Count Live Search and Windows Live Messenger are casualties of the great takeover war, because if the Yahoo! brand is prominent, there’s no way they could live together. United, under one name, and that will have Yahoo! up front.
Kevin Johnson, President, Platform & Services Division, said that "A key synergy we’ve identified in this combination is really about expanded R&D capability. It doesn’t make sense to have thousands of engineers at Yahoo working on a search index, thousands of engineers at Microsoft working on the same search index. By combining, we can have one team of people across the two companies working on the search index, and then have others continue to focus on areas where we’ve defined differentiation in search. New search verticals and expanded user experience for search."
As midday approached, a new problem emerged for Microsoft: Yahoo!’s rising shares and its own declining ones made the bid look weak, compared to the possibilities of stock holders to sell on the open market. How that turns out will be an interesting story to follow.
Source: news.softpedia.com
Myth: People with epilepsy are "epileptics."
Fact: The word "epileptic" should not be used to descrbe someone who has epilepsy, as it defines a person by one trait or problem. A label is powerful and can create a limiting and negative stereotype. It is better to refer to someone as "a person with epilepsy" or to a group of people as "people with epilepsy."
Myth: People with epilepsy are seldom brain-damaged.
Fact: Epilepsy is a disorder of brain and nerve-cell function that may or may not be associated with damage to brain structures. Brain function can be temporarily disturbed by many things, such as extreme fatigue; the use of sleeping pills, sedatives, or general anesthesia; or high fever or serious illness. "Brain damage" implies that something is permanently wrong with the brain's structure. This kind of damage may occur with severe head injury, cerebral palsy, Cerebral palsyA condition with various combinations of impaired muscle tone and strength, coordination, and intelligence.Close or stroke, or it may occur long before birth, with malformation or infection. Injuries to the brain are the cause of seizures in some people with epilepsy, but by no means all of them.
Brain injuries range from undetectable to disabling. Although brain cells usually do not regenerate, most people can make substantial recoveries. Brain damage, like epilepsy, carries a stigma, and some people may unjustly consider brain-injured patients "incompetent."
Myth: A seizure disorder is epilepsy.
Fact: Because some people fear the word "epilepsy," they use the term "seizure disorder" in an attempt to separate themselves from any association with it. However the term seizure disorder means the same thing as epilepsy. A person has epilepsy or a seizure disorder if he or she has had two or more seizures that "come out of the blue" and are not provoked—even if the problem first develops in adulthood or is known to be caused by something like a severe head injury or a tumor.
Myth: Seizures cause brain damage.
Fact: Single tonic-clonic seizures lasting less than 5-10 minutes are not known to cause brain damage or injury. However, there is evidence that more frequent and more prolonged tonic-clonic seizures may in some patients injure the brain. Prolonged or repetitive complex partial seizures (a type of seizure that occurs in clusters without an intervening return of consciousness) also can potentially cause long-lasting impairment of brain function.
Some people have difficulty with memory and other intellectual functions after a seizure. These problems may be caused by the aftereffects of the seizure on the brain, by the effects of seizure medicines, or both. Usually, however, these problems do not mean that the brain has been damaged by the seizure. There may be a cumulative, negative effect of many tonic-clonic or complex partial seizures on brain function, but this effect appears to be rare.
Myth: People with epilepsy are usually cognitively challenged.
Fact: People with epilepsy usually are not intellectually challenged. Many people mistakenly believe that people with epilepsy are also intellectually or developmentally challenged. In the large majority of situations, this is not true. Like any other group of people, people with epilepsy have different intellectual abilities. Some are brilliant and some score below average on intelligence tests, but most are somewhere in the middle. They have normal intelligence and lead productive lives. Some people, however, may have epilepsy associated with brain injuries that may cause other neurological difficulties that affects their thinking, remembering, or other cognitive CognitivePertaining to the mental processes of perceiving, thinking, and remembering; used loosely to refer to intellectual functions as opposed to physical functions.Closeabilities. The cognitive problems may be the only problem in most people. Less frequently, some people have other developmental problems that can affect the way they function and live.
Myth: People with epilepsy are violent or crazy.
Fact: The belief that people with epilepsy are violent is an unfortunate image that is both wrong and destructive. People with epilepsy have no greater tendency toward severe irritability and aggressive behaviors than do other people.
Many features of seizures and their immediate aftereffects can be easily misunderstood as "crazy" or "violent" behavior. Unfortunately, police officers and even medical personnel may confuse seizure-related behaviors with other problems. However, these behaviors merely represent semiconscious or confused actions resulting from the seizure. During seizures, some people may not respond to questions, may speak gibberish, undress, repeat a word or phrase, crumple important papers, or may appear frightened and scream. Some are confused immediately after a seizure, and if they are restrained or prevented from moving about, they can become agitated and combative. Some people are able to respond to questions and carry on a conversation fairly well, but several hours later they cannot remember the conversation at all.
Myth: People with epilepsy are mentally ill.
Fact: Epilepsy is not the same as mental illness and in fact, the majority of people with seizures do not develop mental health problems. Yet recent research is showing that problems with mood, such as anxiety and depression, may be seen more frequently than previously thought. The causes are not always known. In some people, the cause and location of the seizures may affect certain brain areas and contribute to mood problems. In others, side effects of treatments and the challenges of living with epilepsy may affect a person's feelings and behavior. If these problems occur, a variety of treatments are available.
Myth: Epilepsy is necessarily inherited.
Fact: Most cases of epilepsy are not inherited, although some types are genetically transmitted (that is, passed on through the family). Most of these types are easily controlled with seizure medicines.
Myth: Epilepsy is a life-long disorder.
Fact: Generally, people with epilepsy have seizures and require medication for only a small portion of their lives. About 60 % of people who develop seizures have epilepsy that can be easily controlled and is likely to remit or go away. However, about 25 % may develop difficult to control seizures and likely will require lifelong treatment. More than half of childhood forms of epilepsy are outgrown by adulthood. With many forms of epilepsy in children and adults, when the person has been free of seizures for 1 to 3 years, medications can often be slowly withdrawn and discontinued under a doctor's supervision.
Myth: Epilepsy is a curse.
Fact: Epilepsy has nothing to do with curses, possession, or other supernatural processes, such as punishment for past sins. Like asthma, diabetes, and high blood pressure, epilepsy is a medical problem.
Myth: Epilepsy should be a barrier to success.
Fact: Epilepsy is perfectly compatible with a normal, happy, and full life. The person's quality of life, however, may be affected by the frequency and severity of the seizures, the effects of medications, reactions of onlookers to seizures, and other disorders that are often associated with or caused by epilepsy.
Some types of epilepsy are harder to control than others. Living successfully with epilepsy requires a positive outlook, a supportive environment, and good medical care. Coping with the reaction of other people to the disorder can be the most difficult part of living with epilepsy.
Acquiring a positive outlook may be easier said than done, especially for those who have grown up with insecurity and fear. Instilling a strong sense of self-esteem in children is important. Many children with long-term, ongoingic illnesses—not only epilepsy but also disorders such as asthma or diabetes—have low self-esteem. This may be caused in part by the reactions of others and in part by parental concern that fosters dependence and insecurity. Children develop strong self-esteem and independence through praise for their accomplishments and emphasis on their potential abilities.
Famous people with epilepsy include Julius Caesar, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Tchaikovsky, Van Gogh, Dostoyevski, Dickens, Dante, da Vinci, Mozart and Alfred Nobel.
source: epilepsy.com
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