Monday, January 30, 2012

Firefox 10 FTW!

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The Firefox 10 (beta) is here!

These are the updates…

Excerpt from PCMAG….”The update pertains to the desktop formats—Windows, Mac, and Linux—and the mobile edition, for Android. For those who never upgraded to Firefox 4, version 3.6 will also be updated to version 3.6.9, which only adds security and stability fixes (though 3.6.9 is expected to be retired this April).”

And it is a silent update (like chrome).

But if you don’t wanna wait, hit it below!

PC DOWNLOAD

MAC DOWNLOAD

The update will happen today (31st Jan 2011) so it could be that it is available later during the day. Stay tuned!

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Solar Storm–The after effects!

Well, as promised, here is something really spectacular! This is a video from you tube of this awesome show of lights!

Head here for an extensive story at Space.com

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

As if Earthly Storms weren’t enough, here comes the Solar Storm!

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While you are reading this, a huge solar eruption is causing the strongest solar charge storm since 2005.

The Solar Eruption happened on Jan 22 2012. A solar eruption causes sudden release of super charged particles which are right now heading towards Earth at about 2,000 km per second!

Tip!For people having a rusty astronomy knowledge base, head here for a quick FAQ / overview of what I am talking about!

 

The experts at SpaceWeather.com is providing up to the minute updates about the same.

The current intensity of this storm is rated as “strong” or S3, meaning it could be potentially a radiation exposure for passengers in international flights. It will probably also disrupt satellite operations and degrade HF radio communications. GPS operations should continue as usual due to the location corrections and satellite homing delays. But operations like mining, refineries etc. which require live GPS coordinating could be affected.

Although this is a higher than usual radiation intensity, we should all be OK due to the magnetic field around Earth, which is actually protecting us.

So all good till 21st Dec 2012 !

A certain positive side effect of ongoing episode would certainly be stronger (read more beautiful) than normal displays of Earth’s auroras. I will post some aurora pictures as they come up here and there over the web in the natural course of time.

Update: A sample is here – Click for source and more images!

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Simply beautiful, isn't it!

For more beautiful and insightful videos go to the NASA site.

Also head over to space.com for some more updates! 

imageClick here for Gizmodo’s cover of the solar storm.

And the ABC NEWS cover is here.

TIPS: How To: Get rid of the Blinking Flash Issue on Firefox!

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Having Firefox? CHECK.

Having a flash intensive site opened right now (Like YouTube)? CHECK.

Having the flash frame blinking repeatedly (even if no video playing in You Tube)? CHECK!

Well, if you answered all the above correctly, you have my sympathies. Because this pain in the butt problem has a small solution, which is not easily googled up in results.

Anyways, assuming you are having the browser up and running, fire up the Firefox add-ons window as below -

ALT+T for TOOLS > OPTIONS > GENERAL > MANAGE ADD ONS…

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NOTE: The Geek shortcut – Ctrl + Shift + A will do the same stuff as above (you should have just the Firefox tabs open).

Ensure that you have selected the Plugins from the left options list (last option).

Scroll to the Shockwave Flash XXXXX entry, where XXXXX is your version of flash.

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Now quickly hit disable. And Enable again. Check your flickering flash page (if the above solution has worked, you will have the issue resolved immediately).

You can go ahead thank me in the comments ;-)

Monday, January 23, 2012

Facebook Shutdown on Jan. 28 2012 – Courtesy Anonymous!

The hacker group Anonymous is working on shutting down Facebook in a hack attack on Jan 28 2012! Check Update below!

The underground hacker network goes on to state "An online war has begun between Anonymous, the people and the government of the United States." It mentions that this is being done because “While SOPA and PIPA may be postponed from Congress, this doesn’t guarantee that our Internet rights will be upheld."

Check the video below -

FACEBOOK ATTACK 12 AM

The video is encouraging people to download a LOIC software (Low Orbit Ion Cannon) which is an application used block certain government related sites recently.

LOIC basically sends a request overload (over http) to the targeted servers thereby crashing them eventually. It all leads to a consolidated DOS attack on the target server.

Facebook as we all know “has at least 60,000 servers, it is still possible to bring it down” states the video.

Facebook was targeted late last year by hackers who planned to bring it down on Nov 5 2011 but thankfully no attack was carried out

After braving the recent Wikipedia blackout, we are more than ready for this!
Moreover, 28th is a Saturday & most of us would be @ home rather than wasting the company bandwidth over Facebook ;-)

If you have no idea about this group, check the below video for know WHAT IS ANONYOUS?

What is anonymous?

UPDATE: The Facebook attack call is a fake!. The Anonymous' Twitter page is updated with the information - https://twitter.com/anonops

Friday, January 20, 2012

TIP: Lost your iPhone/iPad and need serial/IMEI to file report?

Although I am NOT an apple fan-boy, and tend to stay away from apple gadgets, this tip may come in handy to all you iPhone / iPad / iPod users.

Here, I will help you retrieve the IMEI of a lost iPhone device. I used this technique recently to help one of my friends get the information for reporting in a lost iPhone.

Although I haven’t tested this for the iPad / iPod, it should (in all probability) be useful in getting the serial number for the same.

The need for the method arises if you lost a 2nd hand iDevice or you have misplaced your bill / original packing and need the phone IMEI to block your stolen iPhone (or report the loss to the local law enforcement / police and / or the network operator).

The only caveat here is that you should have used iTunes in the recent past (which as an iDevice owner, you must have!).

Follow the steps below –

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

SOPA blackout – Google to follow!

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Google has confirmed that it is joining biggies like Reddit and Wikipedia in the march against SOPA / PIPA

Refer the below links where-in the industry biggies discuss their takes on SOPA, and the blackout as it happens.

- The Verge - The SOPA blackout: Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, Google, and many others protest proposed law.

- CNET - Google To Join Anti-SOPA “Blackout Day” With Home Page Protest

- PCWORLD - Wikipedia, Craigslist, Other Sites Black out Against SOPA at Midnight

UPDATE: Google.com landing page updated with the anti SOPA/PIPA petition.

CLICK HERE to view and sign!

Setting up tomcat with Eclipse

 

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In this “How-To” feature, I will show you ‘How to setup Tomcat 6.x with Eclipse’. Eclipse is one of the most popular IDEs for Java out there. Being free and open source, it is supported actively by the Java developer community. Also helping its popularity is the N number of plugins supported by eclipse.

Tomcat is a server container of choice among many development environments and provides a small footprint to test out and develop the web based applications.

Together, these two provide a handy, fast and stable development environment exhibiting years of mature stability and ease of usage.

Hit the jump for ‘Setting up tomcat with Eclipse’.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

How To - Access Wikipedia during BLACKOUT

 

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Although we as an end-user of the internet are the ones who will take the direct hit due to the SOPA and PIPA, there may be a chance that while supportive, you may still need to access the online encyclopedia during this blackout.

The Wikipedia is now completely dark WRT its protest of SOPA and PIPA acts but you can still access the encyclopedia if you actually need to do it.

As per the Wall Street Journal,

While the free encyclopedia is planning to blackout the English version of its site on Wednesday to protest antipiracy legislation, people still will be able to access Wikipedia information via other sources.

The mobile version of Wikipedia, which draws millions of page requests a day, will remain up and running, says Jay Walsh, a spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia.

Cached versions of Wikipedia web pages, or stored versions of the site, also are likely to be available, he said, depending on the operations of the other Web companies that archive the site.

Internet companies that use an API, or special computer code, to pull in information from Wikipedia also will be able to access that information. Social networking giant Facebook Inc. has been a major user of Wikipedia content to populate some information on its pages, such as this page about sushi, for example.

“We don’t have any control over that nor would we necessarily want to, partially because the information is freely reusable,” Mr. Walsh said.

You can also hit [ESC] before the black-out page loads;

OR

Disable JavaScript in your browser. If you are using Firefox right now, get this nifty little add-on “NoScript”.

Fire up the wiki page, hit NoScript and you are on.

That said, we jointly support the populace’s movement against these acts.

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Learn about SOPA here.

Wikipedia to follow the Blackout March – SOPA and PIPA targeted.

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Wikipedia community is going forward in its decision to black out the English Wikipedia for 24 hours / worldwide This will start at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18.

Wikipedia is joining biggies like Reddit, Mozilla and Boing Boing in its march for internet freedom.

The official take is here as the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation.
The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States—the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate.

For the un-initiated, SOPA will “authorize the U.S. Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights, or of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement”

Refer the link for details of the blackout. Also, follow this link for “All The Info”
The below video tells you about all you need to know about the bad bad details of these bill, which if passed will kill the freedom of online speech.

Details about SOPA and PIPA!
 
No doubt, this rebellion is required to emulate the real cost of internet censorship.
Refer this link for showing support to this via Twitter, word-press users can do this.

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Monday, January 16, 2012

The touch-screen window! Now how cool is that!

Other than showcasing of the reporter’s obvious disregard of rules (that is a DO NOT TOUCH sign, lady!) this video will redefine the meaning of awesome!

Mobile Nation’s Ashley Esqueda Samsung Smart Window Demo

The best thing stunt is when it turns into virtual blinds. Wow!

This remarkable gadget was one of the most techno-awesome gadget @ the CES 2012 (Consumer Electronics Show)

This is  a smart window from Samsung. (Click the link for more information). It is a one-way window oozing a cool touchscreen display which is capable to perform anything doable by a tablet and more!

Also see below for the Samsung’s Official CES 2012 Smart Window Demo:

Samsung’s Official CES 2012 Smart Window Demo

Watch the video and get ready to experience minority report, first hand!

Friday, January 13, 2012

Top Windows Annoyances: Drag Drop fail!!

 

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Well, if you have been a dedicated windows X (substitute X with XP/2003/7/8 and so on…) user like I have been all this while (by choice or circumstance) you must have faced this issue once in a while.

You are working on something suddenly the Windows shell stops responding to your drag ‘n’ drop actions. Just.Like.That. Awesome isn't it?

Chances are, you may have been hit by some malware or something similarly obnoxious. This is a long and emotionally troubling scenario.

But before you jump your horses, the next possible thing which could correct this could be a system reboot and I am sure it’ll work after that. Yes it will.

But what if it happens to you again?

The logical next step (short of an anti-malware scan) would be closing all the open applications and all MS stable stuff. Any luck? No I suppose not! So WTF is this anyways?

If you are stuck in the XP era, try this -
regsvr32 ole32.dll
regsvr32 /i shell32.dll

But if you have been already graduated to Windows 7 32/64 bitthis won’t help.

But then, here is the beauty solution! Just follow these steps -

Press and release (hit) the escape key.

There, you just did it, and now it works!

Just what the hell happened? But it works now.

So now you know how to fix it: Press ‘ESC’!

Incase this ESC trick is now up-to your standard or does nothing, try pressing the ALT / CTRL AND Windows Key buttons several times You can also have a stuck keyboard syndrome! this should solve it though.

I would be covering this small tit-bit in Experts Exchange soon, Stay tuned for the same!

I couldn’t help adding this from the yester-years product promotion exercise!

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Ha! So much for 2012! Not much change, it still breaks often!

Imagine THAT MICRO$OFT!!

How to clean those expensive gadgets effectively!

 

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We all know, regular usage of our favorite gadgets leads to a build of muck and grease, no matter how much care we exercise.

As you use that personal laptop, and the related accessories, the build up of dirt and other annoyances leads to hidden wear and tear too.

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So instead of checking that black deposit on you mouse’s feet and cursing, head to this great post at lifehacker which tells you How to Properly Clean All Your Gadgets Without Ruining Them!

With the weekend around the corner, this could keep you well occupied, and give a fresh new appearance boost to your favorite gadgets as well!

Do read it before you do this …

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Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Lost World discovered!

Well, this is an interesting find considering we are just starting in 2012!

Scientists from the Oxford & Southampton Universities and the National Oceanography Centre (with British Antarctic Survey) have discovered a "lost world" under Antarctica.

This lost world is supposedly teeming with hitherto unknown species.

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“For the first time researchers, using a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), have been able to explore the East Scotia Ridge deep beneath the Southern Ocean where hydrothermal vents, including ‘black smokers’ reaching temperatures of up to 382 degrees Celsius, create a unique environment lacking sunlight but rich in certain chemicals.”

Hit the link for Oxford’s detailed cover of the story. So much excitement for Captain Nemo!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

ClockworkMod APP for Android Phone tethering + No Root Required!

Now that we are all finally sober, here is some news that would cheer up android users using non-rooted devices!

So what’s new? Well, now you can actually go ahead and enjoy tethering on your un-rooted android!

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And, if you are still wondering what the hell is tethering, I suggest this primer.

The premise is that most tethering apps either require root access to work or are totally $$$. The ClockworkMod Tether is a FREE and un-rooted Android phone friendly APP which is very simple to use (like plug and play!)

For the exact steps and how-to, I suggest you go here right-away!

Happy tethering!