If Black Friday wasn't enough for you, you're in luck. Cyber Monday, which occurs Nov. 30 this year, brings a new round of dirt-cheap discounts. What's the distinction between these two marketing gimmicks? Well, Black Friday, the much-hyped start of the gift-buying season, came first. Originally a brick-and-mortar happening the day after Thanksgiving, BF has mutated into a November-long orgy of screaming buys. It has since moved online too;
The holiday season is here, as are the accompanying parties and celebratory events. If you're all gussied up, you might as well bring a camera like Sony's fashion-conscious, 10.2-megapixel Cyber-shot DSC TX1 ($380 as of 11/23/2009), a touchscreen camera that lets you party instead of fussing with camera settings.
Are you in the market for a laptop or netbook this holiday season? Then check out the hot deals below. I've scoured the Web looking for the best Black Friday laptop and netbook deals priced less than $400. I've found offers from many major retailers, as well as some handy tips to help you map out this year's shopping strategy.
Have you already tried Chrome OS using a virtual machine, and were less than impressed? Well now you can get a feel for how Google's Web-centric operating system will run natively on your machine. The folks over at Engadget were able to boot Chromium OS -- the open source version of what will become Chrome OS -- off of a USB stick on a Dell Vostro A90 netbook. The USB bootable disc is based on the Chromium OS build of Twitter user Hexxeh, who set up a Web site where you can view all the instructions you need for getting your bootable USB up and running.
Google will finally take the wrapper off its highly-anticipated Chrome operating system during a presentation at Google HQ on Thursday. The event will include a complete overview of the product featuring a Chrome OS demonstration and Q&A session. Sundar Pichai, Google's vice president of product management and Matthew Papakipos, Google engineering director for Google Chrome OS, will speak at the event, according to TechCrunch.
Nokia spokespeople are quick to correct you if you slip and call the Booklet 3G a netbook. Well, let's see: It has a tiny, clamshell, laptop-like design. It has meager specs (1GB of RAM, Intel's Z530 1.6-GHz Atom CPU, and a 4200-rpm 120GB hard drive). It has a 10.1-inch screen. Last time I checked, that was pretty much the definition of a netbook. The Booklet 3G just happens to be a reasonably well-constructed model with a focus on being 3G wireless-ready. But are you willing to shell out $599, sans contract (price as of 11/13/09), for Nokia's maiden effort in the netbook market (or $299 subsidized through an AT&T data plan)?
YouTube says it will start supporting 1080p high-definition video in full resolution starting next week. The Google-owned video-sharing site will add support for viewing videos in 720p or 1080p resolutions, depending on the resolution of the original source.
bend it to your will? No problem. We've got plenty of tips, hacks and secrets to keep you busy for a long time, including automatically opening Windows Explorer to a folder of your choice, speeding up taskbar thumbnails, finding hidden desktop themes, forcing User Account Control to act the way you'd like, keeping your Explorer searches secret from others, and more. 
Demon's Souls is hard. Harder than sailing through Nintendo's Punch-Out!! cheat-free. Harder than solving a Rubik's Cube blindfolded. Harder than luring CBS to feature you for ranking "top Guitar Hero III player in the world." Harder than scoring a fabled 3,333,360 points in Pac-Man…
Windows 7 users got a nice surprise on Tuesday when Microsoft released its first set of security patches since unveiling the new operating system last month. Of the 15 bugs patched, none affected Windows 7.
When Microsoft launched Windows 7, it was billed as the company's most secure release ever -- the culmination of a nine-year "Trustworthy Computing" effort to shore up a product line that had been riddled with major security holes.
But does stress-tested software really matter to Microsoft's customers, seemingly besieged by more online attacks than ever before? Microsoft had years to improve Windows XP, but the Conficker worm, which began spreading last year, is now thought to have infected more than 7 million Windows machines. And for every Windows bug that gets squashed, hackers seem to find new problems in the software that runs on top of Microsoft's operating system -- Flash Player, QuickTime and Java.
"Windows 7 is definitely by far the most secure system they've shipped," said Dave Aitel, chief technology officer with Immunity, a security company that spends a lot of time finding the latest software bugs. "I guess the question that everybody is asking right now is, 'Is this enough?'"
The man behind Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative, Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie, says the industry still has work to do. "We've made huge progress with respect to security around the core OS technology in the Windows PC," he said in a recent interview. "But as we did that and the 'Net became more prevalent, the bad guys continued to evolve their attacks."
This is Microsoft's conundrum. Windows may be safer, but cyber-criminals still have plenty of other places to attack. And when you can hit hundreds of millions of users with a single attack, why change the game plan? So most of the worst attacks today still target PCs running Windows, whether the OS itself is secure or not.
Take spear-phishing. Attackers are getting so good at sending these highly customized e-mail messages, complete with malicious attachments, that the underlying security of Windows is almost irrelevant.
"The problem with the targeted attacks is that there's so much money that they can actually trump the security," said Alan Paller, director of research for the SANS Institute, a security training company. "The amount of money that governments and large industrial crime groups have to spend is enough to trump any of the defenses we have."
In a report released last month for a congressional advisory panel, Northrop Grumman analysts detailed exactly how this happens. Looking at known attacks, the report found that targets are carefully selected, and then sent very believable e-mails with maliciously encoded attachments that exploit bugs in a product such as Adobe Reader -- something that's outside of Microsoft's control. The victim opens the .pdf and suddenly attackers have a foothold on the network.
Microsoft customers like Paul Melson think there will be much broader enterprise adoption of Windows 7 than there was with Vista, which was largely ignored by corporate users. But while Microsoft has its own house in order, security is still a problem on the Windows platform, according to Melson, a manager of information security with Priority Health.
"As long as third-party patching continues to be a challenge, client security will continue to be at the forefront of information security defense and incident response," he said via e-mail. "Windows 7 won't significantly reduce client-side attacks that lead to compromises, but I don't think that Microsoft should bear the burden for it, either."
Microsoft thinks it can go a long way toward solving this type of problem by improving the way people identify each other on the Internet. For the past few years it has promoted an idea it calls "end-to-end" trust, saying it wants to develop better identification mechanisms for people, computers and software on the Internet.
Microsoft has taken its first step in this direction with its Windows CardSpace identity management software. It could help give people a better sense of who they're really dealing with on the Internet, but whether the rest of the industry will buy into this vision remains to be seen.
"This is the next phase in the battle for trustworthy computing and that is still getting ramped up," Mundie said. "Clearly there's always more to do."
Activision Blizzard will make a $1 million donation to unemployed military vets through their Call of Duty Endowment (CODE,) a charity foundation intended to help veterans find gainful employment.According to a Washington Post article published yesterday, the CODE (which coincidentally makes its first donation concurrently with the Modern Warfare 2 release) is meant to support organizations which train veterans to operate in a profit-driven industry after years of public service. A 2008 Veteran's Affairs study cited by the Post claims that veterans are more comfortable working in public positions and have difficulty adjusting to a career in private industry, in part because "service members perform their duties within tightly defined skill sets and are not working towards creating a profit during their military tenure."
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick bemoans the disproportionate unemployment rate among veterans, claiming that society does not do enough to support our armed forces when they retire from active duty. "The joblessness rate that [veterans] should have should be far less than the national average, not more," said Kotick. "How do you expect people to actually join the military if when they leave the military they can't integrate back into the free market they're supposed to be protecting?"
Honest or not, statistics gathered by public and private researchers support Kotick's concern. U.S. unemployment rates finally breached 10 percent this month (the first time since 1983,) yet in 2008 more than 18 percent of recent veterans (1-3 years since discharge) were unemployed. That's almost double the national average, and organizations like CODE intend to assist government aid programs by giving veterans the training and connections they need to start a new career. To that end CODE is funneling $125,000 to help the Paralyzed Veterans of America build a vocational rehab center.
Activision has a history of associating with the U.S. military (the publisher regularly makes donations of games and consoles to service members through the USO) and now they've called on those connections to bring a number of high-profile military leaders out of retirement to join CODE's Board of Directors, including Army General James Marks. Activision's glamorization of modern warfare may be controversial, but it's refreshing to see a games publisher written up in a national newspaper for something other than sex, blood or violence.
A group calling itself "Control Your Info" appears to have taken control of several dozen Facebook groups, inserting its own logo and stating "Hello, we hereby announce that we have officially hijacked your Facebook group."With a link back to a site, the apparent members -- using the names "Bella Roregit," "Burstin Woltan" and "Janis Roukkos" -- began leaving their mark on various Facebook groups intended for topics that include entertainment, business and sports. The Control Your Info statements declared: "This means we control a certain part of the information about you in Facebook. If we wanted, we could make you appear in a bad way which could damage you severely."
According to the Control Your Info Web site, the group's mission is to bring attention to security weaknesses in social media.
"Social media has become a natural part of most people's daily lives. Unfortunately, the security aspects of social media have been more or less neglected." Control Your Info did not immediately respond to a request for comment about its activities.
Facebook, however, has issued a statement about the incident that says, "There has been no hijacking and there is no confidential information at risk. The groups in question have been abandoned by their previous owners, which means any group member has the option to make themselves an administrator in order to continue communication to the group. Group administrators have no access to private user information and group members can leave a group at any time. For small groups, administrators can simply edit a group name or info, moderate discussion and message group members. The names of large groups cannot be changed nor can anyone message all members. In the rare instances when we find a group has been changed inappropriately, we will disable the group, which is the action we plan for these groups."
Some users in the groups affected by the Control Your Info takeover were obviously displeased about the turn of events and scornful of Control Your info's explanation about how it's making a point about security by taking control.
"I have an idea, why don't I teach you about traffic safety by running you over with my car? wrote one irate Facebook user in a group that had been commandeered by Control Your Info. "Is that how it works?
Michael Sutton, vice president of security research at zScaler, said he doesn't think the Control Your Info takeovers constitute a major security concern. That's because the person who creates a group of this sort on Facebook is by default the administrator, and when this individual decides to abandon that by de-listing as the admin, anyone else in the group can step in to promote themselves be the administrator. That's the way Facebook designed this type of group and is clear about it, though other types of Facebook groups, such as closed ones, have different security procedures. In that case, the Control Your Info people simply did a search to discover the type of Facebook groups that had the administrator position abandoned, and stepped in with their dramatic hijacking routine. "This is really making a mountain out of a molehill," he said.
These days, 4.3-inch-diasgonal screens are the standard size on dedicated GPS navigation devices; but for some drivers, that size is still too small.In response, most of the top-tier GPS manufacturers, have introduced models with bigger screens--anywhere from 4.7 to 5.2 inches. TomTom's two offerings, the XXL 540S and the XXL 530S, have 5-inch screens. I recently took the XXL 540S for a test drive.The XXL 540S ($300, as of November 4, 2009), the $200 TomTom One 140S, and the $250 TomTom XL 340S share a virtually identical feature set. For its part, the $280 XXL 530s lacks a lane guidance feature and maps of Mexico, and has a smaller points-of-interest (POI) database.
The $50 premium that the XXL 540S commands over the XL 340S may sound steep when you consider that you're getting a screen diagonal that's only 0.7 inch longer; but that works out to 33 percent more display real estate, and it's a welcome addition. The XXL 540S has the same easy-to-use interface and menu system that virtually all other TomTom products do, but it's easier to see on a bigger screen.
Tapping anywhere on the map view takes you to the main menu with two screens of options, including 'Navigate to', 'Help me', 'Change Preferences', 'Map Corrections', and route/itinerary planning. The 540S supports multisegment routing, so you can plan a trip with multiple intermediate waypoints. The 'Help me' Menu gives you options for driving, phoning, or walking to help; provides you with your exact location; and includes a basic first-aid guide.
You have a full range of "navigate to" options including addresses, POIs, favorites, home, recent destinations, a point on map, your previous stop, and latitude/longitude coordinates. The 540S includes a generous 7 million POI database that you can search by category or by name. You can specify searches limited to destinations near your location, in a city, or near your home, or (if you have an active route) POIs along your route or near a specified destination.
Like most TomTom products, the XXL 540S comes with IQ Routes, which can calculate routes and estimate times of arrival based on historical traffic data rather than on speed limits. For example, a trip from New Jersey to Manhattan takes longer during weekday rush-hour traffic than on a weekend or at midday. The XXL 540S takes such variability into account in generating recommended routes. And even without a live traffic receiver, its travel-time estimates are pretty accurate.
The test routes I generated were the ones that I would normally take--a good sign. After devising a route, the 540S provides excellent options including listing directions turn-by-turn, displaying maneuvers as images, showing a route summary, or demonstrating the trip. Initial route calculation for longer trips took somewhat slower than on many competing devices, but recalculation after a missed turn was snappy. Satellite acquisition times, following downloads of quick-fix data, were almost instantaneous. The device's audio feature pronounced street names clearly and at an appropriate level (volume is linked to the vehicle speed).
You can customize the status bar on the map view with the data you'd like to see. I updated my review unit to show remaining time, remaining distance, arrival time, vehicle speed, vehicle direction, lane guidance, speed limit, and compass. For a less cluttered screen, you can deselect as many options as you like.
The XXL 540S lacks some features (such as a Bluetooth phone interface, a multimedia player, and built-in live traffic) that you might expect on a premium-priced GPS device; TomTom saves those features for its high-end Go series of products. Nevertheless, the XXL 540S is upgradable to live traffic if you buy an optional RDS-TMC traffic receiver for $60; that price includes a year's subscription to traffic data, after which thedata costs $60 per year.
I plugged in the optional traffic receiver, and the XXL 540S recognized it and immediately started downloading traffic information. On my road tests with the traffic receiver attached, I received notices about delays along my route, but the XXL 540S assured me that I was still on the fastest route.
Using the free, downloadable TomTom Home application (available for PC or Mac), you can keep your 540S up-to-date with the latest firmware release, GPS quick-fix data, and community-based map updates, and you can purchase additional voices as well as 12 months of map updates. Map Share technology lets you update road closures, name changes, street direction changes and POIs. You can choose to share your updates with the TomTom community, and you can update your device from the community-supplied data.
I've tested and reviewed other TomTom units in the past and liked the company's standard interface; but for me, the 5-inch screen makes the XXL 540S a winner.
A number of issues can slow down a once fast PC. Here are some of the most common.
An overloaded and fragmented hard drive. If your drive is too full (more than about 80 percent), or too fragmented (the two often go together), it could be slowing down your PC, especially if you don't have much RAM.
Defragging is the easiest solution, so you should try that first. To defrag in XP, select Start, then My Computer. Right-click your C: drive and select Properties. Click the Tools tab, then Defragment Now. Vista defrags automatically--or at least it does so in theory. See Vista Defrag Problems for details. Or you can go with a third-party defragger. Forum regular Flashorn recommends the free MyDefrag, which looked pretty good when I checked it out.
If your drive is getting full and defragging doesn't help, you may have to make hard decisions about what you can delete or off-loaded to an external drive. Or you could replace the drive with a larger one.
Avoid new programs. Software has a way of cancelling out Moore's Law--as hardware gets faster, software gets slower. (I attended a programming conference once where Bill Gates advised programmers to write for the most powerful PC currently available, because that would match a normal PC when their product was released.) So if you keep buying the latest office suite or photo editor, performance will suffer.
Watch your security software. You can avoid upgrading Office and Photoshop, but you have to keep your security software up to date or you risk infection. Major security suites like Norton and McAfee use a lot of resources, and keep using more with each major upgrade. They can seriously slow down an older PC. Consider switching to smaller, sleeker (and often free) alternatives.
Reduce the autoloaders. Your security programs probably aren't the only ones that load automatically each time you boot and stay in memory, although they may be the only ones that should. Any number of programs you've installed may have inserted a piece of themselves into Windows' Startup list, and could thus be slowing you down.
And remember, when it comes to upgrading your hardware, adding RAM is relatively cheap and usually very effective.
If you're still thinking about stepping to Windows 7, but are appalled by the usual pricing, you might want to check out some special deals now available from Microsoft and some of its retail partners. Each of these offers comes with some catches, though.I first spotted a mention of Windows 7 discounts in Kim Komando's CyberSpeak column in USA Today. ZDNet's Ed Bott dives down into a lot of details.
In one deal, the Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Family Pack, you can get up to 58 percent off if you have two or more PCs at home and want to upgrade them. The package of two DVDs includes one copy each of the 32- and 64-bit Windows Home Premium upgrade installation media, with a single activation key good for activation on up to three PCs. Pricing is $149.99 from The Microsoft Store, but you might be able to buy the pack for less elsewhere online.
In another offer, when you buy a new PC running Windows 7, you can get a second copy of Windows 7 for use with another PC at a price break of up to 50 percent. In addition to The Microsoft Store, participating retailers include Tiger Direct, Newegg.com, Staples, Office Depot, Best Buy, Radio Shack, Amazon, Walmart, Office Depot, Costco, and Buy.com.
A third deal, known as the Anytime Upgrade, is for someone who already has a Windows 7 PC, but wants to upgrade to another edition of the new OS, With the Anytime Upgrade, you can move from the Windows 7 Home Premium Edition to Win 7 Professional for $89.95 direct from Microsoft. In comparison, a Windows 7 Professional retail upgrade would cost you $199.99, for example.
But what if you have a single older PC and you want to upgrade it to Windows 7? As reported in Computerworld, you can buy an OEM or "system builder" edition of Windows 7 for slightly less than Microsoft's upgrade edition through an online retailer such as Tiger Direct or Newegg. You'll get a full license with the OEM edition, but with several stipulations. The OEM edition comes without customer support, it can only be used for a clean install, and the license bans users from transferring the OS from one PC to another.
Exposé, a part of Mac OS X since 2003, learns some new tricks in Snow Leopard. Most notably, you can now click and hold the Dock icon for any open app in order to view all open windows for that app. This feature now extends to minimized windows--whereas in previous versions of OS X, Exposé ignored any windows that you sent to the Dock. In Snow Leopard, a thumbnail in Exposé represents each of these windows.
Also, Snow Leopard now arranges windows in a grid when you view them in Exposé. Previously, windows seemed to scale down in a haphazard fashion. I actually prefer the old method of handling Exposé: With the new Exposé arrangement, I find that all of the windows end up about the same size, which makes finding what I’m looking for more difficult, but this issue is very much a matter of personal preference.
Aero Peek
Windows 7 brings a new window management tool to the table, too. Called Aero Peek, this feature helps you see the window you want to jump to next. To use Aero Peek, click the taskbar icon for the app associated with the window you’re looking for, and then mouse over the thumbnails. All other windows will go transparent, leaving only the window you mouse over visible.
Clearing the Desktop
The most useful aspect of Aero Peek is its desktop peek feature. If you want to take a quick look at the desktop without hiding all of your windows, simply move your mouse pointer to the lower-right corner of the taskbar; at once, all windows will turn transparent. Click the lower-right corner of the taskbar to hide all open windows and see the desktop; click again to get back to work. This option is roughly equivalent to the Show Desktop feature in OS X's Exposé, which moves all windows off your screen with a keystroke (or with a flick of the mouse, if you have set a hot-corner for Exposé).
Both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are solid updates to their respective operating systems, but I can't say that either one will persuade many users of the competing OS to cross to the other side. If you're perfectly happy with Windows, Snow Leopard probably won't make you lust for a Mac. Likewise, if you're a Mac user and weren't considering switching to Windows before, Windows 7 is unlikely to change your mind.
This is shaping up to be the autumn of new operating systems. The latest version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, ships to customers this Friday. Windows 7, the follow-up to the much-maligned Windows Vista, hits store shelves in late October. Neither operating system will drastically change the way you work.
Windows 7 builds on Windows Vista, smoothing out Vista’s rough spots and bringing a number of new end-user features (such as the reworked taskbar) to the table. Meanwhile, with Snow Leopard, Apple focuses on new under-the-hood technologies that offer subtle refinements and fixes. Still, there is plenty to say about how Apple’s next big cat and Microsoft’s lucky number stack up against each other.
Managing Your Files
Snow Leopard’s Finder and Windows 7’s Explorer have strikingly similar interfaces, with quick-search fields in the upper-right corner, path bars (OS X’s is optional and can be switched on in the View menu), and sidebars that provide easy access to various common locations on your computer.
Smart Folders
Nothing in Snow Leopard directly compares with Windows' libraries. The closest OS X feature is saved searches (known as Smart Folders), but a saved search pulls together files based on search criteria, not location. You can’t, for example, create a smart folder that contains all of the photos from two particular folders. On the other hand, you can't combine Windows 7 libraries with saved search results.
Windows 7, of course, has a smart folder feature as well.
Ridicuously Big Icons
Both Snow Leopard and Windows 7 permit a large icon view. Windows 7 supports icons in sizes up to 256 by 256 pixels. Snow Leopard one-ups Windows 7, though: The Finder can display icons in sizes up to a seemingly absurd 512 by 512 pixels (512-pixel icons were around in 10.5, but the Finder couldn't take advantage of them outside the Quick Look and Cover Flow views).
Quick Access via the Dock or Taskbar
Some OS X apps can use the Dock’s pop-up menus to display application-specific information and to provide easy access to frequently used commands. For example, if you right-click iTunes’ Dock icon in Snow Leopard, you’ll get a menu that you can use to see what’s playing, to play or pause your music, to assign a rating to the current song, and to control other simple iTunes commands.
With Windows 7’s retooled taskbar, Microsoft introduces a similar feature called jump lists. Jump lists not only provide access to common commands (Windows Media Player‘s jump list has a Play command, for example), they also let you “pin” items to a specific list. For example, you can pin commonly used folders to the Windows Explorer jump list and important documents to the WordPad jump list.
(To be continued..)
Seinfeld episodes notwithstanding, buying a domain name may be easy, but managing the domain and making smart technology decisions is another story. Let's take a look at the steps and decisions involved in setting up Web and e-mail hosting accounts for your a domain.First some basics. Getting a new domain is the purview of a domain registrar, someone like GoDaddy.com, Register.com, or even Network Solutions. The registrar handles the paperwork details and bills you once a year for taking care of them. Each registrar handles the various Domain Name System records that tell everyone on the Internet where to find your Web, e-mail, and other servers. The screen shot at right shows a listing of the records for my domain WebInformant.tv.
As the entries on the list indicate, I have set up a separate mailing list server called 'list', Google hosts my e-mail (that's what the MX records are for), and my Web site is located at the IP address of 97.74.144.98.
You can use your registrar's hosting services for both Web and e-mail services if you wish. This approach is quite convenient, but what happens if you become dissatisfied with your registrar's service and want to switch to a new provider? Relocating your site is easier if your registrar isn't also youre host.
The Web hosting part of the equation presents you with three basic options: using a Web-based public site provider (free or nearly so); using a virtual private server as your host, running some Windows or Linux Web server software ($50 to $500 a year); or using a managed services provider ($200 a month or more). Cost isn't the only factor: The free public providers, such as Typepad.com, Wordpress.com, Blogger.com, and Livejournal.com, are easy to set up and maintain but don't offer much flexibility with page templates and designs. On the positive side, is these providers simplify the tasks of updating your site and drawing traffic to it. With one of them, you won't require the services of a graphic Web designer to build a fairly attractive site.
If you're interested in extremely low-cost hosting, check out my blog post "Cheap choices for Web hosting," which compares the services offered by Microsoft's Office Live Small Business and by Weebly. Obviously, you forfeit some control over your site's final appearance; but if you want to launch a Web presence quickly, these are both good places to start.
Another option is to use WordPress.com as your main Web site. If you go this route, you must perform an additional step: Have your registrar forward your domain to your Wordpress.com site, or have WordPress perform "domain mapping" for you (under this arrangement, WordPress takes control over the domain and redirects traffic accordingly). I have used both methods. Forwarding your domain from your registrar doesn't cost anything, but the domain mapping method is perhaps more professional; WordPress charges $10 (technically, $9.97) a year for the latter service. On its site, WordPress provides lots of additional detailed information on domain mapping.
WordPress has an active community of developers and thousands of plug-ins designed to extend the service's functionality. To deploy them, however, you need to run WordPress's software on your own virtual server at a separate hosting provider. The downside to self-hosted WordPress sites is that their support for streaming video is less capable than is the support at WordPress.com-hosted sites. That difference becomes especially significant if you intend for your site to house lots of video content.
Your next decision involves selecting a virtual private or managed server for your site. Many companies offer server space; for help in sorting them out, visit Hosting Review, a site that lets you easily compare plans and prices. Factors to consider (besides how much the service costs) include how much storage you can buy for your plan, whether you have to pay extra for e-mail and applications such as databases, and whether telephone support is included and available during off-hours or limited to workdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Should you run your Web site on Windows or on Linux? The differences aren't huge; and if you're running self-hosted WordPress, I recommend using Linux because you'll never have to deal with the raw Linux command line. But if you want to work with Microsoft tools in building and managing your site, use Windows.
Whichever provider you choose, you'll end up using its Web-based control panel to manage the server and any related programs running on it. The screenshot at left shows what GoDaddy's control panel look like.
The GoDaddy control panel includes some simple buttons for transferring files to your server, managing common tasks and applications, logging in via a secure terminal session (SSH), and setting up e-mail accounts. Each hosting provider uses a slightly different layout for these icons and tasks, and unfortunately you can't evaluate them in any depth before purchasing your hosting contract.
Next, you must decide where to host your e-mail program for your domain. You can use your registrar to host your e-mail--but if you do and you want to switch registrars down the road, you'll run into the same same complications that arise if with regard to Web hosting. Another option is to use the same provider that runs your Web site; providers usually offer special deals to make this affordable.
Or you can use Google for your e-mail domain, as I do. Google's e-mail hosting uses the same Webmail interface as Gmail, or you can set it up to work with your Outlook or other desktop e-mail client.
Google has two different plans: a free one (called Google Apps Standard Edition) that's good for up to 50 users and provides up to 7 GB of storage each, and a high-end version (called Google Apps Premier Edition) that costs $50 per user per year and sets aside up to 25GB of storage per user. Nonprofit and educational institutions can get Google Apps Premier Edition for free. The page where you sign up for the standard edition is easy to overlook. The process for subscribing to the premier edition starts on a different page.
As part of this process, you'll need to set up the Cname (aliases) DNS record at your registrar, instructing the registrar to start sending e-mail to Google to handle. The Google Apps Help page has more information about this process. If you decide to use Wordpress.com domain mapping and Google Apps e-mail hosting, consult WordPress Support's discussion of "Custom Email with Google Apps."
Finally, what should you do about e-mail lists? I talk about this issue in my article "Do E-mail Marketing Right." Overall, I prefer to have a specialized provider--one that runs the Linux software Mailman--host my list, rather than relying on the general e-mail hosting provider; Mailman has better tools for managing list traffic than the general e-mail providers can offer. If you're interested in finding a Mailman provider, check the Mailman Hosting Services directory.
That's it. If you followed all of the steps discussed above, you are in a position to be the master of your Internet domain, with a Web site and an e-mail server set up and running.
Thanks to online video, Web apps, social networking, and so on, the humble Web browser is being pushed to do more and to do it faster. With a few simple tweaks and tools, you can improve your browsing experience and save yourself some time in the process. Mozilla's popular Firefox browser has always been a haven for tweakers thanks to its built-in support for a wide range of extensions. But getting more out of this open source browser goes beyond installing a plug-in or two. Follow these tips and tricks to really set that fox on fire!
Note: Some of the following tips are applied via the detailed 'about:config' interface. But be careful, as a few false moves could cause Firefox to act up.
It's easy to speed up Firefox, and there are numerous approaches you can take. Simple things to get you started include removing unused search engines and deleting old, broken, or duplicate bookmarks that you may have saved. Doing these simple actions regularly will give you a slight speed increase, and will decrease Firefox's shutdown time.
Faster Flash
This advanced tip can allow for a generally faster experience, and makes watching Flash videos within Firefox a whole lot swifter.
Firefox automatically takes a snapshot of your browsing session every ten seconds. It does this so if Firefox crashes, you'll be able to get back to where you were quickly and easily. But when you view Flash content, this default snapshot feature can make your video pause and buffer, spoiling your viewing experience.
To fix this issue all you have to do is adjust how frequently Firefox creates session restore save points. Doing this will mean that if the browser does crash, a recently opened tab or two may get left behind, if you watch a lot of Flash video, this tweak may be a perfect compromise.
Remove the Add-on Installation Delay
When you install a new add-on within Firefox, you'll usually be greeted by a pop-up asking you to confirm whether or not you really want to install the add-on.
This usually takes a few seconds longer than you might like due to the built-in installation countdown. You can remove this potential annoyance by making the following edit:
With this change made, your add-ons will install without any delay.
Various other tips and tricks on how to speed up Firefox can be found all over the web, including this tip which claims to make your browser up to 40% faster.
There are a number of more advanced adjustments you can make to improve Firefox's overall performance:
More advanced tips and tricks like these can be found here.
Firefox makes it easy to change the way your browser looks; you can instantly give it a complete makeover.
Get the 4.0 Look
Shortly after the release of Firefox 3.5, the Mozilla Foundation released some mockups of the interface changes proposed for Firefox 4.0. If you can’t wait for Firefox 4, you can just install a theme to rock the new look. Theme creator and DeviantArt user SpewBoy has also included a handy guide on how to achieve that futuristic browser style. In fact, you can find a wide variety of Firefox themes on DeviantArt.
Icon Appeal
Changing your theme is one thing, but more often than not you will want a desktop icon to match. Thankfully there are plenty of resources online that offer countless icon choices.
These suggestions will set you on your way to getting more out of Firefox. There are thousands of available add-ons and extensions for everything from getting more done, or just making your browser look cooler.
Make the browser your own and be sure to share your own cool Firefox hacks, mods, tips, or tricks in the comments.
First, let’s scratch the much-anticipated Apple tablet off the list. While there’s little doubt that Cupertino is cooking up some sort of iPod touch-on-steroids device -- or perhaps something more sophisticated -- the latest rumors say the device won’t debut before next year.
Besides, the caption on Apple’s September invite reads: “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it.” A clue?
“I think that’s a bit of a hint that it’s not going to be a tablet,” says Michael Gartenberg, an analyst for market researcher Interpret. “This is a music event, not a tablet introduction.”
Which means an iPod-themed event. “It is September. The leaves start to turn, and that’s typically when Apple refreshes a new bumper crop of iPods,” Gartenberg adds.
So what’s coming? “I expect the iPod line up to get fully refreshed,” says IDC analyst Danielle Levitas. “I'm leaning toward an iPod Touch with a camera.”
Five possibilities to consider:
1. iPod touch with a video camera: The iPhone 3GS captures video, so why shouldn’t the iPod touch? Recent photos rounding the Web purportedly show an iPod touch prototype with a rear-facing camera. This rumor sounds very feasible.
2. iPod Nano with a still-image camera: This upgrade could be a good way to breathe new life into the standalone MP3 player market, which is on the decline and ultimately will go the way of the PDA. The Nano may lack the power and storage to handle video, but it’s a strong candidate for a simple digital cam.
3. Major upgrade of iTunes: “There will almost certainly be a new version, depending on what features Apple adds to the new crop of devices,” Gartenberg says. The question is whether the upgrade will be major or minor. Some industry watchers expect Apple to add social networking features to iTunes.
4. Apple TV update: The black sheep of Cupertino’s home entertainment ecosphere, Apple TV hasn’t exactly caught on with the masses. Levitas believes it’s time for a “refreshed home system,” which could mean an overhauled Apple TV. Might the device evolve into a gaming console? Perhaps, but one thing’s for certain: Apple needs to do a better job of explaining to consumers what the video-streaming box does—and why they should care.
5. Steve Jobs: He’s back at work and reportedly making life miserable for Apple engineers working on the tablet. So why not a few words from the CEO to rally the troops?
Any other possibilities? Let us know.
"Damn, that's small!"--my exact words after first laying eyes upon the Viliv S7. This tablet netbook is tiny. I'm talking more miniscule than the original Asus Eee PC 4G netbooks. It's practically coat-pocket size, like the Sony Vaio P. (In inches, the S7 measures 8.3 by 4.6 by 1, and it weighs 1.76 pounds.)The S7 has a surprisingly solid design with enough going for it that I'd actually consider buying one--except for the projected $800 asking price. Keep in mind that what you're about to read is an extremely opinionated hands-on. Though Viliv provided us with a production-level unit, it explains that all specs haven't been finalized yet, and that units won't be available stateside until sometime in October (Viliv is based in South Korea). Is it worth the wait?
Well, before I tell you why I'm digging this little fella, I'm going to try and talk you out of buying the S7. Bear with me. The keyboard and mouse-button layout is, in a word, insane. As one might expect, the keyboard is small. Human adult males will find it a little difficult to use without setting the machine down on a flat surface to carefully peck away. And in order to squeeze in as many keys as possible, the company has put an odd cluster of punctuation buttons in the lower right part of the keyboard in such a way that comma, colon, and quote marks aren't where you'd expect.
The temptingly small size makes you wish Viliv could trim an inch off the width. If it did, you could probably thumb-type. I have the same issue with Fujitsu's LifeBook U820 micro-size Tablet PCs. Maybe with a smaller next-gen model we can get that. But my keyboard complaints faded compared with those for the touchpad.
The mousing strike zone is parked above the keyboard. You could place two standard postage stamps side-by-side and cover up the whole area. And the left and right mouse buttons are on either side of that, making it about as comfortable as taking a stretch on the rack. In short, HP and Acer, for all those times I mocked you for the touchpads on the Mini 1000 and the original Aspire One, respectively--I take it all back. The S7 has the worst mousing area I've ever seen, hands down (or, more accurately, hands on the screen). You see, the S7's saved by a single-point 7-inch touchscreen. If it weren't for that screen, I'd have likely just chucked this thing back in the box and called it a day. (Friendly tip for the next S7: Ditch the touchpad altogether or stick with a Lenovo-like touchpoint.)
The 1024-by-600-pixel backlit screen has reasonably good viewing angles, and when you don't like the angle, you can fully swing the screen around and fold it back into a tablet. And the S7 has a good hinge: It firmly holds position. But it should lock into place at, say, a 45-degree angle. A locking position snaps the screen at 180 degrees: handy for keeping in a flat tablet mode, not so handy if you're trying to type and look at the screen during a bumpy flight. (The screen has two useful buttons near it: "Pivot" rotates the desktop and "Menu" launches the start button--perfect when you're in tablet mode.)
As for the on-screen image, the color reproduction is pretty sharp. On still images, bright blues and indigos pop out over seas of green in sample landscape shots. But that doesn't mean the on-screen text is legible; that's what you get for having a relatively "high" resolution on a 7-inch screen (go into Control Panel to change font sizes). The S7 easily handled 480-by-320 iPhone videos and Hulu standard-definition content without a hint of a stutter. So far, a surprisingly decent performer.
I say "surprisingly decent" because it packs only a 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 CPU and 1GB of RAM, so it's not exactly speedy even by netbook standards. Unfortunately, we can't give you a full comparative rundown of how well the S7 compares with other netbooks. The S7 that we received had only a 32GB solid-state drive on board. Our lab needs at least twice that much space just to install WorldBench 6 tests on a computer. We're waiting to find out what drive or drives will be in the final production units, but I can at least give results from a couple basic tests. Over several cold boots, the machine loads Windows XP Home in 43 seconds. When parked in standby, the machine is up and running within 5.3 seconds. Firefox boots in 3 seconds. In short, not bad for a tiny portable.
As for battery life, that's another question we can't fully answer just yet. Initial tests (running video and intermittent Word document manipulation) bought me a little under 5 hours of computing time. Spokespeople promise 9.5 hours, or 7 hours with just video playback.
What we can discuss are some of the more tangible features: Lining the machine, a 1.3-megapixel Webcam, plus headphone and mic jacks for all you Skypers out there. Two panel speakers alongside the screen project some seriously loud and impressive sound--from a netbook, no less. The only drawback: a slightly tinny, hollow feel to the audio. On the video side of the equation, a VGA-out comes built into the machine. Next to it, a dongle-reliant port for component video-out.
The S7 provides typical 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 capabilities. Want to embrace wireless broadband? It supports optional wireless broadband (the SIM card slot hides behind the battery) and WiMax. A spokesperson says that AT&T, Verizon, and Clearwire are "future partners in the U.S."
An SDHC slot lets you jack up storage if you want more than the standard 32GB. Now, while I was about to bash the S7 for having only two USB 2.0 ports, it does have something that makes up for any complaints on that score: A mini-USB jack. Plug in the cable between your home PC and the S7, and the netbook automatically runs a simple file manager program to transfer data between machines. It took 1 minute, 40 seconds to copy 1.1GB of video files between two computers. No speed demon, but it sure is easy enough. That small software gem is as good a reason as any to mention the rest of the stuff crammed on board the 32GB hard drive.
Besides Microsoft Office 2007 bloat, Viliv drops down the Windows Live Essentials freeware suite and a host of little bits of software you'll rarely use. A bare-bones browser and an odd-looking desktop shell are both better suited for tablet-mode browsing and use. Though a little rough around the edges, these tools tie into each other well.
Honestly, I was surprised. I expected some tech torture with the S7, but I find myself flipping up the screen and using it in odd situations: on the bus (to a couple of interested stares), at the local watering holes....and yeah, even sitting next to me at my desk. Admittedly a little imperfect, the S7 has the potential to become my digital sidekick. Tighten up the girth a little bit, and this could make a fine thumb-typing computer.
I should also mention that a couple of office fashionistas cooed when seeing its matching leather clutch carrying case. But at $800, it's pricey as netbooks go--and this one doesn't have much in the way of storage space to work with. If storage isn't a big deal, you might consider the Samsung Mondi. About half the price of the S7, this touch tablet runs Windows Mobile 6, has WiMax support, and comes with a slew of useful apps. But, like the Viliv, the small QWERTY keyboard is a pain in the ASCII. My advice on both: If you can find either one and lay hands on it before you buy, I'd recommend it.
Although it got its start by enabling people to throw virtual pies at each other and turn themselves into vampires and werewolves, the Facebook ecosystem is growing up before our very eyes.Last week, at Facebook's old offices in downtown Palo Alto, investors, media and bloggers saw what innovative startups have been building this summer on top of the Facebook platform, the main piece of technology that allows developers to program applications that work in tandem with the social network. These apps, sites and services signal a departure from the things that have typified the Facebook platform's early iteration.
These are a lot more than just games.
This summer, around 20 startups toiled away in Facebook's old offices in Palo Alto, tinkering with their products and trying to differentiate themselves from an already crowded marketplace of companies looking to build a business on the social network. The program is part of Facebook's fbFund Rev, a $10 million incubator program fueled by the social network and two venture capital firms. The goal is to breathe life into small startups to get up and going until they can obtain more seed funding from investors.
Unlike the first iteration of the Facebook platform, these next wave of apps are less reliant on running just on Facebook; they run as standalone sites or services. Many design their products to work with other social networks, too, such as Twitter.
To work with Facebook, however, they utilize Facebook Connect, a technology that enables users to log into third-party sites using their Facebook log-in and password.
Once there, the activities they perform on that site can be streamed back into Facebook and viewed by friends. As a result, in recent months, we've seen more traditional websites and services being able to tap into the Facebook platform.
While several of the startups were interesting, four stuck out for me during the presentations ( Inside Facebook listed all of them in its post from the event).
1. Thread wants to set you up on your next date. The concept, according to its founders, is simple: Friends of friends are the best people to date. Logging in with your Facebook credentials, you can see those friends and their friends, and send a message to your mutual friend to see if it might be a good fit. This startup was the darling of the lot, as it garnered $1.2 million in seed funding as a result of its work this summer.
2. Wildfire solves a problem that businesses large and small are already encountering. They have a feeling they should be running marketing campaigns on Facebook, Twitter and other large social networks, but what will that cost in terms of time, money and technological expertise?
Unlike early ventures of this sort that went for the big wins of Fortune 100 companies only, Wildfire gives companies tons of options that fits their budget. Small businesses can spend as little as $5 per campaign, while premium models range up to $250. The "white label" accounts, presumably for Coca-Cola- and McDonald's-size companies, will be much more. On Facebook in particular, the Wildfire app draws traffic to your company's pages and prompts users to share pieces of content they engaged with on your website. Using Facebook Connect, a lot of this information flows freely from Facebook and back to your original company site.
3. Sociable. Ever peruse a retail site and wonder what one of your friends would think about a product? If a site implements Sociable, you can do just that.
You can share the product with them on Facebook, and see what friends of yours think. For retailers, this represents a large opportunity to publish the buying actions of consumers back onto their friends News Feeds on Facebook. Users are prompted to "share on Facebook," however, so the question is: Will they elect to share? Time will tell, but for now, according to Nisan Gabbay, the company's CEO, Sociable expects to break even by the end of the year and is seeking $1 million in funding. Live Nation, the concert site, has begun using Sociable to help fans connect with each other before a show.
4. Run There. If nothing else, they get a mention because this type of app hits close to home for someone who runs a lot. But they deserve it on their own right for creating a better user experience from past sites with the same concept. Many sites, namely MapMyRun, have given runners, bikers and hikers the ability to map their routes on top of Google Maps or Map Quest. But MapMyRun has really failed users. If you wish to use the free version, it's loaded with ads that create horrible latency for plotting a run.
RunThere has a more stripped down, elegant design. It also features an amazing 3-D feature. With Google Earth plug-in, you can replay your run and see all the terrain you crossed. But it's not clear to me how they build a business off this idea. Ads would ruin it (like it did MapMyRun), and I'm not sure people would want to pay for this service when others will offer it for free.
