DDos Attack

It’s now on the headline of Yahoo News and all over IT sites , how the Anonymous, the hacktivist group attacked credit card websites. They used DDOs attack or denial of service.

What is DDos attack?

A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person or people to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks, credit card payment gateways, and even root nameservers. The term is generally used with regards to computer networks, but is not limited to this field, for example, it is also used in reference to CPU resource management.

WikiLeaks’ opponents in sights of ‘Anonymous’ hackers

AFP – Thursday, December 9

File picture shows an ad for MasterCard in the main office of the OTP Bank in Budapest. Anonymous, the “hacktivist” group behind cyber attacks on Visa.com, Mastercard.com and other websites, vowed to extend their campaign to anyone with an “anti-WikiLeaks agenda.”

WASHINGTON (AFP) – – Anonymous, the “hacktivist” group behind cyber attacks on Visa.com, Mastercard.com and other websites, vowed to extend their campaign to anyone with an “anti-WikiLeaks agenda.”

In an online chat with Agence France-Presse, organizers of Anonymous said thousands of volunteers were taking part in their defense of WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, whom they described as a “free-speech martyr.”

“We started off with a small amount of users (below 50),” they said. “Now, we are at around 4,000.”

“We recruit through the Internet, that means, everywhere: imageboards, forums, Facebook, Twitter… you name it, we’re using it,” they said, adding that members are drawn from “all over the world.”

Anonymous members launched their first distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attack on Saturday, taking down PayPal’s blog, ThePayPalBlog.com, for at least eight hours.

Since then, they have taken down the websites of Visa, Mastercard and the Swiss Post Office bank for severing ties to WikiLeaks and the website of the Swedish prosecutor’s office for pursuing Assange on allegations of sex crimes.

Members of Anonymous also took aim on Wednesday at the websites of US conservative standard bearer Sarah Palin and US Senator Joe Lieberman, who called for US companies to withdraw technical support for WikiLeaks.

Palin for her part described Assange, whose release of thousands of secret US diplomatic cables has sparked an international furor, as “an anti-American operative with blood on his hands.”

In the online chat with AFP, the Anonymous organizers declined to identify future cyber targets but said “anyone that has an anti-WikiLeaks agenda is within our scope of attack.”

They said the defense of WikiLeaks was an extension of “Operation Payback,” a movement which began on Internet messageboard 4Chan in September.

Operation Payback involved cyber attacks on the websites of the Motion Picture Association of America, Recording Industry Association of America and others over their vigorous copyright protection efforts.

“Operation Payback stands for free speech and no censorship, which is also what Assange is going for,” the Anonymous organizers said. “Whether we see him as a crusader or martyr, his goals are ultimately ours.

“When we think we made our point (e.g. WikiLeaks accepted as whistleblower, without fear that they will be prosecuted), we will return to fighting ‘copywrong,'” they said.

Anonymous had been announcing their moves on Twitter at @Anon_Operation but their Twitter feed was suspended late Wednesday and their “Operation Payback” page on Facebook was removed.

Sean-Paul Correll, a threat researcher at PandaLabs, the malware detection laboratory for computer security firm Panda Security, said Anonymous are “very resourceful” and he expects their activities to go beyond just DDoS attacks.

In a classic DDoS attack, a “botnet” of zombie computers, machines infected with viruses, are commanded to simultaneously visit a website, overwhelming its servers, slowing service or knocking it offline completely.

“I expect a laundry list of targets,” Correll said. “They’ll research security vulnerabilities on a website. They’ve defaced websites in the past so I expect to see all sorts of things coming in the future.”

Correll, who has been following Anonymous from what he called “Day One,” said the group “doesn’t have a central authority” or “hierarchical structure.”

“People describe it as having a kind of hive mind mentality,” he said.

BEST Android Applications

Tech Author Kevin Purdy of Lifehacker Daily posted the best Android Applications, check it out.

List of the Best Android Apps

Lots of people are picking up new Android phones these days—nearly 200,000 per day, at last count. Google’s default apps are pretty handy, but the Market has many great apps, most of them free. Here’s a look at our favorite free and cheap Android apps.

We’re using the great app search and sync service AppBrain to create a Lifehacker Pack for Android. If you install the AppBrain App Market on your Android phone and sign in through the AppBrain site (using a Google OAuth, no-password-revealed log-in), you can check off and click install multiple apps from the list, or visit the individual [AppBrain] link at the end of each app write-up to find out more and install. If you install AppBrain’s Fast Web Install, it’s actually ridiculously easy—click “Install” on AppBrain, and your apps instantly start downloading to your phone (as we previously detailed).

Like our iPhone Pack, this list is no short grocery checklist. You can skip to any of the sections from these links:

• Productivity
• Internet/Communication
• Location-Aware
• Utilities
• Media
• Photography
• Backup and Security
• Food, Shopping, and Entertainment

Productivity

Astrid:
Astrid is a simple to-do manager into which you simply start typing, add context if you want to, then save. You can create advanced filters in Astrid, sync it to your Remember the Milk account for access on the web, and, most helpfully, Astrid is an extremely tenacious beast that won’t stop reminding, beeping, and buzzing you until certain very important tasks are done. [AppBrain]

Evernote:
Evernote’s universal note app on Android is not as elegant, fast, or intuitive as Evernote on iPhone. But with the latest update, the app has gotten a lot more usable. There’s a home screen widget for quickly searching out notes or recording new text, image, or audio notes. You can send any text, image, or audio on your phone to Evernote through the “Share” menu. And with offline caching and speed improvements, Evernote offers an impressive, seamless thoughts-into-notes experience. [AppBrain]

Mint.com Personal Finance:
Even the most stalwart privacy/password protectors among Lifehacker’s staff eventually handed it all over to Mint to benefit from the great power of having all your balances, spending, budgets, and planning tools in one place. You can PIN-protect the app, of course, or go the opposite route and keep a quick-glance widget on your home screen, along with recent transactions in a folder or your searchable items. [AppBrain]

mNote:
At least some of the Lifehacker editors consider synchronized cloud-based note service Simplenote to be the Holy Grail of ubiquitous plain text capture. The mNote app is, at least, a notes app for Androids that usually don’t have one built in, with the added benefit of those notes constantly saving themselves and being easily accessible everywhere else. [AppBrain]

TripIt:
TripIt saves you from the print-outs, email searching, and airport panic sessions common to modern-day travel. Sign up for TripIt, forward your travel itineraries along (or have TripIt automatically import them from Gmail), and then you’ve got a whole master travel plan on your phone—check-in links, flight information, weather and traffic stats for your destination, and so on. It’s an essential for frequent fliers, hotel guests, and train travelers. [AppBrain]

Internet/Communication

Dolphin Browser HD:
For getting around the web, Android’s built-in Browser is compatible, capable, and fast—especially under Android 2.2. But Dolphin Browser’s got a few handy tricks up its sleeve. Gesture-based browsing, tabs on top that disappear for full-screen browsing, add-ons that can block ads and send articles to Read It Later, and quite a few other doodads worth checking out. [AppBrain]

Facebook for Android:
Until this past month, it was a shame how diminished the Facebook client looked in the shadow of its successful iPhone counterpart. But now Facebook’s Android presence is capable, good-looking, and even offers a few of its own unique perks, like a pull-up notifications shade and a front-page scroll of recent photos from friends. [AppBrain]

PDANet:
Data tethering is built into the latest builds of Android. But unless you own a Nexus One, or happened to luck into a cell carrier that’s generous with their bandwidth, you probably have to pay an extra sum every month to use your Android’s net connection with a computer. PDANet is a reliable third-party option, for Windows and Mac systems, to connect to your Android phone’s data plan via USB cable or Bluetooth. It is nothing like free ($19 for the full version), but you can use the free version as long as you’d like—it just doesn’t allow access to secure (https) sites. Pay the one-time fee, or use it in a pinch, and you’ll get why PDANet is an essential. [AppBrain, requires a desktop download]

Google Voice:
Android’s tight integration with Google Voice, the service that puts your voicemail, SMS, and phone management in the cloud, is one of its key selling points. After many revisions, Google’s Voice app now makes calling or SMS messaging with a Voice number nearly indistinguishable from a standard call, and the voicemail transcriptions and playback are just another nice bonus of the Google halo. [AppBrain]

Trillian:
Mobile IM client Trillian manages multiple chat accounts through one app, and we like the interface, too. Because it’s in beta, you might want to check out the more tested eBuddy Messenger, which offers similar multi-IM capabilities, but Trillian looks pretty darned nice to us, even in its infancy. That it sends pictures over IM, across networks, with no problems speaks quite a bit to its usefulness alone.

Twitter for Android:
Honestly, we could have gone one of a few ways with this recommendation, but Twitter seems like the best app for the average Twitter user. Other apps, like Seesmic and Twidroyd, offer all kinds of nitpick options, like choosing between old-school “RT” and the official retweet methods and supporting multiple accounts. But if you like clean looks, smooth transitions, and just an easy way to update your status, the official app is the way to go. [AppBrain]

Location-Aware

Google Maps & Navigation:
Get in your car. Press the microphone icon on your screen. Say “Navigate to Nathaniel Square, Rochester,” and after a quick ping, you’re getting turn-by-turn directions, read out loud to you. Press the Layers button, and you’ll also get banks and gas stations for necessary detours. Press the time estimate, and you’ll get alternate routes with live, color-coded traffic. The Maps app itself is really handy, too, with built-in, tilt-to-turn Street View among its neatest the-future-is-now applications. But it’s the directions, and Navigation in particular, that set Android’s location powers apart. [AppBrain]

My Tracks:
Whether you’re into bike rides, runs or walks, hiking, driving, or other feats of movement, you’ll dig how much data My Tracks can deliver. Routes get plotted out on Maps, while a Google Docs spreadsheet can be filled with mileage, elevation, timing, and all manner of notes on what you did and where. [AppBrain]

Utilities

AppBrain App Market:
Android’s Market app could be a lot better. AppBrain makes it better, faster, and more search-able, and loads it with savvier recommendations. The basic AppBrain app provides a good search and categorization for Android apps, but more importantly, the ability to sync your list of installed apps two ways to your Google-linked web account. Pick out a bunch of apps on AppBrain, and you can have them installed (or removed) all at once on your next sync. Because many veteran and enthusiastic Android users are hooked into AppBrain, the recommendations and popular app listings tend to be much better than the Market. [AppBrain App Market]

Fast Web Installer:
The Fast Web Installer app hooks into AppBrain to make the installation process instantaneous—click “Install” on an app on AppBrain’s site, and your app starts installing on your phone as soon as your eyes shift from monitor to phone. These apps made this list possible in some ways, and we highly recommend installing both to make installing everything else very easy. [AppBrain]

Astro File Manager:
You usually won’t need it, but a good file manager is handy to have when you need to install an unofficial app, send a file into a particular app, or just open a PDF. Astro lets you comb the contents of your microSD card and act on the files there, whether to move, delete, open, or otherwise tinker. [AppBrain]

Barcode Scanner:
Until the Market updates with Google’s plans to provide over-the-air, instant browser-to-phone app installation, Android enthusiasts have taken to scanning quirky barcodes, or QR codes, to quickly install an application from a blog or print magazine recommendation. To grab those QRs, you need Barcode Scanner. It also offers some basic Google search functionality, but there are better shopping apps, one covered in this list in particular. [AppBrain]

Google Chrome to Phone and Android2Cloud:
They’re two sides to the same very futuristic-feeling coin. Both require the use of Google’s Chrome browser. Chrome to Phone sends links, Maps locations, or text from Chrome right to your Android phone, while Android2Cloud does the opposite (via the Browser’s “Share” function). They save everyone a lot of typing, self-emailing, and other awkward moments by naturally linking Google products together. [AppBrain: Chrome to Phone, Android2Cloud]

Dropbox:
File-syncing app Dropbox is so good at doing so many things, but at its most basic level, it seamlessly syncs files across all your devices. On an Android phone, that means making fewer cable transfers necessary, easy installation of non-Market apps, and a way to take pictures, video, or sound recordings and have them instantly available on your desktop or other devices. [AppBrain]

Swype:
Keyboard-replacement Swype has previously been available as a limited-time beta (as well as a clandestine off-Market installation), and may come back to be offered in beta preview again. It’s also installed by default, but not always activated, on a few Motorola and Samsung phones. But if you can get it on your phone somehow, it’s worth it. Swype is a great keyboard idea, especially for one-handed text jobs. Simply run your finger over the letters of a word, and for the vast majority of entries, Swype gets it. If it doesn’t get it, its suggestion list almost always has the right word. If it has no idea, you type out the word manually, and Swype stores it for next time. The newest versions also include the Voice Input key missing from earlier betas. Here’s hoping Swype gets itself onto the Market soon, because we know plenty of customers willing to pay.

Tasker:
If you had to name one app that delivers on the promise of Android’s open, customizable nature, Tasker would be it. The automation utility can pull off any tasks you can put your mind to. Want to have your phone turn on GPS and Bluetooth, raise the ringer volume, and automatically launch the Navigation app when you’re in the car, but turn everything off and silent when you put your phone face-down at work? You can do almost anything with Tasker. [AppBrain]

Voice Actions / Voice Search:
Create and send text messages and emails, launch Navigation directions, search the web, leave a note for yourself, and play MP3s or streaming music, all with your voice. That’s the promise of Google’s Voice Actions update to the Voice Search app, which is free but requires Android 2.2. Once more bugs get worked out, Voice Actions will be a pretty amazing service. In the meantime, it’s a nice preview of great functionality to come. [AppBrain]

Google Goggles:
When Goggles works, it feels like living in the future. Snap a picture of an object, a bar code, a piece of art, or something else recognizable, and Goggles will harness the power of Google to bring you back as much information as possible on it—where the logo comes from, when the painting was made, etc. It doesn’t always work, and it definitely doesn’t work with people you see in-person (yet), but it’s a neat app to keep in your pocket for finding out more about that great bottle of beer you just put down. [AppBrain]

Media

^3 (Cubed):
It’s not much of a stretch to say Cubed (or “superscript 3”) is better than the default Music app built into Android. Even the improvements Motorola, HTC, and others have made are largely cosmetic, while Cubed reshapes the look and feel of music playing and browsing. Flip through artists and albums by spinning an almost endless cube, one covered with album art that Cubed can easily pick out for your tracks. Switch the view to a wallpaper mode if you’d like, or a “Morph Flow” that has albums sliding into one another in a vertical stream. There’s a track reporter for the Last.fm service, optional alerts for concerts happening nearby involving the artists in your music collection, and a generally better playlist builder. Cubed isn’t a knock-off of other music apps—just a good one, on its terms. [AppBrain]

Gmote 2.0:
Gmote is a remote control application that works like a charm with VLC, our favorite media player, while also passing muster on a few other media apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux. If you’ve got a specific media center in mind to control (Windows Media Center, Boxee, XBMC), you can usually find a free or cheap control app in the Market; Gmote is just the app that works across all systems, over 3G or Wi-Fi, and has made hundreds of thousands of users happy with their phone’s hidden powers. [AppBrain]

Note for iTunes fans: If you’re an Android owner who also has iTunes as the center of their home media life, check out Remote for iTunes. It’s $5, and likely worth the cost for anyone with split allegiances between the Apple and Google worlds.

Kindle:
Kindle is the app that brings Amazon’s Kindle ebook system to your Android device. It syncs notes and page position with your other Kindle devices, and it’s really fun to zoom book previews from your browser onto your phone. [AppBrain]

Listen:
Google’s own podcast manager for the Android is also the easiest to use. Search through Google’s vast database of podcasts for long-term subscriptions or quick news takes on a topic, subscribe in Listen (or Google Reader, where subscriptions are synced), and play your picks through an app that’s good at keeping your place and configurable to grab new episodes only when it makes sense (on Wi-Fi, and only while plugged in, if you’d like). [AppBrain]

Subsonic:
Google’s announced that, with their purchase of Simplify Media, remote music streaming from computers to Android phones through cloud storage is likely on its way. In the meantime, you can stream music from any Windows, Mac, or Linux system with Subsonic, a free Android app supported by $10 desktop software (which includes a substantial free trial). The Android app includes offline caching for playback, just in case your home computer gets knocked offline, but otherwise you’ve always got access to your great tunes on the go with Subsonic. [AppBrain]

Pandora:
Pandora’s streaming, recommendation-based radio service is catching on like wildfire, and on the Android platform, it delivers just what you’d expect. You enter in one or more artists, songs, or moods you want to frame your mix around, choose a low or high-quality stream, then play your tracks in the background—though you can learn more about the artists or buy the tracks from the app, too. [AppBrain]

RockPlayer:
Your Android can play a few video formats on its own. With RockPlayer, it can play nearly any video, simple as that. It’s a great app for DVD rips, downloaded videos, Windows-specific formats, and other non-standard clips. (Note: You might need to search out “RockPlayer” in the Market, or on AppBrain, and find the right build of RockPlayer for your phone’s processor, v6 or v7, if the standard v7 version linked here doesn’t run on your device). [AppBrain]

Photography

Andropan:
Your high-megapixel Android camera lacks one thing—a wide view of the big vistas you can see with your own eyes. Solution: take a series of calm, steady shots across a plane, then load them into Andropan to stitch them together into one big masterwork of wide-angle imagery. [AppBrain]

Backup and Security

WaveSecure:
Your Android phone has a whole lot of your life loaded onto it—everything in your Google accounts, your contact list, apps with sensitive data, and more. WaveSecure backs up your SMS and call logs and contact data on a regular basis, and can upload your photo and video files, too, which is pretty handy if your phone goes dead. Where WaveSecure really shines, though, is in its security features. You can “lock down” a phone from any and all access when you’re traveling, completely wipe out a phone and its memory card, and remotely lock or wipe a stolen phone, plus try to find its location using GPS. WaveSecure is free to download and try for seven days, then costs about $20 per year after that. [AppBrain]

Food, Shopping, and Entertainment

Shopper:
Shopper’s the app that’s really good at recognizing objects you find in stores and pulling comparative prices from other web and retail vendors. So good, in fact, it’s hard not to feel guilty using it. ShopSavvy is a very good comparison-shop app, too, with different helper features, but we like Shopper for its much-improved speed, its ability to scan both photos and barcodes, and tight Google search integration. [AppBrain]

Yelp:
Yelp’s a great app for finding what’s good to eat close to wherever you’re holding your phone. You can even point your phone down a street and see the icons of reviewed restaurants, and other local items of interest, overlaid on your camera feed, augmented reality style. It’s a free app and a handy utility, whether or not you agree with the popular consensus reviews. [AppBrain]

Are you a Mouse Potato?

Some of you may be wondering what’s a mouse potato???

Well, I am!

According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate^® Dictionary

Definition of MOUSE POTATO

slang : a person who spends a great deal of time using a computer

Origin of MOUSE POTATO

after couch potato

First Known Use:1993

We label someone a “couch potato” if they spend too much time sitting on the couch watching TV.  Are you the kind of person “who spends a great deal of time using a computer?”. Check it out if you answered YES to most of the questions below and you know the answer, folks WELCOME TO THE MOUSE POTATO CLUB!

So here are the Top 10 signs that you may be a mouse potato:

1. Your Facebook friends know more than your immediate family about what’s going on in your life.
2. You wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and stop to check your email on the way back to bed.
3. You harvest acres of virtual crops but must visit the grocery store to buy vegetables.
4. You text/email/tweet someone sitting in the same room.
5. You somehow judge your social life through social networking by the number of Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, and Twitter followers you have.
6. The last person you get to know with was a FLV or thru video cam.
7. You won’t even consider going on vacation to a place without Internet access.
8. Your spouse/parents/friends have to text you to come to dinner.
9. You search Google to find your car keys, address of certain places you have to go to.
10. You checked your Facebook status, your mailbox while reading this article.

I got a PERFECT 10 YES answers from the questions above (hahaha!). I remember canceling a hotel reservation for my trip abroad because there’s no internet access, I don’t want to be deprived of it even just for a few days. I’m using a computer at work in the university, at home, everywhere, anywhere. The World Wide Web is so useful and that’s what makes it so undeniably distracting as well: There’s no end to what you can find, do, search online. World Wide Web is such a wonderful world, what a wonderful world.

Well, I’m definitely, absolutely a Mouse Potato!

Are you one one of US?

Goodbye Windows Live Spaces – Hello WordPress.com

I just got an e-mail today from Windows Live Spaces that its customers have to migrate its current Windows Live Spaces blog to WordPress.com.

On March 16th, 2011 current windows live space will close.

I’m glad I already have one here in WordPress. As a blogger I feel like sharing it.

Windows Live Spaces is Microsoft‘s blogging and Social Networking platform. The site was originally released in early 2004 as MSN Spaces to compete with other social networking sites, and re-launched in 2006 as a part of a shifting of community services away from the MSN brand. Windows Live Spaces received an estimated 27 million (27,000,000) unique visitors per month as of August 2007.

Despite being considered a useful messaging and communication tool, Windows Live Spaces has been criticized as not being as powerful as some of its alternatives.On September 27, 2010, Microsoft announced that it would discontinue Windows Live Spaces, and in partnership with Automattic, a free opt-in migration of user blogs to WordPress.com will be offered to Windows Live Spaces users. Beginning January 4, 2011, users will not be able to make changes to Spaces, however contents are still viewable and downloadable. Windows Live Spaces will fully shut down on March 16, 2011.

The World Of Touch Screens

Touchscreens That Changed the World

I just came back from our awesome trip at the World Expo and from that trip I’ve seen a lot of exhibitions  showcasing the culture, architecture and the latest in technology from different countries, it’s amazing how technology changes the lives of people, changes the nation, changes the world. A  lot of the international pavilions used touch screens to display and show what they’ve got. Main attractions are well worth seeing, new technologies for urban living.

Touchscreens are everywhere we look these days, but they’ve actually been around for a lot longer than you might think. Join us on a tour through nearly four decades of touchscreen devices that changed the world…

 

1972 PLATO IV

One of the first ways touchscreens were deployed was for the PLATO project, originally built by the University of Illinois as a computer-based education system. In 1972, the $12,000 PLATO IV system was put into operation. The system had an orange plasma display and a 16 x 16 infrared touchscreen. For the first time ever, students were able to answer questions by touching a screen.

 

1983 HP-150

Released in 1983, the HP-150 was the world’s earliest commercial touchscreen computer. Its 9-inch Sony CRT was surrounded by infrared transmitters and receivers that detected the position of any non-transparent object on the screen. The small holes that housed these parts collected dust and had to be vacuumed periodically to maintain touchscreen functionality.

 

1985 Home Manager

Perhaps influenced by HP, Unity Systems was formed the same year HP released the HP-150. The company sought to create the world’s first touchscreen-based home automation system. Unity Systems’ Home Manager was introduced in 1985 and was produced by the company until 1999. Service is still available to the nearly 6,000 systems that remain in operation today. Amazing!

 

1989 GRiDPAD

GRiD was a pioneer in mobile computing, and many of the technologies in today’s notebooks, tablets, and handhelds would not exist had it not been for them. In 1989, GRiD introduced the world’s first pen-based handheld, the GRiDPAD. It measured 9 x 12 x 1.4 inches and weighed 4.5 pounds. Text was entered directly on the screen with an electronic pen. The procedure was slow, taking one to two seconds for written characters to be redisplayed as computer-generated characters.

 

1992 Simon

The IBM Simon was the world’s first smartphone. Though launched in 1993, the Simon was first shown as a product concept in 1992. It included a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail, and games. The Simon used a touchscreen and optional stylus to dial phone numbers, send faxes and write memos. Text could be entered with either an on-screen “predictive” keyboard or QWERTY keyboard.

 

1993 Newton

Manufactured by Sharp, the Apple Newton MessagePad was one of the first-ever Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) — a term coined by Apple’s then-CEO John Sculley. Its built-in handwriting recognition was the Newton’s most unique and interesting ability. The handwriting-recognition technology was ultimately ported to Mac OS X, where it’s known as “Inkwell.” It hasn’t really taken off there, either. Two ex-Newton developers founded Pixo, the company that created the operating system for the original iPod.

 

1996 Pilot

Pilot was the name of the first generation of PDAs manufactured by Palm Computing in 1996 (then a division of U.S. Robotics). A trademark infringement lawsuit by Pilot Pen Corporation forced them to change the name to Palm Connected Organizers, but not before “PalmPilot” had entered the vernacular as a synonym for PDA, regardless of the brand. Rather than recognizing handwriting, the Pilot used Graffiti, a single-stroke shorthand written by Palm that was efficient and easy to learn.

 

1999 Edge

Introduced to the market in 1999, the Sequoia Voting Systems’ AVC Edge touchscreen voting machine is a freestanding unit that allow voters to select their choices electronically. It was first used in the 2000 presidential election. It can be placed on a tabletop or assembled as a stand with its integrated legs. The AVC Edge eliminates hanging chads, thereby reducing the number of unintentionally spoiled ballots. After the polls close, the system prints polling place totals. These are stored as a permanent record –- further assuring the security and integrity of the election.

 

2004 DS

The Nintendo DS (which stands for dual-screen) released in 2004, is the first touchscreen handheld gaming system. The clamshell design has two LCD screens inside — with the bottom one sensitive to touch. The touchscreen allows users to interact with in-game elements more directly than by pressing buttons. For example, in the included chatting software, PictoChat, a stylus is used to write messages or draw.

 

2007 iPhone

Apple announced the iPhone on January 9, 2007, nearly 15 years after the IBM Simon was first shown. I was the first smartphone to bring many, now standard, technologies to the industry — including multi-touch gestures, full Web browsing, and an accelerometer to flip the screen’s orientation or act as another form of input. And while the iPhone wasn’t the first to allow 3rd-party applications, Apple made purchasing and installing the apps so easy and consumer friendly that 1 billion of them were downloaded int he first nine months.

 

2007 Surface

In 2007, Microsoft announced Surface, a table computer that uses multi-touch technology to allow several users, using their fingers (up to 52), to simultaneously manipulate images and other data right on the screen. It can also sense and interact with objects like cameras, phones, water glasses, and even paintbrushes that are placed on top of it. A similar concept was used in the 2002 movie “Minority Report” In the commentary section of the DVD, director Steven Spielberg says that the idea came from a consultation with Microsoft during the making of the movie.

 

2010 iPad

Apple’s iPad promises to bridge the gap between laptops and smartphones. A machine designed to handle browsing, email, photos, video, music, games, and eBooks better than any laptop or smartphone on their own. And with an available keyboard dock and plenty of apps just a touch away, the iPad will also serve a market of non-technical and new computer users. The iPad may prove to do for touchscreen tablets what Apple did for smartphones with the release of the iPhone.

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TECH STUFF: Turning written text into spoken words – NaturalReader10 FREE version

NaturalReader 10 Free Version

The free version allows you to experience listening to any text on your PC. Main Features

Text to speech

It can convert any written text such as MS Word, Webpage, PDF files, and Emails into spoken words with Microsoft voices.

Floating bar

Floating bar offers another option for you to listen to text without disturbing your reading on the screen.

Change reading voices and speed

A speaker menu and speed control slider is available.

Easy to use

Users without much computer knowledge can easily use it.

One-Click technology

You don’t have to copy and past text like other text-to-speech software. Just select any text and press one hot key.

Magnifying text

Simply scroll to the View menu and select Zoom In. This will magnify the text.

Text font can be changed

Font settings allow you to change the text font, font style and font size.

For Download: Click on this link

System requirement:

Operation system: windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista/Win7 Processor: 500Mhz Memory: 128 MB (256 recommended) Free Disk Space: 50MB (Natural Voices may require 600MB free space)

Tech Tips : Revealing PASSWORDS behind Asterisks

I decided to post different tech stuff tips and tricks that might help you guys explore the vast ways of knowing things about computer and technology. I really hope you’ll learn something from  my post and give it a shot. To start with how about revealing passwords behind those asterisks, sounds interesting.

If you use a lot of online services it also means that you have got a lot of passwords and usernames to remember. Being aware of this, you have to take note that all Internet browsers have got a special feature which, as soon as you login your email account for example, prompt you to save password and username so that, next time you will use the service again, the browser will fill in the login interface for you. However, while the username is fully displayed, the password is hidden by asterisks. Now, if for any reason you don’t remember such a password you won’t have any way to recover it. Usually, to get it back, you will have to buy a special piece of software. Recently, I have found an amazing, interesting piece of code which will reveal all your forgotten passwords hidden behind asterisk in your browser…in a couple of seconds and without spending a dime!

The piece of code I am going to show you works with all Internet browsers including: Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer Safari etc.

Here is the step by step procedure to follow to reveal your passwords:

1. Open your browser.
2. Go to the Web page containing the log in in form where you saved your password.
3. Copy and paste the following piece of code to your browser address bar:

javascript:(function(){var s,F,j,f,i; s = “”; F = document.forms; for(j=0; j<F.length; ++j) { f = F[j]; for (i=0; i<f.length; ++i) { if (f[i].type.toLowerCase() == “password”) s += f[i].value + “n”; } } if (s) alert(“Passwords in forms on this page:nn” + s); else alert(“There are no passwords in forms on this page.”);})();

4. Press Enter.
5. As soon as you press Enter, the browser will display a window containing the password! it’s between the n’s.

If you have some questions just post it, I’ll try my best to answer it the best I can. Hope you’ll enjoy it, until next time.

Xie Xie =)