Windows 7 Editions

After seeing the different versions of Windows that may be running in your environment, you will be pleased to know that Windows 7 editions are not as complex. Microsoft released 11 different Windows 7 editions, counting the different 32-bit and 64-bit versions as separate versions. Some versions you might never see as most administrators will be working with the Professional and/or Enterprise/Ultimate editions. Below is a listing of the 11 different versions:

� Windows 7 Home Basic
� Windows 7 Starter
� Windows 7 Home Premium
� Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
� Windows 7 Home Premium N
� Windows 7 Professional
� Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
� Windows 7 Enterprise
� Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit
� Windows 7 Ultimate
� Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit


A brief introduction to each version:

� Windows 7 Starter � the most basic version of Windows 7, also known as the budget version. This version can only be obtained preinstalled through a manufacturer and is expected to be popular on netbooks. Not all features will be included in this version, including Windows Aero.

� Windows 7 Home Basic � the home edition for emerging markets. This version will not be available for sale in developed countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Not all features will be included in this version, including some Windows Aero features.

� Windows 7 Home Premium � the home edition for developed nations. This edition is aimed at the home market segment. Most computers sold at retail stores will include this version with all home features including Windows Media Center, Windows Aero, and touchscreen.

� Windows 7 Professional � the preferred edition for small business and enthusiasts. This edition includes everything the Home Premium edition includes as well as the capability to join Windows Server domains. Other features such as Remote Desktop, location aware printing, Encrypting File System (EFS), Presentation Mode, and Windows XP Mode will be included in this version.

� Windows 7 Enterprise � the corporate edition of the operating system. This version is for the enterprise and is only available through volume licensing. This version supports Multilingual User Interface, BitLocker Drive Encryption, and UNIX application support. This version is not available from manufactures or retail.

� Windows 7 Ultimate � the Enterprise version for home or enthusiast users. This version includes everything from the Enterprise edition through retail and some manufacturers.

The above explanation should be enough to give you an idea as to what version you will be working with at home or in your environment. Windows Starter will most likely be seen only on netbooks in the future. Windows Home Basic will not be seen in developed markets meaning Home Premium will be the choice for home users while Professional and Enterprise will be the choice for corporate and business environments. The Ultimate Edition will most likely be used by power home users and in some businesses that require the features that come with the Enterprise edition but do not have the licensing for it.

Source of Information :  Syngress Microsoft Windows 7 Administrators Reference

Top Spywares in 2010

Appin�s research lab in Asia and Europe does regular research on spyware and malware analysis/reverse engineering and evaluates which spywares have maximum spread. The summary of research on top spywares is underneath:

1. PurtyScan: is a pop-up advert. It attracts the user by giving propositions to find pornographic content/spyware on your computer and clean it. However once the user clicks it he/she will be taken to a website with much more spyware and adware waiting to infiltrate your computer.

2. Gator: Gator tracks your online browsing so that it can tailor itself to your likes. The computer user is flooded with banner ads attempting to catch your attention. This often ends up on computers through sharing files on Kazaa or other P2P programs or downloading freebies from random sites.

3. CoolWebSearch: This is a form of malware designed to hijack your Internet settings and then forward you to its own web page. However the webpage that it forwards you to is loaded with adware and spyware.

4. ISTbar/Aupdate: This acts as a toolbar. It continues to send a barrage of pop-up adverts displaying pornographic images to your computer.

5. Perfect KeyLogger: This is a very harmful form of coding. It records everything you type on your computer and can communicate your most personal information back to its creator.

6. Trojan-Downloader.Generic: This is a backdoor which allows the attacker to download any Trojan into the victim�s computer. This is actually a family of spywares popularly called as downloaders.

7. Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen: This is spyware which reverse connects to a remote server and allows the attacker to gain remote access to your computer. This spyware is dangerous and can capture all sensitive data/passwords stored in your computer.

8. Explorer32.Hijacker: This spyware hijacks the explorer.exe of windows and gathers sensitive information from your computer.

Source of Information :  Hakin9 November 2010

The Spyware Trends

In one of the honeypots we had to collect spywares, the number of spywares collected hit a meter of 376 unique families and over 3000 samples in a single day which is quite high for a single honeypot. The spywares are rising in number and are spreading capability over different platforms like windows, Windows Mobile, Macintosh, Android, Symbian etc.

A new trend of spyware has come into picture called Spear Spyware. The spear spyware is one which is targeted to a particular organization or a set of individuals and hence has no signature, is based on target�s infrastructure. Such kind of spywares are very difficult to detect and are meant to capture specific information like files, username/passwords, banking information, keylogs, screenshots of the target computer.

Another trend obtained saw evolution of privilege escalation in spywares which gave them a greater capability to even spy on web and video cameras, audio along with normal functionality.

The spywares created are also meant to steal application data which is sensitive. An example observed in 2010 was Stuxnet which exploited vulnerability in Siemens software for SCADA to become one of the most widely spread spywares.

Considering the serious damage accomplished by spyware, the fact that studies by Forrester Research find that as many as 87% of PCs are infected with spyware is sobering. Even more sobering is the fact that infected computers has, on average, 28 different types of spyware installed at any given time, and 7% of infected computers are infected with spyware that records keystrokes such as passwords and credit card numbers.

Source of Information :  Hakin9 November 2010

Flexcrypt

Flexcrypt is a cryptographic toolkit that is used for encryption/decryption of data for individuals and small businesses, for communication and storage of emails, hard drive, instant messaging text, files, folders and others. Flexcrypt has a very smooth step-wise install where the users have to provide simple and straightforward data about the location of install and other details.

Once the installation is complete, Flexcrypt would automatically open up (when the option in the last step of installation to Launch Flexcrypt is enabled). When Flexcrypt runs on your system, you would see the small lock image in your task pane notifications to indicate that it is running.

Once you have installed Flexcrypt, running it and using it every single time is a piece of cake. This is the easiest installation and usage that I have ever seen in the suite of crypto tools I have used in the past. On double-clicking the icon in desktop or from program files, you could open/start Flexcrypt at any point of time.

Navigation to various functions (Start, Text, Email, IM, File and Shared, Drive, Invite, License and Help) provided by Flexcrypt is pretty simple. Functionalities and specifications for Flexcrypt are as follows (Source: http://www.flexcrypt.com/technology.html ):

Operating systems
� Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit versions)
� Windows XP (32-bit and 64-bit versions)
� Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit versions)

Localization
� English
� German
� Spanish
� Chinese

Email protocols
� POP3
� IMAP
� MAPI
� SMTP

Supported email clients
� All email clients

Email encryption options
� OpenPGP/MIME
� AES 256 bit (as ZIP)
� PkZIP

Hashes
� SHA-2 (up to 512-bit hashes)
� SHA-1
� MD5

Public key algorithm
� Elgamal/DSS (up to 2048)

Supported Instant Message clients
� MSN
� ICQ

Instant message encryption
� AES 256 bit

File encryption
� AES 256 bit

Hard drive encryption
� AES 256 bit

Text encryption
� AES 256 bit

Shredding
� US Department of Defense DoD 5220.22-M(ECE)
� 7 passes

USB encryption
� AES 256 bit

Online services
� SSL connection

Patent
� Patent pending

Security standards
� Encryption components from .NET are FIPS-140 validated


Besides all the various functionalities, the simplicity of the tool is what I love in this. Strength of the crypto toolkit is not only in the algorithm that is being implemented, but the implementation itself. In this review, we looked over the algorithm and tested the implementation to some extent and we determined that this is one among the fastest implementation of the same. We did not do regression testing or load testing on the app though. The general settings button from the main window takes you into simple set of options, where users can Start/Stop client and services, choose to always start Flexcrypt when computer starts (adding to start-up list), choose the Firewall options to be default or ZoneAlarm.

We did not want to include every single setting for the review, since we would like the users to experience the awesomeness of this tool by themselves. Hence, we have considered one sample usage with text encryption. When users choose to encrypt text using Flexcrypt, they can simply click on Text tab, which would take them to a window. In the text window, you can type the text to be encrypted and choose Encrypt/Decrypt by clicking on the button right below the text window.

Once the text to be encrypted is supplied, click on Encrypt/Decrypt button and you would get the password where you could type (and confirm) a password to be used in encryption. Based on what we observed, it looks like a pass-code that is used to generate the secret key for encrypting the input. Once you have entered the password the encrypted cipher is generated. Users can copy this encrypted cipher from the text panel and use it at their convenience. Decryption routine uses the same process flow, with the encrypted cipher being pasted on the text pane and the same password (used for encryption) should be provided to decrypt and get the original text.

Based on testing Flexcrypt in all the different cases that was determined to be the ones used on daily basis, we observed the following pros:

� Navigation between the tabs/functionalities is really simple.

� It is pretty quick for daily use.

� Demo and sample scenarios provided with proper documentation.

� Pretty strong algorithm implemented.

� Well structured and organized with proper direction.

� Simple settings and easier usage.

We did not observe any cons based on the testing we have done, but these are the generic things to remember that we have observed for apps that are similar.

� Closed source implementation of crypto:

� Strength of the implementation can only determined by blackbox testing.

� Unsure of the exact implementation of the algorithm.

� Keep in mind that this is a paid app, with 15 days trial. Hence, testing for the local environment should be done within the given time.

It is recommended that FlexCrypt for its simplicity and explicit functionalities. It is easy to install and run for a pretty quick launch. Definitely recommended for people who have minimal time and require encryption of data.

Source of Information :  Hakin9 November 2010

A Brief History Of Linux Text Editors

Years ago, text files were primarily used for system administration-related files, such as startup scripts and configuration files. But as computers evolved, people began using text files to write essays and term papers for school work. However, once the home computing market grew and word processors came onto the scene, those text files were once again relegated to system administration functions. It is in this environment that text editors such as the MS-DOS Editor and Windows Notepad were created.

Although text files are still used for system administration purposes, they�ve taken on a new purpose. Specifically, text files are used to create all sorts of tools, from desktop programs to sophisticated Web pages. To be sure, programmers creating desktop programs use programs that give a complete development environment, but the core of that environment has a specialized text editor that lets the user write the actual program. The code that is created to make those programs is just a text file. Sufficiently complicated programs and Web pages may use many different files, but the vast majority of them are text files.

There is a wide variety of text editors for Linux. Whether it�s editing a system file or managing a large-scale programming project, there�s a Linux text editor for you.


Default Text Editors
Notepad for Windows is the very definition of a basic text editor. You can edit one file at a time and view files with long lines wrapped or not. Find and Replace is its most powerful feature. This is fine if all you want to do is make little edits to a set of instructions, for example, or if you�re taking a quick note. But because text files are so widely used in the Linux world, its text editors necessarily have to be more powerful.

GNOME and KDE are two of the more popular desktop environments in the Linux community, and each includes its own text editor. GNOME has gedit, while KDE offers Kate; both editors share similar features. KDE actually has an older, less powerful text editor, called Kwrite, but its development has been folded into Kate. In fact, some Linux distributions bypass Kwrite altogether, instead just installing Kate.

Kwrite can best be described as a little bit more advanced than Notepad. Like Notepad, Kwrite only lets you edit one file at a time per window. (Of course, if you don�t mind the desktop clutter, you can launch multiple instances of Kwrite to edit multiple files, just like Notepad.) Where Notepad�s most advanced feature is Find and Replace, Kwrite also has a spell checker. So if all you need is a minimal text editor with spell check capability, Kwrite may be right up your alley. If you�re looking for more power, use Kate.

Generally speaking, you should use gedit and Kate, as they offer a lot more features�not only for general text editing but also for lightweight programming. Both editors let you edit multiple files at the same time in a single window. Kate shows the files in a list
view down the left side, while gedit shows your open files in a tabbed view across the top.

But, more importantly, both gedit and Kate have syntax highlighting. What this means for programmers is that these editors will display different bits of code in different colors. For example, variables used in your code may appear in one color, values appear in a second, comments appear in a third, and so on. This makes it very easy to see how everything is laid out in your code.

Another particularly useful feature that gedit and Kate share is the ability to extend the editor with plug-ins. These plug-ins can do all sorts of things, from manipulating text in the file to running external commands. For example, there are plug-ins for gedit and Kate that turn each into an SQL client for database connectivity. If you�re writing a lot of database code, this plug-in is ideal to verify that your SQL queries work correctly while you�re coding.


Cross-Platform Editors
Beyond gedit and Kate, there are a number of text editors that exist on both Linux and other platforms. Most of these editors are open source, so it�s no surprise that they are able to run on different platforms.

But because of Windows� popularity in the operating system market, there are a lot of Windows-only text editors. What happens if you�re a fan of one of these editors but want to be able to run it on Linux? Although you can use WINE to run many of the Windows-native editors in Linux, some developers have created Linux versions of their respective editors.

One prominent example is UltraEdit (www.ultraedit.com), a highly regarded commercial text editor for Windows. IDM Computer Solutions, the makers of UltraEdit, recently released a Linux version of its text editor. Versions ready to install and run are available for the following Linux distributions: Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, and RedHat. For users of other Linux distributions, a generic precompiled binary is also available as a Gzipped TAR file.


Console Text Editors
Although we�ve been discussing text editors, we�ve primarily focused on the graphical text editors. Long before there were graphics, text editors were consolebased. These editors worked fine but often had cryptic keystrokes. As a result, they usually presented novices with a steep learning curve. With the advent of the modern desktop, you may wonder why anybody would continue bothering with console text editors.

One reason is that system administrators, like programmers, tend to be creatures of habit. So once they find a tool they like, they usually stick with it for as long as possible; that includes text editors. An example of how devoted people are to tools they like can be seen in ed, which is an early 1970s Unix text editor. It survives to this day in the Linux world, as you would expect, and the Windows world.

Another reason why people still use console text editors is that they�re more universally available. Sure, GNOME and KDE come with their graphical text editors, but in some environments, you won�t have access to the GUI. Some corporate security policies will specifically allow only remote console access to sensitive systems. In these cases, you have no choice but to use a console text editor.

There are a number of very powerful console text editors, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. In fact, before there were the operating system debates, Web browser debates, or smartphone debates, there were the text editor debates. People used to argue vehemently that their favorite console text editor was better than someone else�s.

One such popular text editor is vi, which works in two modes, Insert Mode and Command Mode. On most Linux distributions, vi has been replaced by Vim, which is very similar, but not identical, to vi. In vi�s Insert Mode, whatever you type on the keyboard is inserted into the file you�re editing. To start vi�s Insert Mode, you have to press I, to insert text, or O to create a new blank line and start inserting text. When you�re done inputting text, press ESC to start Command Mode. While in Command Mode, you can move around the file with the arrow keys and delete characters with the X key. When you�re done working with a file in vi, you have to go into Command Mode and type :wq. This will write the file to disk and close vi.

Certainly, vi is much more powerful than such a brief introduction we�ve given it. It has search and replace capability, either globally or within a certain range, the ability to save part of a file as another file, and macro capability. In fact, vi�s macro capability is so complex that it is able to let the user play simple games with it.

Text editors fill an important need in the world of Linux systems administrators and programmers. And Linux has a very good selection of editors.

Source of Information : Computer Power User (CPU) December 2010    

Keep Your SSD Windows 7 Installation Under Control

Try to find more places to save room, hopefully keeping your SSD from filling up too fast. Because many Windows operations for installing new programs, creating temp files, and saving work default to the drive where you installed Windows, it�s very easy to fill up a smaller SSD even if you store the majority of your data on a separate hard drive. You need an ongoing strategy to keep your OS drive slim and trim.


Restore Space With System Restore
Introduced several Windows versions ago, System Restore can be a true lifesaver when a Registry mishap, destructive virus, or bad program/driver install whacks your system. It has saved us more than once from a full Windows reinstallation. However, this tool is also a space hog.

To manage the space System Restore occupies, start by right-clicking Computer in your Start menu and opening Properties. In the task pane to the left, click System Protection. This brings up the System Properties window and the System Protection tab. You will see that by default your root drive has System Restore protection set to On. Although there are some users who turn off System Restore entirely because they feel that it impairs performance and takes up too much space, this strategy is hard to recommend unless you really are ready to reinstall the OS if things go terribly wrong. Instead, we recommend you contain disk usage.

Click Configure to open System Protection for the highlighted drive. You can disable System Restore completely by using the radio buttons. Alternatively, you can see and adjust how much of your root drive is being reserved for System Restore. Our 80GB SSD had 5% (or 3.73GB) of space committed to this tool, with 3.25GB used. Keep in mind that this disk space also contains what Windows calls Shadow Copies of files. These are the earlier versions of data files you can also restore individually when you right-click a given file and select the Restore Previous Versions command.

How much of your drive should you devote to restore points and shadow copies? In our case, that 3.25GB contained at least 11 restore points. To see how many you have, open System Restore (type the term in the Start search box). At the opening screen, click Next. The window only shows the most recent saved points, but if you check the box in the lower left labeled �Show More Restore Points,� you�ll see many more. This may give you a better sense of how to set your sliders for keeping restore points. If you are fairly certain that your system is very stable, then you might want to use the option in the System Protection dialog box to delete all restore points. If you click this button, you will see your current usage drop to zero, although you won�t be able to use any restore points.


Save Files Elsewhere
Any Windows installation also brings with it a built-in file directory on the OS drive that saves files to that disk by default. We�ve never liked keeping documents within the Windows file structure, because we don�t know what will happen to them if the OS goes bad. Keeping data in one or more folders on a separate data drive is not only safer, but in this case it can save space. In our test system we have used a few tricks to ensure that most files go off the root drive.

In the Start search box, type Libraries to bring up the collection of default Library file locations, as well as your Favorites. In Win7, Libraries are the new file organization system that gathers docs, music, image, and video data from multiple locations into a single access point. This is where you can customize default file saving. In the left pane, highlight Documents, for instance. In the right pane under Documents Library, click the link for �X location.� The number of locations this Library gathers will depend on how many folder locations you may have included. This brings up Documents Library Locations dialog box. Use the Add button to add a new location to the Library.

In our case, we created folders on our mass storage drive (not the SDD) to contain different file types. Browse to the location where you want the documents saved and click the Include Folder button to add it to the Library. To make that folder the default location for saving files for that category, right-click the new location and use the Set As Default File Location command. You can just delete the location entry that refers to the root drive so that the option to save files to that drive won�t appear when your Library box opens. (By the way, all of the changes and customizations you make here in the Libraries window will also appear in any Save As window in other programs.) You can also rightclick your most commonly used folder for a given file type and use the Move Up command to make that target location the first one to appear when you open a Library.


Don�t Forget The Browser
Many SSD owners want to optimize program launches by installing their most-used applications to the root drive. At the same time, it�s not necessary to clutter your root drive with the downloads that Web browsers gather. Firefox, for example, saves files to your root drive by default. To change this, use the Tools menu and open Options. On the General tab, use the Downloads section to target a folder off of the SSD.

Also in Firefox, you can relocate where the browser stores its cache of images and content from the sites you frequent. Type about:config in Firefox�s address bar to access the advanced settings. Right-click an open space, point to New, and click String. This opens a New String Value dialog box, in which you should type browser.cache.disk.parent_directory and click OK. The next dialog box asks for you to set the value. Enter a folder name on the hard drive where you want the cache to be located. This can be a new folder; Firefox will create it for you. Click OK again and close all open browser windows. The change will take effect when you restart.

Source of Information :  Computer Power User (CPU) December 2010   

Is Ubuntu right for you?

New users to Ubuntu may find that it takes some time to feel comfortable with the operating system. You will no doubt notice many similarities to both Microsoft Windows and Mac os x, as well as some things that work very differently. Users coming from Mac os x are more likely to notice similarities due to the fact that both Mac os x and Ubuntu originated from Unix. Before you decide whether or not Ubuntu is right for you, we suggest giving yourself some time to grow accustomed to the way things are done
�and expect to find that some things are different to what you are used to. We also suggest taking the following into account:


� Ubuntu is community based. That is, Ubuntu is made, developed, and maintained by the community. Because of this, support is probably not available at your local computer store. Thankfully, the Ubuntu community is here to help. There are many articles, guides, and manuals available, as well as users on various Internet forums and Internet relay chat (IRC) rooms that are willing to help out beginners.

� Many applications designed for Microsoft Windows or Mac os x will not run on Ubuntu. For the vast majority of tasks that people use their computers for every day, there are suitable alternative applications available in Ubuntu. However, many professional applications (such as the Adobe Creative Suite) are not developed to work with Ubuntu. If you rely on commercial software that is not compatible with Ubuntu, yet still want to give Ubuntu a try, you may want to consider dual-booting. Alternatively, some applications developed for Windows will work in Ubuntu with a program called Wine.

� Many commercial games will not run on Ubuntu. If you are a heavy gamer, then Ubuntu may not be for you. Game developers usually design games for the largest market, where they can make the most profit. Since Ubuntu�s market share is not as substantial as Microsoft�s Windows or Apple�s Mac os x, most game developers will not allocate resources towards making their games compatible with Ubuntu. If you just like to play a game every now and then, there is active game development within the community, and many high quality games can be easily installed through Ubuntu Software Center. Additionally, some games developed for Windows will also work in Ubuntu with Wine.

A popular forum for Ubuntu discussion and support is the Ubuntu Forums, http://ubuntuforums.org.

Source of Information : Getting Started with Ubuntu 10.04

Will my XP software still work if I upgrade to Windows 7?

Almost certainly. Most programs that work in Windows XP and Windows Vista will have no trouble in Windows 7, though there are a few exceptions, of course. To confirm that a particular program works in the new environment, look it up at the Windows 7 compatibility center. Once there, you can browse through program types or search by the program�s name. or visit the program�s Website and see what it says on the matter. If you discover that a program you want to keep and continue to use does have a problem, you have four options.

1. Run the program in XP compatibility mode. Right-click the program file or a shortcut to the program on the Start menu, and select Properties. Click the Compatibility tab. check Run this program in compatibility mode for and select one of the XP options from the pull-down menu. Then hope it works.

2. Upgrade to a more recent version of the XP-compatible program, or replace it with a competitor�s program.

3. Install Windows 7 on a separate partition so you can choose XP or Windows 7 when you boot up.

4. If you�re upgrading to Windows 7 professional or Ultimate, download and install the Windows Virtual pc and Windows XP mode. These applications will allow you, in effect, to run XP inside Windows 7.

There�s one other issue to keep in mind: If you�re moving from an older XP computer to a new Windows 7 one, you�re probably also moving from a 32-bit version of Windows to a 64-bit version. (XP and Windows 7 come in both flavors, but 64-bit is significantly more common now than it was when new PCs came with XP.) The 16-bit Windows programs from the early 1990s run just fine in 32-bit environments, but they don�t work in 64-bit Windows. Consequently, some of your older apps may not work on the new computer.

Source of Information :  PC World December 2010

2010 Processors You Care The Most About

Cores and threads were a common theme if you shopped for a processor in 2010. AMD and Intel both released models with six cores, while the quadcore models got a little faster. We also saw a greater number of unlocked processors from Intel. Unlocked Intel CPU options include the Intel Core i7-980X, the Core i7-875K, and the Core i5-655K. To find AMD�s unlocked processors, you can just look for the Black Edition label.


Winner: Intel Core i7-875K
$342; www.intel.com
The Intel Core i7-875K supports Hyper-Threading, Turbo Boost, and 8MB of Smart Cache. And because the Core i7-875K comes with an unlocked multiplier, you can overclock the CPU without adjusting related QPI speeds on the computer. That freedom means you don�t have to worry about making sure that the memory timings, ratios, and voltages are also stable with your overclocks. In some cases, issues with instability in the related interconnects may actually keep you from reaching your peak CPU overclock.

For an Intel processor with a stock clock of 2.93GHz and 8-way processing (four cores with Hyper-Threading), the Core i7-875K is competitively priced. And many enthusiasts have found that the unlocked CPU is capable of reaching 4GHz with an aftermarket CPU cooler, which is a little more than a 35% performance increase. Its ability to reach higher frequencies via overclocking means you get a lot of value for the money. The Core i7-875K also offers instruction set extensions for SSE4.2, which improves visual performance on tasks such as video encoding or image processing.

The Core i7-875K�s 296mm2 die provides room for memory, DMI, and PCI-E (16 lanes that can be run as one x16 lane or two x8 lanes) controllers. For memory, there�s dual-channel support for up to DDR3-1333 memory. We also like that Intel�s Turbo Boost supports speeds up to 3.6GHz, which will come in handy for those who don�t want to push clock speeds too far above the stock 2.93GHz. Intel indicates that the CPU has a 95W max TDP.


First Runner-Up: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition
$229; www.amd.com
It�s a comparatively affordable six-core processor, and the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition offered AMD�s Turbo Core, which is similar to Intel�s Turbo Boost. With Turbo Core, the Phenom II X6 1090T can automatically boost the frequency on three active CPU cores by up to 400MHz when the processor�s workload allows it. You can also use AMD�s OverDrive utility to manage the Turbo Core settings. In the September 2010 issue of CPU, we were able to push the Phenom II X6 1090T from its 3.2GHz stock clock to 4.1GHz using an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro cooler.

As you may expect, the Phenom II X6 1090T is AMD�s fastest processor. It features a TDP of 125W and offers 6MB L3 cache. Similar to other Phenom II processors, it supports both DDR2 (up to 1,066MHz) and DDR3 (up to 1,333MHz) memory, though we�ve seen very few Phenom II-compatible motherboards that use DDR2 memory. In our tests, the Phenom II X6 1090T was capable of competing with the majority of Intel quad-core processors, and it was particularly good in multithreaded applications.


Second Runner-Up: Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition
$999; www.intel.com
It�s the world�s highest-performance desktop CPU. This 12-way processing powerhouse blew away our benchmark records, but you�ll also be shelling out a little under $1,000 for it, which is why it�s our second runner-up. The Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition is based on Intel�s 32nm process technology, which enabled Intel to deliver the faster processing speed, improved functionality, and overall greater computing capability.

There�s 12MB of L3 Smart Cache, an on-chip memory controller for triplechannel DDR3-1066 memory, QPI, Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading, and support for Intel�s Extreme Memory Profiles. We saw many builders in our Dream PC contest push the Core i7-980X Extreme to 4.2GHz and beyond, so it also has the chops to provide even more processing power. If performance were our only concern, the Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition was the cream of the crop.

Source of Information :  Computer Power User (CPU) January 2011

Why can�t Windows 7�s XP Mode see other computers on my network? It can access the Internet.

Windows 7�S XP mode (part of the Windows Virtual pc) lets you run a separate version of XP inside the newer OS. The Virtual pc is a free but very large download (it contains a complete copy of XP) that works in the professional and Ultimate editions of Windows 7. If you have Windows 7 running nicely on your network, with access to the Internet, networked printers, and shared folders on other computers, XP mode is likely to disappoint you initially. You�ll probably get the Internet just fine, but not your local network. So you�ll have to set up XP for the network separately. First, however, you have to tell Windows 7 how XP should access the network. If you are currently running XP mode, exit it before moving on to this step of the process.

In Windows 7, click Start, type virtual, select Windows Virtual PC, and press . This opens a Windows explorer window to the Virtual machines folder. Right-click the Windows XP mode file and select Settings (not �properties��which is an easy mistake to make). In the left pane, select Networking. In the right pane, for adapter 1, select your network adapter. Click OK. When the dialog box is gone, load XP mode. To do this from the same explorer window, double-click the Windows XP mode file.

In your virtual XP environment, select Start Run, type netsetup and press . Click Yes at the �want to continue� dialog box. In the resulting wizard, answer its questions as if your system were a stand-alone XP pc. Follow these tips as you do so:

1. make sure that the computer name you enter differs from the one you use for the same pc�s normal, Windows 7 environment.

2. Use the same Workgroup name that the other network PCs use.

3. Turn on file and printer sharing. If the pc still can�t access the network, you likely have other network problems.


Source of Information : PC World December 2010

Ubuntu Creating Canonical

In order to pay developers to work on Ubuntu full time, Shuttleworth needed a company to employ them. He wanted to pick some of the best people for the jobs from within the global free and open source communities. These communities, inconveniently for Shuttleworth, know no national and geographic boundaries. Rather than move everyone to a single locale and office, Shuttleworth made the decision to employ these developers through a virtual company. While this had obvious drawbacks in the form of high-latency and low-bandwidth connections, different time zones, and much more, it also introduced some major benefits in the particular context of the project. On one hand, the distributed nature of employees meant that the new company could hire individuals without requiring them to pack up their lives and move to a new country. More important, it meant that everyone in the company was dependent on IRC, mailing lists, and online communication mechanisms to do their work. This unintentionally and automatically solved the water-cooler problem that plagued many other corporately funded free software projects�namely, that developers would casually speak about their work in person and cut them community and anyone else who didn�t work in the office out of the conversation completely. For the first year, the closest thing that Canonical had to an office was Shuttleworth�s flat in London. While the company has grown and now has several offices around the world, it remains distributed and a large number of the engineers work from home. The group remains highly dependent on Internet collaboration.

With time, the company was named Canonical. The name was a nod to the project�s optimistic goals of becoming the canonical place for services and support for free and open source software and for Ubuntu in particular. Canonical, of course, refers to something that is accepted as authoritative. It is a common word in the computer programmer lexicon. It�s important to note that being canonical is like being standard; it is not coercive. Unlike holding a monopoly, becoming the canonical location for something implies a similar sort of success�but never one that cannot be undone, and never one that is exclusive. Other companies will support Ubuntu and build operating systems based on it, but as long as Canonical is doing a good job, its role will remain central.

Source of Information :  Prentice Hall The official Ubuntu Book 5th Edition 2010

Integrating Chat Using the Live Feed

The Live Feed option enables users to chat live side-by-side with either streaming or static content on your website. Users access their Facebook accounts and use the status update feature to carry on conversations.

The Live Feed was first implemented and made uber famous during the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama (see Figure 4.7). During the Inauguration, CNN streamed the events live on CNN.com and, using Facebook Connect, allowed you to chat with your friends who were also watching on CNN.com.

No one could have ever expected how many people would decide to take to CNN.com and start chatting away, sharing this once-in-a-lifetime experience, with their friends. According to Mashable.com

� CNN generated more than 136 million page views.

� More than 600,000 status updates posted through CNN.com to Facebook.

� During the broadcast more than 4,000 status updates occurred per minute being sent to Facebook from CNN.com.

� During the first minute of President Obama�s inaugural speech, 8,500 status updates from CNN.com occurred.

This mind-blowing success led other event planners to turn to Facebook to enable conversations around their event. So far, the Live Feed has been used for the NBA All-Star game, the Michael Jackson Memorial, and a live viewing party of the finale of Bravo�s �Real Housewives of New York City� among others.

In the future we will see many more large events integrate the Facebook Live Feed into their websites. Imagine watching the Olympics, attending a concert, watching the World Series, or watching a movie and chatting LIVE with all your friends who are also enjoying that same experience.

Whether you realize it, the Live Feed is similar to the Personalized Experience feature because it draws out emotion and connects us to something we can relate to. For the Personalized Experience, the tool creates an experience using information about ourselves to pull us into the application. The Live Feed connects us with our friends during a major event. By enabling this feature, the network hopes that we�ll stay on their website longer, and Facebook ensures that we�ll interact with their platform more. It also has the spin-off effect, much like Twitter hashtags around events, in that the rest of your network can see your status updates, wonder what you�re up to, and hopefully join in on the fun.

Source of Information : Facebook Marketing Designing Your Next Marketing Campaign

What Does Ubuntu Mean?

At this point, the Warthogs had a great team, a set of goals, and a decent idea of how to achieve most of them. The team did not, on the other hand, have a name for the project. Shuttleworth argued strongly that they should call the project Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is a concept and a term from several South African languages, including Zulu and Xhosa. It refers to a South African ideology or ethic that, while difficult to express in English, might roughly be translated as

�humanity toward others,� or �I am what I am because of who we all are.� Others have described ubuntu as �the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity.� The famous South African human rights champion Archbishop Desmond Tutu explained ubuntu in this way:

A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

Ubuntu played an important role as a founding principle in post-apartheid South Africa and remains a concept familiar to most South Africans today.

Shuttleworth liked the term Ubuntu as a name for the new project for several reasons. First, it is a South African concept. While the majority of the people who work on Ubuntu are not from South Africa, the roots of the project are, and Shuttleworth wanted to choose a name that represented this. Second, the project emphasizes relationships with others and provides a framework for a profound type of community and sharing� exactly the attitudes of sharing, community, and collaboration that are at the core of free software. The term represented the side of free software that the team wanted to share with the world. Third, the idea of personal relationships built on mutual respect and connections describes the fundamental ground rules for the highly functional community that the Ubuntu team wanted to build. Ubuntu was a term that encapsulated where the project came from, where the project was going, and how the project planned to get there. The name was perfect. It stuck.

Source of Information :  Prentice Hall The official Ubuntu Book 5th Edition 2010

A definition of cyber security

Cyber security can be broadly described as protecting personal/business or government digital assets from cyber attack from individuals, organised criminals or foreign governments. Cyber security encompasses three threat vectors; cyber warfare; cyber terrorism and cyber attacks. Each of these threat vectors�will need to be addressed by a country�s citizens, its businesses (private and public) and national and local governments (including a nation-states armed forces).

A country�s digital infrastructure is often referred to as its strategic national asset. The major problem facing most nation-states (particularly in the West) is the lack of a central body to co-ordinate and implement military and corporate/government cyber security strategies. There is also a growing reliance in the West to transfer important assets (and security) ownership from the public sector to the private sector which in itself.

Source of Information : Elsevier Server Architectures 2005

History of Ubuntu - The Warthogs

There has been no lack of projects attempting to wrap GNU, Linux, and other pieces of free and open source software into a neat, workable, and user-friendly package. Mark Shuttleworth, like many other people, believed that the philosophical and pragmatic benefits offered by free software put it on a course for widespread success. While each had its strengths, none of the offerings were particularly impressive as a whole. Something was missing from each of them. Shuttleworth saw this as an opportunity. If someone could build the great free software distribution that helped push GNU/Linux into the mainstream, he would come to occupy a position of strategic importance.

Shuttleworth, like many other technically inclined people, was a huge fan of the Debian project (discussed in depth later in this chapter). However, many things about Debian did not fit with Shuttleworth�s vision of an ideal OS. For a period of time, Shuttleworth considered the possibility of running for Debian project leader as a means of reforming the Debian project from within. With time, though, it became clear that the best way to bring GNU/Linux to the mainstream would not be from within the Debian project�which in many situations had very good reasons for being the way it was. Instead, Shuttleworth would create a new project that worked in symbiosis with Debian to build a new, better GNU/Linux system.

To kick off this project, Shuttleworth invited a dozen or so free and open source software developers he knew and respected to his flat in London in April 2004. It was in this meeting (alluded to in the first paragraphs of this introduction) that the groundwork for the Ubuntu project was laid. By that point, many of those involved were excited about the possibility of the project. During this meeting, the members of the team�which would in time grow into the core Ubuntu team�brainstormed a large list of the things that they would want to see in their ideal OS. The list is now a familiar list of features to most Ubuntu users. Many of these traits are covered in more depth later in this chapter. The group wanted

� Predictable and frequent release cycles

� A strong focus on localization and accessibility

� A strong focus on ease of use and user-friendliness on the desktop

� A strong focus on Python as the single programming language through which the entire system could be built and expanded

� A community-driven approach that worked with existing free software projects and a method by which the groups could give back as they went along�not just at the time of release

� A new set of tools designed around the process of building distributions that allowed developers to work within an ecosystem of different projects and that allowed users to give back in whatever way they could

There was consensus among the group that actions speak louder than words, so there were no public announcements or press releases. Instead, the group set a deadline for itself�six short months in the future. Shuttleworth agreed to finance the work and pay the developers full-time salaries to work on the project. After six months, they would both announce their project and reveal the first product of their work. They made a list of goals they wanted to achieve by the deadline, and the individuals present took on tasks. Collectively, they called themselves the Warthogs.

Source of Information :  Prentice Hall The official Ubuntu Book 5th Edition 2010

XtraGrid Layout View

The Grid View displays data in a two-dimensional table. This topic describes the Grid View and its basic features. The Views and Levels topic provides brief information about Views in general.

Like Card Views, Layout Views display data records as cards, consisting of card fields. However, unlike Card Views, Layout Views support multiple card layouts and allow card fields to be arranged within a card in numerous ways.

The Layout View's features are powered by the comprehensive layout management library used in the XtraLayoutControl Suite. To use a Layout View in your application, ensure that the DevExpress.XtraLayout.vX.Y.dll library is referenced by the project.


Card Layouts
The Layout View represents data in a card format, where records are represented by cards, and record fields are represented by card fields. Cards by default contain expand/collapse buttons used to minimize and restore cards:

The Header Panel at the top of the Layout View provides a set of buttons that allow an end-user to switch between various display modes. Like the Card View, the Layout View cannot represent a master data table in master-detail mode. In other respects, the Layout View's behavior is similar to other Views.

The Layout View is encapsulated by the LayoutView class, which is the ColumnView class' descendant. The Layout View inherits all the functionality implemented by the Column View, supporting work with columns and records, data sorting and filtering, and introduces new methods to work with cards.

Multiple card layouts are supported by the Layout View. To select a card layout, use the LayoutViewOptionsView.ViewMode property (accessible via the LayoutView.OptionsView object). Cards can be displayed using one or multiple columns or rows, or it's possible to display a single card centered within the View at one time. The following collage shows some of the layouts:

In addition to these card layouts, the Layout View supports arranging cards in an ellipse, called carousel mode. In this mode, all cards, except for the current card are painted using a transparency effect and are visually displayed below the current card. When scrolling cards using the scroll bar, arrow keys or mouse wheel, cards are moved along the specified ellipse curve.

Various display options affecting the card layout in carousel mode can be customized via the LayoutView.OptionsCarouselMode object.


Card Field Layouts
A card in a Layout View consists of card fields, and these can be arranged using multiple layouts (compared to the Card View, in which card fields are always positioned one under another). Card fields can be positioned next to each other, one under another and each field can span over several adjacent fields. Moreover, card fields can be combined into groups to emulate a Group Box's grouping feature. The following collage demonstrates sample cards:

A card field always contains a value region that represents the corresponding data field's value. It also contains the caption region, which can be hidden, if required.

Card fields are represented by LayoutViewColumn objects, derived from the GridColumn class. Column objects specify only display and behavior settings, they do not directly store layout settings. Card fields' layout settings (position within a card, indents, field caption's visibility and alignment, etc) are specified by layout fields represented by LayoutViewField objects.

In a Layout View, each column object corresponds to a specific layout field object and vice versa. When a column is created, a layout field is created as well, and its methods can be used to position the field within the card, and customize other layout options.

Layout fields arranged in a specific manner form a template card that is used as a pattern when creating cards at runtime. The template card can accommodate more than layout fields. It can contain empty regions, and groups combining other layout fields and empty regions. The template card can be accessed via the LayoutView.TemplateCard property.

The easiest way to customize the template card (add and position layout fields, combine them into groups, specify the location, alignment and visibility of card fields' captions, and many other layout settings) is to use the Layout Page of the Grid Control's Designer.


Layout View Main Features
The following are the main features supported by Layout Views:

� Layout customization at design time via the control's Designer

� Hints
Hints are supported for cells with truncated text, and in carousel mode, hints are supported for cards displayed in the background.

� Sorting Records
This feature provides the ability to sort data against one or multiple columns. When sorting is applied to a View, cards are re-arranged to meet the current sort settings.

� Filtering Records
Filtering allows you to display a subset of records from a data source. When filtering is applied to a View, only those records that meet the current filter criteria are displayed. You can filter data against single or multiple card fields.

� Selecting Multiple Cards
This feature can be useful for end-users. See the End-User Capabilities: Selecting Rows/Cards topic for details.

? Dev Components ? DevExpress Controls for WinForms ? DevExpress XtraGrid

Source of Information : 1998-2010 Developer Express Inc Help

XtraGrid Grid View

The Grid View displays data in a two-dimensional table. This topic describes the Grid View and its basic features. The Views and Levels topic provides brief information about Views in general.


Grid View Basics
The bound data is arranged in columns and rows. Each column's GridColumn.FieldName property corresponds to a unique field name within the data source. All columns are stored in the ColumnView.Columns collection.

Each row can be identified by its row handle. See the Identifying Rows and Cards topic for details. The Overview of Columns and Card Fields and Rows and Cards Overview topics provide detailed information about columns and rows respectively.

The Grid View is the ancestor of the Banded Grid View and Advanced Banded Grid View. The latter two display data in a tabular form similar to the Grid View while organizing columns in bands.



Grid View Main Features
Grid Views enable you to represent data using a wide range of features:

� Master-Detail Support
This type of data representation requires the presence of at least two datasets - master and detail. These tables are linked by a one-to-many relationship, i.e. a single row in the first table can be related to one or more rows in the second table, but a row in the second table can be related to only one row in the first table.

� Grouping Rows
Enables you to group data against one or more columns. If you group data by a column, records with identical column values are arranged into corresponding data groups. The group row can be expanded to access the underlying data rows.

� Sorting Records
This feature provides the ability to sort data against one or multiple columns. When sorting is applied to a view, rows are re-arranged to meet the current sort settings.

� Filtering Records
Filtering allows you to display a subset of records from a data source. When filtering is applied to a Grid View, only those records that meet the current filter criteria are displayed. You can filter data against a single or multiple columns.

� Displaying the Preview Section
This feature allows each row to display a preview section. The Preview Section is a suitable place to display memo fields or any custom data for a given record. It is displayed across all the View's columns, thus the preview section's width is equal to the total column width.

� Hiding Unused Columns
The customization form provides facilities for adding and removing columns from a View at runtime by using drag & drop. Dragging the column by its header and dropping it within the customization form client area hides the column from the current View. The column reappears when the header is dragged from the customization form to the View's client area. Banded Views support the same operations with bands. See the topic for details.

� Displaying Popup Menus
Such menus provide the ability to perform actions linked to particular visual elements. A context menu can be invoked by right-clicking on any of the following visual elements: Column Header, Footer Cell and Group Panel. See the topic for details.

� Displaying Hints
In Grid Views, hints can be displayed both in cells and column headers.

� Displaying Summaries
This feature can be used to customize brief information about group rows or particular columns displayed within the Group Row, Footer Cell and Group Footer.

� Selecting Multiple Rows
This feature can be useful for end-users. See the End-User Capabilities: Selecting Rows/Cards topic for details.

� Grid layout customization at design time or runtime.
Each column within a Grid View can be moved, resized or fixed at a particular position. See the Columns Layout and Auto Width topic for details. Rows also can also be resized.

? Dev Components ? DevExpress Controls for WinForms ? DevExpress XtraGrid

Source of Information : 1998-2010 Developer Express Inc Help

XtraGrid Views Hierarchy

XtraGrid uses views to display data from a bound data source. This document describes the hierarchy of View classes provided by XtraGrid.


Views Hierarchy
� BaseView is the ultimate View class and it implements basic functionality. The class is abstract and so you cannot create instances. It declares virtual methods to work with editors, appearances, hints, details, and saving and restoring layouts, but these are implemented by class descendants.

� ColumnView introduces methods to work with columns and rows/records. The class is abstract, so you cannot create instances.

Columns represent fields from the bound data source, while rows correspond to data source records. ColumnView does not determine how columns and rows are arranged. The ColumnView class implements methods to manipulate columns, access particular rows and cells, maximize details, display hints, sort and filter data, multiple row selection.

� GridView represents data in a tabular form.

The View supports grouping, incremental search, calculating summaries, displaying master-detail relationships, and displaying preview sections. It also provides the means to customize the View layout via context menus. Columns can be anchored to the left or to the right View edge. Such columns are not horizontally scrolled with the View.

� BandedGridView extends the functionality of the Grid View by introducing bands used to combine similar columns. Columns can be displayed only by adding them into a band. Hiding a band automatically hides all columns that belong to that band. The BandedGridView class supports only a single-line column arrangement. Bands can be anchored to the left or to the right edge. Fixed columns are not supported.

� AdvBandedGridView extends the functionality of the BandedGridView. The View allows you to arrange columns within bands into multiple lines. Columns can have different heights.

� LayoutView displays records as cards, supporting multiple field layouts. Cards can be arranged in single or multiple columns or rows, or using an advanced carousel mode, where cards form an ellipse with a transparency effect.

� CardView displays each record as a simple card, arranging fields vertically in a single column. See the Card View document to learn more.


If these Views do not suit your particular needs, you can create a custom View class by deriving from the one that most closely matches your requirements. If you need to implement a completely new data representation, you can derive from the BaseView class. The ColumnView class provides methods to work with columns. So you can derive from this class, if arranging columns in a particular manner is required. If you only need to modify the default behavior of GridView, BandedGridView, AdvBandedGridView or CardView, then you should use the corresponding class as the ancestor for your custom View.

Information on the layout of the View's elements is stored in the View's protected ViewInfo object. This specifies the position and size of its elements. Each View also provides a Painter object which paints based on the current look and feel. The Painter object renders the View using information from ViewInfo and the View's settings. Handler is another significant View object. It handles the keyboard and mouse events transmitted by the GridControl class.

? Dev Components ? DevExpress Controls for WinForms ? DevExpress XtraGrid

Source of Information : 1998-2010 Developer Express Inc Help

History of Ubuntu - Mark Shuttleworth

No history of Ubuntu can call itself complete without a history of Mark Shuttleworth. Shuttleworth is, undeniably, the most visible and important person in Ubuntu. More important from the point of view of history, Shuttleworth is also the originator and initiator of the project�he made the snowball that would eventually roll on and grow to become the Ubuntu project. Shuttleworth was born in 1973 in Welkom, Free State, in South Africa. He attended Diocesan College and obtained a business science degree in finance and information systems at the University of Cape Town. During this period, he was an avid computer hobbyist and became involved with the free and open source software community. He was at least marginally involved in both the Apache project and the Debian project and was the first person to upload the Apache Web server, perhaps the single most important piece of server software on GNU/Linux platforms, into the Debian project�s archives.

Seeing an opportunity in the early days of the Web, Shuttleworth founded a certificate authority and Internet security company called Thawte in his garage. Over the course of several years, he built Thawte into the second largest certificate authority on the Internet, trailing only the security behemoth VeriSign. Throughout this period, Thawte�s products and services were built and served almost entirely from free and open source software. In December 1999, Shuttleworth sold Thawte to VeriSign for an undisclosed amount that reached into the hundreds of millions in U.S. dollars.

With his fortune made at a young age, Shuttleworth might have enjoyed a life of leisure�and probably considered it. Instead, he decided to pursue his lifelong dream of space travel. After paying approximately US$20 million to the Russian space program and devoting nearly a year to preparation, including learning Russian and spending seven months training in Star City, Russia, Shuttleworth realized his dream as a civilian cosmonaut aboard the Russian Soyuz TM-34 mission. On this mission, Shuttleworth spent two days on the Soyuz rocket and eight days on the International Space Station, where he participated in experiments related to AIDS and genome research. In early May 2002, Shuttleworth returned to Earth.

In addition to space exploration and a slightly less impressive jaunt to Antarctica, Shuttleworth has played an active role as both a philanthropist and a venture capitalist. In 2001, Shuttleworth founded The Shuttleworth Foundation (TSF)�a nonprofit organization based in South Africa. The foundation was chartered to fund, develop, and drive social innovation in the field of education. Of course, the means by which TSF attempts to achieve these goals frequently involves free software. Through these projects, the organization has been one of the most visible proponents of free and open source software in South Africa and even the world. In the venture capital area, Shuttleworth worked to foster research, development, and entrepreneurship in South Africa with strategic injections of cash into start-ups through a new venture capital firm called HBD, an acronym for �Here Be Dragons.� During this period, Shuttleworth was busy brainstorming his next big project�the project that would eventually become Ubuntu.

Source of Information :  Prentice Hall The official Ubuntu Book 5th Edition 2010

iPhone Typing Tricks

Once you�re comfortable with the keyboard, there are further ways to make typing easier. Here are a few more iPhone typing tricks you can use to make your keyboard entry faster and easier.


Contractions
When you want to type a contraction like can�t or shouldn�t, don�t bother putting in the apostrophe. The iPhone is smart enough to guess that cant is can�t. Of course, if you�re referring to a slope or tilt, be sure to tap the word itself to decline the change from the noun to the contraction.

If you�re typing a word like we�ll, where the uncontracted word well is a common word, just add an extra l. The iPhone corrects welll to we�ll and shelll to she�ll.

TIP: Other contraction tricks include itsa, which gets corrected to its, and weree, which gets corrected to we�re.


Punctuation Dragging
If you plan to use only one item of punctuation at a time, such as a comma or period, save time by dragging. Drag from the .?123 button to the item you want to include. By starting the drag at .?123, the iPhone switches momentarily to the numbers and punctuation view. After selecting your item, the keyboard automatically bounces back to the alphabet.

TIP: Another punctuation trick for the end of sentences is to tap .?123, the punctuation item you want to use, and then the spacebar. The iPhone is smart enough to recognize the end of a sentence and put you back in alphabet mode. You can also double-tap the spacebar to add a period followed by a space.


Accents
Tap and hold any keyboard letter to view accented versions of that letter. For example, tapping and holding N presents you with the option of adding n, �n, or �. This shortcut makes it much easier to type foreign words.

If you need to do a lot of typing in a foreign language, you can add new keyboards to your iPhone by going to Settings ? General ? Keyboard, tapping International Keyboards, and then adding the keyboards you need from a palette of 51 that are available. To use the keyboards to enter text, open a keyboard, and then tap the small globe to the left of the spacebar, which will display a list of the international keyboards you have installed. Yes, you too can write in Russian on any iPhone.


Caps Lock
To enable Caps Lock, go to Settings ? General ? Keyboard Preferences. When that�s enabled, you can double-tap the Caps button to toggle the lock on and off.


Deleting Multiple Words at a Time
When you press and hold the Delete key, it starts off by deleting one letter and then the next. But if you hold it for longer than about a line of text, it switches to word deletion and starts removing entire words at a time, making it easier to clear text quickly.


Autocapitalization
Autocapitalization means the iPhone automatically capitalizes the start of sentences. So, you can type the day has begun, and the iPhone is smart enough to capitalize the: �The day has begun.� This means you don�t have to worry about pressing the Shift key at the beginning of every sentence or even when you type i because i went to the park becomes I went to the park.

TIP: Enable or disable autocapitalization in Settings ? General ? Keyboard Preferences.


iPhone Typing Test
You may be curious just how fast you can type on your iPhone keyboard. There are several apps in the App Store that can test your typing speed. Search the App Store for typing test to find those apps.

Source of Information :  Taking Your iPhone 4 to the Max

Does high availability mean that a fault-tolerant machine is needed?

Traditionally, fault tolerant machines were based around hardware redundancy, and able to survive hardware failures without any break in service.

High availability no longer requires such fault-tolerant machines. There are many solutions based on cluster architectures that are able to satisfy the majority of high availability needs.

It should be noted that the reliability and maintainability capabilities of the platforms used to construct a cluster system are of primary importance in obtaining a system able to meet extreme availability needs.

Fault-tolerant systems are used in situations when the time between a failure and complete resumption of services must be very short. Hardware reliability continues to improve (a trend that will continue for technology reasons), while software reliability marks time at best (granted, the quality of a given piece of software will improve over time�given appropriate management�but there always seems to be more software). Failures attributable to software substantially exceed failures due to hardware. Clusterbased solutions provide some protection against software failures, while purely hardware-based fault-tolerant machines can cope only with hardware failure.

Source of Information :  Elsevier Server Architectures 2005

Are RISC processors dead, killed by Intel?

What drives the market to settle on an architecture is, almost certainly, the availability of applications; IA-32 (Intel Architecture 32-bit, once known as x86) has clearly benefited from this effect since the introduction of the PC. This architecture, because of its complexity, is not positioned to offer the best performance potential; but its extremely large sales volumes allowed Intel to make substantial investments in research and development (R&D), allowing its processors to match the best RISC processors (except for floating point).

Development of IA-32 has not stopped, and RISC processors will have an increasingly difficult time competing with the architecture for entrylevel and mid-range systems.

With the new IA-64 architecture, Intel squarely faces RISC machines on their own ground�high performance (both integer and floating point) together with 64-bit addressing. Itanium, the first implementation of this architecture, hardly met expectations in terms of integer performance or availability date. Itanium 2 and its successors are likely to remedy this situation. In looking at the situation, recall that IA-64 performance has two interrelated components: compilers, which must extract and express the internal parallelism in programs; and the performance of the processor itself. HP�s contribution, especially for the compiler, is invaluable to Intel, to whom this is a new field.

We should not forget that there is constant progress in IA-32 implementations (and in IA-32 compatibles), a factor that delays the penetration of IA-64, a new architecture lacking the large applications catalogue of IA-32.

Our comment on the Itanium catalogue refers to the IA-64 native catalogue; Intel has provided IA-64 with the ability to execute IA-32 applications, thereby getting Intel the support of the key vendors of applications, databases, middleware, and operating systems�albeit not at the same performance as could be obtained with native Itanium applications.

Because the investment needed to develop new implementations of an architecture keeps growing faster than the market, the tendency will be for the number of RISC architectures to reduce. The survivors will be those with either sufficient market volume, or very strong compatibility reasons. We have already seen a number of RISC architectures fall by the wayside; we can reasonably suppose that just a few years in the future we will see a maximum of two RISC architectures (plus IA-64) surviving. Of course, IA-32 will continue to exist, too.

The real challenge for IA-64 in the area of IA-32 support arises with AMD�s introduction of a straightforward extension of IA-32 to 64-bit architecture, allowing a smooth coexistence and migration between the two architectures. This will be particulary interesting to watch in the next few years.

Source of Information : Elsevier Server Architectures 2005

Organizing iPhone Apps with Folders

iOS 4 brought a smile to the face of many longtime iPhone users with the addition of folders. Previously, app icons could not be organized except by locating them all on the same page. Each page could contain up to 16 apps, so if you had a lot of apps, you were often flipping through ten or more screens of apps to find the one you needed.

Now, iOS 4 provides folders. Each folder can hold up to 12 apps, and each Home screen can have up to 12 folders�that�s 144 apps per screen, not including those in the Home row at the bottom of the iPhone display.

Here are some tips on creating and using folders:
� To organize similar apps into folders, tap and hold one app until it begins to wiggle, and then drag and drop it on another app of the same type. For example, to create a game folder, you can tap and hold the Angry Birds app icon until it wiggles and then drag it over to the icon and drop it. Since both apps are in the Games category of the iTunes App Store, the iPhone automatically selects Games as the name of the folder.

� Once a folder is created, you can add any other app (up to a total of 12) to it by repeating the process of dragging and dropping icons.

� To rename a folder, tap and hold the folder icon until it wiggles. Tap the folder icon, and the folder opens with an editable title at the top. When you�re done renaming the folder, press the Home button to save the new name.

� You can also organize your apps and folders in iTunes. With your iPhone connected to your computer, click its name under Devices in the iTunes sidebar, and then click the Apps tab. In the image on the right side of the iTunes screen, drag and drop app icons to organize them the way that you want them.

Source of Information :  Taking Your iPhone 4 to the Max

Attack Methods used by spywares to spread

Appin has various honeypots which did studies over botnets, methods used to spread botnets which capture various attack, exploits which are used to spread spywares. Some of the examples are given below:

1. Email based attacks: Ever got an email prompting you to click a link or download a pdf. Beware this is one of the most common methods used to spread spywares and there have been countless such attacks spreading out of Chinese and Russian IP addresses.

2. Pornographic and free tools download websites: These websites are honeypots created to attract people and spread spywares through browser vulnerabilities being exploited.

3. Spyware removal tools which act as spyware: Spyware removal tools prompt a user to check their system for spywares but the police become a thief in no time. A lot of these tools remove other spywares but add a spyware to take control of your computer.

4. USB drives: USB drives act as a spreader of spywares in a network of computers. There are various such propagation modules which have worm behavior and act as a carrier of spywares.

5. Chat bots: How often do you get a link in your chat bot from girl with hot picture? This is again one of the methods to spread a spyware in a network of people related to each other where the software starts sending malicious links which download the spyware on your computer.

Source of Information :  Hakin9 November 2010

Wireless Signal Modulation

Signal modulation is a technique used to combine a signal being transmitted with a carrier signal for transmission. The receiver demodulates the transmitted signal and regenerates the original signal. Normally the carrier signal is a sine wave of a high frequency. The input signal could be digital (digital modulation) or analog (analog modulation). In either case, the three basic characteristics of a signal are utilized for modulation. The device that performs this modulation and demodulation is the modem. Modulation is often referred to as signal encoding. Analog signals can be modulated by the following methods.


Amplitude Modulation
For AM signals, the output signal is a multiplication of the input signal with a carrier wave. The amplitude of the carrier wave is determined by the input analog signal. The frequency of the resulting output signal is centered at the frequency of the carrier. As its name implies, AM radio that operates in the frequency band of 520 to 1605.5 KHz uses AM.


Frequency Modulation
Rather than vary the amplitude of the carrier wave, FM alters the transient frequency of the carrier according to the input signal. Again, as its name implies, FM radio that operates within the frequency band of 87.5 to 108 MHz uses FM.


Phase Modulation
In phase modulation (PM), the phase of the carrier signal is used to encode the input signal. Like AM, FM and PM shift the frequency of the input signal to a band centered at the carrier frequency. Both FM and PM require higher bandwidths. Analog modulation is necessary for transmitting a wireless analog signal such as voice over a long distance. Directly transmitting the signal itself to the receiver without applying modulation would require a large antenna to be effective, as the frequency of voice signals falls into the range of 30 to 3000 Hz. For digital data, if the medium only facilitates analog transmission (e.g., air), some digital modulation techniques will have to be employed. A carrier wave is also used to carry binary streams being transmitted, according to some keying schemes in digital modulation. Below is a list of digital modulation schemes:

� Amplitude-shift keying (ASK): ASK uses presence of a carrier wave to represent a binary one and its absence to indicate a binary zero. While ASK is simple to implement, it is highly susceptible to noise and multipath propagation effects. Because of that, ASK is primarily used in wired networks, especially in optical networks where the bit error rate (BER) is considerably lower than that of wireless environments.

� Frequency-shift keying (FSK): Similar to FM, FSK uses two or more frequencies of a carrier wave to represent digital data. Binary FSK (BFSK), which employs two carrier frequencies for 0 and 1, is the most commonly used FSK. The resulting signal can be mathematically defined as the sum of two amplitude-modulated signals of different carrier frequencies. If more than two carrier frequencies are used for modulation, each frequency may represent more than one bit, thereby providing a higher bandwidth than ASK.

� Phase-shift keying (PSK): PSK uses the phase of a carrier wave to encode digital data. Binary PSK simply reverses phase when the data bits change. Multilevel PSKs use more evenly distributed phases in the phase domain, with each phase representing two or more bits. One of most commonly used PSK schemes is quadrature PSK, in which the four phases of 0, p /2, p , and 3 p /2 are used to encode two digits. PSK can be implemented in two ways. The first is to produce a reference signal at the receiver side and then compare it with the received signal to decide the phase shift. This method somewhat complicates things at the receiver end, as the transmitter and the receiver must be synchronized periodically to ensure that the reference signal is being generated correctly. Another method is differential PSK (DPSK). In DPSK, the reference signal is not a separated signal but is the one preceding the current wave in question. One of the second generation cellular systems, Digital-Advanced Mobile Phone Service (DAMPS), uses DPSK.

ASK and PSK can be combined to offer more variations of phase shifts on the phase domain. Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is such a scheme in which multiple levels of amplitudes coupled with several phases provide far more unique symbol shifts over the same bandwidth than used by PSK over the same bandwidth. QAM is widely used in today�s modems.

Apart from analog and digital modulation, another category of modulation that should be discussed for wireless communication is analog-to-digital data modulation, a procedure sometimes referred to as digitization. Two major digitization schemes are pulse-code modulation (PCM) and delta modulation. PCM samples an input analog signal in short intervals, and each sample is converted into a symbol representing a code. To reconstruct the original input signal from samples, the sampling rate must be higher than twice the highest frequency of the input signal. In other words, given a sample rate offs, a frequency higher than 2 fs in the input signal will not be recovered in the reconstruction. Delta modulation uses a staircase-like sample function to approximate the input signal. The resulting digital data comprise a series of 1�s and 0�s indicating the ups and downs, respectively, of the staircase function.

In the wireless world, signals transmitted through the air are primarily high-frequency analog signals. In wireless voice communication, the user�s voice is digitalized into digital data and then modulated to analog-based band signals (digital modulation), which are finally modulated with a carrier wave for transmission. For wireless data transmission, the first step of this procedure is not necessary. In either case, the receiver takes the reverse order of these steps to recover the transmitted data or voice.

Source of Information :  Elsevier Wireless Networking Complete 2010

WILL CLOUD BE EVIL?

Cloud computing, beside the other thousand of other meanings, refers to the possibility of running applications, or websites, on different virtualized hosts, with the benefit of scaling the need for CPU and memory instantly. The business model is in use now is a pay per cycle. Cost depends on the number of CPU cycles and the CPU-time consumed.

Thomas Roth, is a german guy who has cracked SHA-1 password with rented distributed CUDA computing. Although SHA-1 160bit is thought to be,relatively, insecure, it is still used for SSL and other important implementations. This sounds even more ironic if we consider that most of the SSL CA using MD5 when Sotirov et al, in 2009, managed to crack SSL through MD5 collisions, switched over to SHA-1 few days later.

New cloud cracking services are coming up. The most notorious is Moxie Marlinspike�s wpacracker.com, offering the rental of 400 CPU�s cluster to crack WPA passwords. English and German dictionaries are available or, in general, the digits dictionary can be used, which contains all 100 million permutations of passwords composed of 8-character long digits. Cost of the service is just $17, to have a response of 40 minutes at worst.

Source of Information :  Hakin9 November 2010

Wireless Signal Multiplexing

Modulations of analog signals or digital data are concerned with a single input signal to be converted efficiently into other forms. In contrast, multiplexing is a collection of schemes that addresses the issue of transmitting multiple signals simultaneously in a wireless system in the hopes of maximizing the capacity of the system. The devices for multiplexing and demultiplexing are multiplexers and demultiplexers, respectively. If signals of the same frequency are spatially separated from each other such that no frequency overlapping occurs at any given place, then multiple signals of different frequencies can be transmitted and received without a problem. Radio stations are an excellent example of this spatial division multiplexing : AM and FM radio signals only cover the area in which the radio stations are located, and they cannot interfere with other radio signals on the same frequency in adjacent areas. Apart from spatial division multiplexing, three prominent schemes of multiplexing have been devised.


Frequency-Division Multiplexing
In frequency-division multiplexing (FDM), signals from a transmitter are modulated to a fixed frequency band centered at a carrier frequency (i.e., a channel). To avoid inference, these channels have to be separated by a sufficiently large gap (i.e., a guard band) in the frequency domain; hence, transmission and reception of signals in multiple channels can be performed simultaneously but independently. Analog cellular systems use FDM; in these systems, calls are separated by frequency.


Time-Division Multiplexing
Time -division multiplexing (TDM) allows multiple channels to occupy the same frequency band but in small alternating slices of time following a sequence known to both the transmitter and the receiver. Each channel makes full use of the bandwidth of the medium but only contributes a portion of the overall data rate. Coordination among the transmitters is necessary to prevent conflicting use of the frequency band. When applied to digital signals, TDM can be done on bit level, byte level, block level, or levels of larger quantities. GSM and D-AMPS both use TDM but in different ways. TDM and FDM can be combined to increase the robustness of the system. In this case, signals from a transmitter are modulated onto different carriers for a certain amount of time and jump to another carrier, effectively creating a �frequency-hopping� phenomenon.


Code-Division Multiplexing
Code -division multiplexing (CDM) makes better use of a frequency band than FDM and TDM. Signals from different transmitters are transmitted on the same frequency band at the same time but each has a code to uniquely identify itself. The orthogonal codes mathematically ensure that signals cannot interfere with each other at the receiver. CDM effectively converts the problem of limited frequency space into ample code space but adds the overhead of implementation complexity. The transmitter and receiver must be synchronized such that individual signals can be correctly received and decoded. Compared to FDM, CDM provides greater security against signal tapping because transmitted signals appear as noise if the receiver does not know the code. CDM is the underlying multiplexing scheme of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). CDMA cellular systems use similar CDM schemes to provide multiple wireless communication channels access to the same frequency band. Another multiplexing scheme, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), is very common in optical networks using fiber as the transmission medium. It is actually FDM for fiber, which offers an extremely high bandwidth. In WDM, a fiber can be divided into a number of wavelengths (nanometers), each of which can be assigned to a transmission channel. Dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) systems support eight or more wavelengths. Because of their high data rate, WDM and DWDM are the predominant multiplexing schemes used by optical networks in the wired Internet backbone.

Source of Information :  Elsevier Wireless Networking Complete 2010

XtraGrid Views and Levels

XtraGrid does not actually display data itself. It uses Views to represent data from the bound data source. Views specify how records and record fields are arranged. They provide multiple edit, display and customization options, provide means for changing the look and feel, etc.


Views
You can use one of the following Views to display data according to your needs:
� Grid View displays data in a two-dimensional table.

� Layout View displays records as cards while supporting multiple field and card layouts.

� Banded Grid View displays data in a tabular form similar to a Grid View, while organizing columns into bands

� Advanced Banded Grid View displays data similar to a Banded Grid View. However, columns can be arranged one under another, and can have different heights.

� Card View displays data as cards, each of which arranges fields vertically, in a single column.

Each View provides numerous settings to customize its appearance and behavior. If a View does not suit your particular needs, you can create a custom View by deriving from a suitable View class for your customized View. Or you can inherit from a base View class if you need to represent data in a more diverse form (ChartView, for instance).


Hierarchical Data Representation
XtraGrid supports hierarchical data sources, i.e. data sources with master-detail relationships set up between recordsets. In this case, each recordset can be displayed using a particular View (Grid View, Card View, etc.). The grid organizes Views into a hierarchical structure to reflect the relationships between the recordsets.

To connect a grid control to a data source, use the GridControl.DataSource and GridControl.DataMember properties. The data source referenced by these properties is represented by a main view and this is always displayed at the top level in XtraGrid. You can access the main View via the GridControl.MainView property. By default, the main View is represented by a Grid View. In this case, the GridControl.MainView property refers to an instance of the GridView class. To use another View type for the main view, you need to assign the corresponding View object to that property.

In master-detail mode, a master recordset can have several master-detail relationships. In this case, each master row in XtraGrid provides access to several detail Views corresponding to particular master-detail relationships. A detail View opened by expanding a master row is called a clone View. If you expand another row, another clone View is created to represent the corresponding detail data. Clone Views are destroyed when master rows are collapsed.

Clone Views for a master-detail relationship, but displayed for different master rows, copy their settings from a single View called a pattern. Pattern Views serve as templates for creating real detail Views. They do not contain data and they are never displayed within a grid control. For more information on Views in master-detail mode, see the Pattern and Clone Views document.

To associate pattern Views with particular relationships, you can use the GridControl.LevelTree property. At design time, you can use the Level Designer for this purpose. It also helps you specify the main View for the grid control.


Level Designer
The Level Designer is a helper control displayed at design time at the right bottom corner of the grid control. It facilitates the grid's customization, and provides quick access to the MainView and pattern Views associated with particular relationships.

When the grid control is bound to DataTable containing master-detail relationships, the grid obtains the relationships' structure and presents this as levels via the Level Designer. You can use the Level Designer to assign pattern Views to relationships.


Working with Views
Views are Component descendants. So, you can refer to the main View and pattern Views created at design time by using their names. You can also refer to the main View via the GridControl.MainView property. If you need to determine a pattern View associated with a particular relationship, you can use the GridControl.LevelTree hashtable.

To access the currently focused View (main View or detail clone), use the GridControl.FocusedView property.

The GridControl.MainView and GridControl.FocusedView properties return objects of the BaseView class. This represents the base class for all Views in XtraGrid. In some cases, you may need to typecast the returned object to a particular View type (GridView, CardView, etc) to obtain the functionality required.

All Views that are currently displayed within the grid control at runtime can be obtained via the GridControl.Views collection. The first collection element always refers to the GridControl.MainView. Other elements refer to the detail clones displayed by expanding master rows. Once master rows are collapsed, the detail Views are deleted and the corresponding elements are removed from the GridControl.Views collection.

View objects in XtraGrid provide numerous methods to work with rows, columns and styles. To get the column collection for a View you can use the View's ColumnView.Columns property (the ColumnView class is an ancestor of the GridView, LayoutView and CardView classes). Rows in XtraGrid are identified by row handles (unique integer values specifying the order in which rows are displayed within a view). The Overview of Columns and Card Fields and Rows and Cards Overview documents provide general information on organizing columns and rows in XtraGrid.

As stated above, pattern Views are only templates for creating real Views (clones). They do not contain data and they are never displayed within the grid control at runtime. Therefore, you cannot apply data related methods to pattern Views, such as getting/setting row values or expanding rows. Pattern Views only specify layout and appearance settings. Clone Views will copy these settings upon creation. For instance, you can create a pattern View and apply grouping against a particular column. All clone Views based upon this pattern View will have this grouping.

When a grid control is created, its GridControl.MainView property is already set to an instance of the GridView class. To change the main view, you can create a View object and assign it to the GridControl.MainView property. XtraGrid allows you to create Views either by using constructors or by calling the grid's GridControl.CreateView method. Creating Views can also be useful when associating pattern Views with master-detail relation names via the GridControl.LevelTree property.

The following code shows how to assign a BandedGridView object to the grid's main view:

Sample C# Code

using DevExpress.XtraGrid.Views.BandedGrid;

//Dispose of the old view 
gridControl1.MainView.Dispose();
//Create a Banded Grid View 
BandedGridView bandedView = new BandedGridView(gridControl1);
gridControl1.MainView = bandedView;
//Add one band and one column to the view 
GridBand band = bandedView.Bands.AddBand("General");
BandedGridColumn column = (BandedGridColumn)bandedView.Columns.AddField("CustomerID");
column.OwnerBand = band;
column.Visible = true;

Sample VB .Net Code

Imports DevExpress.XtraGrid.Views.BandedGrid

'Dispose of the old view 
GridControl1.MainView.Dispose()
'Create a Banded Grid View 
Dim bandedView As BandedGridView = New BandedGridView(GridControl1)
GridControl1.MainView = bandedView
'Add one band and one column to the view 
Dim band As GridBand = bandedView.Bands.AddBand("General")
Dim column As BandedGridColumn = bandedView.Columns.AddField("CustomerID")
column.OwnerBand = band
column.Visible = True

? Dev Components ? DevExpress Controls for WinForms ? DevExpress XtraGrid

Source of Information : 1998-2010 Developer Express Inc Help

How Do I Become Warning Free?

If you�re starting a new project from scratch, writing warningfree code is easy. But if you�re starting from an existing codebase, it can be much less straightforward. The chances are that the first time you increase your compiler�s warning level or run a new tool, you will disappear under a tidal wave of warnings. Often these result from systemic issues with the code�common mistakes you�ve made over and over again, which have gone unnoticed until now, but each instance of which generates a warning. There are also issues that tend to �percolate� through the code generating many warnings (const-correctness in C++ is a classic example).

The solution is to be pragmatic. Most static analysis tools provide fine-grained control over which warnings are generated where (via comments embedded in the source code, for example). Very often you can get the number down to a manageable level by switching off the one or two warnings that account for the majority or by excluding a �problem� module. You can go back and fix these other warnings at a later date, but you gain most of the benefit of static analysis in the interim.

The same approach can help on the rare occasions where a buggy tool generates spurious warnings for legitimate code, where you knowingly choose to write �questionable� code, or where a third-party library generates warnings.

Source of Information :  Paul Butcher - Debug it Find repair and prevent bugs