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We can argue about whether it looks like an alien spaceship, a colony on a distant planet, or something else, but let's agree that the winning stadium design for the 2014 Asian Games is mind-blowingly gorgeous. More »
Our installation of the F-Secure Internet Security 2010 on a test PC having C2D E6320 and 2.5 GB RAM was finished in around 1 minute, after a restart and verification of the key, it showed the programs requesting Internet access like Steam client and others installed in our system, after clicking allow couple of times we were good to go , downloading updates and further installation took another 15 minutes on our 1 Mbps connection.
The parental control settings in the F-Secure 2010 Internet security are one of the easiest out there, so lets have a look at the parental controls
The overall speed of the scanning was good, our almost full 160 HDD including lots of software, games, applications, was scanned in 1 hours and 4 minutes, however there isn’t a pause scan option while scanning the hard drive so if you stop the scan, you would have to run it again from scratch. Pause scan option is particularly good when you just want to Hibernate your PC after pausing the scan and then turn it on later to resume scan from where it left, very helpful these days as HDD capacities have grown manifolds and scanning takes time. It detected all the viruses we have in our virus-pendrive with ease and the Anti-Spyware was pretty hard on the advertising agencies, and detected their tracking cookies as Spyware.
Full System Scan in Action - no pause button
Other thoughts: After installation of F-Secure our Local Area Network stopped working, we weren’t able to access files of our test PC from other PCs on LAN
It was not able to detect our LAN IC on our Intel DG965RY motherboard, after selecting the network IC, local network access was restored. This might be a problem specific to our system.
Pros and Cons of F-Secure Internet Security 2010
Pros :
Cons:
Fiber optics typically use a cigarette-box-sized optical transceiver, which contains tiny lasers and photo cells, to facilitate the connections. Intel miniaturized the box down to the dimensions of a wafer thin dime. Optical cables are already pretty tiny; each one is just 125 microns wide or about the width of a single human hair. The transceiver can deliver two channels of information over the fiber-optic cable—necessary since PCs need at least two ports.
Intel states that the technology will eventually scale up to a blazing 100 Gb/s.
Inside each transceiver are two tiny lasers only 250 microns wide, or the width of two human hairs, that transmit the light over each channel. The industry name for the lasers is VCSELs which stands for Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser. Accompanying the lasers is a matching pair of photo detectors that receive laser light from the other end of the channels. Another advantage of the optical cabling is that, unlike electrical cable, multiple protocols can be run over a single cable. Photons don't interfere with each other the way electrons do so multiple devices can share a single cable even if those devices are using different protocols. This will allow manufacturers to make even smaller yet more efficient components when building computer and electronic devices since they can use a single Light Peak component for connected devices. Light Peak's optical cabling will also allow for much longer cables since light does not degrade the same way electricity does over long distances. Intel representatives explained that Light Peak could provide a better cabling solution to companies like 3ality. It makes a 3D video camera that transmits data at 8 Gb/s per second and currently uses bulky electrical cables. Light Peak stands ready to replace the existing data transfer technologies of USB and FireWire and there is even speculation that Apple may skip over USB 3.0 and go straight to Light Peak. There are reports on the web that Light Peak is an outgrowth of Apple's desire to replace the multiple ports on their systems for a single port that could service all connected devices and that Apple's Steve Jobs might haves reached out to Intel's Paul Otellini for a fiber-optic solution. Light Peak-based products could arrive as early as 2010.
The ability to boot Windows XP from a USB Flash Drive (UFD) offers endless possibilities. For example, you might make an easy-to-use troubleshooting tool for booting and analyzing seemingly dead PCs. Or you could transport your favorite applications back and forth from home to work without having to install them on both PCs.
However, before you can create a bootable UFD, you must clear a few hurdles. You saw that one coming didn't you?
The first hurdle is having a PC in which the BIOS will allow you to configure the USB port to act as a bootable device. The second hurdle is having a UFD that that will work as a bootable device and that's large enough and fast enough to boot an operating system such as Windows XP. The third hurdle is finding a way to condense and install Windows XP on a UFD.
If you have a PC that was manufactured in the last several years, chances are that its BIOS will allow you to configure the USB port to act as a bootable device. If you have a good quality UFD that's at least 512 KB and that was manufactured in the last couple of years, you've probably cleared the second hurdle. And once you've cleared those first two hurdles, the third one is a piece of cake. All you have to do is download and run some free software to create the bootable UFD.
I'll start by showing you how to determine whether your PC's BIOS will support booting from USB and explain how to configure it to do so. Then, I'll show you how to download and use the free software to create a bootable UFD running Windows XP Professional.
You probably noticed that I didn't mention how to determine if your UFD would support being configured as a bootable device, except that it must be a good quality unit of recent manufacture. Well, I've discovered that when it comes to the actual UFD, you'll just have to try it and see what happens. As long as you have a PC with a BIOS that will allow you to configure the USB port to act as a bootable device and you have configured the installation correctly, it should work. If it doesn't, you probably have a UFD that can't boot.
I tested three UFDs on two new computers and had mixed success. First, I attempted to use a 128 MB PNY Attache but received an error message that said "Invalid or damaged Bootable partition" on both PCs. Next, I tried a 1GB Gateway UFD and it worked on both PCs. Then, I tried a 256 MB Lexar JumpDrive Pro and it worked on only one of the PCs. You can find lists of UFD brands that others have had success with on the Internet.
Not every new BIOS will allow you to configure the USB port to act as a bootable device. And some that do allow it don't make it easy. On one of my example systems, it was a no-brainer. On the other, the UFD had to be connected to the USB port before it was apparent that I could configure it as a bootable device. Let's take a closer look.
On the test system with a PhoenixBIOS version 62.04, I accessed the BIOS, went to the boot screen, and found that USB Storage Stick was one of the options. I then moved it to the top of the list, as shown in Figure A, thus making it the first device to check during the boot sequence. (This particular BIOS also allowed me to press the [F10] key during the boot sequence and select any one of the available bootable devices, so it really wasn't necessary to move it to the top.)
Figure A
The settings on the Boot Screen of the PhoenixBIOS made it a no-brainer to select the device.
On the test system with an AMI BIOS version 2.59, I accessed the BIOS, went to the Boot Sequence screen, and didn't find a USB boot option, as shown in Figure B.
Figure B
A USB boot option didn't appear on the Boot Sequence screen.
I then went one step further and checked the Hard Disk Drives screen and still didn't find a USB boot option, as shown in Figure C.
Figure C
The Hard Disk Drives screen only showed the SATA hard disk.
I then plugged a UFD into the USB port, booted up the system, and accessed the BIOS. When I checked the Hard Disk Drives screen, the UFD appeared in the list and I could select it as the first drive (Figure D).
Figure D
To condense and install Windows XP on a UFD, you'll need a program called PE Builder by Bart Lagerweij. You'll also need two files from the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1. And of course, you need to have a Windows XP Professional CD.
You can download PE Builder from Bart's Web site. At the time of this writing, the most current version of PE Builder was 3.1.10a.
You can download Windows Server 2003 SP1 by following the link in the Knowledge Base article "How to obtain the latest service pack for Windows Server 2003." Be sure to get the 32-bit version!
Keep in mind that at 329 MB, Windows Server 2003 SP1 will take some time to download. And although you need just two small files, the only way to get them is to download the entire package.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Do not run the Windows Server 2003 SP1 executable file! Doing so will completely corrupt Windows XP. We will use a set of special commands to extract the two files and then delete the rest of the package.
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Installing PE Builder is quick and easy. Just run the installation program and follow the onscreen instructions. To make things simpler, I installed the program in the root directory in a folder called PEBUILDER3110a.
Once PE Builder is installed, you'll need to create a folder in C:\PEBUILDER3110a called SRSP1, as shown in Figure F. This is the folder in which PE Builder will look for the extracted Windows Server 2003 SP1 files.
Figure F
Now, you can begin extracting the two needed files from Windows Server 2003 SP1. When you download the Windows Server 2003 SP1, the executable file will have a long name: WindowsServer2003-KB889101-SP1-ENU.exe. To save on typing, you can rename the file to something shorter, such as WS-SP1.exe.
To begin, open a Command Prompt window and use the CD command to change to the folder in which you downloaded the Windows Server 2003 SP1 executable file. I downloaded the file to a folder called Downloads. Now, to extract the files contained in SP1, type the command
WS-SP1.exe -x
You'll immediately see a dialog box that prompts you to select a folder in which to extract the files and can type the name of the same folder, as shown in Figure G. Click OK to proceed with the extraction procedure. When the procedure is complete, just leave the Command Prompt window open.
Figure G
You can extract the files into the same folder containing the Windows Server 2003 SP1 executable fileThe extraction procedure will create a subdirectory called i386 and extract all the Windows Server 2003 SP1 files there. Use the CD command to change to the i386 folder and then copy the setupldr.bin file to the SRSP1 folder with the command:
copy setupldr.bin c:\pebuilder3110a\srsp1
Expand the ramdisk.sy_ file to the SRSP1 folder with the command:
expand -r ramdisk.sy_ c:\pebuilder3110a\srsp1
These three steps are illustrated in Figure H.
Figure H
Now that you've extracted the necessary files from the Windows Server 2003 SP1 package, you're ready to use PE Builder to create a compressed version of Windows XP. To begin, place your Windows XP Professional CD into the drive and hold down the [Shift] key to prevent Autostart from launching the CD. Then, launch PE Builder.
In the Source field on the main PE Builder screen, simply type the letter of drive in which you put the Windows XP Professional CD, as shown in Figure J. Make sure that the Output box contains BartPE and that the None option is selected in the Media Output panel. Then, click the Build button.
Figure J
Fill in the Source field on the main PE Builder screen.
As PE Builder compresses Windows XP Professional into a bootable image, you'll see a detailed progress dialog box. When the operation is complete, as shown in Figure K, click the Close button.
Figure K
PE Builder displays a detailed progress report.
At this point, you're ready to format and copy the Windows XP Professional bootable image to the UFD with the BartPE USB Installer. To do so, open a Command Prompt window and use the CD command to change to the pebuilder3110a folder. Then, insert your UFD into a USB port and take note of the drive letter that it is assigned. On my example system, the UFD was assigned drive E.
Now, type the command
pe2usb -f e:
You'll then be prompted to confirm this part of the operation, as shown in Figure L. While the operation is underway, you'll see progress indicators.
Figure L
You'll be prompted to confirm that you want to format your UFD.
Once the BartPE USB Installer finishes its job, you'll be prompted press any key to exit the program. Now you can use your UFD to boot your computer into the BartPE interface for Windows XP, as shown in Figure M.
Figure M
The BartPE interface provides you with a pared down version of Windows XP.
You can find a list of specialized applications on Bart's Web site, which you can install on your UFD as Plugins. For example, you can find such things as Firefox or McAfee command-line virus scanner.
Booting Windows XP from a UFD requires that your PC's BIOS support booting from USB and that you have a UFD that can be formatted as a bootable device. If you can meet these two requirements, all you need is PE Builder, a couple of files from the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, and a little effort to configure a UFD to boot the BartPE interface to Windows XP.
Download Firefox 3.5 here.
With all the success that touchscreens have, they are still essentially useless unless you are looking at the device while using it. Despite its multi-touch goodiness, you'll still need to take you iPod Touch out if you want to change the song. This is also a distinct disadvantage to the visually impaired, since they are not able to feel the 'features' on the screen.
Jussi Rantala of the University of Tampere in Finland along with colleagues have come up with a way to simulate a braille on the screen of a device, using vibrations. They simulated a braille character by representing a raised dot as an intense vibration, and the absence of a dot as longer but weaker pulsed vibrations. Braille encodes characters as a 2x3 grid of dots, where characters are represented based on which dots are raised. People trained to read braille can read the patterns using their finger and hence can read texts even without sight. This innovation promises to bring this marvelous.
To enable this they developed software for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, which has piezoelectric1 material built into the touchscreen. They tested two modes of operation for this virtual braille, one in which the reader places his finger on the left side of the screen and sweeps horizontally to read the rest of the dots, and the other in which the reader keeps the finger fixed on one location, and the dots vibrate in and out sequentially in that spot. The first one seemed to be quite difficult to read however. Much like many screen reading software read out the text displayed on the screen, they hope to present the screen content in braille form.
This is a wonderful innovation for touchscreens, as they can finally become more accessible to the visually impaired. This technology can have pretty interesting applications otherwise too. Using vibrations they can also indicate the presence of buttons and controls on the screen, allowing people to control their devices without looking at them.
It don’t matter if you’re black or white?
With newer Hi-Def video and audio formats becoming popular, games getting larger, and collections growing, you need more space, period. Western Digital plans to satiate your hunger for space with their new 1 Terabyte Caviar Black edition HDD.
This HDD is almost the same size of a 500GB HDD, despite the increased amount of memory platters. They managed to keep the height low by using perpendicular recording.
The WD caviar comprises of dual processors for twice the data processing speed as normal drives, coupled with a massive 32 MB of buffer memory that ensures that you get the maximum performance. Along with Acoustic management this drive also features Power management that allows it to power itself down when the drive is not in use or reduce its speed to a lower RPM when lower levels of performance are required.
We tested the WD Caviar Black edition HDD for its performance in real world scenarios using HD tach and SiSoft Sandra, and it did well, but not that much better. It gave us a random access time of 12.3 ms, while the average read and write speeds came to 81.1 and 92 MBps respectively, with CPU utilization at a maximum of 4 per cent. SiSoft Sandra gave it a Drive Index of 80 MBps, and listed the access time as 12 ms.
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"Photoshop 7"+94FBR "Age of Mythology"+94FBR "Nero Burning Rom 5.5"+94FBR |