Six things you can do with your USB thumbdrives

The article below, titled "CNET How to : Six cool things to do with your USB flash drive" grabbed my attention.

It shows you what you can do with any spare USB thumbdrives you have.

However, most tasks mention is appropriate for USB drives with at least 8GB space or more, as most require a lot of space. Well, thats my opinion.

CNET How to : Six cool things to do with your USB flash drive

LiveScribe SmartPen

Technorati Tags: LiveScribe,smart pen

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I saw an ad in CNET.COM , about a smart pen called LiveScribe.

It can write on a special invisibly dotted paper , and save whatever you are writing in the pen’s memory. You can download the written notes & recorded audio (if any) to your PC.

One cool thing is that it has a digital voice recorder (with microphone in the smartpen), and it can pinpoint the voice conversation in the recording, to the specified notes being discussed.

See the Youtube channel video below :

 

Links :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livescribe

http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/

Microsoft Windows Live Writer

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Live Writer 2011,hongkiat.com

I was going through hongkiat.com website, when I bumped into a review of offline blog writers article. After reading the blog article, I decided to try out the Microsoft Windows Live Writer.

It was free, and kind of felt like I was using a simple version of Microsoft Word 2010.

I liked the software , and now using it for all my blog posts.

Below are some screenshots from the Microsoft Windows Live Writer.

Note : This blog post is written entirely on Windows Live Writer.

 

The Picture Collages Maker software

Recently I bumped into blogs which showcased tiled / collage based images . And these were personal blogs, the collage images looks good on the blog, establishing a brand look.

I searched the Internet and discovered the Picture Collages Maker software. I downloaded the setup file, and setup was a breeze. Inside the software , you can customize any images to any collage layout or template. It can make professional looking material, and it is easily used by people who are not experts in image editing.

The collage background can be adjusted as gradient color, image background, photo based, pattern and from clipart.

I personally feel this is a great tool for bloggers and professional to create nicely presented images , in a collage !

I have made a few samples of the various picture collage templates, using my son Adithya photos.
The images are superb !

Visit Picture Collages Maker website ( http://www.picturecollagessoftware.com ) to check out this product .




Compilation photos of my son , Adithya

AV-Comparatives.org - F-Secure as 2010 Product of the year

Based on AV-Comparatives.org , which is an independent testing entity for anti-virus products , has recently concluded the following :

AV Product of the Year
2008 - AVIRA antivirus
2009 - Symantec
2010 - F-Secure

It seems there was a tight race where majority AV excelled is various fields of tetsing, so it was concluded to judge the "Product of the year" based on the product with the most improvements, to encourage AV companies to innovate and establish continous improvement on their products.

I was hoping Symantec would have won consecutively....

Check out the reports as below :

www.av-comparatives.org : Summary Reports

Another one bites the dust .......... more layoffs in the smartphone industry

I just read about RIM ( the makers of Blackberry smartphones ) has just laid off 11percent of their North America region workforce.

What's worse is that last month, one of the employers accused RIM managers of failing to make bold decisions ........ hmmm ..........

Engadget.com : RIM axes 2000 jobs, changes managers in effort to halt decline

Symantec antivirus on top of Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection

Based on Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection (EPP) report for December 2010, Symantec Endpoint Protection v12 solution is at the forefront of threat protection.

Key findings :
a) Symantec continues to perform well in numerous tests of malware effectiveness (AV-Test, NSS Labs, PassMark) compared with peers.
b) Symantec provides good port and device controls, mobile device synchronization and the best firewall of any ranked vendor.
c) The software hass large disk footprint, but is very fast and light on memory usage...

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms (17-Dec-2010)

Website prototyping & wireframing

Website prototyping & wireframing are used to design a website , whose design is shown as functional description of the clients requirements.

The article below from HongKiat.com shows in much detail on the tools used for website prototyping & wireframing :

HongKiat.com : Website prototyping & wireframing

How to write an IT disaster recovery plan .....

How to write an IT disaster recovery plan ..... see article below .


Searchstorage.co.uk : How to write a disaster recovery plan

Blackberry here to stay ?

Personally I feel Blackberry is here to stay, solely because :

a) It still has the best security management & enforcement for enterprises to protect sensitive email data on user Blackberry phones.
b) Easy for company IT admins to wipe out any lost Blackberry phones , to contain data leakage ( literally a press of a button via BES management software).
c) Encrypted transmission ensures email data is secure via 3DES/AES standard encryption.
d) Data transmission is also compressed , ensures faster access on slow networks.


Check out the link below for full details on how some IT geeks think of Blackberry , and why they migrated to other platforms. It is CIO.com article :

Why I Switched to Android: 7 BlackBerry Geeks Speak

Switching to Internet Explorer 9.0 ....

I am now switching my official browser from Firefox v5.0 , to the new Internet Explorer v9.0. Latest test from NSS Labs Inc., shows IE 9.0 was able to block 100% of malware links and social engineering malware. While Firefox at 13% blocking.

See the report as follows :
Internet Explorer 9 security surpasses rivals in blocking social engineering attacks

The SonicGear Xanadu 1000 headphones

I had a Sonicgear foldable headphone which had decent sound quality ( for almost 2 years), but got damaged during a listening session while undergoing my car service. So it was time to get a new set of headphones !

I was sticking to the Singapore made Sonicgear brand, which gurantees affordable audio equipment and decent to high quality of sound.

I headed to the new & nearest computer store in Metropoint Kajang last Saturday, and found out they were selling Sonicgear gears! Cool!

I saw the Xanadu 1000 and instantly fell in love with it.

I bought it and tried at home , price at RM55 . Decent sound , enough for casual listener who requires above average details in sound and sound channels/instruments.

Its light and stylish, like the metallic mirror-like shell in the headphones.

However, if you are a serious listener with a critical & discerning taste for sound/music details and channels ( discern each instrument ins the song in detail), I would suggest to go for expensive headphones like AVF , Sony or Dr.Dre headphones !

More details in the SonicGear website :

Xanadu 1000

ZDNET - The Definitive Facebook Lockdown Guide June 2011

ZDNET - The Definitive Facebook Lockdown Guide June 2011

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/june-2011-the-definitive-facebook-lockdown-guide/11113