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Microsoft will officially launch Office 2010 to businesses at an event slated for May 12, the company announced today.

Enterprises with volume license agreements will be able to obtain the finished product that same day, Microsoft added. Office 2010 is set to go on general sale to consumers and business without licensing deals sometime in June.

As expected, Microsoft today also unveiled a program that provides a free upgrade to Office 2010 for customers who purchase the older Office 2007 between now and Sept. 30.

Read more at PCWORLD.COM

Social Networks

Companies collect all sorts of data to build a database of you from social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo, website forums, blogs and other websites. How do they use all this info on you? For example, did you know that your Facebook friends could influence what kind of credit you get from a finance company? Your “Credit Report” is not affected at all, but companies are looking at your friends’ credit history to help them in making a decision about you… remember what they say: Birds of a feather flock together!

Spammers and Fraudsters are gaining your trust by pretending to be genuine friends, followers and buddies in social networks, just so that they can get their tricks to work. For example, they make friends with 100 people on Facebook, then sends each of them a picture through their own E-mail addresses. All 100 users get an E-mail which comes from someone they think that they know, so they open the picture and maybe LOL. What they do not know is that a malicious software (or Malware for short) has entered their computer while they have been laughing out loud to that funny picture! The user switches off the PC and goes about their daily business. The next time the computer starts up, all 100 users are greeted by a frightening notice from that malicious software saying that they have thousands of viruses and the only way to remove them is to…wait for it…yep, that’s right, to buy the “full version” at only £10. This malicious software does not give the users any option at all and if they try to ignore it and continue using their computer, they realise that a lot of the functions are blocked! They cant get to their favorite website because the malicious software blocks it with a notice to buy the “full version” ……….you do the maths: 100 users cough up £10 each…. Its no wonder that spam E-mail accounts for over 80% of all emails sent daily in the world!!!

Top 10 social networking websites

Your data can be collected by software programs and then sold to companies that want to know all about you and what you do online. This is called “data mining” and is carried out by companies like Rapleaf.com. They present your comments and other data as a form of behavioral pattern that other interested companies can purchase and use however they want.

You need to be aware of what you are posting online and to whom you are connected to. Many online users have no idea that a comment they posted on a website is being collected into a database to be used in some unknown way. Users do not know what all those hundreds of “Friends” and thousands of “Followers” are doing with their data…they forget that permission has been granted to access and use their data in any way.

The moral of this post is to practice caution online… Do not be complacent just because you are alone and no one can see you when you are busy typing LOL (…while in reality you are just smilling quietly to yourself!!!). Social networks are very convenient and fun too, but make sure it doesn’t turn into a nightmare with these Best Practices:

• You do not want random associations. Therefore, eliminate people, apps, connections and sites that you Do Not NEED from your social network. Then pay attention to friend requests and new connections.
• Only set your profile to Public if it is business related, otherwise make sure it is Private.

Excuse me, while I go post this on FB    [:-)

Apple iPad Tablet

We first told you about the Apple Tablet in July 2009 and the rumors are now over! Calling it “way better than a laptop and way better than a phone,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled his company’s long-awaited iPad tablet-style multi-touch device today (Wednesday 27th Jan 2010).

steve jobs

The device weighs just 1.5 pounds — lighter than any netbook, Jobs noted — and sports a 9.7-inch display. Jobs noted that the hardware is a “dream to type on,” and demonstrated how to read, view media and content and access applications on the hardware.

It includes calendar, address book, maps and music applications built-in. It also connects to the iTunes store.

“You can discover music, you can purchase it,” Jobs said. “Movies, TV shows, podcasts, iTunes University — everything built right in.”

It also has access to YouTube the streaming service’s high-definition streaming content.

“Using this thing is remarkable. It’s so much more intimate than a laptop, and it’s so much more capable than a smartphone,” Jobs said.

iPad

The hardware has many of the same capabilities of the iPhone and iPod touch, including an orientation sensor for switching between portrait and landscape modes, and multi-touch capabilities. The device even looks akin to a large iPhone.

Steve Jobs demonstrated sending e-mail, reading content and flipping through photos. Places that photos were taken could be viewed through the integrated maps application. It also allows a photo slideshow that works much like in iPhoto.

The touchscreen keyboard takes up half of the screen when the device is used in landscape mode.

iPad

Jobs also demonstrated a calendar application that looks much like the Calendar app available on the Mac OS X desktop. He also showed off buying and listening to iTunes content on the iPad, demonstrating high-definition clips from movies like “Up” and “Star Trek.”

Check a video of the long-awaited launch at Gizmodo.

Firefox 3.6 Re-Discover the Web

Some of the best features new to Firefox 3.6 are:

• Personas: Personalize the look of your Firefox by selecting new themes called Personas in a single click and without a restart
• Plugin Updater: To keep you safe from potential security vulnerabilities, Firefox will now detect out of date plugins
• Stability improvements: Firefox 3.6 significantly decreased crashes caused by third party software – all without sacrificing our extensibility in any way
• Form Complete: When filling out an online form, Firefox suggests information for fields based on your common answers in similar field
• Performance: Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness, and startup time
• Open Video and Audio: With the world’s best implementation of HTML 5 audio and video support, now video can be displayed full screen and supports poster frames

Click Link To Download For Free:

Mozilla claim that Firefox 3.6 is some 20% faster than Firefox 3.5, and my initial testing seems to agree, although it’s still not faster than Google Chrome. That said, in terms of speed, the browser is light-years ahead of Internet Explorer.

Read further at zdnet.com

skiff bendy

Skiff is a new 11.5 inch touchscreen e-Reader, making it the largest ever. It is only 6.8 millimeters thick, making it the thinnest ever. It has an LG micro foil Display with a resolution of 1200 × 1600, the highest in an e-Reader ever. Oh yes, and it is also equipped with 3G and Wi-Fi. The LG display uses a stainless steel foil instead of glass like other e-Readers, and it is this material that gives Skiff the edge (pun un-intended) over its many rivals: it is more durable, thinner, lighter and more flexible.

thinnest e-reader

We still dont know the price as it was only unveiled early this year at the International CES 2010 Consumer Electronic Show. This is the kind of e-Reader I would get (for £100!) but its not quite there yet – I still want one which I can fold and fit into my back pocket!

largest e-reader

FAKE HAITI FACEBOOK

Fake fundraising efforts for the Haiti disaster are spreading like wildfire on Facebook. Dozens of fan pages have been set up, urging users to join and promising a $1 donation for each member. One group this weekend attracted 1.5 million members before it was disabled.

Meanwhile, during the weekend, Facebook officials had to beat back a rumor that the firm had promised a $1 donation for every member that changed their status to include a message about Haiti.

“This status is being tracked, the owners of facebook have confirmed they will send $1 to the rescue fund for the Haiti earthquake disaster for everytime this is cut and paste as a status,” read one form of the bogus claim. “You only have to leave it for a minimum of 1 hour. Lets all do our bit to help.”

Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said the firm took aggressive steps to quell the rumor.  It posted a note on its blog on Saturday warning about the bogus message.

“Beware of scams and hoaxes and ensure that your donations for Haiti get to the right places,” the social networking company wrote on its blog.   Contrary to a current meme, Facebook is not donating $1 for statuses, however we are sharing reputable resources via the “Other Pages” tab on the Global Disaster Relief on Facebook Page.”

Later, Facebook began outright blocking the status update. When users come upon a page with the bogus update, a warning message pops up which says, “This message is fraudulent. For legitimate ways to help those in Haiti, please visit the disaster relief page.”

The fake fan page fund-raisers had spread, seemingly, to all parts of the globe. Examples could be found claiming to be based in the United Kingdom, and in multiple languages. One Spanish group currently has 215,000 fans, for example.

Read further at msnbc.com

Google China

“We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

google.cn

There has been a number of highly sophisticated attempts originating from China to hack into G-mail accounts of Chinese Human Rights Activitists! This suggests what many of us already know, that is, the Chinese Government uses (or abuses?) its supreme technological ability to achieve it’s goals, whether good or bad. Interestingly, Google makes an attempt to ensure the safety of it’s Chinese Staff by adding the following remark:

“We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China.”

Google betrayed the “freedom of speech” in 2006 when they bowed down to the Chinese Government’s demand for censorship of the search engine in China, but maybe these events will finally force Google to do what they should have done when presented with such oppressive demands: make it clear that when it comes to search results, it’s All or Nothing.

Read this startling announcement in Google’s Blog.

Google Nexus One Mobile

Another year and another new smartphone is unveiled. After so many leaks and speculation, the Google Nexus One mobile phone was officially announced yesterday… but you still cannot use it on any network you feel like! That is supposed to be the big selling point of the Nexus One. Ideally, you should be able to buy an unlocked Smartphone along with an Operating System of your choice, and then use it on any Carrier! The reality is very different.

In North America, the Carriers have a “medieval wall” locking particular phones to particular networks: AT&T has the Apple iPhone, Verizon Wireless has the HTC Droid Eris, and Sprint has the Palm Pre. In that part of the world, freedom to use any phone with any carrier looks like a distant dream and leaves countries such as the U.S.A. lagging woefully behind some developing countries. The Nexus One is provided by Google without being tied to any particular Carrier but those Carriers have to allow you to use it on their networks, and  shamefully, it can only work with T-Mobile.

Google’s solution to this lock-down is to release a separate version of the Nexus One for Verizon Wireless later this year and a separate one for Vodafone in United Kingdom. Hardly the game-changing Smartphone that the world expected, I am left a little disappointed especially as I did not see any amazing features and it does not even support multitouch!

Comparison between Nexus One vs. iPhone vs. Droid vs. Palm Pre:

Nexus One vs. iPhone vs. Droid vs. Palm Pre

(courtesy of  Billshrink.com)

http://img.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/htc/google-nexus-one-new-2.jpg

Nexus One