Windows Home Server

Despite the “home” in Windows Home Server, Microsoft is recommending the product not just to users with multiple PCs in the household, but also to small business owners that are watching the spending when it comes down to a backup solution. The two videos embedded at the bottom of this article have been put together to illustrate how Windows Home Server can be tailored to both home and small business users easily. Approximately one minute in length, the videos showcase the potential of Microsoft’s home server product along with its adaptability.

The Redmond company offers an enumeration of the main features of Windows Home Server, revealing that the product can act as a Media Server, Backup solution, Data Recovery product, and a software offering capabilities such as document management and remote access, but also allowing users to expand on the default features with add-ins.

“The first video gives an overview of how a family uses Windows Home Server in their everyday lives. It shows how Windows Home Server will keep all family memories safely backed up and stored in a vault-like box, and how it can also stream large collections of media throughout the house,” explained Microsoft’s Nicole Berett. “In this second video, you will see the benefits of using Windows Home Server in your Small Office/Home Office (SOHO). Windows Home Server provides an IT team for your office to help protect, organize, and connect to all of your data without the expensive price tag.”

At the end of November 2009, Windows Home Server evolved with the addition of the third Power Pack, a major update equivalent to the plain vanilla service pack released for Windows client and server platforms. Windows Home Server PP3 is currently served automatically through Windows Update to all users of the product. At the same time, in an effort to win over new customers, Microsoft is offering a free download of Windows Home Server complete with PP3 as an ISO image, which do-it-your-selvers can use in order to put together their own version of the home server.

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A Gamer's Week: Christmas Edition

It's not yet Sunday but it's Christmas and that means that an extended weekend is upon us all. We've only had three days of news from which we've picked the most interesting to show off but this week, we began talking about the videogames that we feel defined 2009 here at Softpedia. Look out at the top of the page to see the Softpedia's Games of the Year section that will take you to a genre by genre take on the games we believe really mattered. The choices we have made for this section do not necessarily reflect the titles that were the highest rated or that sold best since release but those with which we spend most of our playing time and brought us the most joy.


Monday was the day when Blizzard again talked about making console titles and why it is interested in creating the same quality games as it does on the PC. Just don't expect such a project to be announced soon. Meanwhile, Ubisoft revealed that it was preparing to release its own realistic military shooter, with Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.

On Tuesday, Konami thought about making a nice gesture in time for Christmas and unleashed a new patch, named 1.03, and another free DLC package for Pro Evolution Soccer 2010, the football simulation was judged this year to be a bit of an also run to EA Sport's FIFA 10. And Sony also brought presents by announcing that Massive Action Game, its multiplayer oriented shooter, is now gold and set to get an open beta for those gaming on the PlayStation 3.

Friday was the day when Capcom chose to hop on the delay train, telling gamers that Monster Hunter Tri, Dead Rising 2, Super Street Fighter IV and Lost Planet 2 would not arrive before April 2010. We also learned about Ubisoft's intention of going into the role playing creation business.

And if you are interested in getting some more reading material, you can check out this Weekend Reading, which deals with the importance of Christmas for videogaming and this EndWeekGame segment about what gaming over the holidays means.
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Twitter hack by 'Iranian Cyber Army'

The "Twitter hack" by the "Iranian Cyber Army" turns out not to have been a hack of Twitter itself: instead they took aim at the DNS records for the site itself (though Twitter itself says in a blog post that API services - which contact the servers directly - were unaffected.)

The hackers also appear to have hacked mowjcamp.org, an advocacy site for Iranian protesters against the re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I tried to contact the "Iranian Cyber Army" at the given (Gmail) address on the website: it bounced as undeliverable.

Rik Ferguson, a security analyst at Trend Micro, said: "This kind of DNS hijacking usually involves compromising the registrar responsible for the DNS records of the victim company. The attackers then make unauthorised changes to the DNS records. These changes mean that when you or I type a web site address into our browsers, we are directed not to the real web site but to a second site, set up by the hackers, in this case the 'Iranian Cyber Army'. This has the net effect of making it look like, in this example, servers belonging to Twitter were compromised when in reality that was not the case."

Similar misdirections have happened in the past by accident when "root servers" which route queries for domain lookups have been misprogrammed. Pakistan was blamed for making YouTube inaccessible to the world in February 2008. The government ordered ISPs to set up their DNS servers to reroute any queries inside the country for the site to an "inaccessible" message - but that block was then passed on to DNS servers around the world. (Update: altered to try to clarify that the Pakistan/YouTube incident was about routing tables, not DNS.)

However security experts know that DNS servers are a major source of weakness in the internet: because they determined how traffic is routed, control of them gives hackers the ability to send people where they like. In July 2008 researchers had to race to fix a flaw discovered in the DNS setup before hackers could exploit it.

Ferguson added: "These sorts of attacks are usually limited to hacktivism activities like this one today, but imagine the potential to criminals if they could pull this off against any site requiring log in credentials, such as PayPal, eBay, MSN, Facebook. One has to wonder how quickly the attack would be noted if the dummy site was an exact replica of the victim and was simply there to harvest credentials and redirect the user then into the real site." read full news

Verizon to Soon Launch Pre Plus, Motorola Devour

Wireless carrier Verizon has been long rumored to plan the launch of a Palm mobile phone on its airwaves, and it seems that the wait might finally come to an end. According to the latest news around the Internet, the operator already has in its internal system a Palm Pre Plus device, although no details on the device seem to be listed there for the time being.

As phoneArena states, the new detail on the Pre Plus being listed in Verizon's internal system follows shortly after reports on Big Red's employees being educated on the webOS platform from Palm via an internal video with the OS, it seems. As many of you might have already remembered, the operator stated a few months ago that it would deliver to its users a Palm handset in early 2010 and, since the year is almost here, it seems that the company is getting ready to keep its promise.

At the same time, the mobile phone operator is also said to plan adding a Motorola Devour to its offering in the near future. The handset sports the A555 model number in its name, which reminds us of none other than the long rumored Motorola Calgary. According to the news, the Devour is expected to come to the market as DROID's little brother, through still featuring some appealing specs.

What is known so far on the Motorola Devour includes the fact that it might sport a 3.2-megapixel photo snapper, that it should run under Android, with MotoBlur all over it, and that it might feature Google's Android 2.1 operating system when available. For what it's worth, given the long list of rumors that emerged recently on Android 2.1, we will take this with a grain of salt for the time being, though we hope it will pan out.

The last of the new mobile phone Big Red is expected to show to the world in the near future is said to be the LG VS750, a device running under Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. The handset would thus become the first LG smartphone that gets launched on Verizon's airwaves, and it is expected to come with global roaming support (CDMA/GSM), though it hasn't been yet spotted at FCC.
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Microsoft fixes Office 2003 bug with patch

Microsoft says it has a fix for a bug that was keeping Office 2003 users from being able to access some rights-managed files.

The bug, which cropped up on Friday, meant that users of Office 2003 were unable to access files protected using Microsoft's rights management service (RMS) technology.

Microsoft posted a software download known as a "hotfix" on Saturday that it says resolves the issue.

"The issue of the inability to open Office 2003 documents protected with RMS has now been resolved with a hotfix," Microsoft said in a short statement on its Office sustained engineering blog.

I'm still trying to get more details on what caused the bug and will update things if I hear more.

Update, 11:22 a.m. PT: Microsoft said the problem was due to an Office 2003 certificate that expired. "This resulted in Office 2003 customers not being able to open Office 2003 documents protected with the Active Directory Rights Management Service (AD RMS) or Rights Management Services (RMS)," a representative said, adding that Microsoft first learned of the issue on Thursday night and had the fix up by Mid-day Saturday.

Encryption certificates were first introduced with Office 2003. "At that time, Microsoft believed it was important to establish short-term expiration dates for these certificates to allow us to re-evaluate and update (rights management) capabilities based on new, more sophisticated encryption technology," Microsoft said.

"The original intent was to refresh and strengthen the certificate over time to keep up with newer technology," the representative said. "We have not done a thorough post-mortem on this incident since we were very focused on fixing the problem. Looking ahead, we are exploring long-term solutions that will prevent something like this from happening again in the future."
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Microsoft's server chief talks cloud (Q&A)

Microsoft's server and tools boss shipped an update to Windows Server, got promoted to division president, and prepared Microsoft's operating system in the clouds--Windows Azure--for its commercial launch.

In what has become a bit of a year-end ritual, Muglia sat down with CNET for a year-end interview. We hit on a range of topics, from the future of Windows Server, to why his bank won't be moving to Windows Azure any time soon, to the changing life of an IT manager, to Microsoft's consumer future. (Spoiler alert: Muglia thinks it is bright.)

Here's an edited transcript of our interview:

A few years out, how much does Windows Server, the server operating system, start to resemble Windows Azure?
Muglia: Well, making them as similar as possible is clearly the goal, and the goal is to take all the things that we do in Windows Server and make those capable to be done in Windows Azure, and then take the learning we have in Windows Azure and bring it back to Windows Server.

We just took the step of bringing the Windows Azure team, Amitabh (Srivastava) and his group, and putting that in my organization.

Now, what we also did as a part of that, is we merged the Windows Azure and Windows Server teams together. I just talked to Amitabh and he's really excited about the synergies that he can build across the organization and making these things as similar as possible.

In our own services, obviously we choose the hardware, and so there's a more limited set of things that work together. In some senses that gives us a bit of agility on the services side, because we can make something work in one very particular way, but what we've got a long term history of doing is understanding how to do that, and then abstracting that out to work in a much more general purpose way, to work with the hardware that our customers have. read full story

Symantec Resolves Issues on Windows Server

Microsoft is pointing customers running Windows Server in combination with older releases of Symantec Endpoint Protection and Symantec Antivirus to solution made available by the security outfit. Robert Paige, senior program manager Windows Partner Application Ecosystem Team, recommended that all the upgrades be applied as soon as possible in the context in which Symantec security products on top of Windows Server generate network connectivity problems.

“When a Windows Server is running older versions of Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 or Symantec Antivirus 10.2, they may experience performance issues for network shares, or intermittent loss of connectivity to SMB shares. We’re hoping we can help you avoid a costly and time consuming support incident by making this issue more visible to help you plan your deployments,” Paige stated.

One of the most common issues reported by end users is related to the “Network Path Not Found” error message. However, according to Microsoft, there are additional bugs dealt with in the solution provided for older versions of Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 and Symantec Antivirus 10.2.

“Symantec confirms that this is a known issue and there are updates to resolve the problem. For more information, please see the Symantec Knowledge Base article about this issue. For information about Symantec support for Endpoint Protection 11, visit the Symantec Support site,” Paige noted.

Customers that for various reasons are unable to upgrade, or if they are stuck using the security products affected by networking issues should contact Symantec technical support. The security company will labor in order to help customers deploy workarounds instead of the resolves provided.

Paige enumerated the error messages encountered by customers and dealt with by the solution provided by Symantec:

“• Error message: “The network path was not found” or “The specified network name is no longer available” when attempting to open shares, map a drive, run DCDIAG to the to the affected server, use netdom to reset secure channel
• Error message: “RPC Server is unavailable” when trying to connect via Active Directory Users and Computers
• Error message: “RPC Server is too busy to process the request” when attempting to join the Windows server domain
• Error message: “No network provider accepted the given network path” or “File or network path no longer exists” when copying a file over the network to affected servers
• Printing issues (cannot update printer IP address via DNS)
• AD replication failures
• Cluster service fails to start, or inability to access existing File Share resources even if they are online according to the Cluster Administrator snap-in
• Event log Event ID 4226 and or 2022 may occur frequently (up to every 20 to 30 seconds).
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HTC Legend Creeps out over again, Looks Even More similar to the Hero

That HTC Legend handset from the leaked roadmap we saw the other week has just been given another airing in public, with the Hero-esque aesthetics and specs revealed. LED flash, anyone?

Part of the "Lifestyle" range of phones HTC is cooking up, the Legend will contain a Qualcomm MSM7227 processor, which was revealed earlier this year for budget (sub-$150) smartphones. It'll be fast, but it's no Snapdragon, with the CPU clocking in at 600MHz. Internal memory is listed at 512MB with 256MB RAM, and the battery is a 1300 mAh floozy—again, nothing special, with the Hero having a 1500 mAh battery.

A 3.2-inch HVGA AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 5.0-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash (a one-up on the Hero, there), microSD slot, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, G-sensor, digital compass, 3.5mm headphone jack and microUSB port round the Legend off nicely, but it's only the addition of an optical trackpad and LED flash which are the main differences between this and the Hero. Supposedly it'll launch in March according to Ai.rs, and the leaked roadmap of launches. I've still got one more question for HTC—will the bottom of the chin actually be red or green?
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The Real Google Phone: Everything Is Different Now

It wasn't supposed to exist. "The" Google Phone. Then we (and others) heard otherwise. And now, Google isn't just handing this "sexy beast" out to employees, they're going to sell it directly. Everything has changed. Here's what we know.

• The Wall Street Journal says it's made by HTC and called the Nexus One. It'll be sold online, directly by Google. You'll have to get your own cell service (which suggests it's an unlocked device). Curiously, the WSJ says, "unlike the more than half-dozen Android phones made by phone manufacturers today, Google designed virtually the entire software experience behind the phone." Sounds weird, since they designed the look and feel of the software on the Droid and G1 too, except that our source had told us before that the current Android we know isn't the "real" Android. Also odd sounding: that name, Nexus One. But maybe not that odd.

• Google confirmed they handed out "a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities and we shared this device with Google employees across the globe."

• A bunch of Google employees tweeted stuff like the phone is "like an iPhone on beautifying steroids."

• It's supposedly an unlocked GSM phone running Android 2.1, powered by the crazyfast Snapdragon processor, with an OLED touchscreen (no keyboard), dual mics (for killing background noise), and enhanced voice-to-text powers. It's gonna be alllll Google branding. And it's probably coming out in January. Which jives with what our source saw a couple weeks ago, a huge screen running a brand new version of Android unlike anything out there.

• We heard it was referred to, at least in some capacity in the staff meeting where they were handed out, as the "Passion."

If Google really is going to push this as The Google Phone (and it's not just a dev phone), it's hard to understate just how radically this changes the landscape not just for Android, but what it means for Google and their relationship to the cellphone industry. The Google Phone would be a radically different model, a shift from the Microsoft one—make the software, let somebody else deal with the hardware—to the Apple and BlackBerry one—make the software and the hardware, tightly integrated. And Google's even taking a step further, by selling it directly, bypassing the carriers, at least initially. (Google would not be the first to sell a high-powered unlocked phone—see Sony Ericsson and Nokia—but neither them are, um, Google, and their well-known failures with that approach makes it even ballsier.)

It's a powerful message: to the companies making phones running Android, to the carriers, to developers, to consumers. Google is in this, to win. Everything has changed. You know, unless it hasn't.

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NPD Hardware: Xbox 360 Beats the PlayStation 3

The NPD Group numbers for November are showing that the Xbox 360 from Microsoft has managed to sell more than the PlayStation 3 from Sony in the United States for the first time in the last three months just as the videogames industry registered a 7.6% decline over the same month in 2008.

The biggest hit was to revenue derived from the sale of hardware, which went down by 13.4% to reach 1.05 billion dollars. The main culprit for the decline can be found in the price cuts which Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo operated over the course of this year but the overall economic downturn can also take part of the blame.

The best selling consoles were the ones made by Nintendo. The DS handheld sold 1.7 million units in one month, while the Wii home gaming console felt the effects of its new reduced price and managed to move 1.26 million units to gamers, which is pretty good considering that the Xbox 360 shipped around 820,000 units in the same time frame, while the PlayStation 3 slowed down to only move 710,000 pieces in the respective period. The PlayStation Portable has just succeeded in edging out the PlayStation 2, with 293,900 to 203,100 units.

Anita Frazier, who is one of the analysts working with the NPD Group, commented on the results, “While there has been a lot of focus on Wii sales as compared to last year, the system was still the best-selling console system by a margin of 54 percent. At this same point in the PS2 life cycle, the PS2 was down in unit sales by 23% over the previous year, but as history has shown, it continues to have a great deal of life left in it. So focusing on a comparison to Wii's stellar 2008 performance masks the reality of just how well this system is selling.”
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Dragon Age: Origins – How the Story Ends

One of the biggest charges made at Fallout 3 when it made its bid for 2008 Game of the Year was that its ending was totally unsatisfying, lacking any concrete detail on the fates of the various locales you went through and leaving the player wondering whether all the trouble he went through was worth it.
Dragon Age: Origins will not face this criticism when it makes its bid for 2009 Game of the Year (there might be things considered spoilers in the upcoming paragraphs).

The choices begin early as each of the companions you recruit, keep, or kill have an impact on how the game ends, and players need to be aware of the fact that some conversations are more important than they seem to be. They then continue in each of the four big Allies zones with meaningful and tough choices related to who gets to live and who dies: werewolves versus elves, Templars against mages, prince versus compassionate nobleman and dragon cult versus long standing religion. Consider the possible combinations and the possibilities for roleplay, especially given the various origins and the tid bits of information on some areas which they introduce.

And the end game is also choke-full of choices. And the surprise is that they are really interesting and really branch off. The soul of the Old God, which you murder in his Archdemon form, needs to go somewhere after death and whether you want to sacrifice a Grey Warden, possibly yourself, to eliminate it or you are willing to allow a wild mage wielder take charge of it is a weighty choice which might actually set up the sequel which BioWare is no doubt thinking about. Oh, and let's not forget that there's the problem of a bloodline dying out or holding on to the throne. If anything Dragon Age actually offers the amount of choice which forces the creation of a new save each 2 minutes in the final portion.
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JooJoo Tablet Detailed

The interview scored by Endgadget with the Fusion Garage chief Chandrasekhar Rathakrishnan provided tablet fans with some more information on the highly disputed and fought over tablet, which started as a joint effort between the Singaporean company and the TechCrunch team. The interview presents some details on the gadget and indicates that it is capable of iPhone-level games.

Even though the JooJoo tablet became cause for a lawsuit a very short while ago, the project seems to be far enough for Fusion garage to at least be able to give the public some numbers. The numbers aren't many, however, and the interview seemed to be more packed with possible future plans and adaptations of the tablet, such as one capable of 3G, instead of actual details on the current status of the product and when it might become available.

Still, Engadget at least managed to find out that the JooJoo has 1GB of RAM and is capable of 1080p Flash playback and 3D graphics suited for iPhone-type games. The processing power is supposedly provided by an Intel Atom central processing unit and the JooJoo is already built with a side slot meant for future integration of 3G connectivity. The manufacturer is supposedly already working on releasing a subsidized version. According to Rathakrishnan, if a 3G version does eventually come out, it won't be before Q1 2010. Still, the company is allegedly talking with media publishers.

Nevertheless, even with all the supposed performance capabilities of the JooJoo tablet, the actual product is not exactly the most popular of mobile solutions right now. Not only has TechCrunch implied that Fusion garage may not have sufficient funds to actually complete the device, but the product even carries a rather big price tag, no less than $499, mostly because of the capacitative screen of the 12-inch system.
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Google Lags Microsoft in the Mobile Tagging Game

Google is late to the mobile tagging game, lagging Microsoft, and as such, the Mountain View-based search giant has taken matters into its own hands, and is sending QR code stickers to many small businesses, whether they want them or not. The idea is that users with smartphones can take pictures of the QR barcodes with mobile device camera and immediately access a variety of information on a specific business, including reviews and discounts, via the Internet. But with the latest initiative, Google is simply the Jehovah’s Witness of the mobile tagging world, knocking on doors and attempting to artificially drive the adoption of QR code stickers by business that might have never heard of the company’s initiative, let alone indicate any sort of interest “converting.”

Even if it’s following in the Redmond company’s footsteps, Google is not bringing any sort of innovation to the table. In fact, the search giant is relying on old and restrictive standard, whereas Microsoft has introduced since the start of 2009 its very own breed of QR code technology, labeled Microsoft Tag. A spokesperson for Microsoft referred to Tag as the next leap forward in barcode scanning technology, as an indication showing why partners are adopting Microsoft tag.

And the software giant has every right to applaud Microsoft Tag. Its own bar code technology simply has more to offer businesses compared to the old QR code format. Microsoft Tag is capable of storing more information, is more dynamic, and most importantly, it is extremely flexible, being highly customizable and offering more user choice.

Here are the main benefits of Microsoft Tag, as shared by the company:

“- Tags are perfect for small businesses; because they’re so easy to set up, businesses can easily use them to do everything from sharing content like menus or reviews, to dialing your business phone automatically, to sharing promotions and offers with customers.
- The Tag itself is dynamic—able to point to any mobile web page you create. Other barcode technologies force you into pointing to a specific website that you cannot change. For example—you can have the same Tag permanently posted in your store, pointing to a coupon which changes monthly.
- Businesses want to use their Tag in all kinds of places- in print ads, on business cards, on menus, even on coasters. Because Tags can be one quarter the size of other two dimensional barcodes, it’s versatile enough to go wherever they want to use it.
- Tag offers businesses the opportunity to customize their Tags, something you can’t do with other technologies. In many cases, they’ve spent a great deal of time and resources developing a branded image that they want to use. With Tag, businesses can use their color logo, for example, as the Tag background- they’re not limited to black and white barcodes that lack individuality.”

Microsoft Tag functions in accordance with the same principles as the Google QR code stickers. Camera phone users can download a small client that installs on their device, and can take pictures of tags, accessing additional information on their devices. The Microsoft Tag Beta client is currently available for the following phones and mobile platforms: Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Java 2 Micro Edition, PalmOS, Symbian S60, Symbian S60 1st Edit, Symbian S60 2nd Edit, Symbian S60 3rd Edit, Symbian S60 5th Edit, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone. And the best thing about it is the fact that it’s completely free, unlike the some of the QR readers for Google’s stickers.

There’s no telling whether over 100,000 local businesses in the U.S. that have been deemed "Favorite Places on Google" and been sent window decals, will actually accept to advertise Google on their windows simply because the company has sent them a free sticker. In addition, the complete lack of control over the info shared with end users via the QR stickers is bound to turn some businesses off. And although some businesses will go along with Google, simply because of the association with the number 1 search engine worldwide, fact is that those that take into consideration the advantages of Microsoft tag will select the later.

Microsoft hasn’t shared any data on the actual adoption of its bar code technology, but revealed that “is seeing more and more interest in Tag, with adoption across more industries across the globe: Partners like GVB in Amsterdam are using Tag to let their public transportation customers know about arrival and departure times for trams and buses. Over at Condé Nast, you’ll find Tag woven throughout the editorial features in Golf Digest as a way to share more content and videos with readers. In Italy, businesses are starting to integrate Tags right into their yellow page ads as a way to help consumers learn more about their products and services. And major brands like Ford and Dodge are starting to integrate Tags into their print ads, brochures, and other content,” the Microsoft representative told Softpedia.
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Take Control of Your Social Life

Keeping in touch with your friends' activities becomes harder and harder these days and I believe that is the reason why social networking is suck a big success. Unfortunately, not everyone uses the same network and the time you spend checking all your accounts, news and comments grows every day.

And, since you have other things to take care of, you sometimes miss important events because you didn’t had the time to check your page for a couple of hours. If you need a small but efficient tool to keep track of the activity of all your social accounts, TweetDeck might be what you were looking for.

TweetDeck is not only designed to monitor specific feeds, but can also store the login information for each account, allowing you to avoid entering your details each time you want to see what is new. Using the Adobe Air technology, TweetDeck is still in beta stage, but is already providing support for Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn(recently added).

TweetDeck is an Adobe Air desktop application that is currently in public beta. It aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces.

A unique way to view your Twitter timeline

TweetDeck enables users to split their main feed (All Tweets) into topic or group specific columns allowing a broader overview of tweets. To do this All Tweets are saved to a local database. The far left column will always contain All Tweets. The REPLIES, GROUP, and SEARCH buttons then allow the user to easily make up additional columns populated from the database. Once created these additional columns will automatically update allowing the user to keep track of a twitter threads far easier.
Download TweetDeck
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New Super Mario Bros. Wii Beats Records in First Week

New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Wii, which has just been released on the Japanese market, has managed to sell 936,734 units in its first week in order to break the record for the highest sales registered on debut by a Wii release. The numbers are coming from Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu that also mentions that the previous record holder was another Nintendo title, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, moving no less than 816,000 copies in its first week.

New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii has also registered very good results in the United States and in Europe, competing head to head with Modern Warfare 2, the first person shooter that arrived on the PlayStation 3 from Sony, the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and the PC. The two titles seem to be the best positioned to dominate sales in December, as they have brand recognition and big marketing pushes behind them, while also apparently being front runners for various Game of the Year awards.

Some analysts of the videogaming market have even predicted that New Super Mario Bros. Wii will actually beat Modern Warfare 2 in term of sales, mainly because of its bigger popularity in Japan and because it will be selling well for a longer period than the first person shooter. Reggie Fils-Aime, who is the president of Nintendo of America, is saying that he is betting on the Mario release beating out Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox 360 when January 2010 rolls around. New Super Mario Bros. is expected to reach life time sales of no less than 15 million units.

The game is also important because it marks the first time when Mario has got multiplayer, cooperative and competitive, on the Wii, with four players being able to work together and battle each other on the various stages.
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Windows XP SP2 Dies on July 13, 2010

With the advent of Windows 7, the market shares of both Windows XP and Windows Vista have started bleeding, with users transitioning to the latest iteration of the Windows client. Still, although Windows 7 grabbed over 5% of the OS market, according to Net Applications, Windows XP is still the most used platform worldwide with a share of over 69%, with Vista at 18.55%. With the end near for the XP release that made Vista’s successor the ubiquitous OS worldwide, Microsoft is urging customers to upgrade to Windows 7. Microsoft plans to kill Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) on July 13, 2010. The Redmond company even has resources available to help customers make the jump from XP to Windows 7.

“With Windows 2000 Server and Client and Windows XP SP2 support ending July 13, 2010 are you aware of all the resources available to help you move to a new client and server operating system?” asked Stephen L. Rose, senior community manager, Windows IT Pro Client. “We have created a End-of-Support Solution Center to help with the planning of your migration strategy from Windows 2000 or Windows XP to Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2.”

Windows 7 is, of course, the best choice for an upgrade, especially if the migration also implies a hardware upgrade, as is generally the case for corporate customers. Users that are intent on ridding XP for all it’s got can continue doing so, however, they too must also upgrade, at least to XP SP3. With the third service pack for XP customers will enjoy extended support from Microsoft until 2014.

An additional solution would be upgrades to Windows Vista. Microsoft will offer mainstream support for Vista until 2012, and has yet to reveal plans for extended support. At the same time, customers, be them businesses or home users, will undoubtedly choose Windows 7 over Vista.

In such a case the Windows 2000 End-of-Support Solution Center might come in handy. Microsoft centralized a collection of resources on the Windows 2000 End-of-Support Solution Center designed specifically to ease the migration from Windows 2000 and Windows XP to Windows 7.
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Technology Can Help Drive Environmental Sustainability

Microsoft is in no way getting tired of preaching that technology can better all aspects of life, including the impact on the environment. Information technology can be the key resource behind achieving the goal of capping temperature change at 2 degrees. The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that in order to limit the global average temperature rise to under two degrees Celsius will require worldwide efforts resulting in a 50% to 85% greenhouse gas emissions cut in the next 40 years.

However, Microsoft is stressing that despite the fact that resources are available, including the necessary technology, to drive the needed reduction in terms of environmental impact, governments have to take additional actions. The Redmond company underlines that it is absolutely necessary for countries worldwide to set and ensure implementation of policies designed to make members of public and private markets tailor their actions to benefit environmental sustainability.

In concert with the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen, Microsoft revealed its own three pillars strategy designed to help reach climate and environmental goals. Of course, for the Redmond company, it’s first and foremost about software. The software giant argued that moves such as migrating to Windows 7 as well as swapping physical servers for virtualized environments are both measures that will drive environmental sustainability.

“As an operator of many of the world’s largest datacenters, we also are working to significantly improve energy efficiency and drive significant gains in the number of transactions that can be performed for each unit of energy. For example, new datacenters in Dublin and Chicago are 50 percent more efficient than their predecessors. In Dublin, the 5.4-megawatt datacenter needs no chillers for cooling. Instead it relies on careful placement of its servers and software control so that outside air alone keeps the datacenter working without requiring high-energy traditional air conditioning systems. This enables significant energy savings over traditional cooler-intensive datacenters,” Microsoft explained.

In addition, the Redmond company is producing telepresence solutions, set up to make travel unnecessary. Of course, along with saving the carbon emissions otherwise released into the atmosphere, Microsoft’s Unified Communication technology wins customers time and slashes costs. Unified Communications technology “enables virtual meetings to be conducted with high quality, over great distances, and at incredibly low costs. These are the types of changes in the way society does business that IT is singularly situated to enable. Absent a change in our traditional practices, society will fail to meet the goals that many nations, companies and organizations are setting.”
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Office 15 in Planning Just Like Windows 8

Not only has the dust didn’t get a chance to settle on Office 2010, but there’s no dust whatsoever seeing how the next iteration of the Office System is still in Beta, but Microsoft is already looking ahead, to the “next next” version of Office. The successor of Office 2007 was codenamed Office 14, although technically it was the 12th release, Microsoft looking to skip the unlucky version number, a release which will obviously be followed by Office 15. At the start of this month, Microsoft offered official confirmation indicating that planning for Office 15 is starting even before Office 2010/Office 14 is finalized.

“As Office 2010 nears shipping, we are starting to plan Office 15. One area that we are considering improving is our SQL Server support. Based on what I've heard from the community, that would be most welcome. Note that we are very early in planning, and considering many possible areas of investment, I unfortunately can't commit to any actual improvements at this time,” revealed Greg Lindhorst the person looking into how to improve Access and SQL Server for Access 15, according to Microsoft’s Clint Covington. “This is where you come in… I need your help to understand the need for improvements and make the case for improved SQL support.” (via Mary Jo Foley)

Microsoft plans to release Office 2010 by June 2010, with Office 2010 set another 2 to 3 years in the future. Users already familiar with the development of Microsoft’s main cash cows, Windows and Office, already know that as far as the next iteration of its operating system is concerned, the company had also started planning even before the latest release was, well, a release. Microsoft has offered numerous indications revealing that Windows 8 planning and preparation has already started in Redmond. And it appears that the same aggressive development strategy is also applied to Office 15.

It’s worth mentioning that Steven Sinofsky, the current president of Windows and Windows Live Division, and the man that oversaw the development process of Windows 7, was reassigned from Office to build the successor of Windows Vista after Jim Allchin, (former) co-president, Platforms & Services Division, retired in 2007. With Sinofsky at the helm, major Office releases were made available at a much faster pace compared to Windows. After he was made responsible for the building of Windows 7, the new president, at the time just senior vice president of the Windows and Windows Live engineering group, imposed a faster pace, which resulted in the release of Windows 7 under three years after Vista’s launch.
DOWNLOAD Office 2010 Beta 

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Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 Coming

Mozilla is getting ready to release a new development milestone of Firefox 3.6. And it appears that the upcoming testing build won’t graduate the next version of the open source browser to Release Candidate stage. According to Mozilla, a new Beta release, the fifth one, is currently cooking and being readied for availability. Although the company hasn’t said anything officially, it is already offering testers a taste of Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 via its FTP servers, although, at the time of this article, the development milestone was not yet ready for public release.

As of the end of last week, testers have been able to grab a Candidate of Firefox 3.6 Beta 5. Labeled Firefox 3.6b5-candidates build1, the bits are nothing more than a nightly release. Still, the signal Mozilla is sending is that the fully-fledged Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 isn’t that far off in the distance. On December 1st, 2009, Mozilla noted “Firefox 3.6 Beta - 500,000 active daily users (though only 50% are on the latest beta [namely Beta 4]). Need to get to 650,000 to be able to map stability data onto the general population.”

It is important to note that at the start of this month Mozilla was planning to offer Firefox 3.6 RC by the end of the past week. Obviously, this wasn’t the case, and at this point in the development of version 3.6 of Firefox, show-stopping bugs are solely responsible for delaying the Release Candidate. “Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate - there are 18 code blockers remaining - goal is to get to RC build this week,” Mozilla stated on December 1st.

Another Beta and the further delay of RC can jeopardize the initially set launch date for Firefox 3.5’s successor. Last time it talked about the release, Mozilla emphasized that it was still pushing to have Firefox 3.6 delivered by the end of 2009. However, considering the necessity to attract another hundred thousand testers, as well as to deal with any remaining blockers, a more realist release deadline for version 3.6 is in 2010. Mozilla has yet to confirm officially that Firefox 3.6 has slipped into early 2010.
DOWNLOAD Firefox 3.6 Beta 4 for Windows
DOWNLOAD Firefox 3.6 Beta 4 for Linux 

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Audio, Video and Image Handled by Nero

Version reviewed: Nero ShowTime 5.4.26.0
Nero ShowTime is a video player capable of playing video and audio podcasts, as well as slideshow photos.

Features:
Play all digital recordings (movies, TV programs, home videos, and DVD videos)
Play Audio CDs
Reminder feature for each inserted disc
Take snapshots of the playing video
Playlists can be conveniently created and managed for the files you want to play.

The newest Nero ShowTime suffered a few changes compared to the previous version, both in terms of looks and options available. It is a simple application that does exactly what it is supposed to, clean and easy. Just like in the case of all video players with a standard interface structure, ShowTime makes available all control buttons within quick reach, in the lower part of the screen.

The developer maintained the “shuttle system” to navigate forward and backward at different speeds, but you also have the possibility to browse the video chapter by chapter (if supported). What baffled us was the “Step back/forward” buttons. Under normal circumstances, they should allow the selection of a speed to move back or forth in the video. But in our case, their function was to move frame by frame.

Playlist support is present in the software, letting you create playlists of video, image and audio data. But what is more important, Nero ShowTime can handle web media, save, play and even download podcasts off the Internet. On the downside, organizing all the feeds is not all that great. Also, finding a video cast in a feed abounding in items could result in spending quite some time, as there is no search option at hand to ease up the process. Organizing the folders in trees with their content opening to the side would make for a better view of all the items and how they are arranged.

As far as audio playback is concerned, Nero ShowTime proved to be quite surprising as it had no problem running lossless file types such as FLAC or WAV. On the other hand, playing a set of images in a slideshow revealed that the application still needs some fixing. Each image was displayed for seven seconds, which is a normal amount of time; if some users may want to adjust this, they can’t. But the greatest discomfort occurred when getting to the next picture in the playlist/folder, because the transition would make Nero ShowTime window disappear momentarily and then pop right up with the new photo loaded.

If most video players tend to suffocate the user with all sorts of terms and options way too complicated for an average user, Nero ShowTime is exactly the opposite. It provides a clean set of options designed to tweak the application in a way that best accommodates your needs. The main areas you can meddle with are General, Disc playback, Video and Audio. The general settings allow you to configure the OSD (enable/disable, set display time, choose font properties), decide on external subtitles, on the functions of the mouse wheel (adjust volume, navigate through video, or move to the previous/next chapter), frame capturing (where the capture should go: clipboard, set it as wallpaper or send it to a specific folder).

With “Disc playback,” you’re off easy because the menu gives you the chance to define the optical drive the app should view as default, enable automatic playing upon inserting a disc, as well as check on auto-resume settings.

“Video” menu, on the other hand, is a tad more complicated, especially if you don’t have at least the basic knowledge about video. It is here that you can enable hardware acceleration and get to set the aspect ratio to fit the video display screen. More than this, settings like enabling/disabling deinterlacing or setting the quality for Nero Digital, or adding film effects (Luma and Chroma) are not quite for everybody.

But video enhancing settings are something everybody understands, as they refer to adjusting brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, gamma and sharpness of the video. To make things even easier, you can load up any of the available presets that fit your standard. And on top of this, you can create your own preset to use. Changing any of the aforementioned values has real-time impact on the video, letting you preview the film before applying them.

Under “Audio” menu, configuration gets less complicated, comprising settings for audio output (goes up to a 7.1, eight speaker audio system) and bass configuration. Dynamic Range Control (DRC), responsible for limiting the difference between quiet and loud audio parts is also subject of configuration, with a compression level of up to 100%.

Bundled in Nero suite, ShowTime turns out to be an easy-to-use audio/video player that does not claim to be at the professional end, but rather in mid-range, offering a simple solution for DVD playback. It has no complicated settings and manages to provide the necessary means for adjusting both video and audio quality for an above average experience.

Download Nero 9 9.4.26.0 

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Facebook Creates Safety Advisory Board

Online safety has always been an issue, yet even today, it looks more like a “religious” battle rather than one based on facts and proper studies. This may have been one of the reasons why most companies had a more relaxed attitude only intervening after something bad had happened. Now though, Facebook is taking a more active approach and has created the Facebook Safety Advisory Board, a group made up of five organizations in the field from the US
and Europe, Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, WiredSafety, Childnet International and The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI). The group will be tasked with helping the social network come up with better measures and policies regarding online safety.

The group will start by advising with the overhaul of the help content on safety-related issues available in the Facebook Help Center. The social network wants to make the information available a useful and comprehensive tool focused on the three groups which are likely to be the most interested, parents, teachers and teens.

“We believe that the only way to keep kids safe online is for everyone who wants to protect them to work together,” Elliot Schrage, Vice-President of Global Communications and Public Policy at Facebook, said. “The formation of a board to advise specifically on safety issues is a positive, innovative and collaborative step towards creating a more robust safety environment, and we are thrilled that such a well-respected, trusted group of organizations has joined us in this endeavor.”

Facebook plans to meet with the group regularly to consult on safety issues if problems arise but also to review the existing policies, material and the steps the social network takes to protect its users. Facebook claims that the matter has always been taken very seriously and points out that it already has a collaboration agreement with some 49 Attorneys General in the US.
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Free Windows 7 Sensor-Driver Sample Available

The Windows Sensor and Location platform is a new addition to the Microsoft operating system, introduced with the advent of Windows 7. In this regard, the Redmond company is trying to make it easier for developers to leverage the new capabilities built into the successor of Windows Visa, in order to have the computer and associated applications continuously adapt to their environment. Essentially, Microsoft is aiming to simplify the way Windows 7 can be used in order to monitor a Motion Sensor. Developers can access and download the Windows 7 Sensor-Driver Sample from MSDN, a resource set up to streamline the use of the Windows Sensor and Location platform.

“We've just wrapped up a whitepaper that describes the creation of a sample driver that supports four sensors: compass, 2-axis accelerometer, ultrasonic distance, and passive-infrared (or motion). In addition to the driver source files, you'll find source files for the sensor firmware as well as source files for a simple .Net application that you can use to test your driver and sensors,” revealed a member of the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) team.

Developers can connect Widows 7 machines, as well as applications running on top of the company’s latest platform to a variety of location sensors. Windows 7’s Windows Sensor and Location platform comes with support for GPS devices, WWAN radios, and triangulation technology. Therefore, developers can tailor specific apps to the user, in the context in which location is relevant for the application.

“The whitepaper describes how you can build a simple motion sensor, a Sensor device driver, and a Sensor application that you can use to observe real-time sensor data in Windows 7. The sample firmware can be used to program a Parallax BS2 microcontroller. The sample driver supports communication between a Windows 7 application and the sensor. (Note that in addition to a passive-infrared motion sensor, the driver also supports a compass, a 2-axis accelerometer, and an ultra-sonic distance sensor.) The sample application demonstrates the use of the Windows 7 Sensor API to acquire sensor data. With very little work, you can modify this application so that it receives data from any of the three other sensors which the driver supports,” Microsoft noted.
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Microsoft: Try Windows Home Server PP3 for Free

Microsoft is making it easier for customers to decide whether Windows Home Server is the product for them by offering a free, trial-based version of the OS as a standalone download. Not only this, but the Redmond company is actually inviting customers to take the latest iteration of Windows Home Server for a spin. At the end of November 2009, the third Power Pack for WHS became available through Windows Update to users running older versions of the operating system.
 However, at the same time, Microsoft is offering an ISO image with Windows Home Server PP3 designed for do-it-your-selvers that want to build a WHS trial machine and test the home server OS from Microsoft.

“So you have been hearing all of these great things about Windows Home Server, but still aren’t sure if you are ready to buy one (even though there are some great holiday discounts that you don’t want to miss!). If this is the case, I would recommend using the Windows Home Server free trial,” revealed Microsoft’s Nicole Berett.

Windows Home Server PP3 is not available as a standalone commercial product. Instead, the OS is bundled with various servers put together by Microsoft partners, such as the Acer EasyStore Home Server, the ASUS TS Mini Server and the HP LX195 640GB Home Server. Windows Home Server is a product designed to provide backup, extra storage space and remote connectivity, among others, for home users with multiple computers.

“Our newly updated trial now includes Power Pack 3! You can simply download the trial and try out all of Windows Home Server’s features. These enhancements will be especially helpful if you have just transitioned your PCs to Windows 7. Once the trail period of 30 days is over, I am convinced you won’t want to go back to life without Windows Home Server,” Berett added.
Windows Home Server PP3 is available for DOWNLOAD
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Crack Available for Windows 7 BitLocker Hard Drive Encryption

One of the major features that, at least in Microsoft’s perspective, recommend Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise to customers is the ability to encrypt the hard drives via BitLocker, in order to safeguard data in the eventuality of computer theft, or access from unauthorized persons. Just a little over a month since the latest iteration of the Windows client has been made available for download, a third-party company revealed that it had produced the first commercially available crack for BitLocker Hard Drive Encryption. Passware indicates that customers in need of decrypting BitLocker Hard Drives in Windows 7, and with $795 to spare can turn to Passware Kit Forensic 9.5.

According to Passware, version 9.5 of its password recovery, decryption, and evidence discovery software can “recover encryption keys for hard drives protected with BitLocker; recover passwords for PGP archives, virtual disks, and keyring files; and instantly resets Administrator passwords for Windows 7.”

Passware Kit Forensic 9.5 is designed to scan the physical memory image file on a target computer. Following the scan, the solution is capable of extracting BitLocker disk encryption keys. In addition to the Ultimate and Enterprise SKUs of Windows 7, Passware Kit Forensic 9.5 is designed to work with the BitLocker capable editions of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2.

“Full-disk encryption was a major problem for investigators,” noted Dmitry Sumin, Passware president. “We have been able to provide police, law enforcement, and private investigators with a tool that allows bypassing BitLocker encryption for seized computers.”

Passware notes that the decryption and password recovery algorithms in their solution are capable of cracking BitLocker in a matter of minutes. The company is also offering a portable variant of Passware Kit Forensic 9.5 set up to run from a USB drive. The portable version of the decryption software not only identifies encrypted items and performs recovery of files and website passwords, but also leaves absolutely no trace on the machine that is scanned. Available for $ 795, Passware Kit Forensic 9.5 comes with support for in excess of 180 file types and is also capable of recovering PGP archives passwords, as well as virtual disks passwords.
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Windows 7 vs. Windows Vista

Windows 7’s overall superiority to Windows Vista has translated into the latest iteration of the Windows client, leaving its predecessor in the dirt in terms of commercial success as well. Windows 7 RTM has been embraced by over three times more customers compared to Vista RTM in the first week on the market alone. Market research company, The NPD Group, indicated that initial sales of the boxed, retail copies of Windows 7 dwarfed those of Vista’s. In the first few days on the U.S. market, Microsoft sold 234% more boxed copies than Vista, noted The NPD Group.

“Microsoft’s program of early low-cost pre-sales, high visibility marketing, and aggressive deals helped make the Windows 7 software launch successful,” revealed Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. “In a slow environment for packaged software Windows 7 brought a large number of customers into the software aisles.”

Microsoft executives, including Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, had revealed during visits in Taipei and Japan that Windows 7 sales were strong. However, Microsoft has so far failed to confirm the data provided by The NPD Group. At the same time, the Redmond company has yet to make public any official sales figures associated with Windows 7.

Still, although it outsold Vista by 234%, Windows 7 delivered a smaller boost in actual revenue. Statistics provided through the NPD’s weekly tracking service, reveal that actual Windows 7 dollar sales were only 82% higher than Vista. This can be explained through not only the consistent discounts on pre-sales that Microsoft offered, but also through less sales of the Ultimate flavor of Windows 7, as Microsoft worked to focus consumers more on the Home Premium and Professional editions.

And, as was expected, the launch of Windows 7 also contributed to pushing sales of Windows PCs, although to a lesser degree than Vista did starting with the end of January 2007. Sales of Windows 7 computers were 6% less than those of Vista machines, in a maker that reveals an overall 49% year-over-year units growth, and 95% over the week prior to Windows 7’s general availability on October 22nd, 2009.

“A combination of factors impacted Windows 7 PC sales at the outset, but the trajectory of overall PC sales is very strong leading into the holiday season,” added Baker. “Vista had a slight advantage at launch, as January traditionally has a bigger sales footprint than October. The other hurdle Windows 7 faced was sales of PCs with older operating systems (XP and Vista) were high, making up 20 percent of sales during the Windows 7 launch, compared to just 6 percent of older operating sales during Vista’s launch week."
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Force Google Chrome to Open Links in New Processes

When Google decided to create a new browser, it knew it had an opportunity to avoid many of the problems facing existing browsers by coming up with new ways to do things and building a solid basis from the start. One of the smartest decisions was to give each individual tab its own process thread, which would solve a lot of security and stability issues.

It was a more complex technical approach, but it paid off in the end. However, it's not possible to give each tab its own process every time, as there may be shared resources between them, so Chrome had to make a compromise between security and compatibility. Now, though, Google is giving developers the possibility to force links to be opened in new processes thanks to a little HTML 5 trickery.

“Google Chrome already uses separate OS processes to isolate independent tabs from each other in the browser, so that crashes or slowdowns in one tab won't affect the others,” Charlie Reis, software engineer, writes on the Chromium blog.

“In many cases, though, Google Chrome needs to keep pages from related tabs in the same process, since they may access each other's contents using JavaScript code... In practice, web developers may find situations where they would like links to other pages to open in a separate process. As one example, links from messages in your webmail client would be nice to isolate from the webmail client itself,” he explains.

Now, thanks to a new HTML 5 feature that got implemented in the latest builds of the Webkit HTML engine, which powers Chorme, Safari and a bunch of desktop and mobile browsers, developers can make links on their sites open in a new process adding a new level of protection. All they need to do is add the new rel="noreferrer" attribute as well as a target=”_blank” to their links pointing to another domain.

This will tell Chrome, and any other browser sporting a recent Webkit build under the hood and eventually any browser that supports the HTML 5 feature, to open the link in a new tab or window. No referrer information will be sent to the opened site and the window.opener property will be set to NULL. For now, though, there is no possibility to launch the link in a different process but still send referrer information.
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Nokia 6600i slide Review

Nokia 6600 launched in April last year received a facelift, even though the handset is no older than one year. The new device is called Nokia 6600i slide and features just about the same technical specifications, as well as design. Still, the few differences between the two might tip the balance in 6600i's favor, as it has a longer battery standby time, Flash Lite 3.0 support and a better 5 Megapixel built-in camera. Add to that a revamped designed and you have a genuine slider capable of good market sales. Small and chic, Nokia 6600i slide can be a good choice for those looking for a simple phone, but yet powerful and sturdy. The metallic surfaces of the handset make it highly resistant to possible drops or scratches, so this is just another advantage that you get for a not so high price.

Design
The resemblance between Nokia 6600 and 6600i sliders is astonishing. Both have the same sizes (93 x 45 x 14 mm), even the same weight (110g including battery). The only thing that looks different is the four buttons surrounding the D-pad. While the 6600 slide features two buttons arranged on two vertical plates, the 6600i slide has its four buttons arranged solely around the D-pad. I think this makes it easier to use the keys, as well as the D-pad. The metallic cover that encloses the device is just another guarantee that the phone will last longer than the usual plastic covered handsets. The sturdiness of the device is unquestionable, as well as its closing mechanism, which seems to work smoothly and doesn't jog at all. Its small size is another advantage, as it will perfectly fit in any pocket, the only issue probably being the weight.

Display and Camera
Nokia 6600i slide benefits from a 2.2-inch TFT display that supports 16M colors and a 240x320-pixel resolution. Taking into consideration its target, the size of the screen doesn't bother too much. The colors, contrast, as well as the quality of the image displayed are some of the best. Add to that the perfect sunlight eligibility and you get an excellent display that can meet any user’s expectations. The phone also benefits from the accelerometer feature, but only for the clock and turn-to-mute feature. These can be activated by tapping the back of the gadget twice when it's in standby mode. The clock will be displayed on the screen for a few seconds. The accelerometer doesn't work for any other feature in the phone.

Menu and Software
6600i slide runs on an S40 6th Edition interface, which is the latest user-interface coming from Nokia. One of the most user-friendly interfaces on the market, the S40 seems unchanged on the surface, and offers the user an excellent experience. Still, there are some tweaks and reshapes, which are taking this experience to a new level. The icons of the menus have been changed, but the 3D animation has been taken off.

Communication
Nokia 6600i slide is fully compatible with GPRS and EDGE Class 32, as well as the 3G networks. Benchmarks revealed that the device attains good scores in terms of the data-transfer speed (EDGE 148 Kbit/s download and 77 Kbit/s upload; 3G only 322 Kbit/s download and 93 Kbit/s upload), but that may greatly vary depending on the location and carrier.

Processor and Memory
The slider is powered by an ARM11 family processor running at speeds of up to 465 MHz. While not the fastest phone on the market, Nokia 6600i slide features the same CPU that is usually embedded in the latest Nokia smartphones. The handset will not lag even when running a music player or radio in the background.The Nokia 6600i slide phone embeds 20 MB of user free internal memory, which can be expanded up to 16GB, as it has a microSD slot card. The memory is not hot-swappable, as you must pull out the battery to be able to access the microSD slot card. The sales package also contains a 1GB microSD memory card.

Multimedia
As Nokia 6600i slide is not a music phone and does not target those looking for this kind of handsets, do not expect too many multimedia features. It only features the soon universal microUSB port together with some poor wired stereo headset (WH-203). Furthermore, as there's no 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter included in the sales package, you won't be able to change the headphones.

Battery
The 1000 mAh Li-Ion (BL-4U) battery has an officially stated life expectancy of 348 hours (300 on 3G) in standby and about four hours (three hours on 3G) in talk-time mode. If you're a heavy phone-talker, you will need to charge it once every two days. Overall, I'd say that the device's autonomy is not that good.
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Free Driver Update Scanner

Updating the drivers for the hardware components on your system is one of the most neglected jobs when it comes to keeping your computer in best shape. Windows Updates can help you with that in some cases, but it will largely provide updates for the popular hardware. Also, it will often supply generic drivers that do not release the true power of the component; ergo having the latest files from the manufacturer of the device is the best way to maintain the component at peak performance.

Device Doctor is a freebie specially designed to scan your system’s hardware and check if all the drivers are up to date. If newer versions are available, you will be provided with a download link for the latest driver. Simplicity is the keyword for the program as there are no options present, and no configuration.

The single-windowed interface allows for nothing more than starting the scan for driver updates, displaying the progress of the task and the results. To get a clearer picture on the ease of use of the application, all you have to do in order to trigger the scan and find the updates is push a single button: “Begin scan.” During our testing, none of the scans took more than one minute to complete.

Should there be any updates available, they are shown in the lower part of the interface, each with its own download button. So, the Internet connection is self-implied in this case. But Device Doctor can do the job even on computers without online access. In this case, you can export the results to an Internet-connected PC, retrieve the drivers and unload and install them on the computer that needs them.

Up to now, everything sounds just dandy, but there is a downside to the environment. First off is the lack of information about the currently installed driver version and the alternative presented. All the details provided consist in the fact that a hardware piece on the system is in need of driver update. Device Doctor does not show the latest downloadable version, and this may instill distrust in the provided file.

A beautiful fix for the matter would be to present the user complete information on the version number detected on the machine, the number of the newer version and the operating system of both the PC and latest driver. This would bring confidence in the program and in the fact that it is capable of offering OS compliant drivers. Unfortunately, this sort of details is not available either in the application interface, or on the driver download page.

What you will get out of it is a bunch of safety precautions that should be followed in order to avoid possible aftermath, should something go wrong: create a system restore point before installing the drivers (instructions for Windows 7, Vista and XP are provided). Also, as the app is at the beginning of its life, negative feedback on its behavior and the results retrieved should be reported for improving the service.

As awkward as it may seem for such a simple program, the developer ships a help file in the installer. The interesting part is that it explains the steps that need to be taken in order to manually install the downloaded driver files (unlike other software of the same feather, Device Doctor does not provide automatic installation of the data). If the downloaded file is an executable, you are lucky because all there is to it is run it and the wizard will guide you through all the steps of the installation. However, if you download an archive, which contains no executable, you’ll have to look for an INF file, right click it and select “Install” option.

As far as the accuracy of the drives returned is concerned, Device Doctor is still at the beginning of the road and has trouble determining all the driver updates necessary for the system. It worked great on XP, supplying all the necessary updates accurately. On Windows 7, however, the list of updates that should have been returned was much larger than what you can see in the pictures below. It’s important to note that those two updates presented by Device Doctor were legitimate and correct.

Compared to other applications of the same feather, Device Doctor does not offer too much information on the drivers currently installed on the system and the updated version. The simplicity of the application does not allow for automatic installation of the drivers, so the manual approach is the only solution in this sense. However, Device Doctor does not impose any limitations on driver download and can be used absolutely free of charge. DriverMax, a far more elaborate solution for updating drivers, will permit a limited number of daily downloads for free.

Overall, Device Doctor is a simple solution to scan for the latest drivers for your hardware components and download them. It lacks the features of the more complex applications bent on the same purpose, but the fact that its services are absolutely free of charge (and judging by the ads on the driver download page, I think it is safe to assume that it will continue to be freeware) may be a great advantage over similar software from other developers. User feedback on the scan results and driver retrieval will keep on improving accuracy of the program on the increasingly popular Windows 7.

Download Device Doctor  

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Motorola A555 Calgary Emerges Again-Rumours

Schaumburg, Illinois-based mobile phone maker Motorola has been rumored a while back to plan delivering two Android-based handsets to Verizon. While the first of them is already available, in the form of Motorola DROID, the second is still unannounced, namely the Motorola Calgary, but its name has recently been spotted on a Verizon's authorized partner's web site.

Neither Verizon Wireless nor Motorola have yet stated anything about the possibility that the phone would emerge in the near future, but a USB Data Cable that is showed on the partner's website says that it is meant to be used with the Motorola A555 Calgary. What this may suggest includes the fact that the handset is real and that it will arrive at Big Red soon, though probably not as soon as one would like to believe.

As for what the Motorola Calgary might deliver to users when launched, the previously leaked specs showed a sliding QWERTY keyboard, a 3.5mm headset jack, built-in GPS receiver, 3-megapixel photo snapper, Wi-Fi connectivity, microSD memory card slot for additional storage space, touch-sensitive Android keys on the screen and an optical joystick for navigation. Since it will sport Android, Calgary might also come with the MOTOBLUR UI, though no details on it surfaced.

The year 2009 is almost gone, and there are little chances that the two companies would plan launching Calgary in the little time left before 2010 arrives. However, the $19.99 USB Data Cable present on the said website shows clearly that we're to expect for a launch in the following few months, if not weeks. Most of you might already know that accessories tend to appear before the actual device becomes available, sometimes even months before.

One way or the other, Verizon's customers should soon have the chance to choose from between two appealing handsets from Motorola, even is Calgary seems to shape up into a more affordable version of DROID. We'll keep an eye on the news regarding this handset, so watch this space for further updates on the matter.

source:www.softpedia.com