Ping is the most basic of networking troubleshooting tools, and easy enough to use, but its standard text output is, well, a little limited. Endless tables of figures make it more difficult for you to spot issues, and to convey them to someone else.

PingHurry could make your life easier by displaying ping results in graphical, as well as text form. It’s a simple visual ping tool for Windows 7+, portable and entirely free.

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Currently being referred to as something "unique but familiar", Mozilla has a new browser on the way. Based on Firefox, the new web browser has been designed specifically with developers in mind. In a post of the Mozilla Blog, the company explains that the up-coming browser will include built in tools such as WebIDE and the Firefox Tools Adapter.

The browser is due to launch on 10 November and comes after Mozilla looked at Firefox "through a completely new filter to put developers' interests first". The idea of an "independent web" is also being pushed, and Mozilla has commandeered the #ChooseIndependent and #fx10 hashtags to celebrate Firefox's tenth birthday.

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The music, film and TV industries have all undergone radical transformations over the last fifteen years. In contrast, the publishing industry is only now feeling the full force of technological change.

Ebooks and ereaders are changing consumers' reading habits and throwing up serious questions about how the industry can go forward on a sustainable footing. Major players in the music industry eventually solved their own sustainability issues by embracing change and incorporating subscription-based services in their business models. However, ebooks pose different problems. Subscription services alone particularly in emerging markets where content piracy is rife, do not seem viable. The magic bullet could be 'social'.

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If you’ve been following the sales of Microsoft and Sony’s next gen consoles, you’ll know that the PS4 has been outselling its rival each month. However, a year after they went on sale we finally get to see the scale of the sales difference between the two.

In the last quarter, Sony shipped 4.1 million PlayStations globally, of which 3.3 million were PlayStation 4s. Microsoft on the other hand shipped 2.4 million Xbox units. Now we don’t know how many of those were Xbox Ones, and how many were Xbox 360s (Microsoft doesn’t provide a breakdown), but given the older console still sells very well, it’s safe to assume the PS4 sales were double that of the Xbox One in that quarter. Now, let’s look at the bigger picture.

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IT professionals across the US and UK have been left confused and annoyed by the web hosting price war that has left many to stay with existing providers due to worries over security and customer service.

A survey carried out by Pier 1 Hosting to find out the effect price has on choosing a web hosting provider found that 80 percent of those IT professionals surveyed aren’t willing to compromise on security for the sake of lower prices. In addition, upwards of 90 percent aren’t prepared to sacrifice customer service in order to benefit from lower prices and it’s a trend that doesn’t surprised those at Peer 1 Hosting.

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There is now great interest in the level of governmental interference that takes place into online activity. Edward Snowden told the world about what the NSA was up to and there are now numerous websites dealing with the revelation that he made. One such site is The Intercept, and it has just published the secret manuals that are supplied to governments who want to use a suite of specialist tools to monitor web users' activities.

Sub-titled "the hacking suite for governmental interception", RCS 9 (or Remote Control System) is a suite of tools from Hacking Team. The Italian security and surveillance company is responsible for providing hacking and monitoring guides and software to a list of countries including Colombia, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia. RCS itself is "a solution designed to evade encryption" -- the sort of encryption put in place by Google.

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When he's not busy fronting Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor has plenty of solo music projects to work on, as well as countless collaborations with other artists. Talking to Billboard about -- amongst other things -- his upcoming fiftieth birthday, Reznor revealed that he is currently working with Apple on a music venture of some sort. He was unable to give much in the way of detail but we do know that it is "in the world" of music delivery.

Apple is famously secretive about yet-to-be-released products and services, so the fact that Reznor is being tight-lipped at this stage is not surprising. Throughout the course of the Billboard interview he makes several references to music streaming, and it's fairly safe to assume that the up-coming service is in this area.

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For those who are concerned about their privacy post-Snowden, there are various ways to boost online privacy such as using the anonymizing Tor browser. Browsing the internet anonymously is something that scares the authorities -- there were reports just a couple of months ago that Comcast was threatening to cut off customers who chose to use Tor -- but now Facebook has opened up to the idea.

The social network -- often criticized for its own privacy policies -- has lifted its bans on using Tor, and has created a secure URL (https://facebookcorewwwi.onion/). This can be used to visit Facebook using any Tor-enabled browser and adds a few extra layers of protection for those looking to stay secure. While the idea of anonymity on Facebook may seem oxymoronic, there is a degree of logic.

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In the world of Android, there is rarely a clear-cut "best" smartphone. This is a good thing, as it signifies variety in the Android marketplace. In other words, consumers do not all have the same tastes; some like a smaller screen, some a larger screen and some even like having a stylus. However, with that said, even though people have different preferences, it is easy to identify the top flagship phones.

BetaNews has the two top Android smartphones in our lab. Yes, we have both the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and Google's Motorola-manufactured Nexus 6. For the immediate future, these will be the phones of many consumers' desires. Deciding which of these two smartphones to buy is very problematic, but hey -- it's a great problem to have, right? Please read on, to see how the phones differ and which one you should buy.

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Hands up if you saw that coming? We’ve been so used to Windows 8 and 8.1 losing usage share month on month, that any kind of move in the right direction -- i.e. growth -- seems almost an anomaly. And when Windows 8.x does gain usage share, it’s usually pretty minimal.

Not in October. According to the latest usage share figures from web analytics firm NetMarketShare, Windows 8 use grew in that month, and Windows 8.1 (finally) took off like a rocket. In fact, Windows 8.1’s growth in that month is so impressive you’ve got to imagine the number crunchers at NetMarketShare spent a long time checking and re-checking their findings to make sure there wasn’t a mistake at their end.

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When Gartner coined the phrase "next generation firewall", in 2003, it captured a then-nascent approach to traffic classification and control. Combining traditional packet filtering with some application control and IPS layered on top, today's 'legacy' NGFWs do pretty much what they say on the tin.

However, while NGFWs continue to be a vital part of an organization’s protection, they were designed for a time before advanced targeted threats started attacking our enterprises -- threats which often go undetected until it's too late.

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Fall is my favorite season, as I get to wear a hoodie, drink pumpkin-flavored coffee and celebrate Halloween. Yes, even though that holiday is designed for kids, more and more adults are getting in on the fun. Hell, who doesn't want to dress up in a costume and eat candy? I would do that every day if I could!

Unfortunately, it can be hard to find a good haunted house nowadays, as society has become very sensitive and opposed to scary things. I mean, OK yes, having a man dress as a zombie and scaring a 5 year old child with a chainsaw is not the greatest of ideas, but hey -- that is what Halloween is about. Being traumatized is part of the allure. Today, Google releases a list of the scariest places in Europe. Not in Europe? No worries, Google Maps can take you there.

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In only a handful of years, a wide range of file sharing services have popped up, from completely free services aimed at consumers (including the likes of Dropbox, Google and WeTransfer), to enterprise-focused services (such as Mimecast, EMC and Citrix).

Considering the long list of available offerings on both sides, making the right choice for your business can be difficult, so it's a good idea to do your research first...

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After a long wait, Microsoft announced today that the next version of Office for Mac will finally see the light of day in 2015. Mac users will be able to get their hands on a public beta in the first half of next year, with the final version to arrive before the end of 2015. The latest official version of Office for Mac, Office for Mac 2011, launched more than four years ago.

Microsoft does not reveal what the upcoming Office for Mac will be called, but, seeing as it launches in 2015, it is possible that the software giant will stick to the current naming scheme and call it Office for Mac 2015. What we do know is that it will include Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint and Word, which will make it less feature-rich than Office 2013, which has been available on Windows for nearly two years.

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One-hundred and five in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows 8 in the last seven days.

If you have browsed the new app and games listing this week you may have stumbled upon several irregularities again.

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