Windows 8 IT Pros, get your free Microsoft ebook
A week after Windows 8 launched, today Microsoft announced a new ebook designed to help IT Professionals to integrate the new operating system into their environments. The 147-page tome covers all aspects of the operating system, but is sure to be less-comprehensive than books that will be available from major publishers. On the other hand, this one is free.
The new book covers such essentials as the new hardware innovations, customization and configuration tips, networking enhancements, deployment of the new operating system, apps, recovery, management, Internet Explorer 10, security and several other subjects. In all it encompasses 11 chapters. As part of their announcement Microsoft's Keith Mayer states: "Now that Windows 8 is generally available, this book is a great way to get quickly up-to-speed on all the new improvements in this latest Windows release".
Hey, we know how you feel: Softbank gives half a million dollars in Hurricane Sandy relief
Japan's third-largest wireless carrier Softbank announced on Friday that it is donating $500,000 to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund to support the relief efforts in East Coast areas seriously affected by Hurricane Sandy.
"Our thoughts are with the millions of people in the Northeastern United States who have been impacted by Hurricane Sandy," said Softbank Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son in a statement on Friday. "With homes destroyed and families displaced, we hope that our donation can lend some needed assistance to those in the U.S. as they rebuild and recover."
For the first time ever, Microsoft is not a Kaspersky top-10 security vulnerability
Security researcher and software vendor Kaspersky Lab on Friday released its quarterly malware report for the third quarter of 2012, and for the first time in the history of the report, not a single Microsoft product had a vulnerability in the top ten vulnerabilities list.
Kaspersky says the automatic updates mechanism in recent versions of Windows has prevented exploits from getting out of hand by patching vulnerabilities quickly and quietly.
MIT predicts trending topics on Twitter
Associate Professor Devavrat Shah and his student Stanislav Nikolov will unveil a new algorithm in November at the Interdisciplinary Workshop on Information and Decision in Social Networks. With a 95 percent accuracy it is reported to predict which topics will trend on Twitter by an average of an hour-and-a-half advance. MIT says that the social network could make use of the algorithim and even charge extra for ads that are linked to the future popular topic. At the same time, it can be implemented to determine ticket sales for movies, duration of bus rides and possibly stock prices.
The latter might gather some interest from Wall Street, but judging by the presentation that MIT made so far it is not at the top of the list. The idea behind the algorithm is to find meaningful patterns from a sample set, which in Twitter's case is represented by topics that were not popular as well as previously trending ones.
You will buy Google Nexus 10
It's an itch you'll want to scratch this holiday. Just give into it.
Preliminary results from our poll "Will you buy Google Nexus 10?" are in, and I'm not satisfied enough with the numbers, being well below 1,000 responses (hence, poll is reposted here). But at this juncture, 36.82 percent say they will buy as soon as the tablet is available -- and that's November 13 in some regions. Another 18.32 percent plan to buy within 3 months. So more than 55 percent plan to get the Nexus 10 before Valentine's Day. Hey, that's two holidays for you to ask for one, with Christmas obviously in-between. Ten percent of respondents are unsure, while 25.86 percent say they won't buy.
Windows Server Essentials 2012 finally available for everyone
Windows 8, Windows RT, Surface, and Windows Phone 8 may have received all of the public's attention recently, their comrade Windows Server Essentials 2012 has officially become available with almost no fanfare.
Windows Server Essentials 2012 is a lower-end consolidation of the next-generation versions of Windows Small Business Server (Essentials and Standard), Windows Home Server, and Windows Storage Server Essentials in a single product. It also comes with some rather important new features for the home office and small business (supporting up to 25 users).
Apple’s new (cough, cough) 'apology' to Samsung appears in UK newspapers
If you’ve been following the story, you’ll know Apple was ordered to post a notice on its UK website and in several newspapers, stating that Samsung did not copy the iPad. After losing its appeal, Apple complied, sort of, by posting a statement as directed on its site. Only instead of it taking the form of an apology, it dwelt on how uncool Samsung products are, and how the UK court is out of step with the rest of the world.
Yesterday, the UK court told Apple to take down the "incorrect" statement and put up a proper apology (and on the front page of the site, rather than on a linked page), giving it 48 hours to do so. Today Apple has complied with the first part of the order -- removing the notice -- but the replacement is unlikely to make an appearance until just before the deadline expires. However, the new statement has appeared in newspapers today, and while it follows the court’s request, it’s the sort of thing that will have the already annoyed judges wanting to punch walls.
Samsung sells 3M Galaxy Note IIs, unbelievable?
The phablet is catching on. Two months ago Samsung announced the Galaxy Note II and in the meantime the South Korean corporation managed to sell three million units in 37 days since its release. That's right, and it barely touched US carriers.
The first iteration of the popular and controversial device sold 5 million units over a five month period. "Sales of Galaxy Note II are growing three times faster than that of the previous Galaxy Note", Samsung says in a statement. The success is rather impressive for what is basically a niche smartphone, with what may be considered limited reach due to its intimidating size. By comparison its smaller brother, the Galaxy S II, sold 20 million units in the first 100 days but, unlike the Note II the former appeals to a larger market audience.
Hurricane Sandy is a a data disaster
Earlier this week, as Hurricane Sandy beat the crap out of the Eastern seaboard, I received an email message from lower Manhattan. You may have received this message, too, or one just like it. It felt to me like getting a radiogram from the sinking Titanic. An Internet company was running out of diesel fuel for its generator and would shortly drop off the net. The identity of the company doesn’t matter. What matters is what we can learn from the experience.
The company had weathered power outages before and had four days of diesel fuel stored onsite. Managers felt ready for Sandy. But most of their fuel wasn’t at the generator, it was stored in tanks in the building basement -- a basement that was soon flooded, the transfer pumps destroyed by incoming seawater. It was like a miniature Fukushima Daiichi, not far from Wall Street.
Motorola Droid Razr HD Android 4.1 Jelly Bean ROM leaked
Almost two months ago Motorola announced the new Droid Razr HD, but there was something missing. Don't get me wrong, it's nicely spec'd but Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich doesn't exactly shout 2012, does it? Fear not, Jelly Bean is underway and for the more eager owners of the smartphone there is a leaked ROM available as well.
This is not an official build, and therefore it may still have software issues. That said, thanks to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Droid Razr HD users can take advantage of features like Google Now and Project Butter. In order to keep elevated privileges (popularly known as "root") after installing the leaked ROM, OTA RootKeeper or a similar application must be installed beforehand.
Which survives the drop test, iPad mini or Nexus 7?
To be honest, you really don't want to know which one. Some tragedies are simply too painful to see. But if you delight in car crashes, then do watch Darcy LaCouvee plummet the Apple and ASUS/Google tablets to the cement. Informal drop tests like this one aren't exactly scientific, if for no other reason than Chaos theory. But they're nevertheless revealing and entertaining.
Like the iPhone 5 vs Galaxy S III drop test, the Android Authority reporter waited until the Apple device starting selling in stores to drop-test the tablets. He's back again from Hong Kong, in this riveting 5:39 video.
Media Preview displays video thumbnails
Windows Explorer’s ability to display a thumbnail for a file can be a very useful way to see what it contains. But this often fails to work properly with videos, where typically you’ll be left with some general icon representing the file type, or perhaps a black frame which tells you precisely nothing at all.
You may be able to at least partly resolve this problem by installing the appropriate codecs, and making sure they’re configured correctly. But if that’s not working for you, then it could be simpler to install Media Preview, which handles all the usual complications almost entirely automatically.
Android devices have greatest taste for Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich
There is no stopping Ice Cream Sandwich! Android 4.0 continues its growing streak month after month, based on the number of devices accessing Google Play during the 14 days ending November 1. But Gingerbread is still the sweet that rules them all.
Just like in the last few months, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean reports the highest growth. It reached a distribution level of 2.7 percent, which is 50 percent higher compared to the previous data released by Google. Growth is likely influenced by the popular Nexus 7 tablet and smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy Note II.
JogoBox finds thousands of free games
If you’re a keen gamer, looking for new challenges, then of course there are plenty of free offerings available online. But which sites or services are the best for you? It might take a while to find out.
And so it could be easier to install JogoBox, a single tool which makes it easy to find and play thousands of free games, no registration required.
Apple starts selling iPad mini
Today in more than 30 countries, new iPads -- fourth-generaton 9.7-inch and new mini 7.9-inch -- are available for purchase. In-store sales, direct from Apple and third-party retailers follow a week of pre-orders. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company unveiled both tablets on October 23.
iPad 4 is largely unchanged from its predecessor; the biggest difference being the new A6X processor, which Apple claims doubles performance. The mini is a fresh design and smaller physical size that lowers the entry-level price to $329. The company chose to preserve the larger tablet's user experience, including 5MP rear-facing camera, on its smaller sibling. Big difference, other than physical size, is dramatic lowering of screen resolution -- 1024 x 768 on the mini compared to 2048 x 1536 resolution on iPad 4.
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