Microsoft drastically changed the user-interface in Windows Phone 7 and their upcoming desktop/tablet OS update Windows 8 to "Metro UI", the same design philosopy has made the company change the age-old "Windows OS" logo to a brand new look for "Windows 8".
The new logo is both modern and classic with bold flat colors, clean lines and shapes echoing the "International Typographic Style" guidelines, that has been a great influence on the companies new Metro style design philosophy.
The Windows logo is a strong and widely recognized mark but when we stepped back and analyzed it, we realized an evolution of our logo would better reflect our Metro style design principles and we also felt there was an opportunity to reconnect with some of the powerful characteristics of previous incarnations, said Microsoft.
You dont need an paid utility like WinZip or WinRar
to compress/decompress majority of file-compression formats out
there, there are plenty of better free and open-source
alternatives available like - PeaZip, a free
file and archive manager that runs on almost any version of
Windows (even 9x) and Linux and includes support for extracting
virtually any kind of file compression format (130+ file types).
This application is based on the solid and high
performance Open Source technology of 7-Zip and other
equally great Open Source projects (like FreeARC, PAQ, UPX...),
providing a natively portable and cross-platform unified GUI
localized in over 20 languages.
The pleasant and simple to use UI offers a wide array of advanced features, especially focused on security, as strong encryption, two factor authentication, encrypted password manager, secure deletion, calculate hash and checksums etc. An unique trait of PeaZip is the innovative interface to handle archives, that provides a full featured file manager component to check and update items set for compression, or conversion, or extraction.
Google is undoubtedly the most trusted, visited and celebrated site in the internet. We know that you love how Google searches everything we want in a matter of seconds while providing great services including Gmail, Google Docs and YouTube. But have you ever wondered if it’s really safe? For those of you who are surprised by my question, let me assert you that it’s a well-established fact that Google collects and maintains a database of everything you do on the Internet, be it a simple search, mail or burp. Okay, not burp.
Searches are alright. It won’t be at much of a loss practically. But what if someone tracks your mails? No, we are not being hypothetical here. According to Cristopher Nguyen, an ex-Google employee and part of Google apps operations, this is partly true. He said that some Gmail engineers have access to main servers and as a part of their job have access to go through mail-accounts of millions of users. However, he justified the fact that if any other employee wants to access an account, he has to justify the reason and do some paperwork first before actually getting through to the content in the account.
While Microsoft Security
Essentials does a fairly good job of protecting your
computer from PC-threats, when accompanied with free proactive
protection like SafenSoft SysWatch Personal the
result is a fortified PC without the need of any paid security
software.
SafenSoft SysWatch protection system preserves the integrity of your operating system with all its components and applications as installed at the original build. This protection system works by controlling how applications behave by keeping a record of your “known-good” computer state, preventing hacker attacks and malicious software from activating. Because SysWatch Personal does not need to identify individual threats in order to block them, it doesn’t need all those signature updates required by traditional security software to provide reliable protection. Featuring three core functionality of controlling the application launch process, application activity process and the self-protection system the addon offers fast and reliable protection even against unknown threats.
Unknown applications are launched and activated only in a secure sand-boxed environment mode and authorized users can use the "Install Mode" to permanently store the new unknown application and changes made by it. SafenSoft SysWatch also features the handy digital certificate trust module which automatically unblocks installation of known white-listed applications having a valid digital signature (this seems to be a paid upgrade/other SafenSoft product feature as the same is not visible in free version but was infact shown in demo video). Please do keep in mind that SafenSoft SysWatch Personal do not fight the consequences of infection, but prevents it from happening - hence the pro-active defense for your computer.
Want to enjoy the popular desktop Linux OS
Ubuntu on your Android powered mobile device, it
can't get easier than this - the free "Ubuntu
Installer" app from Android Market. The application
allows users to install and run "Ubuntu" inside
Android - The market application installs an customized
Ubuntu 10.10 image optimized for the ARM
processor allowing users to run a full Ubuntu system within
android. The great thing is users can make calls, text, and use
other android features without having to reboot their phones.
Download links, video demonstration and features after the jump.
After Google Wallet and Mobile Phone Door Locks By Yale everybody is
assured the NFC or Near field communication is
surely the future technology and is coming our way fast and hard.
Taking another innovative leap making use of NFC technology "Sony
Ericsson" has made public their future plans to introduce NFC
based Xperia SmartTags, planned to be used with
future NFC capable Xperia phones the different colored tags will
enable users to customize the tags to automatically change
preferences, activating and deactivating phone features according
to the tag the phone gets pointed at - like Home, car, office and
bedroom.
A demonstration video is available after the jump.
Speaktoit, the top-rated virtual
assistant app on Android since launching in October 2011, has
come to Apple’s iOS platform. Whereas Siri, Apple’s homegrown
virtual assistant, only works on the iPhone 4S, Speaktoit will
give older iPhone their very own assistant that performs most of
the same tasks as Siri (and even some that Siri cannot do, such
as updating a user’s Facebook page). Speaktoit is now available
for $1.99 on the App Store. However, on Valentine’s Day (February
14th), Speaktoit will be free to the first 100,000 people.

We have blogged about freemium cloud storage solutions like
Dropbox, SugarSync, ZumoDrive, DropBoks, Microsoft SkyDrive and
LiveDrive but all of them offer a
limited amount of "online data storage" after which a user needs
to upgrade their accounts to store more data.
BeeCloud is another such solution but offers a whooping 512GB of online storage with their free account, basically a reseller for LiveDrive they offer fully automatic backups with upto 30 revisions, anywhere data access from the web, iPhone, iPad, smart phone, PC, or Mac and even supports music and videos streaming straight from your mobile device over 3G or wifi.
We have reviewed lots of free and paid VPN services
on this blog and have always provided our readers with exclusive
free accounts to try things out, so here we are once again with
another VPN service review and free account giveaway.
With support for over 35+ country servers very few VPN service providers match anonymity offered by VPN Traffic. Vpntraffic lets users surf the internet anonymously, allowing users to visit censored websites in their region with high speed, also safeguarding against any spoofing attacks. Another feature not found in other VPN services is support for P2P (torrents) connections.
After providing applications on several devices, such as : iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Symbian and Windows mobile, VPNTraffic is now offering its VPN service to Android users.
In an landmark judgement after
four years of legal battle, a European court has asked computer
retailer Lenovo to pay €1920
for making French laptop buyer pay for "Microsoft Windows"
software bundled with their laptop which he did not wanted.
Popularly known as "Microsoft Tax" users around
the globe are forced to pay licensing fee (included into the cost
of computer) for Windows OS when they purchase an laptop/computer
from Microsoft partner companies.
"No More Racketware" is an initiative which helps users avoid paying for software they don't want when buying a computer. The action supports a buyers freedom of choice to set up and use alternative software's on their computers.