Here’s a demo-video of the newest functions and features of iPhone 3.0:
iPhone 3.0 Demo
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Monthly Archives: March 2009
Despite Rumors, the Conficker Worm may Stay Dormant on April 1
Conficker Work (image courtesy of Wikipedia)
Rumors are spreading that a new version of the Conficker worm will be causing widespread havoc again on April 1, its anniversary date. Media reports have related that Conficker could be activated on that day giving a hacker access to millions of computers affected by the worm. Others reported that the French military has grounded a few of its fighter planes due to the threat.
While the media are concocting doomsday scenarios, worm and virus experts are shrugging off the threats. Anti-virus company F-secure has already said that there is no likelihood of a widespread, global attack. Only those that are still infected by the Conficker worm will be affected, if such an event should happen.
Mozilla’s Fennec Browser: The Firefox Version for Mobile Phones
Mozilla Fennec Logo
Mozilla recently launched the first release of its mobile browser, Fennec. Touted to be the mobile Firefox, Fennec is currently in rough beta and understandably, it has a lot of bugs and things that need to be worked out.
At first look, however, Fennec is quite impressive, very easy to use even with the smaller screen space of a Smartphone. I particularly liked the integration of touch screen features. It allows you to zoom, scroll and pan using your fingers or stylus. You can also “flick” the page you are on to transfer to another tab.
What I found particularly interesting is that it gives you the option to download add-ons, which is the benchmark and the advantage of Firefox over all other browsers. Add-ons, I think, makes the Firefox browser your own, making it easy for you to do the things you need and want to do, without having to go through a lot of installations to your desktop. Just give me my add-ons and I am happy! And the fun part is, installing add-ons of Fennec is as easy as it is on Firefox!
Mozilla, however, does not stop there. Fennec has the features we have all come to love with Firefox: easy bookmarking features, that all-in-one navigational bar, and customization features via about:config. If you have used the latest Firefox 3.1, you would be amazed that Fennec also has TraceMonkey, a JavaScript engine that made Firefox 3.1 faster!
I do have one beef though. Fennec has put its menu on the left part of the screen, where you would have to move any page you are on to the left to see it. It is a small hindrance, however, considering that Smartphones have really smaller screens. And with that out of the way, you can find the familiar buttons: back, forward, advanced preferences and favorites. You can access a lot of functions from thereon, including add-ons management, themes, plugins, and privacy settings.
Fennec is great at optimizing your screen space. When you scroll down, the address bar disappears, giving you more space for the Web page you are viewing. That and the "hidden" side bar menu, gives you your whole screen to read on.
We had to borrow a Nokia N810 just to see how it runs for ourselves. I do hope Mozilla gets Fennec out for the iPhone soon. Unfortunately, I heard that the iPhone is not one of those platforms that Mozilla is targeting, along with Palm and Blackberry. It will soon have Fennec versions for every other phone though.
Useful links:
The Video Game Industry “is” Recession-Proof
I’ve heard about claims that the video game industry, along with healthcare, is recession-proof. Well, these claims might be proven to be true, especially when you take into consideration the gaming industry’s February 2009 sales in the United States, which involved a double-digit growth year-on-year at a time when overall retail sales growth was sluggish. That is made even more special when you take note of the industry’s consistently growing sales for the past few months, while the rest of the world was experiencing recession blues.
What Is a Backlink?
Most ordinary Internet users have encountered a link. That blue thing that they see on blogs, Web sites, Facebook accounts, even on YouTube. Just about every page of the Web has it. And when these links point to your Web site, they are called your site’s backlinks.
Backlinks, or inbound links, are incoming links to a certain Web site or page that does not originate on that particular site. Put simply, it is a link from another site that points back to your own site. If you have a Web site, pray hard that you get a lot of backlinks, as they are the only way people will get to visit your site without you telling them personally that your site exists.
An even more important thing to consider when talking about backlinks is search engine optimization or SEO. Backlinks are one way to get a higher ranking on most search engines, provided that they occur naturally. Search engine spiders are now capable of counting the number of sites pointing to your own. And most search engines consider these backlinks in ranking your site according to a particular keyword.
If you are interested to see just how many Web sites or pages have backlinks pointing to your site, you can go to Google Search at Google.com and input link:www.yoursite.com. In just seconds, the search results would list the different Web sites or pages that do link to your site, and in the upper right hand portion of the screen, you’d see the total number of sites and pages that have backlinks to your site.
How Can Backlinks Improve PageRank?
Backlinks quite simply are inbound links from other sites that point directly to your Web site or page. And while backlinks are that simple to define, they carry an important role to improving your Web site’s or page’s PageRank.
The page rank is a numerical indicator or gauge of the importance or popularity of a particular Web page or Web site on the Internet. This means that the more popular the page or the site is, the higher the PageRank is.
Although the algorithms used by search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN are top secret, it is generally accepted that PageRank is one of the more important considerations in these engines’ ranking schemes. Conversely, the more popular your page gets and the higher PageRank you have, the higher you rank on search results.
How Are Backlinks Used in SEO?
Search engines do not publish the algorithms they use, so there is no sure way of determining how exactly they rank pages. It is, however, common knowledge that backlinks play a vital role in ranking high in your targeted search results.
Backlinks or inbound links are incoming links from other Web sites that point to your Web site. More than telling other people that your site exists, backlinks have been proven valuable in the area of search engine optimization as they are known indicators of your site’s popularity, which is a determining factor of your site’s PageRank. The PageRank, in turn, is one of the more important considerations that search engine algorithms take into consideration when ranking your site.
iPhone 3.0: The ultimate gadget we’ve all been waiting for!
IPhone OS 3.0
iPhone has touted it as the next generation of the world’s most advanced operating system. On March 17, Apple gave the world a preview of the iPhone 3.0 OS.
The new OS promises to bring 100 new features to iPhones worldwide, including the following:
- the ability to search or “spotlight” the whole phone
- cut, copy and paste functions, even between apps
-you can also send photos, contacts, audio files and location via multimedia messaging
- read and compose SMS and e-mail in landscape orientation
All these are just the official ones. Unsurprisingly, various blogs and tech journals have come out with their own versions of what features would be included in the new 100 list. Some are unimaginative, while others say that the new iPhone 3.0 would enable you to use your iPhone to predict when the Second Coming would take place.
The world’s most powerful desktop computer unveiled!
The new Apple Mac Pro interior
Apple has done it again. This time it produced the world’s most powerful desktop computer. The new 8-core and 4-core Mac Pro has been describe by Apple as “perfect for power users”. Its most appealing spec is its innovative Nehalem microprocessor with a clock speed of approximately 2.26GHz. This processor utilizes one of Intel’s most potent lines of processors – the Xeon 3500 / 5500.
Among its latest and refurbished parts include:
- a new video system
- a new hardware look
- 4-core processors on 1 die
- On-chip memory controller
- Turbo Boost
- A whooping 4 Tera-byte of hard drive storage (maximum capacity)
- Up to 6GB of memory
- Enhanced Data Rate wireless
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 120
Xeon Intel processor
Mac Pro processor architecture
All these specs make the new Mac Pro 1.7 times faster than the 2008-released Mac Pro model.
But all beautiful and powerful things come with a price. For a Quad-Core Mac Pro (with a clock-speed of 2.66GHz), its price ranges from $2,300 to $2,500. On the other hand, the Eight-Core Mac Pro (with a clock-speed of 2.26GHz) can go up to $3,400.
Dell’s Sexy Mystery Not Up to Par?
Adamo Laptop by Dell
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last January, Dell unveiled this sleek, sexy, ultrathin notebook called Adamo which had techies speculating furiously. Is this going to be a Macbook Air nemesis? Will this be the notebook that will give Apple a run for its money?
Sadly, answers could not immediately be found, because Dell revealed no specs nor internal features (booting wasn’t even allowed, reportedly). The sleek, black Adamo was literally just displayed for all to see and nothing else. On the outside, the machine sports a 13″ display covered edge-to-edge in glass, three USB ports, an eSATA jack, a backlit keyboard. It also is 0.65″ thick.