Windows 8 has been officially released by Microsoft

At last the latest version of new operating system Windows 8 has been officially released by Microsoft.  Windows 8 includes the new user interface that is best suited to mobile devices like tablets, but can also be used on desktop PCs. It is really a reimagining of Windows. You get a great experience for entertainment and creating content all on the same device, either with touch or with a mouse and keyboard.

Here is the detail of the pricing of the Windows 8 product.

• Microsoft Windows 8: available for $99.99 during the promotional period

• Microsoft Windows 8 Pro: available for $139.99 during the promotional period

In 140 countries, people will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $39.99 (U.S.) online at Windows.com. Also if you purchased a Windows 7 PC between June 2nd, 2012, and January 31st, 2013, you can register for the Windows Upgrade Offer where you can upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for just $14.99 (U.S.)

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Monitor user activities and events in Windows using LastActivityView

In my IT professional life I came across lots of situations where I have to check the user’s activities on their computer for security purpose. Here I would like to share an interesting tool from Nirsoft which you can use for this purpose. 

  
LastActivityView is a tool for Windows operating system that collects information from various sources on a running system, and displays a log of actions made by the user and events occurred on this computer. The program sorts the activities by time by default. Each table row displays the time the event occurred, the description which usually provides you with information about the type of event, file names and paths if available, and more information which offers miscellaneous information if available.

The program catches a variety of activities that include Running .exe file, Opening open/save dialog-box, Opening file/folder from Explorer or other software, software installation, system shutdown/start, application or system crash, network connection/disconnection and more...

It doesn't require any installation process or additional dll files. In order to start using it, download it from the official Nirsoft (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/computer_activity_view.html) website and unpack it on your system once the download has completed.  Then simply run the executable file - LastActivityView.exe.  

After you run LastActivityView, it scans your computer and displays all actions and events found on your system. 

You can select one or more items and then save them into xml/html/csv/tab-delimited file (Ctrl+S) or copy them to the clipboard (Ctrl+C), and then paste the data to Excel or other software.

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Facebook AV Marketplace Expanded with 7 new partners

In our previous post we have discussed about the Facebook Anti-Virus Marketplace where the Facebook users can download full versions of anti-virus software for six-month subscription without any charge. It was a great offer for millions of Facebook users who cares security and privacy.

Here comes the exciting news, last week Facebook announced the expansion of AV Market place to include 7 new partners to their growing coalition of security companies. Starting now, Facebook users will be able to download software from avast!, AVG, Avira, Kaspersky, Panda, Total Defense, and Webroot including from the existing partners Microsoft, McAfee, Norton, TrendMicro, and Sophos . Also to make your Facebook experience even more secure many of the existing partners offering anti-virus software for your mobile devices and Mac.

You can visit the AV Marketplace now to download your free anti-virus software for PC, Mac and Mobile. These 12 companies will join on the Facebook Security Blog, where you can learn more about how to keep yourself safe and your information secure both on and off Facebook. 

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How do you get infected with Spyware and other malicious program?

Here I would like to share an interesting video which describes how a normal user gets infected with spyware and other malicious program. This video also tells about how spammers tricks you to believe that the system is infected and the way it steals the personal information of users.

The best protection against these kinds of redirects is an up to date security product that blocks known malicious sites automatically and can detect unknown malicious sites through heuristics as well.

Share your thoughts for better protection. 

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Free Online PDF converter - PDFconv

PDF is a file format which invented by Adobe and it is called Portable Document Format. It is one of widely used document format in Internet. Most of us might come across to create a PDF file for our personal or business purpose. It will cost us to buy a product for create one or two files only. Here I would like to share a tweak which you can use to create PDF file from some other format.

If you have the document in word format, you can convert files to the PDF format right online without having to even install any sort of software on your computer. PDFconv will do everything you want for free and without any download required. It also supports multiple formats, including JPG, BMP, DOC, TXT, HTML, GIF, RTF and about fifty others.

To get started, simply browse to http://pdfconv.com/ and click the “Browse” button, then navigate to the file you want to convert to a PDF document.  Click “OK” and the file will immediately begin uploading to the PDFconv web app. Once you have uploaded your files (you can do up to five files at a time) you can click the “Convert files to PDF” link and the process will begin.  Depending on the file size and the amount of files you added, this could take a few seconds or a few minutes. When the process completes you will be prompted to right-click the file and choose the “save” option to get your new PDF document onto your computer.

The web app is free, but it does have some reasonable limitations.  It can only convert five files at a time and there is a file size limit of 25 MB. For those who don’t need to process a lot files then this online solution should work fine.  

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How to Install the Network Printer in Home or Office Network

In home or office network, printer can be installed in two ways. One is install the printer on a local computer and share to the network. Second is connecting the printer directly to the network using hub or switch. The main difference between network and shared printer is, network printer can be access from any of the system on the network directly but to access shared printer, the local system need to be turned on.  Network printer used for large network and have its own IP address. Here I would like to share and article which describes how install the Network Printer.  

First of all connect the printer to the network and print a configuration sheet which will list basic information about the printer along with the current network configuration.  See the printer manual for more info.

Installation of Network printer

1. Click on Start and select Printers and Faxes
2. The Printers and Faxes window opens, on the menu bar select File - Add Printer
3. The Add Printer Wizard opens, Click the Next> button
4. Select Local Printer Attached to this computer. 
5.  Make sure automatically detect and install my Plug and Play Printer is NOT selected.
6. Click the Next> button and Select create a new Port.
7. From the Type of port: pull down menu, select Standard TCP/IP Port
8. Click the Next> button
9. The Add Standard TCP/IP Wizard will open
10. Click the Next> button
11. In the Printer Name or IP Address, enter the printer's IP address or host name (IP address is preferred.)
12. The wizard will create a Port Name based on the IP address or host name you entered.  If you want to make it more descriptive, you can change the Port Name.
13. Click the Next> button
14. The wizard will display a confirmation page.  Make a note of the Port Name in case you need to re-install the printer.
15. Click the Finish Button
16. The Install Printer Software window will appear.
17. Select your printer's manufacturer from the list on the left
18. Select your printer's model and driver from the list on the right
19. If you can't find your printer driver in the list, it may be a newer printer.  Try clicking on the Windows Update button and repeat the last two steps.  If you need to use a specific driver from a disk, click on the Have Disk... button and follow the prompts to choose the driver.
20. Click the Next> button
21. The Name Your Printer window will appear.
22. Windows will assign a name based on the printer driver you selected.  If you want to make it more descriptive, change the description in the Printer Name box.
23. If you want this printer to be your default printer, choose the Yes radio button, if not choose the No radio button
24. Click the Next> button
25. The Print Test Page window appears.
26. Select Yes
27. Click the Next> button
28. The wizard will display a confirmation window. 
29. Click the Finish button.
30. After a few seconds, files will be copied and drivers will be loaded. A dialog box will appear about your test page. .
31. Click the OK button
32. Check to see if your test page printed on the printer.

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How to change the Gateway on Linksys PAP2 VOIP Adapter

1. Connect an analog phone to the RJ-45 connector on the PAP2.

2. Using the telephone keypad, press the star key (*) four (4) times: ****. You will hear the IVR Menu voice and be prompted to enter a code.

3. Enter 130 followed by the pound (#) key, you will hear the existing gateway IP on the phone.

4. To change Gateway IP enter 131 followed by the pound (#) key. You will hear the menu “enter value followed by pound key “.

5. Enter the gateway IP, 192.16.1.x (to enter dot (.)  Dial * button), followed by the pound (#) key. You will hear press 1 to save (Example - 192*16*1*254 # or 192*16*1*1 #).

6. Press 1, you will hear value saved. Hang up the phone and wait for all indicators light up on the adapter.

7. Then follow the step 3 and make sure you configured the Gateway properly.

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Removal instructions of unwanted Toolbars, Home page and Search engine

Many readers writing  mail to us for  the removal instructions of unwanted toolbars like searchqu, funmoods, babylon, Search Ya, etc…When I checked on various forums I have seen that lots of users are victim of these kind of toolbar installations.  Hence I thought to write an article of general instructions to remove these toolbars.

These toolbars are get inslled on your computer with some other programs as an addon. Once they get installed on your computer, it would change the brwoser settings like home page, search engine and new tab settings on the computer.  So, even you uninstalled or removed the toolbars, the issue is not going to resolve without resetting browser default settings.

To remove unneccessary toolbars follow the below steps.

Close all browser sessions, then click on the Windows Start button and then select the "Control Panel". Then open the Add/Remove Programs or Programs and Features, there you can see the list of installed programs on your computer. Find the toolbars you would like to remove from the list of programs, click on the toolbar, and then select the "Remove" button. For Windows Vista or Windows 7, be sure to click on the "Uninstall a Program" link.

Once you done with uninstallation, you need to remove or resetting the rest of the settings in all your browser.  Here you have step by step instruction to reset the default browser settings in major three browsers.

Change Your Internet Explorer Home Page and Search Engine

1. Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools and Internet Options.

2. Click the General tab, and type in the address of the website you want as your start page under the 'Home page' heading.

3. Under Search click Settings then select your preferred search provider and click set as Default. Remove un necceray serach engnes from there.

4. Click Apply, OK to close the window.

Change Your Google Chrome Home Page and Search Engine

1. Open Google Chrome and click on the spanner icon and select Settings.

2. Go to Appearance and make sure that the Show Home Button box is ticked.

Now click on the Change link, and you can enter the URL of the home page.

3. Click the ‘Manage search engine’ button and choose ‘Google’ and make it your default search engine.

Change Your Mozilla Firefox Home Page and Search Engine

1. Open Mozilla Firefox and click on Tools and select Options.  

2. Go to the Startup section and select When Firefox starts: Show my home page.

3. In the Home Page field, type in the website address you want to use as your home page.

4. Click OK.

5. Click the downward arrow button next to the search box in Firefox. Then select Manage Search Engines and Move up the search engine which you would like to set as default.

We recommend that set Google as your default home page and search engine for a better performance. Leave a comment if you required more assistance. 

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