Windows 8 versions announced

Windows 8 Versus Windows 7 which one you like

Microsoft has announced a massive simplification of the Windows product line. Windows 8 will be in 2 distinct versions for PC users viz,
1. regular Windows 8 and
2. Windows 8 Pro



The regular version contains everything for a simple user ot the most recommended settings on the other hand , Pro has domain support for business along with Bitlocker encryption, virtualization and management features which is analogous to a Pro user. However these 2 versions remove the confusion from one's mind for which version to choose like those in Windows 7.

Best Windows 8 Metro APPS

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Windows 8 is only out in a Release Preview so far, but there are already a ton of new Metro-style apps built just for it—all free. Here's our pick of the crop.

One of the first things Microsoft did when drawing up plans for Windows 8, its hybrid tablet/desktop operating system, was to include an app store that mirrored Apple's wildly successful iTunes App Store. The Windows Store is where Windows 8 users can get the "Metro-style" apps—full screen, highly touch input friendly apps that use a consistent, intuitive interface. Microsoft even detailed terms for the developers were more generous than Apple's.

Windows 8 will run all existing Windows apps in its Desktop, in addition to the new Metro-style

Windows 8 and Non Touch

 

Introduction

There has been a lot of noise on the windows platform going touch, multitouch and what not and everybody seems to like it. The web is filled with thousands of positive reviews about it and how it will make using tablets a breeze.

But as an avid desktop user or even worse a laptop owner it is gonna take a toll of my hands. Passing my hands on the touchpad just to move from one side of screen to another is simply not an easy task and the RC Video of Microsoft makes me believe in the concept of Laptop-in-the-Microsoft-way which believes in having a touchscreen mounted on laptop keyboard.

• First thing it adds to cost of the laptop
• Second

HOOTSUITE

For all the social networking junkies out there, the search for the most powerful social networking app is over introducing the hootsuite(www.hootsuite.com).
Hootsuite is an online service that integrates all your social networking accounts from

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Ping.fm
• Myspace
• WordPress
• Foursquare.

It can even connect to multiple accounts from each service.

It is not uncommon to

The Most Wanted Glossary

There are a few terms that we come across in our daily lives but might not know what they actually stand for or mean. Here are a few commonly used terms and their explanations
KDE:

 Set up on the free open source software ideology, it's a set of applications that run on various plateforms. KDE is best known for its Plasma desktop enviornment. A number of Linux distributions such as openSUSE and Kubuntu have this desktop enviornment as their default. The term KDE is sort of a scrambled version of a common desktop enviornment that was available for UNIX systems. Much like KDE is GNOME which was much preferred because of KISS ideology till 2.x.x then from much anticipated version 3 which actually moved away from it.


KDE was much criticized for using QT toolkit which was proprietary in beginning days but was open source later and currently owned by Nokia which provides two versions one open source and one proprietary.


It was created as a replacement of CDE (Common Desktop Environment) to provide a full fledged DE and make it as open source as possible. It was not until late 90s that GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) came in existence and replaced it as a most open source DE.


It has got some of the best apps written for Linux such as AmaroK and Konqueror and even has its own office suite.


PING: You might have used the term "ping" while sending a message to somebody, however, traditionally ping is a utility which is used to test the host's reachability on an IP(internet protocol). Ping is used to measure the round trip time for messages which are sent from the host to the destination computer. This works by sending a packet to a specified address and waiting for a reply.

CLOUD COMPUTING: This has been quiet the buzzword in the industry for some time now, and everyone seems to be yapping about the strength and potential of it. Companies use cloud computing to provide data computation, access and storage services. The idea of everything's on the cloud and accessible everywhere has manifested in today's world. Cloud computing is more of a service than product where shared resources and information is given to computers.

3G:  Despite all the hoopla around the 3G services  thanks to the mobile operators' advertising, you still might not understand what the 3G mania is all about. The third generation of mobile telecommunications is a standard set by IMT (International Mobile Telecommunications). The service provided under the 3G umbrella includes voice telephone, mobile internet, video calling and mobile T.V. Minimum data rate which needs to maintained is 2Mbit/s.

BANDWIDTH:  Expressed in bits/s, this is a measure of consumed or available data communication reesources. Its essentially the difference between two frequencies and the amount of information tha can flow through a channel. There can be data, network or digital bandwidth. Textual information states bandwidth as an analog signal bandwidth measured in Hz (Hertz).

VIRTUALISATION:  A method of dividing the resources of a computer so that it can be used in various execution environments. Virtualisation is divided into hardware, software, partial or complete machine simulation. It's a common practice in enterprise IT where the computer processing power is percieved as a utility for which clients can pay for as and when it's needed.

MIDDLEWARE: Can be understood as a set of software services which allows the interaction of multiple processes on different machines to come together. In other words, middleware sits between different application software that may be working on various operating systems.

HOT SPOT:  The next you head out to a coffee shop which has a hot spot don't be alarmed, for it simply provides an internet access over wireless LAN through a router connected to an ISP (Internet Service Provider). You can use a hot-spot using your Wi-Fi enabled laptop or phone. Hot spots can be both, free or commercially available.

 ROUTER:  Responsible for forwarding data packets between computer networks. A router joins two networks like LAN or an ISP network and directs traffic functions on the internet. Routers simply pass data between the computer and the model or internet cable. 

 Taken From: Digit magazine, issue:- January 2012, page- 118.

PHOTOSHOP CS6 BETA

The grand ol' daddy image editing app is getting a whole new look and a host of cool new features in the next iteration. To get your hands dirty, grab the Beta version available on this Adobe Labs page: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/photoshopcs6.html here are a few tips to introduce you to some of the changes incorporated in this version of Photoshop.

User Interface
The first thing that you'll notice when you open the redesigned Photoshop for the first time is the completely souped up and You can set the interval after which Photoshop automatically saves your file
darker interface. This is purportedly in place for a more immersive experience, though the purists who vouch for the original grey-colored interface can always return to the original one, by going to Edit > Preferences. Photoshop calls the interface colours brightness Options. It has four different brightness user interfaces available . One noticeable and welcomed improvement is the draggable section of all toolbars for easy movement around the windows . Managing the screen real estate was never a strong point for Photoshop but CS6 makes it easier to move toolbars around , with the window glowing blue when you bring a toolbar near it. There is this one small change that some of the pro users who have been working with Photoshop for years may find irksome.  Tools like "Crop" and "lasso" now have small cursors at the top. In the previous versions, you had to use the bottom of  the lasso to mark a section but now you have to use the tip of the cursor as your guide. Additionaly, though not all of the tools behave in the same way , an eyedropper still behaves as an eyedropper

.
Background saving
In previous versions , hitting [Ctrl]+[S] would meanthat you could not do anything else for the amount of time. It would take Photoshop to save the file . If the file was large, you could easily have time for a cup of coffee or a stroll around the office. But this is not the case in CS6 ; the saving process takes place in the background, so you dont need to spend your time fooling around when your Photoshop is saving the file. One thing to keep in mind though : only the changes made till the point you hit save are stored by this mechanism. The changes made after this point are not saved - no auto-saves.
Automatic Recovery
You feel like i ripping your hair out when Photoshop crashes on a file you have been working on for hours and the worst part is that you haven't saved it ! Photoshop CS6 introduces automatic recovery, which automatically saves a file as you work. You can set the interval after which Photoshop automatically saves the file, and thus you'll never be more than 10 minutes away from the last change that you made. Go ahead and test this feature with a dummy PS file
Content-aware Move and Extend

These are two of the more heavily touted features. The "Content-aware" tool lets you select a car parked on a street in a picture and move it from one end of the street to another end, with Photoshop filling in the space previously occupied by the car based on the context i.e. the object around it. It also applies a feather to your selection where you've placed the object you just moved. The effectiveness of this tool though is still under question. It's in no way perfect, and a complex image with multiple objects gives disastrous results. The entire exercise with the "Content-aware" tools feels a bit gimmicky; they merely seem to be in place to entire new users with cleverly developed but poorly performing tools.
    Another tool from the content-aware stable is 'content-aware extend', which can be used to scale geometric objects like flag poles and skyscrapers but it doesn't perform as well on non-geometric shapes such as the human body.
Blur gallery

The Blur gallery will have photography enthusiasts dancing around in glee. It features three filters - Tilt Shift, Iris and Field blur filters. Previously, you'd have to use actions or follow detailed tutorials to get these filters, integrated inside Photoshop, help achieve the precise effect. The Field Blur but it offers the least amount of direct control. The Iris Blur filter gives you much more rounded and comprehensive control over the location and intensity of the blur effect. Though it looks simple, this effect is quite powerful and flexible. The Tilt Shift effect is used to conjure an appearence of miniaturisation. It actually emulates the optional effects of extreme perspective control lenses. This particular filter offers excellent control over the effect to get the desired results.
   Photography rely on focal lengt, subject distance and aperture to determine in focus and blurred areas of an image. But with such powerful tools in hand, it'll be difficult to tell anactual photo and a photoshopped image apart.
Crop tool

The new crop tool will harangue a lot of users. It takes everything backwards. The new crop tool functions in the opposite way to how it used to. The cropped canvas will stay parallel to your dispaly and the actual image will move around, rotate and scale according to your command. It's actually pretty good, once you get used to it.
Video editing

Good news for those who also dabble in a bit of video editing. CS6 includes a basic video editor that will come in handy for photographers who don't want to sell a kidney and a half to get their hands on a descent video editing suite. The best part is that once you open up a video, you can play around with it using the Photoshop tools you're familiar with. Color and exposure adjustments, as well as layers, work just how you'd expect them to. If you'd like, you can add borders, textures, filters and even audio tracks to your video. Once you're done editing, you're presented with a handful of exporting options. Furthermore, you've got a couple of built-in transition effects that you can drag and drop on a clip to get the desired effect, you also get descent options when you want to export videos. Although it;s no Premier or after Effects, the video editing capabilities play their part extremely well and Photoshop fans will feel right at home using these features.
Few others that deserve a mention

Gone are the times when you had to look for the info panel when making adjustments. In CS6 when you move or transform something, a small box shows up on the canvas with related values as you perform the adjustment. There are some options to control how this works under the Interface tab in preferences . Dummy text can be directly pasted in the text layer using the Type menu. Paragraph Styles and Character Styles will behave like in InDesign and many other design apps, letting you store a text style and apply it quickly to text throughout your document. The most often addition ever, you can now search layers. You can now search by layer type, name, effect (layer style), blending mode, colour or by a large range of attributes. CS6's improved searching should make traversing your next 1000+ layer PSD a whole lot easier.

Yahoo launches Axis to redefine Browsing

Yahoo is not out from the Internet search game! The Internet company has just announced the launch of a new mobile browser and search tool called “Yahoo Axis”. Launching initially as an application for iPhone and iPad, Axis comes with a range of new browsing features. Yahoo is also offering same browsing features as a plug-in for the major desktop Web browsers – Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari – having HTML-5 graphic capabilities. Yahoo plans to roll out Yahoo Axis for other mobile platforms soon. Users can download the new Yahoo Axis from Apple's App Store.

Yahoo Axis, like any other search utility, you have to start with a search box. While typing your query, you will get suggested search queries dropping down – similar to Google search. But then what appears is not the traditional blue links, but a filmstrip-like view across the the top of screen, featuring large thumbnails of search result pages. To open the full page, you have to tap one thumbnails. Swipe to visit next page for search result.

Yahoo Axis also supports search for images. Yahoo has also added useful features like Pinterest integration and sharing to make using tabs even easier. “Axis is the first of its kind to challenge the status quo of the typical search and browse experience; a results page, ten blue links, clicking back and forth between links and the results page, the need to start over when you move to another device,” Yahoo says on its blog.

“Axis is the first time the search experience evolves from a destination to a companion. It’s the first search experience to provide visually rich page previews of results instantly as you type. It’s the first mobile browser that connects with any major desktop browser. Axis is the first browser to really change the game,” it adds.

Axis comes days after Microsoft announced revamping its Bing search results, deepening integration with the social media networks. Last week, Google announced a new search feature called a “Knowledge Graph” that provides more data snippets alongside its query results than the regular search engine currently provides.

Have you tried Yahoo Axis yet? If yes, share your experience with us in the comments section below:

taken from http://www.thinkdigit.com/Internet/Yahoo-launches-Axis-attempts-to-redefine-searching_9615.html

Here’s some news you probably didn’t expect to read: Yahoo just released its own Web browser. Well, sorta.

The new software, dubbed Yahoo Axis, is being called a "search browser." Its main trick is the ability to bypass the standard list of links and instead send users directly to websites and pages via thumbnails.

Axis is already available as an iPad and iPhone app. Rather than releasing its own desktop browser, however, Yahoo is offering Axis plugins for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome. Once installed, the plugin appears as a search box at the bottom of the browser, expanding when a user enters a query.

CNET News reporter Rafe Needleman has been testing Axis and says it is actually good. He calls it "an aggressive product for the struggling Yahoo to launch out of its search group."

I’ve been less impressed in my brief usage of the iPhone app. The user interface is difficult to maneuver and not very intuitive for someone coming to it cold. It tries to squeeze a ton of stuff into that little screen.

The desktop plugin, which comes in the form of a search bar at the bottom of the browser, is a better experience so far, but far from perfect. Using the Axis plugin for Chrome on a Mac, the search bar has been unresponsive at times when I’ve tried to enter a query.

Yahoo’s search results have been provided by Microsoft Bing since the companies agreed to collaborate on search technology and advertising. There’s no mention of the results being powered by Bing in the Axis app, at least not that I’ve been able to find. (Msnbc is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal).

The news was apparently being held until later Wednesday night, but it leaked out thanks to an email sent by someone from Yahoo and republished by the tech site Launch.

Yahoo has been through a tumultuous couple of years, with CEO Scott Thompson recently leaving the company after a scandal over his resume.

source http://www.gadgetbox.msnbc.msn.com/technology/gadgetbox/yahoo-axis-search-browser-makes-surprise-debut-791370

The Top Five Features of ICS

For those of you that haven’t had a taste of Honeycomb and are more accustomed to FroYo (Frozen Yoghurt) or Gingerbread, ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich) may take a bit of getting used to.

Ice Cream Sandwich is however quite a treat once you’ve gotten used to the new interface. While working with the OS, we found a few nifty features that eliminate the use of third-party apps by building the same features straight into the OS.

Here’s a quick look at 5 of these features.

1. Camera App

The camera app on ICS has been updated with features and filters that will keep you busy before you need to resort to third party apps. Features such as cropping, red-eye reduction, face glow, straightening, rotating, flipping, and sharpening have made their way to the OS natively. Apart from a variety of filters and silly effects that have made their way to the app, Google has also added the ability for onboard editing making the camera app on the Galaxy Nexus a strong contender when pitched against the iPhone.

2. Data Monitoring

If you are a data hungry user, there is no need to rely on third part apps such as 3G watch dog to monitor your data usage. You can monitor your data consumption from the inbuilt app itself. The app let’s users not only set a cap on the maximum limit of your network (3G) data consumption but also monitor how much data is being used by each individual app.

3. Notifications

The pulls down notifications have been such a hit in Android devices that even Apple realized their value and added them to iOS. Google however has taken the notifications to the next level in the Vanilla ICS experience. It is very easy to remove notifications from the pull down menu by simply swiping left or right.

4. App Killer

You no longer need a third party app to kill active apps. You can simply click on the “multitasking” button that shows you all the apps that are running in the background. All you need to do is swipe left for the apps you wish to close and voila, the app is killed. The only downside to this is that you need to kill each app individually unlike third party apps where all the open apps can be killed with a single click. But hey, the addition of the option straight out of the OS is nice isn’t it?

5. Apps in folders

Just as folders has become a hit in iOS, you no longer need third party apps or skins to create folders in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. All you need to do drag one app icon over the other on the home screen and you have a folder ready. This is very similar to the iOS interface and that isn’t a bad thing.


Source: http://www.thinkdigit.com/Apps/Five-Android-40-ICS-features-that-eliminate_9589.html