Google Chrome has finally arrived for Android mobile devices.

On Tuesday, in an official Google Chrome blog post, the company announced the release of Chrome Web browser for Android app. While announcing, the company said that like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity. The new browser features seamless sign-in and sync to make sure you get the same personalized web browsing experience wherever you go, across devices.

Actually, the Chrome Beta app is only available for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) phone or tablet. So, if you fall in the 99% of Android device users who still don’t have ICS, you’re out of luck. Further if you don’t live in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil but have ICS, you’ll not be able to find and download the app from the Android Market. It seems Google wants to limit the beta version to as few users as possible.

Chrome Web browser app will serve as an alternative to the default Android Web browser, with an uninspiring title “Browser.” Just like the desktop version, the app features tabbed browsing, lets you search and navigate from the omnibox, browse privately in Incognito mode. When you sign in to Chrome, the app syncs your bookmarks and lets you view tabs you have open on your computer.

Some cool additions were also made to the mobile version. You can open and switch between unlimited tabs in an easy-to-view stack. You can also send pages from desktop Chrome to your smartphone or tablet with one click and read them on the go, even if you’re offline.

Excited about the official Chrome web app for your Android? Are you testing the beta version on your Ice Cream Sandwich device? Let us know which features of the app you liked or hated any of them? If you fall in the major number of Android users who can’t yet test the app, are you disappointed? Let us know in the comments below.

February 1st was “change your password day.” Did you changed your passwords? When you’re managing your various accounts, passwords and other sensitive data, it becomes very difficult to keep them secure while accessible. You can easily find many efficient password managers but most of them comes at a premium.

Here, we’re going to take a quick look at Dashlane, a user-friendly and secure password manager for Windows and Mac. The app promises to cut the hassle of managing your accounts, passwords and other sensitive data while keeping the data safe from prying eyes. Let’s see if the app can keep its promise of providing better security while revolutionizing the way we login to websites today.

Exclusive Dashlane Invites for all My Technology Guide readers!

Dashlane is now in a private beta stage. But you don’t have to wait for an invite! Thanks to the great folks behind the software to set up an exclusive page for My Technology Guide readers with some exclusive invites.

Simply click on the link below to try Dashlane without waiting to get an invite!

Dashlane Beta Invites

Getting Started with Dashlane

After you click on the above link, enter your email address and download Dashlane. Launch the setup process, which is simple and quick. In Mac, Dashlane supports Safari in addition to Chrome and Firefox, both of which is also supported in the Windows platform. But if you’re using Internet Explorer, you’ve to wait a little more as IE is not yet supported by the app.

Now, when you’re going to set up your Dashlane account using the app, you’ll notice a window, which informs you that there is absolutely no way to recover your password if you forget it since it is not stored anywhere. It may sound very hard but it is perfect for an app like this.

If you’ve used an app like 1Password, you’ll see the same policy about password retrieval. LastPass though has a way to retrieve/reset your password if you forget your master password but the process they follow is pretty secure in our opinion and is a little different from how Dashlane works. So, we will not give any negative points to Dashlane for this.

How to use Dashlane?

Once you’re completed the setup, you’ll get into your dashboard where you can start entering your information. The user interface is elegant, easy to use and navigate. We loved the simplicity and gradient white color of the user interface.

All your information is categorized into three primary categories: Personal Data, Internet Accounts, Internet Shopping. These three categories are further expanded into following: Under Personal Data, you’ll find Contact, IDs, Payment; under Internet Accounts, Logins and Passwords, Security Dashboard; under Internet Shopping, Purchases.

Entering, Importing, Exporting and Saving Information

Dashlane developers have made the task of entering all your information super easy. Simply click on the little round “+” buttons, present under each category and a form pops out for you to fill in and save.

The Personal Data category can be filled up manually while the app intelligently saves your account details for different sites as you log into them using any supported browser. Here, you’ll notice a unique feature of Dashlane about which we haven’t talked yet. Whenever, the app saves any account details, it shows a dialog box to organize your accounts. In that very same dialog box you’ll notice a check box which says “Always log me into the website.” This feature is an exclusive feature of Dashlane.

So, the next time you open that website, the app automatically takes over and logs you in. If you have saved multiple accounts, suppose your Gmail, clicking on the username field will display a pull over menu with all the saved credentials. When you click on the username you want to login to, the app automatically logs you in without any further typing or clicking anywhere.

Dashlane also lets you automatically speed up your online purchases by filling up all the details and even saves the information about that purchase (total spent, retailer name, etc.) back in the app.

Another great feature of the app is its import facility. The app lets you import all your previously saved information from your favorite browser, LastPass, 1Password, Roboform, Password Wallet and Keypass. The app also lets you easily export all your saved data.

Login and Passwords

Under the Login and Passwords section you will see a grid of all the websites login credentials. Upon hovering on any of the tile, a play button appears at the corner. If you click on it, the app automatically loads the website and logs you in. A very convenient and innovative way to login to your favorite website.

Security Dashboard

The Security Dashboard provides a quick overview of the safety level, that is strength of each passwords that you’ve saved with Dashlane. A little bar displays password strength on a scale of 1-100% and a simple interpretation of the score such as “Super Safe,” “Safe” or “Very Unsafe.”

Dashlane Browser Extension

Dashlane during installation also installs the browser extensions. This extension helps capture the login credentials and helps you fill up data. We’ve already mentioned earlier how conveniently it helps filling up online forms through a pop-up menu for each field.

If you’re filling up a long form which needs your personal data like sign-up forms, you just need to choose your saved information with Dashlane and all the fields are filled out automatically.

Syncing

Dashlane saves all your information to your local hard-drive. But, if you’ve multiple computers, you’ve the option to sync all your information to the Dashlane servers. So, when you login to your Dashlane app in your other computer, it automatically syncs all your information.

Syncing is not enabled by default and is completely optional. Even what is getting synced is completely in your hands and for your safety, your financial information is never synced.

Conclusion

Dashlane, even though is in private beta, is already a very solid app with a lot of potential. With some of its unique features like automatic sign in, the app intelligent solves a lot of short comings present in currently available password managers. If you still don’t use any password manager, we highly recommend you to start using one and feel the difference. If you’re already using a password manager, you should definitely try Dashlane.

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, don’t hesitate to comment below and get a discussion flowing! Please share your favorite password manager and if you don’t use one, please tell us why you don’t use one. Thank you so much for reading!

Mozilla has released Firefox 10 Stable version for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms.

Important Note: Bookmark this page (Press CTRL + D) to always Get the latest update about Mozilla Firefox including direct download links for all platforms.

Mozilla announced their move to rapid release cycle about nine months ago, since the move, Firefox has moved from version 4 to 10.

According to the official beta change log, Firefox 10 brings in a lot of new features, which you’d expect from a six-week update cycle. Firefox 10 features extension management improvements, a forward button that hides itself until you need it, the inclusion of APIs for full-screen web apps, and anti-aliasing for WebGL.

With Firefox 10, Mozilla introduces the ESR (Extended Support Release) version of the browser primarily for enterprises. ESR releases will receive no updates apart from necessary security fixes, and will change versions once every seven releases. So, after six months when regular Firefox 10 users will be upgrading to Firefox 11, ESR users will be upgraded to version 10.1.

You can download Firefox 10 from the download links given at the end of this post.

The most significant change in Firefox 10 is that add-ons are now automatically set to be compatible if they have also been compatible with Firefox 4. This will end all the add-on compatibility issues that users face after each version update. A great relief for the add-on developers too.

New features and bug fixes in Mozilla Firefox 10:

• The forward button is now hidden until you navigate back
• Most add-ons are now compatible with new versions of Firefox by default
• Anti-Aliasing for WebGL is now implemented (see bug 615976)
• CSS3 3D-Transforms are now supported (see bug 505115)
• New <bdi> element for bi-directional text isolation, along with supporting CSS properties (see bugs 613149 and 662288)
• Full Screen APIs allow you to build a web application that runs full screen (see the feature page)
• Added IndexedDB APIs to more closely match the specification
• Inspect tool with content highlighting, includes new CSS Style Inspector
• Bug fixed: Mac OS X only – after installing the latest Java release from Apple, Firefox may crash when closing a tab with a Java applet installed (bug 700835)
• Bug fixed: Some users may experience a crash when moving bookmarks. (bug 681795)

Mozilla Firefox 10 Direct Download Links

Windows (English) | Mac (English) | Linux (English) | All system and languages

Mozilla provides Firefox for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X in a variety of languages. You can get the latest released version of Firefox here or the latest development version of Firefox here. You should also check out our Firefox section for everything related to Mozilla Firefox.

Microsoft has released Windows Defender Offline, an offline antivirus tool, for PCs that are badly infected by malicious and other potentially unwanted software, including rootkits, to even get full access to the Internet.

The offline antivirus tool basically allows a user to boot their infected Windows computer system from a CD, DVD or USB flash drive. It uses the most recent definition update available to scan the PC for malicious and other potentially unwanted software. It then helps the user to disinfect the PC from the hard to detect threats.

This tool is particularly useful to remove certain kinds of malware that prevents the user from visiting any security or antivirus website. Many malicious programs uses methods to prevent users from accessing those websites to prevent detection and cleaning. Sometimes, they corrupt Windows files to prevent any kind of network access.

Wile announcing the release of Windows Defender Offline beta, Microsoft said, “Windows Defender Offline Beta can help remove such hard to find malicious and potentially unwanted programs using definitions that recognize threats.”

How to use Windows Defender Offline beta?

Follow the steps below to download and use Windows Defender Offline:

1. First, Download Windows Defender Offline Beta to create the CD, DVD, or USB flash drive on a PC that isn’t infected with malware.
2. You will need a blank CD, DVD, or USB flash drive with at least 250 MB of free space, run the downloaded tool, it will help you create the removable media.
3. Now, boot your infected PC using the Windows Defender Offline Beta media.
4. Scan your PC for malicious and other potentially unwanted software.
5. Remove any malware that is found by this tool from your infected PC.
6. Here’s a FAQ created by Microsoft for your help in using the tool. Complete system requirements is available here.

Earlier, we’ve covered Kaspersky Rescue Disk which helps you disinfect severely infected machines. These bootable tools are extremely useful for disinfecting the toughest to clean malicious or unwanted programs from the PC. But, keeping these tools updated is a very tedious task.

Google Chrome Stable Channel updated to 16.0.912.77 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome Frame.

Important Note: Bookmark this page (Press CTRL + D) to always Get the latest update about Google Chrome Stable Channel for all platforms.

According to the Google Chrome Releases blog, Chrome 16 has many improvements. These includes enhancements to Sync and the ability to create multiple profiles on a single instance of Chrome.

With the enhancement of multiple profiles, Chrome users can now easily add new users, each user will have their own sync profiles. To add a new user, click on the Spanner icon (Settings) and go to Options (Preferences on a Mac). Click “Personal Stuff” and then click on “Add new user”. Chrome will start a new instance of the web browser, users can now customize with their own set of apps, bookmarks, extensions, and other settings.

Users can now customize the name and badge present in the upper corner which lets them know that this new Chrome browser belongs to them. If a user clicks on this badge, a drop-down menu appears, through which users can easily switch between different Chrome users profiles.

Security and bug fixes in Chrome 16

• [106484] High CVE-2011-3924: Use-after-free in DOM selections.
• [107182] Critical CVE-2011-3925: Use-after-free in Safe Browsing navigation. *
• [108461] High CVE-2011-3928: Use-after-free in DOM handling.
• [108605] High CVE-2011-3927: Uninitialized value in Skia.
• [109556] High CVE-2011-3926: Heap-buffer-overflow in tree builder. Credit to Arthur Gerkis.

The bugs 106484, 107182, 108461, and 109556 were detected using AddressSanitizer.
* Bug 107182 was fixed in 16.0.912.75 but accidentally excluded from the release notes.  For more details you can view the post at Chrome Releases blog.

If your Google Chrome installation was falsely identified by Microsoft Security Essentials as a piece of Malware (“PWS:Win32/Zbot”) and was removed from your computer system, follow the guide below to restore Chrome manually. (Google Chrome Blog)

First, you need to update Microsoft Security Essential virus definitions, follow the instructions as posted in this article.

After updating the virus definitions of Microsoft Security Essentials, download Google Chrome from the links below and install it.

Latest Google Chrome Stable Channel Download Links For All Platforms

You can download the latest version of Google Chrome using following link:

Download Google Chrome (Web installer)

Download Google Chrome for All Users (Enterprise Edition)

If you want to download the Google Chrome offline installer instead of the web installer, you can get it using following link:

Download Google Chrome Offline Standalone Installer

Do check out the Google Chrome category to see everything about the web browser.

With each new release of Firefox by Mozilla, we see better performance, stability and security. But, despite all these improvements, Firefox is still resolutely a 32-bit browser. Yes, Mozilla is still working on Firefox 64-bit, but for some reason, they haven’t officially released any 64-bit builds for Firefox. If you can’t wait, you can grab a nightly build of the 64-bit available for Windows and Linux from Mozilla servers.

Many people will hesitate to use a nightly build for regular use. For those who wants stability and don’t want to try a risky nightly build, Waterfox might be an answer. Waterfox is an actual Firefox version, optimized for 64-bit systems and aims to fill the void. The release cycle of Waterfox is in sync with Firefox’s official release cycle. With last week’s Firefox 9 release, the Waterfox project developers released version 9.0 of its own software. Convincing enough to try? We guess, it is. Let’s quickly go through the main features of Waterfox.

The developers of Waterfox have tweaked Firefox source code to work better with 64-bit processors. For the technical persons, the developers have compiled the code base with SSE, SSE2, x64 favoring and the following optimization flags: /Og /Oi /Ot /Oy /Ob2 /Gs /GF /Gy. It’s built especially keeping Windows x64 system in mind, that means, you are effectively running the browser in its full potential complete with all the performance improvements.

All Firefox add-ons are supported by the browser. You can also use all the major plugins such as Adobe Flash, Sun Java, Microsoft Silverlight, since they all have supported 64-bit binaries available. One more feature to rejoice off is, you don’t have to do anything to migrate your existing Firefox profile. Since, Waterfox uses the same profile that your existing Firefox installation does. This convenient feature has one risk factor too. If you uninstall Waterfox and by mistake select the remove personal data check box, your Firefox profile will also get deleted. So, keep in mind not to select that check box.

According to the developers, “for some people with older systems, the 64-bit version loads quicker and is much more responsive than the 32-bit build. For people with newer systems, it allows them to use the full potential of their systems.” So, if you are having a 64-bit system running Windows 7/Vista x64, you should definitely try Waterfox. In fact, we have seen in benchmarks, the 64-bit variant of Firefox out-performing the 32-bit variant.

There’s one major requirement before you install Waterfox on your computer. The browser requires Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x64) installed, otherwise you’ll get an error message involving msvcr100.dll. To fully enjoy Waterfox, you also need to install dedicated 64-bit builds of Flash, Silverlight and Java. You can find the download links to all of them at the Waterfox download page. The download page also links to dictionaries and languages packs. The main software is available only in US English only, so if you are looking for localizations, you will need them.

[via Lifehacker]

Whenever you uninstall application from your Windows operating system, theoretically, it should uninstall completely. Sadly, in reality, sometimes you will find that when you uninstall an application, it has left few files and unwanted registry entries behind. Down the road, you will notice Windows starts giving performance and compatibility issues. Manually finding and deleting leftover items is very cumbersome and risky.

Utilities like CCleaner are effective to some extent in cleaning up the leftover registry entries and temporary files. But using advanced application uninstaller that can completely uninstall apps makes more sense to keep Windows operating system in good shape. Revo Uninstaller is one such application that can completely uninstall an app and is an alternative to “Windows Add or Remove Programs” applet. Let’s see if it really can do what it claims for.

Revo Uninstaller Overview

Revo Uninstaller simplifies the process of removing leftover files and registry entries of an app after uninstalling it. It works by analyzing an application’s data before uninstall and after uninstall, scans for remnants. After the program’s regular uninstaller completes the uninstall process, Revo provides a list of registry values, files, and folders that it believes were not removed by the application’s regular uninstaller. You can now select the data you wish to delete, and it will clean your computer of the unwanted files, folders and registry entries.

Installation

Revo Uninstaller is available free and comes with several other tools about which we will tell later on. The installation process is very simple. After you have the installer which is around 2.4MB download, the application should be ready for use within a few seconds. If you don’t want to install another application on your Windows or like portable applications, Revo Uninstaller is also available in portable edition.

User Interface and Using Revo Uninstaller

When you launch Revo, you will be presented with a list of the installed applications on your computer. The user interface lets you switch easily between the default Uninstaller view and Tools view. Here we will work with the Uninstaller function first.

Removing an application using Revo is easy. You have a number of options to remove an application completely from your computer. The most easy way is to double-click the icon of the app and continue with the uninstall process. Revo Uninstaller will create a system restore (if not disabled in Options) and then it will run the built-in uninstaller of the uninstalled program. Revo Uninstaller is not directly involved in that part of the uninstall process. Revo than offers four methods for removing applications.

• Built-in: This is just like using the “Windows Add or Remove Programs” applet.
• Safe: It performs additional registry scan and hard drive scan to find leftover items that are safe to delete.
• Moderate: It is an extension to the Safe mode and performs an extended scan to find all the application’s leftover information in the most common places of the Registry and on the hard drive.
• Advanced: Advanced method includes the Moderate mode and performs a deep and thorough scan to find all the application’s leftover information in the Registry and on the hard drive. In our tests, we found this method most effective in completely removing the application.

One unique way for uninstalling apps offered by Revo is the “Hunter Mode.” This mode provides a cross-hair to place on any icon on your Start Menu, Desktop or Taskbar. After you place the cross-hair, Revo will literally “hunt” for the uninstaller of the app and go ahead with the un-installation process.

Revo Uninstaller comes with 8 handy and powerful tools to further clean up your Windows operating system. To access the Tools you have to press the Tools button on the main toolbar. Then on the left side of the main window appears the Tools panel. It has the tools included in Revo Uninstaller divided in two categories shown as buttons: “Optimization” and “Tracks Cleaner”. Under the first category Optimization, you will find an AutoRun Manager, Junk Files Cleaner and Windows Tools. The second category Tracks Cleaner lets you access Browsers Cleaner, MS Office Cleaner, Windows Cleaner, Evidence Remover, and Unrecoverable Delete.

Coming to the Preferences panel, Revo Uninstaller Free offers very few basic options. You can exclude specific file formats and directories, change the language of the application, and change system restore options.

Performance

The performance on this application varies upon which mode you use to uninstall an application. Although it does its job well, it will use a large amount of CPU as well as RAM. We would not recommend attempting to multitask while Revo is in the process of removing an application.

Conclusion

This application does what it promises and does its job well. It does take a little time depending on which method you use to remove an application. Despite this, we will recommend this application to all Windows user. Compared to the default “Windows Add or Remove Programs” applet, Revo is far better in what it does.

This application is available as a freeware application, however, if you are looking for more advanced features, you can buy a pro license for $39.25 $19.62. You can download the free or portable edition from RevoUninstaller.com.

Do you use any other uninstaller or do you use the default Windows uninstaller only? Let us know in the comments.

If you found this article useful and like it, please share it with your friends and contacts on Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, and more using the share buttons below so that they can also enjoy it, thank you so much for reading!

Android 4.0.3 aka Ice Cream Sandwich update is now available for Google Nexus S.

Nexus S users who have already received the update via OTA are already enjoying ICS but what about those folks who are still waiting for the update?

Thanks to XDA-Developers forum member zephiK for providing a manual way to update Nexus S to official Android 4.0.3 (ICS). Before updating please note down the warnings, and please don’t blame us if your device gets damaged or bricked during the update process. Proceed at your own risk. Here’s the method described by him.

Warning: AT&T Nexus S is NOT supported. Only T-Mobile and Retail versions of the Nexus S GSM/UMTS are supported. Please DO NOT proceed if you have the CDMA version of Nexus S.

Note: If your Nexus S is rooted, running a custom ROM, this update may not work for you. It’s advised to revert back to stock Gingerbread ROM on the device and then try with flashing the update.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. Please do not hold My Technology Guide liable for any damage or bricked Nexus S devices during the manual update process.

How To Manually Update Nexus S to Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich)

1. First, you need to download the official ICS update for Nexus S: VQ8PQk_V.zip (128.03 MB).
2. After download is complete, rename the file to update.zip and copy it to the root of your SD card.
3. Switch off the device and then reboot into bootloader mode. (To get into the Bootloader mode, hold Volume up button and the Power button together.)
4. Use the Volume key to navigate and select Recovery from the menu to boot into recovery, press the Power button to confirm.
5. When you see the warning triangle and arrow, hold the power button and tap volume up. You’ll see a menu.
6. Select “Apply update from /sdcard” and select the update.zip file from the list.
7. Once the update is flashed, select “reboot system now” to reboot your device.
8. Enjoy the cool Ice Cream Sandwich treat by Google this holiday!

Watch the video below by qbking77 to know how to flash the latest Android 4.0.3 on your T-Mobile Nexus S device.

[via xda-developers]

AVG Technologies has released AVG Internet Security 2012 and AVG Antivirus 2012 the latest edition of their flagship security software. The latest version added new protection technologies, computer performance enhancements and content download acceleration. AVG 2012 is lighter, faster and smaller than any previous AVG product.

The earlier versions AVG 9 Free and AVG 2011 Free is still quite popular among our readers. It provides basic security protection for your computer against malware, viruses and other malicious programs. The standard security module that AVG Antivirus Free Edition 2012 comprises of are an antivirus, anti-spyware, email protection, resident protection, LinkScanner, search-shield, surf-shield, anti-rootkit, PC analyze and identity protection.

Each of the following three applications of LiveKive, Family Safety, and PC Tuneup is available as a standalone AVG product, and an optional part of your AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 2012 installation. Within the Your AVG Apps dialog (accessible via the My Apps button directly from the AVG main dialog) you can see an overview of applications already installed, and ready to be installed optionally:

Direct download links to AVG Free Antivirus offline installer: (Links updated on 31, January 2012) If the links to the offline downloaders are not working, please comment below. We will update the article with fresh links.

Download AVG Antivirus 2012 32-bit (139 MB)

Download AVG Antivirus 2012 64-bit (158 MB)

You can download the online installer from the link here.

You can download offline installers of AVG Antivirus 2012 trial version from the link below:

AVG Anti-Virus 2012 Offline Redistributable Setup Installer Download Link: http://www.avg.com/us-en/download.prd-triavc#tba2

You can download offline installers of AVG Internet Security 2012 trial version from the link below:

AVG Internet Security 2012 Offline Redistributable Setup Installer Download Link: http://www.avg.com/us-en/download.prd-triisc#tba2

Linux/FreeBSD users can download AVG Anti-Virus Free edition for Linux from the direct download links below. (Links updated on 06, January 2012)

• Download AVG Free Edition for Linux (avg2011flx-r1408-a4116.i386.deb) (138 MB)
• Download AVG Free Edition for Linux (avg2011flx-r1408-a4116.i386.rpm) (138 MB)
• Download AVG Free Edition for Linux (avg2011flx-r1408-a4116.i386.sh) (138 MB)
• Download AVG Free Edition for Linux (avg2011flx-r1408-a4116.i386.tar.gz) (138 MB)
• Download AVG Server Edition for FreeBSD (avg2011ffb-r1408-a4117.i386.tar.gz) (139 MB)

WordPress has had over 65 million downloads since version 3.0 was released, out of which WordPress 3.2 has had over 14 million downloads. Today, the world sees the latest avatar of WordPress, as WordPress developers releases WordPress 3.3. Codenamed “Sonny” in honor of the jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt, WordPress 3.3 is available for download or update from within your WordPress dashboard.

WordPress 3.3 “Sonny” has a number of new features including many significant user interface improvements. Matt Mullenweg while announcing the release said, “experienced users will appreciate the new drag-and-drop uploader, hover menus for the navigation, the new toolbar, improved co-editing support, and the new Tumblr importer. Version 3.3 has significant improvements there with pointer tips for new features included in each update, a friendly welcome message for first-time users, and revamped help tabs throughout the interface. Finally we’ve improved the dashboard experience on the iPad and other tablets with better touch support.”

Watch this short video to get an overview about WordPress 3.3 “Sonny”.

The media uploader has also been streamlined with a drag-and-drop image uploader. A new menu feature allows users to hover over menus for navigation. There is a new toolbar, and improved co-editing notifications and support. And WordPress 3.3 now comes with a Tumblr importer and is optimized for the iPad.

WordPress developers will be happy with the release too. With the release of “Sonny” WordPress has released a new editor API, new jQuery version, better ways to hook into the help screens, improvements on the Codex and more for the developers.

Interested users can view the entire list of improvements on the Codex and in Trac.

Every operating system user faces the problem of accumulating temporary/junk files eating up disk space. As you go on using your operating system, you suddenly realize that the system partition is having less amount of free space. Since, the operating system doesn’t automatically deleted these unneeded files, the files takes up gigabytes of disk space. At the end system performance takes the toll and you notice computer running slow.

Windows users have some good utilities like CCleaner for cleaning up the junk and temporary files. Mac users also have CCleaner for Mac, but it’s still under development and is in beta stage at time of writing. If you don’t want to try out a beta product for your Mac, check out MacCleaning, developed by EaseUs, the developers of many good hard disk utilities.

MacCleaning is a freeware, all-in-one Mac OS based menu bar utility which lets you clean junk files and features disk space monitor and drive ejection. The disk space monitor lets you monitor the amount of disk space being used and left. Whenever any drives in your Mac is running out of space, MacCleaning will recommend you to clean out the junk files to free up some space.

MacCleaning Free by default empties system and user caches, and system and user logs. If you also want to clean the Trash and the contents of your personal Downloads folder you can do so by selecting them under Preferences of the application.

The application sits unobtrusively in the menu bar. The program is configured to start with your Mac. The application shows a bar chart revealing the overall free space available. If the amount of free space dips below 10 percent, the application starts an alarm. If you click on the menu bar icon, you can watch each chart for each drive or external partitions connected to your Mac. You also have an option to eject removable drives, so that you can quickly and safely unmount them from your computer.

Download MacCleaning

Android Market has exceeded 10 billion app downloads, Google announced on their Google blog. To celebrate the milestone, Google has announced that for the next 10 days, starting from December 6, they’ll have a new set of apps available each day for only 10 cents each.

“Of course, none of these apps would have existed if it weren’t for the developers who created them. Every day, these developers continue to push the limits on what’s possible and delight us in the process. For that, we thank them,” said Eric Chu in his post at the Android Developer’s blog post.

The celebration started with the following ten apps:

Asphalt 6 HD, Color & Draw for Kids,Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro, Fieldrunners HD, Great Little War Game, Minecraft, Paper Camera, Sketchbook Mobile, Soundhound Infinity and SwiftKey X.

In their announcement Google said,

One billion is a pretty big number by any measurement. However, when it’s describing thespeed at which something is growing, it’s simply amazing. This past weekend, thanks to Android users around the world, Android Market exceeded 10 billion app downloads—with a growth rate of one billion app downloads per month. We can’t wait to see where this accelerating growth takes us in 2012.

As you can see the exponential growth in the graph below, Android Market took around 22 months to reach 1 billion downloads. But it took only 9 months to reach the 10 billion mark from the one billion mark on July 2010.

By July this year, things started moving exponentially for the Android Market as it hit the six billion mark. In the last four months alone, four billion apps have been downloaded to mobile devices using Google’s operating system.

The premium apps offered by Google for 10 cents are really worth checking out!

Visit https://market.android.com/details?id=apps_timed_promotion for joining the 10-day-10-cents celebration. We also noticed that the apps already offered earlier day are still available for 10 cents each. So, if you have missed buying the apps featured earlier, you can search the Android Market and still buy them for 10 cents.

(Thanks to Android Developers Blog)

gBurner Virtual Drive is a freeware app for Windows users. The lightweight application, whose download size is only 389KB, lets you create and manage up to 16 virtual drives on your computer. Users who are always working with ISO images or other proprietary CD/DVD images or gamers will find gBurner Virtual Drive very useful. With the large number of CD/DVD image file formats, that includes ISO, GBI/GBP, DAA, NRG, MDF/MDS, BIN/CUE, UIF, ISZ, ASHDISC, DMG, GI, BWI/B5I, IMG, CDI, PDI, NCD, LCD, CIF, P01, PXI, C2D, FCD, VCD, it is a must have solution for every computer user.

gBurner Virtual Drive allows you to easily mount any supported CD/DVD image file to get access to your favorite games, music, or software programs. Since, this is a virtual drive, so if you mount and run any image file, it will run at a very fast speed than when you would have run it through your optical drive.

How to use gBurner Virtual Drive?

After downloading the gBurner setup file, proceed to install it. After installation completes, you will notice gBurner Virtual Drive running in the system tray.

Right-click on the gBurner icon to show options for: Mount image file to drive, Unmount drive, Set Number of Drives, Unmount all drives and Options. Through the “Set number of drives” option, you can create up to 16 virtual drives.

When you select “Configuration” from “Options” menu, you can get access to the “gBurner Virtual Drive Configuration” window.

Through this window, you can set ”Virtual Drive Options” like setting the “Number of Virtual Drives”, enable or disable “Autostart” and “Automount“. You can also manually drive letters from the Virtual Drive Letter Assignment menu.

gBurner Virtual Drive works on all Windows editions starting from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows 7 (both 32-bit and 64-bit supported).

Download gBurner Virtual Drive

Recently, there is a huge controversy going on around Carrier IQ and the Internet has been abuzz with mentions of it.

If you don’t know what Carrier IQ is, well here is a brief introduction about it. Carrier IQ is a software that runs on more than 140 million mobile phones (according to Carrier IQ website). It is a monitoring software to track user activities, including their personal information, locations, network communications, phone calls, messages and more. If you want to know about Carrier IQ in-depth read this article by Engadget.

Carrier IQ was apparently designed to give metrics to help mobile carriers improve their services, but in some circumstances, the software is not offered as an opt-out feature and in many cases users don’t even know it’s there, tracking all interactions with their mobile phone.

Coming back to the main purpose of this article, we are here sharing some free tools for Android users that will help them find out if their Android device has Carrier IQ or not. Click on the title of the app to download it from the Android Market.

Carrier IQ Detector by Lookout Labs

Carrier IQ Detector helps mobile users find if their device is having Carrier IQ. According to the application description, the app does not remove Carrier IQ software as Carrier IQ software is deeply integrated with the handset firmware. Users would be required to get special device privileges to remove it. Side effects of this process have the potential to put users at further risk of Malware infection while making devices ineligible to receive firmware updates in the future.

If you have made earlier attempts to remove Carrier IQ software from your device, Carrier IQ Detector may still report its presence. This can be caused by incomplete removal attempts that do not remove all relevant files.

Bitdefender Carrier IQ Finder

Bitdefender Carrier IQ Finder reveals the presence of the Carrier IQ mobile network diagnostic tool and, if found, also tells the user whether it has been enabled by the carrier. The app also will not be able to remove Carrier IQ package because of the same above reason, so it can be uninstalled only through special privileges (root).

Voodoo Carrier IQ detector

François Simond (supercurio) has developed the app for any Android devices. The developer warns that this is an unfinished but working app. It is available for download from the Android Market. The open source code of the app is available at GitHub for anyone looking to improve it.

Logging Test App by TrevE (available only through XDA-Developers forum)

The developer describes the app at the XDA-Developers forum thread as:

This app has started to turn into a full security suite. It can be used to verify what logging is being done on your phone and where data is going to. It will help you in manually removing parts you do not running.

You may use this version of the app anywhere and redistribute it. I have only tested on e3d, but it should work everywhere. I have heard it working on thunderbolt and e4g so far.

For advanced checking using this app, you need root access to your Android device. You can download the app from XDA-Developers forum.

Note: This app also allows you to remove Carrier IQ. To remove it, you have to do the following:

• Download the original Logging Test App and then buy the $0.99 Pro licence from the Android Market.

  

• Open the app, tap the Menu button, and then tap “Remove CIQ.” This will completely remove it from your device.

Third-party premium navigation apps for Android faces stiff competing from Google Maps on Google’s Android Platform. Since, almost all Android devices comes bundled with free Google Maps plus Navigation app. Though Google Maps Navigation is not available everywhere. This stiff competition is good for end users as it brings in some good and innovative features for them. To compete with free Google Maps, premium GPS navigation apps comes up with innovative features. We started evaluating Sygic: GPS Navigation app for Android, a premium navigation app to find out if people will pay for something which they have grown accustomed to getting free?

Sygic lists its premium app for free (actually a 7 day trial version) in the Android Market. The app is around 6 MB download and after installing it, users must download the maps. You don’t need to download all maps available through Sygic to your Android phone as it will take up precious space on their device. Using the Sygic Downloader, you have the choice to download each map. Sygic recommends using WiFi for downloading maps data as some maps are very big in size. After the 7-day trial expires, the app prompts the user to buy an activation key from the official webpage.  Read on for more in-depth review of the app.

Visit our Sygic GPS Navigation Giveaway page here..

After downloading the maps, we fired up the Sygic app on our Samsung Galaxy S II (running the most recent firmware). Within a few seconds the GPS locked our position on the map and we were pleased to see beautifully rendered map with 3D buildings. POI are displayed nicely without distracting readability. If you don’t to see POI, you can simply disable it from Settings. Using Settings, you can further customize the program to its fullest.

When you choose a destination, Sygic starts the voice turn-by-turn directions and displays the map of your surrounding area with the calculated route highlighted in blue. Even though, in Settings we found Text to Speech but the options were grayed out. So, we weren’t able to test the Text to Speech function. We got TTS working (Thanks to Simona for the tip). You just need to select special TTS enabled voice from Settings – Regional (See the screenshot below). This feature is available in English for all the maps, in Dutch for the map of Netherlands, in German for the map of Germany and in Italian for the map of Italy.

The navigation app comes with a lot of voice options in different languages. The latest version comes with Dynamic Lane Guidance set to appear 500 meters in advance, so you can prepare your turn beforehand.

We did some tests in the highway with multiple lanes and we were notified beforehand about which lane to take to reach our destination. This option is very useful when you are traveling and you don’t know exactly which lane you should take to reach to your destination. Sygic also warns with a chime beforehand to slow down your speed if you exceed your speed limit or any speed cams are near. If you encounter any traffic incidents or police traps you can tell other Sygic users with one touch though the app.

Through Sygic’s own social network, you can add friends with whom you can share your location, status update, messages, and events. If you don’t want to use Sygic’s social network, the app also lets you share your location with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, through Email or your Phone contacts. It also allows you to attach a photo that will be visible on your Facebook wall. Sygic integrates with your Phone contacts thus allowing you to browse for your friends stored address. Another nice feature of Sygic is Demonstrate Route. Using demonstration, you can get an overview of your route before even traveling it actually.

Sygic also lets you use your custom keyboard installed on your Android phone or the default keyboard provided by it. The handy Travel Book feature keeps track of all your trips thus providing a good insight of your trip histories. Another handy addition is the Weather tool that provides you weather updates of your area. You can always take informed decision before going out for that long drive. If you are going to visit a new country, the Country Info feature will offer you some quick basic information about the country.

With all these goodness offered by this application, we were almost forgetting to mention some of the user-interface annoyances. Since, the app runs full-screen you will not be able to get access to Android Notification bar when you are navigating. Thus, you will not be able to your phone’s battery status. Though when you are in the menu of the application, it provides a status bar showing battery status, GPS signal status, Community login status and time. But, if they would have made the same info accessible when navigating, it would be a nice addition.

Overall, Sygic: GPS Navigation is a very good premium turn-by-turn navigation app for Android users. So, should you go for it?

Well, it greatly depends on what type of user you are? Having offline maps access is a blessing for those users who are out of their carrier’s coverage area since Google Maps will not work without a data plan. Offline maps also lets users who are roaming in a foreign land and either don’t have any data plan or unlimited data plan. Though the recent updates of Google Maps app lets users pre-cache map area but it has some serious limitations. Also, if your country in not in the list of supported country for Google Map Navigation, Sygic: GPS Navigation is a great alternative, well worth the price you pay for it.

You can download the 7 days unlimited trial version of Sygic: GPS Navigation from the Android Market. (Mobile Android Market)

Visit our Sygic GPS Navigation Giveaway page here..

Microsoft Office 2010 Starter edition is a scaled down freeware version of the full-fledged Microsoft Office 2010. Other than the free Started edition, the productive suite is available as Home and Student, Home and Business, Standard, Professional, Professional Academic, Professional Plus editions. All these retail versions are easily available for purchase but not the Starter edition. Microsoft Office 2010 Starter is available exclusively with OEM-supplied computer.

The Started edition of Office consists of limited-functionality versions of Word and Excel and includes advertising. It does not include PowerPoint or Outlook. It allows users to upgrade easily to a complete Office 2010 productivity suite when they are ready.

Disclaimer: We are providing the download links as a backup for owners of OEM machines who may have lost the setup files of Starter edition due to formatting or any other error. We don’t recommend other users to download and install it on any other computer system. Read below.

If you like Office 2010, you should purchase it. Office Starter 2010 is not a trial; it has a perpetual license that does not expire. Office Starter 2010 is an advertising-supported base productivity suite that is available only on new PCs. It must be preloaded on new PCs at the point of manufacture. Office Starter 2010 is not available for existing PCs at any time after manufacture; such as, Office Starter 2010 cannot be installed on new PCs being sold by resellers, even brand-new PCs. It will not be sold through distribution or available to end users as a standalone product. (-Microsoft)

Caschy, a popular blogger from Germany has recently discovered that Microsoft stores the setup files of Office Starter 2010 on their servers. But before download, please read the Disclaimer above.

Here is a list of available versions that you can download:

Download Microsoft Office Starter 2010 (English) (Microsoft has removed the file, link is no longer working.)

To install Office Starter 2010, you don’t need any product key. If you want you can also create a portable version of Office Starter 2010 from its start menu entry.

If you want to download the setup file in your language, just replace the LCID string in the web address as suggested by Martin, Ghacks Editor. For example, replace en-us with another LCID string. You can find a list of strings on this page.

If you want a full-fledged office productivity suite but do not want to use Microsoft Office Starter edition, we recommend users to try open-source or freeware alternatives like LibreOffice or if you want cloud features try Google Docs.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is a very good car racing game for Android users. EA sells the game through the Android Market for $6.99. But, here’s a very good news for Samsung Galaxy S II owners, they can save $6.99 and download the game for free from the Samsung Apps store application present in their phone. Earlier, Samsung through Samsung Apps provided GameLoft Asphalt 6 for free to all Galaxy S2 users. Even, at the time of posting, Asphalt 6 is still available for free to all Galaxy S II users in all regions.

In case of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, there is only one gripe. The game is not available as free download in all the regions. Users who have rooted there Galaxy S2 can rejoice though as they can easily download the game with a simple workaround. Even if you have not rooted your phone, you can still download APK file from the XDA-Developers thread.

If your phone is rooted simply follow these simple instructions to download the APK from Samsung Apps:

• Download Market Enabler from the Android Market.
• Now, use Market Enabler to Change the Market region to either UK, Germany or Italy. The thread at XDA-Developers suggested using O2 DE [26207] as the new region.
• Open Samsung Apps and you will be asked to accept the T&C.
• Upon accepting the T&C, you should see the game in the store, you can now download it to your Galaxy S2.
• When you first launch the game, it will ask you to download around 590MB of game data (actually it download 358MB). WiFi connection is recommended. Download the data and enjoy the game.

If you are not from EU but can see the game in Samsung Apps without using any hacks do share with us.

Via: Thanks to XDA-Developers forum members for sharing about this!

In this digital age, when we keep all our important data dumped into electronic devices, it’s not very hard to lose the data either by human error or for any other reasons. Also, there is a threat of data being stolen when we thought that we got rid of it. Auslogics File Recovery 3 is a simple to use professional application to recover deleted files or lost partitions. It also includes advanced privacy protection and backup tools too; it includes a secure file eraser and disk wiper.

We completed our earlier Auslogics giveaway successfully, so we are here again with another Auslogics software giveaway! This time, the Auslogics File Recovery 3 is up for giveaway. We’ll be giving away 5 copies of Auslogics File Recovery 3 worth almost $250 in total this week. But, first, let’s see the features offered by this application.

File Recovery is a very straight forward and easy to use program. Inclusion of advanced privacy protection and backup tools further increases its value. Let’s take a quick walk-through of the program features before we talk about the giveaway.

As soon as you launch the program, you’ve the option to begin searching for your files in all available locations. The user-interface is very well laid out and even a novice user can get used to the functions in no time. In the left sidebar, all the detected hard disk drives are listed. In the right pane, you’ll be asked for the task you want to do with the program. In this case, the option to begin searching for deleted files.

There is an option to narrow down your search to certain file types only, if you know what exactly you’re looking for. Otherwise, you may search for all delete files on your drive. Further, you can narrow down to include only the files modified within or after a certain date. Next, the program asks you to enter any specific file name if you’re looking for just a particular file.

The program now provides you the option to do a deep scan, which is basically a thorough search and rescue method. After you click on the Search button, Auslogics File Recovery 3 begins its work. Depending on the size of your hard drive and the limits set by you, the search could take several minutes.

We tested the program on our virtual computer. Since, VM was newly deployed by us, the program returned results within seconds. On purpose, to test the effectiveness of the program, we detected mixed types of files that included some images, a word document, a PDF file and video file. Another feature of File Recover 3 is it generate a quick preview of certain media file types including PDF files. This feature is very handy in recovering the correct file.

Restoring files is also very easy using this program. You simply select the check box(es) next to the file(s), you want to recover and then click on the Recover Selected button. You will then receive a prompt to select the destination place, where you want to save the recovered files to.

Two important features of File Recovery 3 are recovering lost partitions and create a disk image. The lost partitions feature included in the program lets you recover accidentally deleted partitions from your system. File Recovery can find the information about deleted portions of the disk, so that you will be able to recover files from a lost partition. The program allows you to create a complete disk image of the logical drive along with all the information contained on the disk, including deleted files. This option allows you to recover files from the disk image later on while continuing working with the logical drive.

As mentioned earlier, File Recovery 3 comes bundled with two more features. Disk Wiper is one of them. The program lets you securely remove files. It permanently deletes files from the system so that no one can recover the files later. Since, some users may also want to securely wipe out their whole hard disk, File Recovery 3 lets you shutdown your PC automatically after the task completes.

File Shredder is another security feature provided by the program. File Shredder lets you securely delete specific files instead of wiping the hard disk. You simply drag and drop those files into the File Shredder, and click the Shred button. File Shredder starts securely deleting the files. So that, not only the program itself can recover the contents of the file. After the process completes, the program generates an HTML report just like its big brother Auslogics BoostSpeed 5 does.

Auslogics File Recovery 3 Giveaway

Auslogics File Recovery 3 is a very good application that’s very simple to use. The step-by-step file recovery procedure is novice proof and allows anyone to easily recover files or partitions. The security features of the program are also very handy. Auslogics File Recovery 3 works with Windows 7/2008/Vista/2003/XP (32-bit & 64-bit).

The program is available for $49.95 from Auslogics. You may download a trial from here to test the program.

We’re giving 5 copies worth almost $250 away this week so join the giveaway below!

Preference will be given to fans of our Facebook page/Google+ page and newsletter subscribers. So if you haven’t subscribed, do so now by clicking on this link.

In a nutshell, Like us to join our Facebook Page. If you are in Google+ than simply add us to your circle. If you’re already following us, you may skip this step.

Next step is to share about this giveaway using any of the social media buttons under this post.

And finally, to confirm that you are entering this giveaway, comment below.

Please use your real email address (if you are a subscriber, use your subscribed email address for getting preference) so that we can get in touch if you win.

That’s it! You’re done!

Well, not everyone are into social networks like Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.

If you are among these, you’re still eligible to join the giveaway.

You have to be either a verified email subscriber of this website or if you have a blog or website, simply publish a post on your blog or website along with a link to this giveaway and a short description. Then come back here and in the comments, tell us where you’ve published it.

This giveaway begins now and ends on next Friday, December 2nd, 2011 at 22:00 (PST).

5 winners will be selected randomly and they will be contacted via email.

Have fun and don’t forget to share about this giveaway with your friends. After all sharing is caring.

CloudShot is an open source screenshot application for Windows users that features Dropbox account integration. The program allows you to take screenshots of selected region, just a window, menu, or tooltip. You can use it with multiple monitors, and it includes a history with the 10 most recent screenshots. With its unique Dropbox account integration feature, the program uploads the screenshots taken by it to your Dropbox account. Thus allowing you to freely accesses all your screenshots from multiple computing devices. The program allows you to save the screenshots in JPG and PNG format and keeps a history of the 10 most recent screenshots.

Dropbox is an awesome service to keep your files in the cloud and we use it extensively. It also lets you share files publicly and collaborate with others within a folder. If you are a Dropbox “power user,” you should check out CloudShot.

How to use CloudShot and upload screenshots directly to your Dropbox account?

Download and install CloudShot from the download link given at the end of this article. You should also have official Dropbox application installed on your system. CloudShot requires the official application installed on your system for uploading the screenshots. Upon first install, CloudShot takes you directly to the Settings dialog box. From this dialog box you can change the image format between PNG and JPG. Select options to Copy Image to Clipboard, Copy Image Path to Clipboard and Open Image After Shot. You can set a custom hotkey (or keyboard shortcut) for taking screenshots to avoid conflict with other screenshot taking applications.

The program supports two modes for taking screenshots: Custom Screen Area Capture (taken by pressing the hotkey) and Window Capture (simply press the hotkey and click on the desired window to capture it). When a screenshot is captured, CloudShot automatically uploads the image to your Dropbox account. You can get access to the 10 most recent screenshots by right-clicking on the system tray icon of the program and selecting Recent Shots option.

Watch a small video demonstrating the program below.

CloudShot is a freeware download for Windows operating system.

Download CloudShot

RunAsDate is a freeware portable application for Windows users.

Developed by NirSoft, RunAsDate allows you to run a program in the date and time that you specify. The program doesn’t change the current system date and time of your computer, instead it injects the date/time that you specify into the desired application. One of the advanced feature offered by this software is it allows you to run multiple applications simultaneously. Each application works with different date and time, while the system date/time remains unaffected. We have covered many useful utilities developed by NirSoft: DevManView, WebSiteSniffer, CleanAfterMe, and WhatInStartup.

The developer reports that the mechanism behind RunAsDate is it intercepts the kernel API calls that returns the current date and time (GetSystemTime, GetLocalTime, GetSystemTimeAsFileTime). After that it replaces the current date/time with the date/time that you specify.

How to use RunAsDate?

RunAsDate is completely portable and doesn’t need any additional DLL files. To start using RunAsDate, simply download and copy the executable file (RunAsDate.exe) to any folder you like, and run it. In the main window of RunAsDate, select the desired date and time and the application that you want to run. There is also an option to Move the time forward, and then there is a new mode called “Immediate Mode.” Optionally, you can also specify the command-line parameters to run the program. Press the “Run” button to start the application with custom date/time set by you.

The specialty of ‘Immediate Mode’ is that when it is enabled, RunAsDate inject the date/time immediately when the process starts, without waiting for the kernel to load first. However, this mode can sometime cause trouble, especially if they were written in .NET. If executing of an application from RunAsDate cause it to crash, you should turn off the ‘Immediate Mode’.

RunAsDate Limitations:

• RunAsDate only works on 32-bit Windows applications. You cannot use it for old DOS 16-bit programs or for 64-bit Windows applications.
• RunAsDate will not affect applications that take the current date/time from another source. For example: application that loads the current date from remote server.

RunAsDate works under Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Older versions of Windows are not supported. The is also x64 version available in a separated download, for using with x64 applications.

Information: According to the developer, AVG Antivirus falsely reports that RunAsDate is infected with “Trojan horse Generic 10.THK”.

Download RunAsDate | Download RunAsDate for x64