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EasyBrake: One Click Video Conversion to MKV or MP4

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EasyBrake is a new open source video converter based on the excellent video conversion engine of HandBrake, one of the best video converters available on the Windows platform, but with a simpler interface. EasyBrake is a simplified version of HandBrake. While HandBrake has many dozens of parameters and settings to customize the video conversion job, EasyBrake has just a handful. The idea is to make EasyBrake as easy as possible to use while utilizing the best features of HandBrake and without compromising on quality.

EasyBrake users and convert videos to either MKV or MP4, although it does support a large number of input formats. You might ask, why only MKV or MP4 when other video converters allow video conversion to so many other formats? This is because converting to MKV and MP4 allows you to get the best video quality at the smallest possible file size. MKV and MP4 videos are also playable on almost any device and cell phone that supports MPEG4 videos. So why settle for anything less?

easybrake

EasyBrake’s settings panel, the one where video conversion parameters are located, is hidden by default. One simply loads a video by clicking on the big circular power button in the middle and start converting videos. If you want to adjust a few parameters like video and audio bitrates, containers, and video size, then EasyBrake lets you through the settings panel. You can also crop files by setting a start and end time.

Several built in profiles for iPod, iPad, Apple TV and Android phones with customized settings are also available.

EasyBrake can also do batch encoding if you want.

Automatically Publish Blog Post or RSS Feed to Google Plus

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Google Plus doesn’t provide users a way to automatically publish content from an RSS feed to their Google Plus Page. The idea is to keep Google Plus spam free as anything that you want to share on Google Plus has to be done manually. While this has been a success in keeping spammers at bay but it also discourages business and bloggers, in particular, from using Google Plus as a medium to share content with their followers and readers. Now the social media management tool called Hootsuite is providing this service through their web based dashboard.

The process is not exactly straightforward and needs some figuring out. So here is a step-by-step guide on how to publish your blog’s RSS feeds to Google+.

  1. Sign-up on Hootsuite for a free account.
  2. On the start screen, click on the link Add a different social network.

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  3. Choose Google+ from among the various options and then click on “Connect with Google+”. This will open another window where you’ll have to login to your Google account in order to authorize Hootsuite.

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  4. Hootsuite will detect available Google+ Pages in your Google+ account. Select your Google+ Page and click on the “Finished Importing” button.

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  5. You will now return to the dashboard. On the left sidebar, click on the gear icon (settings) and then click RSS/Atom.

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  6. Click on the plus button which says “Add New Feed”.

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  7. This will open a window where you will need to enter the feed settings. Paste the feed URL, adjust the Check interval according to the frequency of your posts, add a prepend text if you want and choose a URL shortener. Click “Save Feed” and you’re done.

    rss-to-google-plus-6

Backup4all Professional Review and Giveaway

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Backup4all Professional is a powerful backup software for Windows with a large number of features that will appeal to users who want more out of their backup programs. At the same time, the program is simple enough for the average user to reliably create backup of their data, thanks to the intuitive interface and the short streamlined backup creation process. Backup4all Professional has everything you would expect from backup software such as support for wide range of backup media, different backup modes (full, incremental, differential), file versioning, filters and scheduler.

Backup4all Professional employs a wizard-based approach that guides you through the entire process. The wizard gives you only the basic choices, like selecting the source folder and files, the backup destination (local, network, FTP, SFTP), the type of back and the frequency you want the backup job to run. A number of presets, in the form of plug-ins, let you backup specific programs and the data associated with them like Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Firefox profile, Windows Live mail etc.

Backup4all

To access the finer controls of the backup job you have to go into the advanced mode. Here the choices are a bit more complex and varied. You get additional backup destination such as external drive, removable drive or optical media. When burning to optical disks, the program gives you the option to use a third party burning program.

In the advanced mode you can setup filters that let you always exclude or include certain types of files. The filters can be based on file names, file types, file attributes, file size and file creation/modification date. By default, certain files and locations are excluded from backup – the page file, hibernation file, temporary files and folders. One notable feature that’s worth mentioning is that filters can be applied to individual folders and different folders can have different set of filters applied, even if these folders are all part of the same backup job.

Backup4all Professional does four different types of backup: Full, Differential, Incremental and Mirror. Full Backup, as the name suggests, is the complete backup of the contents of the folders that are selected to be backed up. In Differential Backup, only files that have changed since the last full backup are backed up. Incremental Backup stores all files that have changed since the last full, differential or incremental backup. Mirror Backup is identical to a full backup with the exception that the files are not compressed in zip files and they cannot be protected with a password. A mirror backup is most frequently used to create an exact copy of the backup data. It has the benefit that the backup files can also be readily accessed using tools like Windows Explorer.

Other noteworthy features of Backup4all Professional are:

  • Run specific programs before and after performing a backup. You can use this to run a cleanup program like CCleaner before backup starts.
  • Track file versions and selectively restore any previous version of a file.
  • Compress and/or encrypt your backups
  • Detailed report after each backup job completes with options to see files added, deleted, changed etc.
  • Built-in scheduler where you can define backup jobs to run at specific dates and time
  • Automatically delete old backups or restrain backups to specific sizes
  • Send custom emails after a backup finishes, with success, error and warning notifications.

Drawbacks:

  • No disk imaging ability
  • No real-time backups

Giveaway

Backup4all Professional retails at a steep $49.95, but here we have 10 copies of the software that we are going to giveaway to Instant Fundas’ readers. If you are interested leave your real name and email ID in the form below. Winners will be selected by a random draw. The contest closes on 31 July, 2012.

QupZilla: A Feature-Rich WebKit Based Browser That You Must Try

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The browser market is completely dominated by only three browsers (Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer), and even major ones (Opera) have to struggle to make an impression. In such a lopsided market it is easy to forget the smaller players. QupZilla is one such ambitious browser that hopes to make a dent on the impenetrable browser market.

QupZilla is a fast, lightweight web browser based on WebKit and Qt Framework having a distinctive Firefox-like feel. It boasts features comparable to Chrome and Firefox, yet uses far less resources than either of them. QupZilla has all standard functions you expect from a web browser like bookmarks, history viewer, integrated RSS reader, download manager, cookies manager, password manager, certificate manager, History and Bookmarks Sidebars, themes, and more. It has a built-in Adblocker and pop-up blocker, supports Greasemonkey script and Do-Not-Track header, supports Private Browsing, and can import bookmarks from Chrome, Firefox, Opera and HTML file.

Here are some of the distinguishing features of QupZilla that impressed me most.

Speed Dial: QupZilla has a speed dial on the new tab page that can be configured to display your favorite websites. The Speed dial is extremely well implemented, supports drag and drop and can be customized with background images, fixed number of rows and thumbnail sized. It’s the ideal clone of the Speed dial feature found in Opera.

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Cookies Manager: The Cookies Manager offers granular control on cookies stored in the browser. You can setup cookies whitelist for websites you want the browser to accept cookies from even if cookies is disabled. Similarly, there is a cookies blacklist where you can define websites you want the browser to never store cookies from. You can also manually choose which cookies you want to delete or keep.

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Search Engine Manager: Adding custom search engines in QupZilla is a breeze, just like in Opera. Simply right-click on a search box on a webpage and then click on “Create Search engine”. Assign a shortcut key and you are done. You can now select the search engine from the drop-down menu in the search box or use the shortcut key to search directly from the address bar.

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You can access the same search engines from the page context menu. Simply highlight the word or phrase on the page, right-click and select the search engine where you want to search the selected text.

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Thumbnail Previews: This is another feature borrowed from Opera. When you hover the mouse pointer over a tab in the tab-bar you can see a small thumbnail image of the tab content. This helps you quickly locate the tab you are looking for.

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Taskbar Integration: Right click on QupZilla’s icon in the taskbar in Windows 7 and quickly view all opened tabs in the jumplist. You can also launch new tabs, new windows and the download manager.

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Click to Play Flash: All Flash content are automatically blocked and replaced by a click to play button.

The preferences window is loaded with some fantastic set of options.

Qupzilla supports creation of multiple profiles with the option to choose a startup profile.

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Lots of configuration options for tab behavior.

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More cookie control under Privacy.

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A handful of extensions such as Greasemonkey, mouse gestures and Personal Information Manager that auto-fills web forms with stored personal details, such as first and last name, and email address.

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You can also change browser user agent to make itself identify as Opera, Safari or Firefox.

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What’s missing:

  • Configurable keyboard shortcuts
  • RSS Feed reader leaves a lot to be desired. Many feeds even fail to load.
  • Needs more extensions.

QupZilla is arguably one of the best alternative browsers that you can find. The browser supports a wide range of Linux distribution aside from Windows. It is also available as a portable version.

Lower Bounce Rate In Google Analytics with a Timer

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“Bounce rate” in Google Analytics is one of the key metrics that helps webmasters to evaluate the quality of their website traffic. Bounce rate represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and "bounce" or leave instantly rather than continue viewing other pages within the same site. This is a great indication on how relevant the content was for the user and how engaged they were with your website.

Generally it is believed that a high bounce rate is an indication that the site entrance pages aren't relevant to the visitors because it caused them to leave the website without exploring other pages. An entry page with a low bounce rate means that the page effectively causes visitors to view more pages and continue on deeper into the web site.

But a high bounce rate is not always a sign of poor performance. A high bounce rate can also occur if a visitor came to your page, found what they came looking for and left satisfied without viewing another page. In such cases, the entry page could have a very high bounce rate, as high as 80%, yet they might still be considered successful due to having served their purpose.

Nonetheless it is still desirable and the wish of every webmaster to retain visitors on their website and get them to view as many pages as possible. But if that high bounce rate figure on your Google Analytics dashboard is bothering you, there is a way to lower it. Google calls it “adjusted bounce rate”.

You implement a small tweak to your Google Analytics code which executes an event when a user has spent over a certain amount of time on the webpage. Once the event is executed, the visitor is no longer counted as “bounce,” even though no additional pageview is recorded. Only users who have not spent a required “minimal time” on your website will be counted as a bounce.

Depending on the website, the time can range from 10 seconds to few minutes. You should decide for yourself the amount of time you consider the user to be sufficiently engaged with your website or product.

To implement the timer code, add the line function setTimeout as shown in the code below. Here the delay is set to 15 seconds.

<script type="text/javascript">

   var _gaq = _gaq || [];
   _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXXXX-1']);
   _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
   setTimeout("_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', '15_seconds', 'read'])",15000);

   (function() {
     var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
     ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
     var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
   })();

</script>

Winners of KeyLemon Giveaway

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Last week we organized a giveaway for KeyLemon, a biometrics security software that offer a simple and convenient solution for users to login to their Windows computer and other web services using their face instead of a password. We have the names of 5 winners, and as promised, each of them have won a $40 license key of KeyLemon Gold.

The lucky winners as chosen by a random draw are:

  1. Caesar Alexander
  2. Alex Bad
  3. Parson Huddleston
  4. Apoorav
  5. Mustafa MEMÄ°Åž

Congratulations to the winners. You will be receiving your license keys from KeyLemon support in a short time.

Comodo Cleaning Essentials: Powerful Portable On-Demand Malware Scanner

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Every Windows computer should have an antivirus program capable of providing real-time protection against worms, viruses and other kinds of malware, and at least one on-demand malware scanner. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Spybot - Search & Destroy are two of the most popular anti-malware scanners available today. Another program that I’m going to recommend is Comodo Cleaning Essentials.

Comodo Cleaning Essentials provides a set of powerful security tools designed to help users identify and remove malware and unsafe processes from Windows computers. Comodo Cleaning Essentials is a portable application that can be run directly from removable media such as a USB key without installation.

Comodo Cleaning Essentials consists of two core technologies – KillSwitch and Malware scanner.

Malware scanner: The Malware scanner is fully featured and capable of unearthing and removing viruses, rootkits, hidden files and malicious registry keys hidden deep within a system. The scanner is configurable, uses the latest heuristic techniques to detect previously unknown viruses, features first-class malware removal capabilities and is capable of detecting hidden drivers and services loaded during system start-up.

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After you launch Comodo Cleaning Essentials, it displays a simple window with three main options: smart scan, full scan, and custom scan. The custom scan option lets you select drives and folders for scanning as well as offer additional scan options such as scanning memory, boot sector, hidden registry objects and hidden files. I’m not sure why these options are unchecked, but if want a really thorough scan, you might consider turning all of these optional scan areas.

Before the scanning commences, the program will check for virus definition files updates and download them to the program directory. The definition files can be rather large – in excess of 100MB. You have the option to skip the download but it is strongly recommended that you allow the download. After updating is completed, the program performs a through scan. At the end of the san it prepares a report and offers you option to repair the infections found or ignore it.

KillSwitch: This is an advanced system monitoring tool that allows users to identify, monitor and stop potentially unsafe processes that are running on endpoint systems. Basically, KillSwitch is a task manager like program comparable to Process Explorer that lists all running processes and provides details about each process. KillSwitch leverages Comodo's huge whitelist database to isolate untrusted processes and programs that it cannot recognize. Unfortunately, accuracy is something that is left to be desired for as the number of false positives are abundant.

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KillSwitch also displays performance graphs of CPU usage, memory usage, disk usage and network traffic.

Comodo Cleaning Essentials includes several tools additional tools out of which Autoruns Analyzer is particularly interesting.

Autoruns Analyzer: The Autorun Analyzer tool scans for sixteen different ways a program can launch during boot. This is quite powerful compared to other autorun scanners because it hunts down not only programs that launch at Windows startup but also shell extensions that start with Explorer, drivers that automatically load during logon, codes, DLL files, Internet Explorer add-ons, services, scheduled tasks and more. Most importantly, it flags dangerous items found and allows you to disable or delete them from the system.

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Comodo Cleaning Essentials uses the same malware scanning engine as Comodo Internet Security, which is arguably among one the best free antivirus program currently available. This makes Comodo Cleaning Essentials easily one of the better malware scanners that I’ve personally used and tested.

Create Annotated Screenshot Based Tutorials in Your Browser with IORAD

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IORAD is a web services that lets software developers, bloggers or just about anybody to easily create interactive tutorials or instruction manuals of software products. Unlike traditional desktop based screen casting tools or screenshot capture programs, IORAD works from within the browser. Even though browser based, IORAD is capable of taking screenshots of any programs window running on the computer. Once a recording session begins, IORAD automatically captures screenshots of every mouse and keyboard movements such as typing, scrolling and clicking. These are then arranged in a slideshow and appropriate captions automatically added. The end result, which is fully editable, resembles a PowerPoint like slideshow with step-by-step instructions which can be embedded on any website.

Head over to IORAD’s website and sign up for a free account. The website will ask you are some permissions to run additional programs like Java. Once these are taken care of, select the window you wish to record from the drop-down list.

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If you haven’t already started the program, you may want to do it before you begin IORAD’s screen recording program so that IORAD can detect the program window. Alternatively, you can ignore the “select window to record” prompt and click the blinking red record button. This will take you to a recording window on the desktop. Anything you perform within the recording window will be recorded. You can resize this window or go full screen to capture everything in your screen. When you are ready to begin, click the Record button.

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The thing to keep in mind is that IORAD is not a screen casting program. It doesn’t make a video recording of the screen, rather it records your interaction with items on your screen by taking screenshots. So you don’t have to worry about proceeding too fast or too slow. Proceed at your own pace. Once you are done, click on the Done on the recording window.

You will be then taken to the editing program. Here you can annotate slides, add captions, add actions that might not have been captured such as mouse hover, dragging and clicking. Basic actions are automatically annotated. For example, during the recording if you click on a button that says “Submit”, IORAD will have a screenshot of that action and the image will already have a caption that reads “Click Submit”. Additionally, the “Submit” button will be highlighted by a orange rectangle.

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When you have completed editing, save the tutorial and grab the embed code to embed it in your website or blog or simply point to the tutorial hosted on IORAD. Watch this simple tutorial I created.

Currently, there is no way to export the tutorial out of IORAD but this feature is expected to become available for paying customers sometime later.

One Year Ago: Cocoon, CustomExplorerToolbar, Search Connectors, Sendtosendto and More

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Sony Walkman is Back and it Runs on Android

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Sony is not only keeping the once revolutionary Walkman brand alive, but this summer it intends to infuse a new life to this once popular product. The Japanese electronics manufacturer has just announced a slew of new music players to compete with the likes of iPod, that carries the Walkman brand. But unlike the Walkmans of yesteryears that could play no more than 90 minutes of music the new Walkman will play 32 GB worth of music and they will be powered by Android 4.0.

sony-walkman

The top model – F800 - comes loaded with Android Ice Cream Sandwich running on a Tegra 2 (dual-core) processor, and is fully compatible with the Google Play store, which means access to all apps and even games. The screen measures 3.5 inch across which is comfortable enough for playing music, browsing, watching movies and playing games. For connectivity, it supports Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

The F800 will be available in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB models, which is unfortunately on the lower end of the spectrum. The space constraint will be most intensely felt by those who like their music in the FLAC format. Other features include Clear Audio technologies and the integrated S-Master digital amplifier. The F800 model also comes with built in xLOUD speaker system that “cuts distortion and unpleasant clipping for clearer listening.”

The players will debut the US stores in August 2012. The 16GB model is priced at $270 and the 32GB at $300. More details at Sony’s website.

[via Cnet]

Avira Launches Cloud Based Antivirus: Avira Protection Cloud

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Antivirus software maker Avira today released the Technical Preview of Avira Protection Cloud, a new cloud based antivirus solution from the company. Development and testing of Avira Protection Cloud was going on for quite sometime, but this is the first public download made available.

Avira Protection Cloud consist of a client program that connects to Avira’s servers where the actual malware scanner is located. The client program doesn’t have malware detection capabilities of its own when disconnected from the Internet. When a scan is initiated, the program prepares a list of file locations that are known to be frequently targeted by malware. This includes running processes, programs that run at start-up and services. A hash of each file is then generated and sent to the Avira Protection Cloud.

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The Avira Protection Cloud servers then matches the hash with a list of known files hashes which allow them to identify whether the file is clean or infected. If an unknown hash is found, the file is uploaded to the Avira Protection Cloud where it is scanned using available technologies. Once the uploaded files have been scanned in the Cloud, the Client displays all available results.

Currently, there is no way of preventing files from getting uploaded to the online scanner. This function is necessary because sometimes the client program fails to identify legitimate programs and proceeds to upload them. If you are certain the file is clean you can skip it and thus save time and bandwidth. Unfortunately, this is not possible. Also, if you cancel the scanning in the middle of the process or your internet connection breaks, you’ll have to start all over again and that means re-uploading all those files.

It should be noted that the scanner doesn’t conduct deep scans. It only scans the most likely locations and only executable files and DLL files are scanned. The scanner also stays away from User directories and any personal folders, which are equally likely to contain infected files. To be honest, I don’t find cloud antivirus scanners to be of any practical use because of this very reason. A half-hearted scan is going to provide you half protection which is no good.

Avira has made no clear statement as to whether Avira Protection Cloud will be released as a free product or a paid product, but it does allude to being part of their “paid product offerings”.

[Giveaway] KeyLemon: Use Your Face as Your Password

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Facial recognition software has been around for quite some time. Google's Picasa image organizer has a built in face recognition system that can associate faces with persons. Apple’s photo organizer iPhoto has a similar feature. Facebook also included face recognition technology and the latest version of Windows Live Photo Gallery also included one. So far facial recognition has been used only for convenience purposes, as a mean to automate jobs such as image sorting and identification, but never as a security solution.

Industry leaders are now starting to see biometrics as a viable alternative to passwords. Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich has an optional Face Unlock feature that employs facial recognition software to unlock their phones instead of hassling with the traditional pin codes or pattern unlocks. Apple is also rumored to be working on facial recognition for their Mac operating system. Windows is not likely to have native biometric authentication any time soon; Windows 8 does include a pattern password feature though.

But Switzerland based software company KeyLemon has been offering affordable (and free) biometrics security software for personal computers for the last 5 years. KeyLemon offer a simple and convenient solution for users to login to their Windows computer and other web services using their face instead of a password.

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KeyLemon replaces the standard Windows logon screen with a KeyLemon login screen that connects to the computer’s webcam. Users can automatically login to their Windows computer by simply positioning their face in front of their webcam. If the computer has multiple users the software automatically logs the user into the right Windows account. When the user leaves the computer, KeyLemon automatically locks it and then unlock it when the user is back. When an unauthorized user attempts to login to the computer, their mug shots are recorded and saved for the owner to review.

Under good lighting condition, authentication takes barely a second allowing for quick logins that isn’t possible with tradition password based login. If due to bad lighting or some other reasons, KeyLemon fails to identify the user, the program allows the user to fallback to the default Windows password based login.

KeyLemon has been reported to be easily fooled by a smartphone recording of the face of the user. This is true, but the success or failure of this depends on the trade-off the user made between convenience and security when configuring KeyLemon. The program offers three security level – High, Medium and Low.

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High security offers maximum security with accurate facial recognition. A high level of correlation is required for authentication which demands adequate lighting. KeyLemon cannot be fooled by a video recording of the user’s face at this security setting. In the Medium security setting, a compromise is made between ease of use and authentication. At this setting, KeyLemon tends to get duped when a video recording of the user’s face is held in front of the webcam. The Low security setting offers the lowest security and should be avoided. At the lowest setting, even a still picture of the user can unlock the computer.

However, to prevent spoofing KeyLemon includes an anti-spoofing technology. When this is enabled, the user is required to blink his or her eyes to unlock the computer. The blinking action also needs to be made at a certain moment when the anti-spoofing icon lights up. This makes spoofing nearly impossible since not only the intruder will need to acquire a video of the user blinking but he or she needs to make sure the whole thing is accurately timed when played back in front of the webcam.

With anti-spoofing enabled, even the Low security level can provide adequate protection that cannot be easily bypassed.

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KeyLemon includes several plug-ins that enhances the program features, but unlike traditional plug-ins, they come preinstalled with the software. Currently four such plug-ins are available and they offer a range of interesting features.

The LemonDay plug-in allows one to archive every picture of himself or herself the webcam takes at logon and then stich them together to create a glorious time-lapse video. This is a fun way to track the evolution of one’s face with time.

The LemonLogin plug-in allows one to use themes on the logon screen and personalize it with their own background pictures.

The LemonLock plug-in automatically locks the computer when the owner is not in front of the computer. If an unauthorized person tries to use the computer there is an option to take a picture of them.

LemonFox is another plug-in that installs an add-on in Firefox that enables users to log in to three social-networking services using their Webcam. The supported websites are currently Facebook, Twitter and Linked In.

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To login into the social-networking simply open the supported website and KeyLemon will launch authentication. If facial authentication is successful, your login credentials are searched in the login manager of Firefox. If they are not already stored, a window asks you the credentials. Once you’ve entered your login username and password, these are stored in Firefox’s password manager. The next time you open the website, your face will be scanned and only when the authentication succeeds, you will be logged into the website.

KeyLemon comes in three flavors – Basic, Bronze and Gold. Basic is free to use but contains only Windows login with majority of features locked. Bronze contains more features than Basic but still lacks Hijackers Tracking, Security Levels, Anti-spoofing and LemonFox. Bronze is priced at around $20. The Gold version is the complete product and costs twice that of Bronze.

Thanks to KeyLemon, we have 5 Gold licenses to giveaway to our readers. If you are interested in entering this giveaway contest, simply leave your real name and email ID in the form below. Winners will be selected by a random draw. The contest closes on 22 July, 2012.

Microsoft Office 2013 Preview: Offline Installer

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Yesterday, Microsoft unveiled the latest edition of Microsoft Office – Office 2013, also known as Office 15. The version out is the Technical Preview which comes completely free of charge and is intended to get people familiar with the new version until the final version goes on sale.

The initial announcement directed users who wished to download and test Office 2013 to an online installer. But now you can grab the offline installer from Microsoft Technet.

Office2013

Unlike the web-based installer, there are certain limitations to the offline installer:

  • You cannot install and run multiple versions of office simultaneously. That means if you have Office 2010 or Office 2007 installed, you’ll have to remove it before installing Office 2013. Update: Apparently, this is not true. Office 2013 can be run alongside your current Office installation.
  • It also does not support the fast streaming feature.
  • It comes with a Product Key that you will need to active your Office installation with.

To download the offline installer and get your product key:

  1. Head over to TechNet Evaluation Center, scroll down the page and click on the link that says “Download the .msi package now”.
  2. Sign in with your Live ID, fill up the form, and click on Continue.
  3. On the next page you will get your product key for Office 2013.
  4. On the same page, you will get the download links for Office 2013, 32-bit or 64-bit version.

It is recommended that you download the 32-bit version because it is more compatible with existing add-ons.

The direct download links are given below. However, you still need to register on TechNet to get the product key. Both downloads are above 600MB in size. The downloads support pause and resume so you don’t have to worry about the your Internet connection breaking in the middle of the download.

Download Office 2013, 32-bit
Download Office 2013, 64-bit

[via SumTips]

Valve Confirms Steam for Linux

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Steam-LinuxAlthough I don’t write about Linux much, this is a news that is worth reporting – the game distribution platform/software Steam is coming to Linux. This is probably one of the biggest news in the history of Linux, and without exaggerating, because lack of games is one of the primary reasons that keep people away from this open source operating system. For more than a decade, we have been hearing about the imminent arrival of the “year of Linux on the desktop”. Seems like the year has finally arrived.

Yesterday, Valve launched the official Valve Linux blog and announced that work is underway on a port of Stream for Linux. Valve will be initially targeting Ubuntu 12.04 – Ubuntu being the most popular distribution and having recognition with the general gaming and developer communities - and the first game that has been confirmed for Linux is Left 2 Dead 2.

The goal of the Steam client project is a fully-featured Steam client running on Ubuntu 12.04. We’ve made good progress this year and now have the Steam client running on Ubuntu with all major features available. We’re still giving attention and effort to minor features but it’s a good experience at the moment. In the near future, we will be setting up an internal beta focusing on the auto-update experience and compatibility testing.

Gaming is one of the aspects of computing that is rather weak on the Linux platform. While there are many native games available on Linux, most of the popular Windows games are still aren’t available on Linux. It should be noted that games already run quite well under Linux via Wine – an implementation of the Windows API that runs on top of Linux, but with Steam getting behind the gaming scenario should get better.

[via Geek]

Comodo IceDragon: New Browser Based on Firefox with Enhanced Security

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Popular security software developer Comodo has developed a Firefox re-mix with focus on improving the default security features offered on Mozilla’s creation. Called Comodo IceDragon, the new browser is named similar to Comodo Dragon, their implementation of the Chromium browser with potentially privacy-compromising features removed. Comodo IceDragon is built on the Mozilla browser core and combines the basic functionalities of the original code with Comodo’s security features.

In this first release, the browser includes just two basic security features - Comodo Secure DNS and Site Inspector. Comodo Secure DNS is a DNS lookup service that employs malware detection and cloud-based scanning aimed to prevent malicious, harmful and scam sites from loading in your browser. The Site inspector is a malware scanning and blacklist monitoring service for websites. The Site inspector tool integrated into Comodo IceDragon is, however, a demand only scanning service. It doesn’t proactively protect the user from visiting malicious websites even if the website URL is blacklisted under Comodo Site Inspector.

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Comodo IceDragon also includes a social sharing button that allows users to quickly share links on different social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The social sharing button is readily visible in the toolbar next to the Site Inspector button. Thankfully, there is an option to hide both the buttons.

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Aside from the black and blue hues and some visual differences, Comodo IceDragon’s interface is identical to Mozilla Firefox. Users can enjoy the same sort of flexibility and customization as in Firefox, thanks to the support for Firefox add-ons. But users who take advantage of Firefox Sync to synchronize their data across multiple Firefox installation will have to sacrifice this functionality as Firefox Sync is absent in Comodo IceDragon.

Currently, there’s not much to write about Comodo IceDragon and the so called “security features” aren’t impressive enough to lure users from the massively popular Firefox browser. These features can be easily replicated in your current browser, no matter what, using system wide Comodo Secure DNS and any website blacklisting/malware scanning service. Firefox also doesn’t suffer from inherent privacy issues like Google Chrome does, which is one of the major selling point for Google Chrome clones such as Comodo Dragon and SRWare Iron.

The only selling point for Comodo IceDragon is security, but I see no reason why Firefox cannot be made more secure by third-party extensions.

PicBackMan Backups Your Photos to And From Multiple Online Services

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There are many services that offer online space for file storage and image sharing, yet surprisingly few people use them to secure their important files and precious memories. Often the reason for not utilizing these services is not because they don’t want to, but because they don't have the right tools and the time to take care of this. Take image sharing sites for example. How many of them offer a desktop application that allows easy uploading of files from the computer? How many of them offer synchronizing solutions? Aside from Google Picasa, I don’t believe there is any service that offer such a feature.

PicBackMan is a new software that addresses this need. This desktop program allows users to automatically backup all their pictures to multiple image sharing and file-backup services, thus helping people to create redundant backups without actually doing anything. PicBackMan conglomerates an assortment of services under one roof. These includes some of the most popular services like Flickr, Facebook, Instagram, Google Picasa, Dropbox, SmugMug, Box.net and SkyDrive.

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You simply let PicBackMan know where your photos are stored on your computer. Point to the folders where they are saved and connect your online accounts where you want to backups to be made and PicBackMan does the rest. It monitors the folders for new photos and backs them up instantly to the connected accounts that you have chosen. You can let PicBackMan monitor multiple folders and each folder can be configured to backup to a different set of services.

PicBackMan can also download photos from online services to your personal computer. At this moment, this feature is supported only on three services – Facebook, Instagram and Foursquare.

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PicBackMan is available for Windows, but Mac, iOS and Android versions are said to be coming soon.

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XBMC for Android Announced. Unofficial APK Available for Download

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One of the best media center application for Windows is now available on Android, the XBMC team broke the news last weekend. This is phenomenal development for those who use their Android devices primarily for media consumption because a full-fledged media center will allow them to enjoy their movies and music in a way that wasn’t possible on Android before. “And as Android-based set-top-boxes are becoming more and more ubiquitous, it couldn’t be a better time”, the announcement read.

XBMC for Android is not a remote or a thin client, it’s the real deal, and no rooted phone is required to run it. The feature-set on Android “is the same that you have come to expect from XBMC, no different from its cousin on the desktop”. This includes the dozens of add-ons that are available for the application.

However, XBMC for Android is designed for use on large screen devices such as a TV or a tablet, so use on a small phone can be clunky. There isn’t even a proper UI for small-screen devices.

While the release is “not quite ready for prime-time”, an unofficial APK is already available in the wild built from the source code which is available at github. Checkout the screenshots and the video demo below. For those not familiar with the application read the complete review of XBMC for Windows.

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[via XDA-developer’s forum]

One Year Ago: Instantbird, OSForensics, Excel Accelerator and More

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Now You Can Export Your Google+ Circles to Another Account

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When Google+ was launched in June last year, initially businesses and non-human entities were not allowed on the social network. They even terminated any business accounts that it spotted on Google+. But businesses wanted to be a part of Google+ from the start and so many businesses and brands started using regular Google+ accounts. A few months later when Google introduced Google+ Pages for business, many businesses found themselves with two Google+ accounts, and some were forced to abandoned their old accounts. On Thursday, Google launched a new tool that allows these businesses or any individual to migrate data from one Google+ account to another.

The tool, which is part of Google Takeout, the company’s initiative at making data portable, allows users to transfer their circles from one Google+ account to another and automatically forward followers to their new account.

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The transfer process needs to be started through Google Takeout, but the transfer doesn’t happen immediately. There is a seven-day wait period after which Google will take another two days to transfer the data over. During this period, users won’t be able to share anything on either of their Google+ accounts, add or remove people to and from their circles, and block or ignore people. An account transfer also affects people who have added these account profiles to their circles, as they won't be able to add, remove, block or ignore these profiles during the transfer.

When the transfer is completed, your circles, blocks, and ignores will be copied from the source account to the destination account. Your profile information, posts, and comments will not be not be transferred to the destination account. Similarly, authorship information and Google+ pages that you manage with your source account will not be transferred to the destination account.

At this point, you can choose to delete the source Google+ profile or let it stay.

More information on the transfer process can be found on the Google+ help page.

[via GigaOm]

 

 

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Rovio Releases New Game “Amazing Alex” for Android and iOS

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Rovio’s phenomenal success, the Angry Birds, now has a new brother - Amazing Alex. Released today on the Android and iOS platform, Amazing Alex is a physics based puzzle game that includes 100 levels, but unlike its sibling this time you have to cough up $0.99 cents to own it. However, a trial game with 16 levels is available for Android.

Amazing Alex employs a gameplay different from Angry Birds: instead of punishing pigs, you have to create Rube Goldberg-style machines by adding different parts like shelves, boxes or scissors starting with simple contraptions in the early levels to more complicated additions later on. While Angry Birds was a trial-and-error game throughout all the different versions, Amazing Alex requires creativity and planning to solve each level.

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Amazing Alex was not developed by Rovio from scratch. It used to be called Casey's Contraptions when Rovio bought it from the game developers Mystery Coconut last year. They touched up the graphics and introduced some Angry Birds-inspired structure.

An exciting aspect of Amazing Alex is that users will be able create their own "challenges" and share them with others.

Amazing Alex is available now for 99 cents for the iPhone and $2.99 for the iPad. On Android based devices it is available for 99 cents or $2.99 for the HD version. Rovio says that the game will be available to Windows Phone, Mac, and PC soon.

[via TheNextWeb and Softonic]

Two Great Ways to Listen to YouTube Music by Building Playlist

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youtube-logo-2According to a research conducted last year in UK, music videos drive nearly one-third of the total traffic to video sharing sites including YouTube, which because of it’s familiarity, is a popular place on the web to listen to and discover new music. Despite this there is no jukebox-like functionality on the website. You can setup playlist and channels but those aren’t easily created, requires registration and is such a hassle that it takes the fun out of music surfing. If you are among those who frequent YouTube solely to listen to music, here are two elegant solutions.

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Tunesicles is a mash-up of YouTube and Last.fm that makes searching for and listening to music on YouTube very convenient. The new service allows you to search for music on YouTube and build a playlist from the search results. It is possible to setup a large list of tracks within minutes. The playlist can also be shared with others via a unique URL assigned to each playlist. No user registration is required to use Tunesicles.

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You begin by typing the title of any song or name of any artist/album you want to listen to. Then from the drop down list select a suggestion. The results appear on another drop down list. Each entry on the result is accompanied by a “Add to playlist” button. Click it to add the song to the playlist. You can even add whole albums.

The video starts playing the instant it’s added to the playlist. The player controls appear at the bottom of the the playlist/website that allows you to play, pause and skip songs. An on/off button on the right darkens the entire screen except the playing video for a better viewing experience.

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Although not immediately apparent, the playlist is interactive: you can drag and drop the tracks to rearrange them, sort the playlist by song name, album name, artist name or track length. Double clicking on a track will play it. The track length is shown in seconds and not minute:seconds that requires you to do some calculations mentally. There are a few oddities and quirks like the search term disappearing when you click on the search field and layout misalignment in some browsers.

Youtify

Youtify is a more refined service and it combines, aside from YouTube, SoundCloud and Official.fm. Youtify’s elegant interface allows you to search for music across all supported services. The real time search brings you results even before you have finished typing the track or artist name. The results are categorized by their sources, viz. YouTube, SoundCloud and Official.fm. Simply right click on the results and then click on “Queue”.

Once you have finished adding tracks to the Queue, click on “Play Queue” on the left to start playing music. You can continue to add tracks to the queue while the music is playing.

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Rather than creating a queue, you can create a playlist. To create a playlist, enter a name and then drag and drop the tracks from the search results into the playlist. Unlike queues, tracks on the playlist can be reordered.

When a track is playing, the video from YouTube plays within a small window. There are player controls that lets you play/pause and skip. There is also a shuffle button.

Youtify is completely free and there’s no login required.

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