Nokia Lumia 925

Good News for fan of the polycarbonate frames of Nokia’s Lumia phones, the company’s latest device should make you stand up and cheer.

Nokia Lumia 925

Nokia announced the Lumia 925, its latest and arguably most well-designed smartphone of Nokia. A slightly upgraded follow-up to the Lumia 928, the Lumia 925 comes with a slimming, attractive aluminum frame. The device’s aluminum exterior reminds me of the HTC One, which we’re very, very fond of.

As far as specifications go, the 139-gram Lumia 925 comes with a 4.5-inch (1280 x 768) display, a dual-core processor, and a 8.7-megapixel camera that Nokia says takes sharp photos even in low-light situations.

In fact, of all the Lumia 925′s features, it’s that camera functionality that Nokia seems most intent on pushing. Along with the formidable camera hardware,the Lumia 925 comes with Smart Cam, and app that captures photos in bursts of ten and lets users chose the best shot. It’s a feature that we’ve seen in a number of recent Android devices, and one that should make the Lumia’s photography situation a pretty good one.

While the Lumia 925 clearly stands on its own hardware-wise, the one drawback with anything Lumia these days is the still-underdeveloped Windows Phone, which is preventing devices like the Lumia 925 from being an instant buy for me. Hopefully Microsoft can improve the situation — at least for Nokia’s sake.

The Lumia 925, which is being released globally, should hit T-Mobile at some point in June.

WordPress Dominates

Blogging

WordPress Leads

WordPress has made all users Blogging so easy with updates, new releases and pathes. WordPress has been a reliable blogging platform for many years and it keeps on going strong. It dominates the blogging platform after being used by 52% of the top blogs in the world.

With over more than 65 million WordPress sites in the world, the platform’s popularity can’t be contested, Pingdom writes.

The aforementioned source grabbed the list of the top 100 blogs in the world from Technorati and tried to identify which blogging platform or CSM the site uses.

Out of the 100 blogs, they managed to identify the platform in use in 94 of them.

Thus, immediately after WordPress, custom platforms were used by 12% of the blogs in the top. These are followed by Drupal, which scored 7% of the total.

Other names on the list include Gawker, TypePad, Blogger, and Tumblr.

For instance, Huffington Post, which is the top website, was built on a movable platform, while TMZ relies on Ceros.

However, Mashable and TechCrunch, which occupy the third and fourth places, were created on WordPress.

Glass to Facebook

Facebook has made its way to Google Glass. Sharing to Facebook, that is, in the form of a third-party app appropriately named “Glass to Facebook.”

Once connected to your Facebook account, the app lets you share pictures taken with Glass to your Facebook account. The process is exceptionally similar to the how the current third-party Twitter client works for Glass, in that it makes your Facebook account a contact with which you share photos.

Glass to Facebook.

 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Google’s Sergey Brin earlier this year that he couldn’t wait for Glass, which means we might see an official Facebook app come down the pipeline at some point as well.

 

 

Google Glass

Google Glass is a wearable computer with a head-mounted display (HMD) that is being developed by Google in the Project Glass research and development project, with the mission of producing a mass-market ubiquitous computer. Google Glass displays information in a smartphone-like hands-free format, that can interact with the Internet via natural language voice commands. While the frames do not currently have lenses fitted to them, Google is considering partnering with sunglass retailers such as Ray-Ban or Warby Parker, and may also open retail stores to allow customers to try on the device. The Explorer Edition cannot be used by people who wear prescription glasses, but Google has confirmed that Glass will eventually work with frames and lenses that match the wearer’s prescription; the glasses will be modular and therefore possibly attachable to normal prescription glasses.

Glass is being developed by Google X Lab, which has worked on other futuristic technologies such as driverless cars. The project was announced on Google+ by Project Glass lead Babak Parviz, an electrical engineer who has also worked on putting displays into contact lenses; Steve Lee, a product manager and “geolocation specialist”; and Sebastian Thrun, who developed Udacity as well as worked on the self-driving car project. Google has patented the design of Project Glass. Thad Starner, an augmented reality expert, is a technical lead/manager on the project.

Latest Updates of Google Glass

Owners of Google Glass are saying that Google is rolling out the device’s first software update, and changing the version name to XE5.

According to Phandroid, the update’s improvements include bug fixes, optimizations and improvements. What’s more, data syncing in the background now requires power and Wi-Fi connection, transcription of queries and messages is faster, and the battery-charge estimation has been improved.

As per the latest updates, the new features include incoming Google+ and Hangout notifications, with the ability to comment and +1 posts directly through Glass.

The update can be received over-the-air; to initiate it, the device must be plugged into a charger.

(Image courtesy of Google)

 

Karnataka PUC and SSLC Results

Karnataka Examination Results 2013
SSLC Examination Results 2013 Announced on 6th May 2013 at 12:30 p.m.
PUC Examination Results 2013 To BE Announced on 6th May 2013 after 05:00 p.m.

 

Meta Tags

Meta tags are a great way for webmasters to provide search engines with information about their sites. Meta tags can be used to provide information to all sorts of clients, and each system processes only the meta tags they understand and ignores the rest. Meta tags are added to the <head> section of your HTML page and generally look like this:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN”
“http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd”&gt;
<html>
<head>
<META NAME=”Description” CONTENT=”Author: A.N. Author, Illustrator: P. Picture,
Category: Books, Price: £9.24, Length: 784 pages”>
<META http-equiv=”Content-Type” CONTENT=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1″>
<META NAME=”google-site-verification” CONTENT=”+nxGUDJ4QpAZ5l9Bsjdi102tLVC21AIh5d1Nl23908vVuFHs34=”/>
<title>Example Books – high-quality used books for children</title>
<META NAME=”robots” CONTENT=”noindex,nofollow”>

Google understands the following meta tags (and related items):

<meta name="description" content="A description of the page" />	This tag provides a short description of the page. In some situations this description is used as a part of the snippet shown in the search results. More information
<title>The Title of the Page</title>	While technically not a meta tag, this tag is often used together with the “description”. The contents of this tag are generally shown as the title in search results (and of course in the user’s browser). More information
<meta name="robots" content="..., ..." /> <meta name="googlebot" content="..., ..." />	These meta tags can control the behavior of search engine crawling and indexing. Therobots meta tag applies to all search engines, while the “googlebot” meta tag is specific to Google. The default values are “index, follow” (the same as “all”) and do not need to be specified. We understand the following values (when specifying multiple values, separate them with a comma): noindex: prevents the page from being indexed nofollow: prevents the Googlebot from following links from this page nosnippet: prevents a snippet from being shown in the search results noodp: prevents the alternative description from the ODP/DMOZ from being used noarchive: prevents Google from showing the Cached link for a page. unavailable_after:[date]: lets you specify the exact time and date you want to stop crawling and indexing of this page noimageindex: lets you specify that you do not want your page to appear as the referring page for an image that appears in Google search results. You can now also specify this information in the header of your pages using the “X-Robots-Tag” HTTP header directive. This is particularly useful if you wish to limit indexing of non-HTML files like graphics or other kinds of documents. More information about robots.txt
<meta name="google" content="notranslate" />	When we recognize that the contents of a page are not in the language that the user is likely to want to read, we often provide a link to a translation in the search results. In general, this gives you the chance to provide your unique and compelling content to a much larger group of users. However, there may be situations where this is not desired. This meta tag tells Google that you don’t want us to provide a translation for this page.
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="..." />	You can use this tag on the top-level page of your site to verify ownership for Webmaster Tools. Please note that while the values of the “name” and “content” attributes must match exactly what is provided to you (including upper and lower case), it doesn’t matter if you change the tag from XHTML to HTML or if the format of the tag matches the format of your page. More information
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="...; charset=..." />	This meta tag defines the page’s content type and character set. Make sure that you surround the value of the content attribute with quotes – otherwise the charset attribute may be interpreted incorrectly. More information
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="...;url=..." />	This meta tag sends the user to a new URL after a certain amount of time, and is sometimes used as a simple form of redirection. However, it is not supported by all browsers and can be confusing to the user. The W3C recommends that this tag not be used. We recommend using a server-side 301 redirect instead.

Other points to note:

• Google can read both HTML and XHTML-style meta tags, regardless of the code used on the page.
• With the exception of verify, case is generally not important in meta tags.

This is not an exclusive list of available meta tags, and you should feel free to use unlisted meta tags if they are important to your site. Just remember that Google will ignore meta tags it doesn’t know.

Information available on Google Support

Google and Backlinks

Google values links when link building isn’t the center of attention or the entire game that it once was. Total Number: Very importantly, Google considers the total number of links a web site is having. This isn’t a particularly influential factor considering one good one from a high ranking, established, trustworthy site (more on this later) will be more valuable than thousands of spammy, low quality site links.

Number of Domains/Source: If a webiste is having thousands of links from the same site then it’s not really good and wont help the website to improve google ranking. For instance, if the majority of your links were all coming from the same sort of directory, Google is going to discount the influence of most of those links. It is found that some of the People argue that Google discounts influence after the first link from a particular site. Therefore, link diversity
is extremely important for any website, so the webiste should be getting links from all types of sites from directories to blogs to video sites and so on. Google can identify where your links are coming from not just from the sites themselves but through varied IP addresses, so a website can definitely want some links coming from different IP addresses around the globe as this suggests websites are getting links from different people.

Anchor Text: We all know about anchor text lately in terms of how important it is to vary up the anchor text which you use when creating links to your site. This works to keep websites link profile diverse and natural looking because a website is assumed to be linked from others site, that site is likely wouldn’t use the keyword you’re targeting on that page when pointing to your site.

Age: While some people believe that older links – links you’ve had for years pointing to your site – are more valuable and powerful than newer links you receive, when it is reference to “age” here it is referring to the age of the sites you’re receiving links from. Older, more established site links will be more influential whereas links from newer sites won’t make as much of an impact. This goes with the idea that older sites have more authority and page rank and Google trusts them more.

Variation: “Variation” here means, to once more drive home the point that diversity is important in terms of anchor text and source of links. It doesn’t stop there, however; variation is important in terms of image versus text, placement of them on the various sites linking to you (high up in the content is best as oppposed to sidebars or menu bars which are signs of link buying or exchanges), and dofollow versus nofollow links, as well.Years ago, Google said that only DoFollow links would pass influence. After hearing that, everyone began concentrating entirely on DoFollow and discounting going after No Follow links altogether. While a lot of webmasters still focus entirely on DoFollow, a lot of SEO specialists believe that No Follow links pass more influence than before because Google will do what is necessary to diminish the success of those who are trying to game or play to Google’s algorithm and reward those who are not.

Quality: Quality is still a factor as mentioned in opening. Receiving one link from a highly ranked and trusted site is far more valuable than thousands of links from spammy blogs. If one is going to spend time on trying to get links, they will have to focus on getting links from highly trusted and established sites which it’s difficult to receive links from because they’re more conservative in whom they link to. In this case, it’s less about “getting” links and more about “earning” links through techniques like creating and sharing link bait or guest blogging for them.

Another sign of quality is relevance, in that if one wants links from other sites which are relevant to their site. If one is getting one from a site about cars when their site is all about puppies, Google is likely going to discount the influence that it has as it is very likely that you created that link yourself because typically a webmaster of a car site would not link to your puppy themed site on their own. In keeping with the variation point, it’s all right to have a few links from irrelevant sites, but generally one will be staying in their niche.

Bad Links: On the other hand, the opposite of quality links, bad links will detract from and have an adverse effect on your ranking, so do what you can to limit the number of bad links pointing to your site.

Velocity: Link velocity refers to the rate and schedule at which you’re building links to your site. The key here is to make your link velocity look natural or, in other words, you shouldn’t get 10,000 links one month and 100 the next month. There shouldn’t be many curves in your velocity. You should continue to build more links each month than the one before it.

How to Keep your Android Safe – Tips

Android smartphones offer much in the way of choice and innovation. But the phones also have some serious security problems that need to be dealt with.

Here are a few tips on how to keep out intruders on your smartphone:

protect-your-andriod-phone

Make sure you tweak your internet security settings so intruders can’t steal private details, such as banking or work information. Access the settings to turn off pop-ups for a start.

Don’t download apps that aren’t from well-known or reputable brands. Google has already had to delete apps remotely from users’ phones because of malware – don’t let that happen to you.

Location-based apps are great, but they can also be a little uncomfortable for some users. Turn off location-based features to both save yourself some battery and the worry of being watched.

Lock your screen. If you lose your phone, make it harder for someone to crack into it – keep a lock on your screen with a code only you know.

Don’t underestimate the power in your hand
When it comes to your smartphone, you don’t always know the power you’re holding. Your phone is basically a computer, and it has the same limitations and weaknesses as any other computer. Take the same basic precautions you would use with a Windows PC — which means, first of all, installing anti-virus software.

Be careful where you get your apps
Stu Sjouwerman, founder of KnowBe4, a private security firm in Clearwater, Fla., says every Android user needs to be cautious about downloading and installing apps.

“Not all apps are friendly or safe. Some apps are evil,” Sjouwerman said. “Make sure you check out apps carefully before you install them on your phone or tablet. Also, be careful downloading free games for your phone.”

Don’t answer text messages from unfamiliar numbers
Text messages from unknown entities are best deleted, not answered. Otherwise, you might end up with malware.

Back up your data and add a remote-wipe feature
“God forbid your device has been lost or stolen, what should you do? What if the thief attempts to gain access to those embarrassing pictures of you?” Powers said. “No need to panic — there’s an easy fix.

“By adding a remote-wipe feature, you can erase those humiliating pictures (and all other data) remotely before the phone thief gets his grubby hands on them,” Powers said. “Unlike Apple devices such as the iPhone or iPad, Android devices do not natively incorporate features such as Remote Wipe and Backup.

“So instead choose third-party software from a reputable source designed to keep your data safely off your phone.”

Set your passcode or pattern lock
Use a passcode or pattern lock to protect your phone. If you’re choosing a numerical passcode, use more than the minimum four digits. Instead, use something long and complicated and you will be rewarded with greater security. As always, choose your passcode or pattern wisely.

Encrypt your data
Using encryption to keep data secure is an essential part of using any machine. By adding encryption, you give your data security a fighting chance.

“Encryption is known as the translation of data into a secret code. Before data may be accessed, a key or password must be entered,” Powers said. “For the sake of your data, it is extremely important to enable disk encryption.

“Enable data encryption by tapping Settings -> Security -> Enable Encryption. By enabling this option, you make it difficult for someone to pull readable data from your phone if the device is lost or stolen.”

Don’t do business on your phone
“Under no circumstances do any financial transactions on your phone,” Sjouwerman said. “Your credit-card data will travel over the air and can be compromised.”

It may be more convenient to use your phone, but it’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to your credit-card numbers and bank accounts.

Update your phone’s software as often as possible
“Many ask themselves, ‘Why should I update my device?’ The answer is quite simple: By keeping your operating system up-to-date, you will reduce the risk of security vulnerabilities,” said Sabrina M. Powers of SecureState, an information-security provider in Cleveland.

“Your Android device will usually prompt you when an update is available. Most Android updates are carried out ‘over-the-air.’ Therefore, it’s crucial that you are first hooked up to either your mobile network or Wi-Fi before initiating the update,” Powers said. “To check for updates, go to Settings -> System Updates -> Firmware Update.”

Tips to Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi

Regularly keep updating Anti-Virus Software:
Its a good practise to keep your anti virus software updated with latest updates. Always running up-to-date anti-virus software can help provide the first alert if your system has been compromised while connected to an unsecured network. An alert will be displayed if any known viruses are loaded onto your PC or if there’s any suspicious behavior, such as modifications to registry files. While running anti-virus software might not catch all unauthorized activity, it’s a great way to protect against most attacks.

Always Turn on you Firewall:
Its a good practise to keep your firewall to make work, ie it should be kept on always, it helps you in protecting your computer. Most OS’s include a built-in firewall, which monitors incoming and outgoing connections. A firewall won’t provide complete protection, but it’s a setting that should always be enabled. On a Windows notebook, locate your firewall settings in the Control Panel under System And Security. Click on Windows Firewall, then click Turn Windows Firewall On or Off. Enter your administrator password, then verify that the Windows Firewall is on. These settings are in System Preferences, then Security & Privacy on a Mac. Navigate to the Firewall tab and click Turn On Firewall. If these settings are grayed out, click the padlock icon in the lower left, enter your password, then follow these steps again.

Protect your passwords:
Using unique passwords for different accounts can help if one of your accounts is compromised. Keeping track of multiple secure passwords can be tricky, so using a password manager such as KeePass or LastPass can help keep you safe and secure. Both KeePass and LastPass are free, but they store your information in different ways. KeePass keeps an encrypted database file on your computer, while LastPass stores your credentials in the cloud. There are pros and cons to each approach, but both services are completely secure.

Confirm the network name:
Sometimes hackers will set up a fake Wi-Fi network to attract unwitting public Wi-Fi users. The Starbucks public Wi-Fi network might not be named “Free Starbucks Wi-Fi.” Connecting to a fake network could put your device into the hands of a malicious ne’er-do-well. If you’re not sure if you’re connecting to the official network, ask. If you’re in a café or coffee shop, employees will know the name of the official network and help you get connected. If there’s no one around to ask, you may want to move to a different location where you can be sure that the Wi-Fi network isn’t fake.

Use two-factor authentication:
Two-factor authentication means you need two pieces of information to log into an account: One is something you know and the other is something you have. Most often this takes the form of a password and a code sent to your cellphone.

Many popular websites and services support two-factor authentication. This means that even if someone is able to get your password due to a hole in a public Wi-Fi network, they won’t be able to log into your account.

To enable this feature for Gmail, log into your account and open the settings page. Navigate to the Accounts And Import tab and click Other Google Account Settings. The second section will be two-step verification, and you can click Settings to start.

First, enter your phone number and choose whether you’d like a text message or a phone call. Next, Google will send a six-digit code to your phone. Enter this when prompted. Now, whenever you log into Google from a new computer, you’ll be asked to verify your identity by entering both pieces of info.

The login process will now take a few extra seconds when you use a different device, but you can rest peacefully knowing that your account is safe and secure.

Turn off sharing:
If you use a laptop, you might have it set to share files and folders with other computers at work or home. You don’t want these settings on when you’re using a public network. Windows Vista, 7 and 8, make it simple to automate your sharing settings. When connecting to a public hotspot for the first time, Windows asks for a location type. Make sure you set it to “public.” This will automatically modify sharing settings for maximum safety.
On a Mac, go to System Preferences>>Sharing and make sure all the sharing boxes are unchecked. You’ll have to turn on the controls again when you want to file share on your home or work network. Don’t automatically connect to Wi-Fi networks. It’s handy when your smartphone, tablet and laptop automatically connect to your home and work networks, but that can lead to trouble when you’re out and about. Hackers often give their rogue hotspots generic names such as Coffee Shop, Linksys or AT&T Wireless. You want to be certain you are connecting to the router of the business.
Tweak your gadgets’ settings so you have to manually join networks in public. Then verify with a store employee that you are connecting to the correct network.
You might think that an establishment with password-protected Wi-Fi is safer, but that’s not the case. Passwords are good for keeping people out of your home network, but for public networks, anyone can join. Once a hacker is on, your gadgets are accessible.

Use HTTPS:
Regular websites transfer content in plain text, making it an easy target for anyone who has hacked into your network connection. Many websites use HTTPS to encrypt the transfer data, but you shouldn’t rely on the website or Web service to keep you protected.

You can create this encrypted connection with the browser extension HTTPS Everywhere. With this plugin enabled, almost all website connections are secured with HTTPS, ensuring that any data transfer is safe from prying eyes.

Get a VPN
The most secure way to browse on a public network is to use a virtual private network. A VPN routes your traffic through a secure network even on public Wi-Fi, giving you all the perks of your private network while still having the freedom of public Wi-Fi.

While free VPN services exist, a paid VPN service guarantees the connection’s integrity. If you regularly connect to unknown networks, setting up a VPN is smart to protect your personal information.

One VPN provider is Private Internet Access, which costs $6.95 monthly and allows for unlimited bandwidth and multiple exit points, which will let you choose which country your network traffic is routed through.

Security Patch Critical Cross-Platform Flaws

Logo – [Allowed to use only on this blog - Copyrights]

As per the recent information on may websites Adobe and Oracle have pushed out some patches for critical flaws found in ubiquitous programs that many consumers use, but may not even know exist.

As per Adobe’s latest update which was released on yesterday (i.eFeb. 20), patches a hole found last week that which affected Acrobat, Reader and Reader browser plug-ins. The flaw let some attackers crash computers and remotely run malware on both Windows and Mac OS X platform machines.

The attacks, propagated with spear-phishing emails loaded with malicious PDF files, marked the first successful malware sandbox escape from Adobe Reader.

When it works, sandboxing is an effective way of isolating an application’s processes from the rest of a computer’s infrastructure in the event that the file the application opens contains unfriendly code.

Before the patch, Adobe had categorized the flaw as highly critical and told customers to run Reader and Acrobat in “Protected View” mode to mitigate their risk. Protected View is read-only and does not allow execution of files until the user gives approval.

Coming on the heels of the announcement of several high-profile Java-based attacks against Twitter, Facebook and Apple — and perhaps dozens of other companies — Oracle’s latest patch for Java, released Tuesday (Feb. 19), may be anticlimactic.

The Twitter, Facebook and Apple attacks all took place in January and were the result of Java flaws that were patched by Feb. 1. This week’s patches are still rated critical, however, which mean they should be implemented right away.

Apple has a love-hate relationship with Java. The computer maker once insisted on doing its own Java updates, but then got into trouble last year when it didn’t update it fast enough and 600,000 Macs were infected as a result.

Then Apple decided to stop including Java in stock installations of Mac OS X, which protected Mac users from Java flaws unless they downloaded it from Oracle.

Apple’s latest software update entirely disables its own version of Java from Web browsers, sending all Apple users to Oracle if they want the browser plug-ins.

Unless you’re a software developer or you do a lot of Web-based conferencing, there probably aren’t a lot of good reasons to keep Java running in your browser. Many security experts recommend turning it off.