Competition is hotting up in the tablet market.  Despite, Steve Ballmer demo-ing a Windows 7 Tablet in advance of the Apple iPad launch, no Windows tablet has yet to be launched.  However, serious competition to Apple’s iPad is starting to emerge, based on Google’s popular Android operating system.

A strong contender for tablet of the year is the Samsung Galaxy Tab.  This super slim tablet from Samsung incorporates a very strong spec list, and looks beautiful in the flesh.

The Galaxy Tab  incorporates a 7 inch WSVGA screen, as well as four buttons on the front for home, options, back and search; similar to Android handsets.  Inside is a 1Ghz processor so it’s super-fast.  It has two built-in cameras – a 1.3MP front facing camera and a 3MP rear-facing camera.

Connectivity is well supported with 802.11n Wi-Fi, and 3G support is included in all models.

In terms of storage two sizes are offered, 16GB and 32GB.  However, both Galaxy Tab’s include a microSD slot so a further 32GB of storage can be added (of course, multiple microSD cards can be utilised so the iPad’s 64GB of storage can be exceeded)

To assist with the launch of the Galaxy Tab, Samsung have produced a series of videos.  My favourite is by a London-based photographer, who shares how he uses his Galaxy Tab:

To learn more about the Samsung Galaxy Tab, click here or visit their Facebook page here.

Sponsored Post

Viral video by ebuzzing

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For the last 6 years or so, I’ve been a Giganews user.  Giganews is the largest Usenet provider in the world, and although they might be a bit pricier than other services, the premium is worth it because of Giganew’s outstanding retention and speeds.

However, recently I’d been unable to get more than a few Kbps, yes Kbps, at certain times of the days on my Virgin Media connection.  My first suspicion was that Virgin Media have intensified their traffic management antics and I was correct.  After a bit of research I learnt that Virgin Media is now throttling port 563 traffic, which is the port that Giganews uses for it encrypted traffic.

Luckily Giganews had already produced a solution for users like me who are getting capped by their ISPs, by supporting port 443 traffic.  Port 443 is the port used by https traffic or 256 bit SSL encrypted traffic.  Capping this port is much more problematic (and probably suicidal) for ISPs, and after switching to this port I’m now getting consistent download speeds of 48Mbps from my 50Mbps service.

If you are using a different Usenet service to Giganews and are suffering from speed issues, I recommend that you consider switching to Giganews.  There’s even a 14-day Free trial to make the switch less painful.

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In a surprisingly short period of time, smartphones have gotten to the point where they’ve become an essential commodity in our everyday lives. Their versatility and impressive app market has made them indispensable tools for every sector from business to education. Try and think of something that you’d like to do and there’s probably an app that will perform that specific function along with a dozen other things.

As far as college students are concerned, whether you’re attending any universities or top online colleges, it’s hard to keep track of everything. It’s this same concept that inspired the creation of many useful applications. Educational apps is one of the biggest markets where developers are creating new ways for a college student to more easily manage their busy day and numerous demands. Great apps for college students include:

iStudiez Pro

This app was developed to help students keep track of their schedules, but does far more than that and allows users to do everything from organize their homework assignments to keeping track of their grades in each class. You can alter the settings to give you alerts when a test, assignment, or presentation is coming up. This app can be used for more purposes than just students. Teachers have also found iStudiez Pro useful to keep track of all the needs and upcoming events for classes. It can also be useful to parents who are keeping tract of their young child’s schooling. This app costs $2.99, which brings it in on the expensive side, as far as apps go. There are free options you can choose from if you’re wanting comparable features for managing your workload.

Wikipedia Mobile

This free online encyclopedia has gotten a lot of blow back from many in the education field due to the nature of the way the information is gathered. The site relies heavily on user contribution and is discouraged among many collegiate programs, yet it remains one of the most popular ways for students to gain a quick overview of an idea, period, or topic. Though there are some instances where the information has been called into question, Wikipedia is still an excellent source that covers the gambit of most any topic you can think of, and the app is free which is always a bonus.

Evernote

This application gives a fresh and improved approach to taking notes for classes. Evernote obviously would work for far more than just students, but it’s useful in almost any capacity. The goal of this app was to give users the ability to never forget a moment, idea, or quote. It can be used across many platforms and devices. You can do anything from creating text notes to snapshots of whiteboards or book text. You can capture almost any text or something that you want to remember for a later date. You can save web pages or any source material that might be useful when writing a paper or keep ideas for your next assignment. It’s an incredible note management system that’s perfect for anyone who needs to keep track of a dozen things at once.

If you’re in college or getting ready to head off to one, look at some of these apps to help you increase your performance in your educational exploits. If you check some of these apps out, you may find that they’re just as essential as a good pen, book bag, or computer. College students live a fast-paced and hectic existence that requires a lot, but you can lessen the stress by adding some management approaches through some of these apps. If these aren’t what you’re looking for, there are many more apps that you can choose from to get the most out of your college experience.

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Over the last couple of months I’ve worked hard to increase the loading speed of this site.  Part of this process was stripping out as many WordPress plugins as possible and I’ve managed to get down to using just 15 WordPress plugins.  Below you can see the 15 essential WordPress Plugins that I use.

After The Deadline

Adds a contextual spell, style, and grammar checker to WordPress. Write better and spend less time editing. Visit your profile to configure. See the Proofreading Support page for help.

Better RSS Widget 

Replacement for the built in RSS widget that adds an optional link target, shortcode_handler, and page conditionals.

I use this instead of the default WordPress RSS widget as I spotted that the WordPress RSS Widget pulls in the full text feed, which is a lot of maybe useless content for SEO purposes

Custom Post Templates 

Provides a drop-down to select different templates for posts from the post edit screen. The templates are defined similarly to page templates, and will replace single.php for the specified post. 

Dean’s Permalinks Migration 

With this plugin, you can safely change your permalink structure without breaking the old links to your website,and even doesn’t hurt your google pagerank.

I moved from blogware to WordPress many years ago, and this plugin ensures that links to old posts still work.

Disqus Comment System

The Disqus comment system replaces your WordPress comment system with your comments hosted and powered by Disqus. Head over to the Comments admin page to set up your DISQUS Comment System.

This plugin allows me to eliminate a handful of other WordPress plugins.

jQuery lazy load plugin

a quick and dirty WordPress plugin to enable image lazy loading.

I use this plugin to speedup the loading of my pages, by delaying when images are downloaded.

NextGEN Gallery 

A NextGENeration Photo Gallery for WordPress.

Redirection 

Manage all your 301 redirects and monitor 404 errors

SEO Auto Links & Related Posts

SEO Auto Links & Related Posts, a combination of related posts plugin and auto links plugin. The auto links feature will automatically convert related posts title, meta keywords and post tags into internal link. 

This is a new addition, replacing my old YARPP plugin.  It does everything I need like adding related posts (with thumbnails if so desired) to posts and feeds, but it also allows me to auto link important keywords to improve SEO.

SEO Friendly Images 

Automatically adds alt and title attributes to all your images. Improves traffic from search results and makes them W3C/xHTML valid as well.

SEO Slugs 

Removes common words like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘in’ from post slugs to improve SEO.

The Slide by SimpleReach

After installation, you must click ‘Settings ? SimpleReach Slide’ to turn on The Slide.

The results of this plugin have been fantastic and I’ve been achieved >5% CTR on some of my sites.  The team behind the plugin are very approachable, and even added in the ability to display the plugin on Pages as well as Posts after I requested it.

W3 Total Cache 

The highest rated and most complete WordPress performance plugin. Dramatically improve the speed and user experience of your site. Add browser, page, object and database caching as well as minify and content delivery network (CDN) to WordPress.

This plugin can be painful to use and configure, but is worth the effort.  If (correctly) configured it will significantly increase loading times.

WordPress SEO 

The first true all-in-one SEO solution for WordPress, including on-page content analysis, XML sitemaps and much more.

WP Smush.it

Reduce image file sizes and improve performance using the Smush.it API within WordPress.

Do you have any WordPress plugins that you can’t live without?

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I’ve just updated the Broadband Speed Test page, which I hadn’t realised had stopped working.  The test couldn’t be simpler to use; just click on ‘Start Speed Test’.

The test is one of the most accurate I’ve seen, so if you think you aren’t getting your full line speed, then use the broadband speed test results as ammunition to confront your ISP.

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One of my favourite features of Google Chrome is the extension synchronization.   Adding extensions to Google Chrome from the chrome web store is easy, and because Chrome adds new extensions in a very sensible way your toolbar never gets cluttered.  That is, unless you add dozens of extensions…..

If you are a Google Chrome user, here are Five Essential Google Chrome Extensions For Bloggers.

Webpage Screenshot

Quickly capture screenshots, including whole webpage.  Drawing tools available allowing annotations to be quickly added.

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Click & Clean

This plugin is principally designed as a security tool to remove your browsing history, cookies etc but I use it to check site changes have been applied correctly, which can be difficult if your site uses caching plugins or software.

More: Click & Clean

Picnik Extension

Picnik is a great online tool for editing images.  With this extension you can automatically transfer images from the current page to Picnik.

More: Picnik Extension For Chrome

SitezMeter

Checking out the competition?

More: SitezMeter

RSS Subscription Extension

I’m amazed this isn’t a default part of Google Chrome.  This extensions adds a RSS icon to the addressbar/omnibox allowing you to subscribe quickly to RSS feeds.

More: RSS Subscription Extension

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Latest stats for browser usage in the UK shows that the Google Chrome browser has overhauled Firefox, to become the second most popular browser behind IE.  22% of UK users now use Chrome, whilst 45% still use some flavour of Internet Explorer.  Globally, Chrome is the 3rd most popular browser with 20% market share.

The numbers don’t surprise me as Google’s share of the search market is higher in the UK running at around 80%.  Google have also been marketing Chrome very heavily in the UK; Chrome was the first ever Google product to be advertised on TV and has also been pushed heavily in display and print advertising.

Google Chrome has really taken over from Firefox the mantle of being the browser that your internet savvy friend will recommend you use.  It’s a real shame that Firefox have really lost their way.  I started using Firefox in 2003/4 after being introduced to it by the hardcore techies at the ISP I worked for.  The latest Firefox 5 just doesn’t have that air of superiority about it anymore, whereas Chrome is nice and clean and just gets the job done.   For me, not only is it the easiest browser to use (although I think the layout of some of the option windows isn’t the best), but the sync function works much better than the other browsers, or any 3rd party tools like Xmarks – all it is missing is the syncing of history and tabs.

What’s your main browser?  Are you still using Internet Explorer?

More: The Telegraph

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Google announced yesterday a new service designed to help speed up websites, Google Page Speed Service.  The new service works in a similar fashion to Cloudflare or a CDN, where requests for your website are diverted to Google rather than to the actual server where your site is hosted.

By doing so, Google are then able to control how your webpages are loaded and can apply several tweaks to improve the speed with which they load:

The beauty of this service is that although webmasters can apply most of these fixes themselves, it can be quite fiddly, and this could be a quick and easy way for novice webmasters to access these tweaks.  Google claim that speed improvements of 25%-60% can be achieved.  If you’re not sure if your site will benefit, then Google have provided a url to test your site.

The results page for this site is below:

According to the tests you can see that this site would load faster on repeat page views with the Google Page Speed Service.  A word of caution on these results though – although this site isn’t the fastest mainly due to the adverts I have to serve, in my own testing it loads a lot faster than in 6 seconds, so I don’t think this test is very accurate.  The overall test result is generally correct though as this site is already heavily optimised, and it was unlikely that Google Page Speed Service could improve upon this.

I have a suspicion though that it might still be beneficial for even optimised sites to be delivered via Google Page Speed Service.  Why?  Well, by signing up to the service all of your traffic will be going via Google, so Google should get a better view of visitor behaviour on your site, which I’m sure at some point will filter though to their ranking algorithms.

The service will be chargeable and Google say the price will be competitive; whether this will be in the $5-20/pm range of services like Cloudflare remains to be seen.  During the testing period Google are opening the service up to a limited number of webmasters free of charge. You can request access to the service by filling out this web form.

More: Google Page Speed Service

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I’ve tried several plugins to try and increase page views per visit over the years, and this month I think I’ve found one that works.

The Slide from Simple Reach pops up a very discreet little window in the bottom right of the screen, with a post recommendation related to the post that is currently being read. The Slide works with Wordpress, Drupal, Tumblr, Blogger and other sites by manually installing the code.

I’ve been running the slide for around 2 weeks now, and the results have been very good so far with an average CTR of just under 3%.  Of course, this doesn’t mean that my site traffic has gone up by 3% as some of these users might have clicked on another link anyway.  But, somewhere in that 3% is a genuine traffic increase which is good when you consider (i) The Slide is free and (ii) it doesn’t slow down pages as the javascript loads asynchronously.

The CTR continues to improve and I believe what is happening is The Slide is learning which posts have better response rates on which pages, and is adjusting over time what posts are promoted.  I believe this to be true because my sites that have more traffic have the highest CTRs due to there being more traffic for Simple Reach to analyse.

In the latest version of The Slide WordPress plugin, users can now customise the ‘Recommended For You’ text and also the colour of the link.

One disappointment I have with the slide is that it isn’t registering on all my pages and I’ve sent an email to the Simple Reach team to see if we can fix this.

More: Simple Reach

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A web site’s presentation is everything, especially at a time when a growing number of companies are committing more of their resources to different online approaches. This is due to a growing demand, among consumers and business, for more effective online business solutions.

Simply having a web site isn’t enough anymore. An online approach needs to be as multifaceted as any real world business model. The same can be said when a site is trying to add a multi-layered face to their site. Multimedia is a growing necessity for web sites, but before including these features, it’s important to take an intelligent approach to its inclusion.

Web sites often fall victim to using poor integration methods. If you are wanting to put videos on your site as an available feature then, by all means, do so. However, never have the video set to auto-play. Many sites do this as a way to actively engage the viewer, but this is a really poor approach. If a person feels as though they’re being forced to watch a video, they’re going to do everything they can to stop it from playing. This is just a natural instinct to unsolicited information. You want a user to use the media naturally. They have to choose to watch it, otherwise you’re going to lose many potential customers to what they see as annoying media that relates far more to a pop up ad than useful information.

Another big novice mistake that even some of the big guys make is not making their media assessable across several OS platforms. This issue comes in when a video is built on a specific OS. The video will work great for anyone using that same system, but if they try to use anything else, it’s not going to play right. Most businesses and individuals don’t know that videos are not platform independent. Before you launch a video on a site, play it on as many operating systems and browsers as possible. You also have to consider smartphone users now, so keep that in mind. If you don’t, and a majority of people can’t get to what you’re posting, it will make your site look amateur.

Applying Multimedia is much different from setting up a normal web site. Multimedia takes up far more bandwidth than a site without media, and causes problems when video files are larger than the image files causing the video not to load. If you’re worried about hosting or size needs, you should use a San Diego Online Video Platform that will help you fulfill your media and bandwidth needs. Video platforms are great to use because they keep your site’s bandwidth free, allowing it to continue to run properly.

Employing multimedia features on your website will also be worth the investment. People, as the years pass, crave more and more interaction with technology, and a multimedia site satiates that craving – keeping users engaged and your site traffic increasing.

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Over the last two months I’ve made numerous changes to this site to improve the time it takes to load pages.  My pages aren’t superfast because of the time it takes to load the ads I need to load to generate income, but they do now load in a respectable amount of time.

I’m going to write a series of posts sharing the changes that I’ve made.  The most recent change I made was to implement Lazy Loading.  When you visit sites such as mashable.com or browse via your iPad or iPhone, you may have noticed a brief shimmer around images as you scroll down the page.  This is because images that are below the fold i.e. below the initial visible portion on your screen, are not loaded until they are visible on the screen.  This makes the initial pageload faster for users as they don’t load images below the fold until they reach them.  It will also save on bandwidth costs, as unnecessary images are not loaded.

There are a few wordpress plugins that implement Lazy Loading, but the one I’ve used is the jQuert Image Lazy Load WP Plugin.  I chose this particular plugin the other plugins caused issues with some images loading; the lazy load plugin allowed me to control which images were lazy loaded by opening the “jq_img_lazy_load.php” file in the plugin editor and changing:

jQuery("img").not(".cycle img").lazyload{

to:

jQuery("#div1,#div2").find("img").not(".cycle img").lazyload({

Where div1, div2, div3 etc are the IDs of the content divs or sections of your site that you want the lazy load plugin to work in e.g. for my site I have:

jQuery("#entry,#lazybottom,#lazybottom2,#disqus_thread,#woo_embed-2,#woo_embed-3,#footer-widgets,#footer,#lazymagazine,#archiveimage").find("img").not(".cycle img").lazyload({

As you can see, I created a few extra divs just for the lazy load plugin to further control when the plugin is utilised.

If you have an image intensive site, then I definitely recommend that you implement this tweak.

More: jQuery Image Lazy Load

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In part I of my increasing Adsense Revenues series, I covered how to optimise revenues if you are using more than one adsense banner per page.

In Part II, I’m going to explain how DFP helps you maximise revenue from unsold inventory and how this can allow you to run more than 3 Adsense units per page, without breaking Google’s T &Cs.

DFP is a fully fledged ad serving platform that allows you to run multiple creatives with various targeting and pricing mechanisms:

• Pricing: CPM, CPC, CPD and Sponsorship mechanisms are all supported
• Targeting: Creative rotation, frequency capping, geotargeting and custom variables all supported

You can have more than three ad slots enabled  for AdSense on a single page if the following criteria is met:1. The ad slots are not exclusively showing AdSense, and other line items are rotating through the slots.
2. If at any time, you have three slots that exclusively show AdSense, and no other line items are targeting the slots, then it is your responsibility to disable AdSense on your other slots in order to adhere to the AdSense Terms of Service. For example, say you have five ad slots on your page. All of them can be enabled for AdSense IF you have line items targeting the slots.

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Google Adsense is the advertising network of choice for many bloggers as almost every site is eligible to join, a wide range of ads are available and good geographic coverage is offered.  Used correctly, Adsense can match and even outperform other networks.

I’ve had some success using Google Adsense over the years, and I’ve decided to write a series of posts to share with readers how I’ve used Google’s DoubleClick For Publishers Small Business Product to increase my adsense earnings, as well as other tips on how to increase Adsense revenues.

DoubleClick For Publishers Small Business (DFP) is a free ad serving platform that allows publishers to serve banners from multiple sources.  It is a fully featured solution that allows geo-targeting, capping, ad prioritisation etc.

As you can see from the diagram above, DFP can be used to serve Adsense ads.  These ads are created within DFP i.e. you don’t have to go into Google Adsense to create a banner slot and cut and paste the code into DFP; DFP creates the adsense code for you.  Delivering your Google Adsense ads via DFP will increase your adsense income.  How?  Well, to explain why I first need to explain how Google Adsense delivers ads.

How Google Adsense Prioritises Ads

Let’s assume:

• We have a typical website with three sections – a header, a primary content area and a sidebar on the right
• We have 3 ad slots all running Adsense ads – one in the header, one in the primary content and one in the right sidebar
• Each banner slot contains 3 adsense links

I’m now going to explain why using DFP not only allows you to place your adsense banners anywhere you like, but why it will also increase your revenues.

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Several months back a few publications ran stories that went after the claims by AT&T that they were providing phones and service that could be defined as “4G” when these phones were in fact not quite 4G.

Since the HTC 4G Android phone lineup is expanding, it’s a good time to find out what 4G really is, and whether or not any of these companies are attempting to deceive consumers in anyway. The mission actually drove me to try and get an answer to the even bigger question of what exactly defines the difference between 2G, 3G, 4G, et cetera.

It turns out that the ITU-R, or the International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunication Sector, is who decides what defines the difference between mobile technology generations. They base these titles on speed-while-mobile versus speed-when-still: when the ITU-R decided what can be considered 4G, they defined it as devices that can receive/relay 100 Mbit/s when in fast motion such as a train or car and 1Gbit/s when the user is walking or sitting down. They also outline expectations for security.

But there is no such thing as definitive “3G” or “4G” – these are for all intents and purposes simplified differentiations utilized by mobile phone marketers. Everybody more or less runs on their different methods of achieving the speeds and security necessary to be considered “3G” or otherwise. This has created some serious room for debate among many people who consider the definition as nothing but an authoritative-sounding marketing ploy.

The reason being that companies, being left to their own devices to achieve the necessary requirements to be called 4G, are releasing phones marketed as part of the 4G that are in fact simply highly-advanced 3G technology. But that, they would argue, is the nature of the beast. Nobody can pinpoint when exactly a phone or a service enters a new generation. Whenever parts of the 4G achievement are met, that’s often good enough for a company such as AT&T to potentially pass along a phone marketed as 4G that might be a little bit faster than the average 3G phone and reach 1Gbit/s, but is actually not what the ITU-R would classify as 4G

The ITU-R, like most facets of the UN, is not a governing body as far as individual nations are concerned, so there’s virtually no illegality in a company calling their phones and networks 4G. You have to do your research before buying a phone marketed in such a way. Many are as strong as the ITU-R has defined as 4G, but it’s still uncharted territory and it can be argued that none are yet truly 4G because such a thing, 3G, 4G, or otherwise, doesn’t really exist in the first place. It’s just a guideline, one you should use when choosing the latest generation of smartphone and service.

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I’ve recently been getting a lot of emails from people wanting to write guest posts for Connected Internet.  I’m happy to say that I’m now accepting guest posts, and I’m hoping to publish one or two every week.

Writing guest posts is a good way to reach out to new readers, and to potentially get experience of writing for a bigger audience.  I’m opening this up to all readers, so you don’t have to be a successful blogger to participate.  You might not even have your own blog; you just fancy submitting a post or two and seeing your name on the web.

If you’re interested in submitting a guest post, then please read my Guest Post Guidelines.

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Malaysian government sites reported that they were the victims of the most recent hacker attack. No one is for certain as to why the online world has seen such activity on the part of hackers. There’ve been reports all over the world from different countries, companies, and web sites that are seeing an upswing in these malicious attacks. News from Tokyo came out recently that the server for Nintendo’s U.S. web site was hacked. Though absolutely no data or information was compromised, it still causes room for concern. The attack on Sony Corp.’s PlayStation Network was far less benign. Hackers breeched the company’s site and stole over a hundred million-user account details. Even the U.S. Government has voiced concerns about recent attacks.

Malaysian officials stated that the attack that took place was a part of an attempt to hack 51 different government web sites. It was also released that 41 of those attacks were successful in disrupting services. It is still unclear as to the level of damage that’s been caused when the sites’ security were compromised. The nature of the attacks is still unclear but government officials stated that, “We do not expect the overall recovery to these websites to take long as most websites have already recovered from the attack.” This is good news but trouble all the same.

No group has come forward to take credit for the attack but one group, “Anonymous”, said that this attack was in response to the Malaysian government blocking some web sites. It was further explained that, earlier this week, Malaysia began censoring films and TV shows and is blocking access to some file-sharing sites that, some have argued, is a denial of basic human rights. It’s uncertain if this is the real reason for the attack nor is any government clear on how to proceed.

Malaysia hasn’t been the only government to find themselves at risk. It seems that wherever the people are, that’s where the hackers go. Even the U.S. Government has released reports in the last several months of attacks on its sites in the attempts to access sensitive materials. In fact, the American government has taken this so seriously that, as MSN reported, the U.S. has decided that hacking can be considered an act of war.

As governments, businesses, and citizens are looking at the reports, this global trend raises serious questions about, not only to our online security, who is coordinating these attacks. These attacks have come on the heels of, what seems to be; a global movement as one country, company, and business is attacked after another. It’s making the world wonder if there’s anyone safe. It’s become increasingly important for sites to make their online security and data storage a number one priority. There are companies around the world, like San Francisco Data Center, that securely offer power and connectively capacity to support any level of need. Even with that said, the world is going to have to redouble it’s efforts to fight this growing tide of hacker attacks.

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One of the nice features in Google OS is the guest mode that automatically defaults to Incognito mode.  This means that guests to your home don’t have to worry about revealing what websites they’ve visited or any of their private information.

If you want to recreate a similar effect on your PC i.e. each time you start Google Chrome it automatically starts in privacy mode, then this is easy to achieve:

1. Right-click on the icon(s) you use to start Google Chrome and click on ‘Properties’
2. In the window that opens up find the target line and at the end of the current entry add ‘–incognito’ at the end of the entry.  Remember to leave a space between …chrome.exe and –incognito
3. Click Ok

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For various reasons media databases within Windows can get corrupt.  Symptoms include music and other files never appearing in the library, incorrect artwork, changes made not registering etc etc.  Both Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player run off the same database, so errors in one will be seen in the other.

To fix the Windows Media Player database do the following:

1. Go to Start and type ‘services.msc’ into the search box.  This will start Windows Services
2. Scroll down the list of Windows Services until you find Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service.  Select it, and then in the top left hand of the window click on ‘stop the service’.
3. Now open Windows Explorer and go to ‘\Users\YOUR USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player’ replacing ‘YOUR USERNAME’ with the name of the user who’s database you want to reset.
4. Now in the folder you’ve opened, sort by filetype and delete all the Windows Media Library files.
5. Go back to stage 2 and restart the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service

Now, when you restart Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center the database will rebuild and your files will start to appear.  Be patient as this might take a while, but once complete your media database will be free of errors.

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I don’t intend on queuing for 5 hours this year to get my iPhone 5, but I almost certainly will be upgrading to the latest iPhone as soon as possible.

I’m coming up to my second anniversary as an iPhone user, and here are the new features and improvements I’m hoping the iPhone 5 will include.

My iPhone 5 Wishlist

Universal Inbox

Please Apple, a universal inbox for SMS, mail and voicemail that stores logs for all contacts with address book entries in one location.

Wireless/OTA iTunes Synchronisation

Having to hook my iPhone up to my PC every time I want to sync it is ludicrous in this day and age.  I’d almost settle for being able to sync wirelessly on my home network, but full wireless sync is a must for me.

Quicker Access To Camera

One of my big pet hates with my iPhone is the length of time it takes to get to the camera.  When I see something I want to capture I have to press the home button, slide to unlock, enter my pin, click on the camera app and then press record…by the time I’ve done all this the moment has gone.  What would be great is a one touch way to get into the camera, either via a dedicated button or a keystroke combo.

Better Battery

I know that as smartphones become more and more powerful the power requirements will increase, but what I really want is a phone like my Sony Ericsson T68 back in 2001 which I only needed to charge twice a week.  At the moment my iPhone is lasting on average 1.5 days on a full charge which is ok, but I want more!

Improved Notifications

The notification system on Android is so much better than on iOS.  What I want is a way to see all my notifications in one place, rather than having to click on every app individually.

Richer Lock Screen

Prior to switching to an iPhone, I had a Sony Ericsson X1 Xperia.  What I miss the most is the Windows Mobile ‘Today’ screen that provided a quick snapshot of my world. What I’d really like is a richer lock screen with a similar experience on the iPhone 5.

NFC Support

I rarely use cash and I try to use my Amex card as often as possible.  It’d be great if I could speedup more of my transactions just by using my phone.  What would be even better if is I could store the details of my loyalty cards in my phone, as I don’t tend to carry these with me as I like to keep a slim wallet.

What features would you like to see in the iPhone 5?

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I’ve been using an amazing computer program from DVBlogic in my home for just over a year that has transformed the way we watch tv within our household.  I have a very connected home and since 2007 all of my music, videos, dvds, blu-rays and photos have been stored on a central machine.

Now with DVBlogic DVBLink I’ve been able to add live and recorded tv to this equation, which are now shared not only within my home but also online, allowing me to watch any of my shows through a browser or on my iPad or iPhone 4.

Initially I had DVBlogic running on a Windows Home Server, but in the last year my ‘server’ machine has been running Windows 7 to reduce costs as I ditched WHS when I realised the new version would still not have Media Center integrated (I now have one machine storing the files and connected to my main TV, rather than one machine storing the files via WHS and a second running Windows 7 Media Center connected to a TV).

The diagram below best shows how DVBlogic works:

My ‘server’ is represented by the PC on the left, which is connected to my main TV.  Within this machine I have 4x Hauppauge  WinTV-Nova-HD-S2 TV cards each taking a feed from my Satellite.  DVBLogic’s TVSource product uses these cards and makes both the SD and HD channels available within Windows Media Center with full support e.g. guide listings, live tv, pausing tv, scheduled recordings etc etc.

My Four TV cards allow me to watch or record up to four channels at once.  There’s no limit on how many cards can be added and DVBLink TVSource even allows different types of cards to be mixed i.e. Satellite, Cable and Terrestrial TV channels can all be used together as DVBLink intelligently merges these channels.   TV cards that aren’t directly supported by Media Center such as DVB-C cards can also be used via DVBLink TVSource.

The real power of TVSource is unlocked though, when it is combined with DVBLink Network Pack which is depicted by the right-hand side of the diagram above.  Network Pack allows the tv cards on your PC to be shared with other devices including other Windows Media Centers. Without Network Pack if you wanted to watch live TV on other Media Centers, then each media center needed to have its own tv cards installed.  Now, TV cards installed on one PC are shared with other PCs.

In my household for instance, we have 4 Media Centers each running W7MC.  Network Pack serves up 4 virtual tuners for each of these machines, so across my home we can record and watch up to four shows at once.  So in room 1 we could be watching BBC1 HD and recording Sky 1, in room 2 my daughter could be watching BabyTV and in room 3 I could be recording the football – i.e. up to four channels streamed from one PC to the others.  Network Pack also manages tuner sharing so if two or more rooms are actually watching the same channel at the same time, only one tuner is used rather than two.  Using Recorded TV Manager 3, any recordings made are copied over to the ‘server’ allowing them to be watched from any machine at a later date.

UPNP enabled clients such as Sony Playstation 3 and almost any internet connected device such as ipads and iphones are also supported. Streaming live tv requires a reasonably powered PC, but if you find your PC struggling then there are settings available to reduce the picture quality.   The software is so fantastic that you can even use the online service to schedule recordings that you’ve realised you’ve forgotten or are going to miss because you are running late.

All of this costs just over 40 euros; an amazingly low price for such a great piece of software that is constantly being updated by the developers.  If you have more than one PC in your home or just want to be able to watch your TV online then investing in DVBlink is a no-brainer.  If you’re not sure if DVBLink is right for you, then you can try the product out free for 30 days.

More: DVBLogic

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Over the last month I’ve been testing a MiFi Mobile Broadband device that has been lent to me from Three.  This small dongle sized device connects to the Three mobile network and creates a Wi-Fi hotspot  that can be connected to by up to five devices at once.  For the first week or so it remained in its box as I was too busy to test it, but then my world turned upside down.

In terms of internet connectivity at home I’m normally well served by my Virgin Media 50Mbps connection which is normally ultra-reliable.  However, suddenly last month Virgin had a network fault which knocked out my connection for around 10 days; a total disaster for a homeworker like me.   For the first day I totally forgot that I had the Three MiFi device sitting on my desk, but after spotting it on the second and getting it up and running it proved to be a godsend.

Setting up the device was simple. The MiFi itself is small enough to fit comfortably into a pocket measuring around 9x5x1cm, although we positioned it near a window to try and get the best possible mobile internet connection.   There is only one button on the device – to turn it on and off.  Once it’s on, the device automatically connects to the Three network and creates the mobile hotspot i.e. no configuration is needed.

Once up and running the front of the device has a small status screen providing information on:

• 3G signal strength
• Network speed: 3G or the faster HSDPA
• Wifi connections: how many devices are connected to the modem
• Battery charge level
• Data used: usage in MB per session

Speed

I was pleasantly surprised, no make that very surprised, by just how fast the Three MiFi was.  I’ve been with O2 for nearly two years and the only reason I chose O2 was because at the time they were the only network offering iPhones.  Since then I’ve learnt the hard way that O2′s mobile internet speed is shockingly slow, partly due to having more data hungry iPhone users than other networks.  However, I was shocked when I saw first hand just how slow the O2 network was compared to Three’s.  With the MiFi device I was able to browse the internet without really noticing that I wasn’t using my fixed line connection, or that I was sharing the connection with my wife.  This wouldn’t be possible with my iPhone 4 acting as a mobile modem, or using my O2 dongle (which of course can only connect one device at a time).

To compare the speeds of Three and O2 I installed Speedtest.net’s mobile app on my iPhone 4 and compared the results of connecting directly to the O2 network Vs connecting via the Three MiFi Unit.   On the O2 network my download speed averaged around 0.9-1.1Mbps and upload around 0.3-0.5Mbps, whereas Three averaged 2.2-2.6Mbps for downloads and 1.4-1.6Mbps for uploads.  That’s a huge difference!  My O2 contract is up in two months and I will be definitely switching to Three based on these results.

So what didn’t I like about the MiFi?

• The battery life wasn’t the greatest in terms of both usage and standby.  If I were a true mobile worker, the device wouldn’t have lasted a full day without a recharge and I’m sure I would get a bit frustrated trying to find charging points daily and having to charge it every night.
• I also had occasional problems connecting to the internet via the device – the MiFi would say that it was online, but I wasn’t able to go online with my laptop.  I’m sure though that this was probably related to my review unit, rather than this problem affecting all devices.

All in all, I think the MiFi is a great device and could be a worthwhile investment at £71.99 if you have more than one mobile device in your household.  For this price, not only do you get a dongle free mobile internet connection for your devices that can be carried in your pocket or bag, but you can also connect up to five devices at once.

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Our exposure to technology has not been incremental. We interact with it on an increasingly personal level and it seemed, that with the invention of the computer and Internet, things would only get faster, not stranger. We can now surf the web from practically any point on the globe and stay connected with anyone, anywhere. We can do everything from a little reverse phone lookup to compiling terabytes of data in an instant. Changes in the field of technology have been quick and noticeable as well as exceedingly smaller. It appears that this trend will continue and, in order to notice the changes to our technology in the coming years, one will require the assistance of a microscope to see it.

Nanotechnolgoy is likely to be a benchmark of our collective future. If you’re not familiar with nanotechnology it is, in essence, the science of very small things. Usually smaller than a hundred nanometers, which is really small. A hundred nanometers is the about the equivalent to a thousand atoms across. It appears that bigger isn’t always better and scientists are still trying to understand how pervasive this front in tech development will be. Nanotechnology is a very new science but once it starts to be applied it will evolve fast and will likely affect every aspect of our lives. Whether it is the medial field, to science research, to computers and cars, a new world is about to break through and many people don’t even realize it.

The process behind it is actually simple. It works on the premise that carbon is one of the most versatile particles in the universe. When you get small and take them down to the atomic level, very interesting things start to happen. If you take atomic carbon particles and arrange them in different ways, you get extremely different outcomes. Arranging carbon one way will give you diamonds. Another will give you graphite. The possibilities are limitless and through the use of nanotechnology we’ll, soon be able to alter the atomic ordering of things. In essence, reshaping the very foundation of creation.

It seems that the application process is starting small with a simple battery approach. Apple is currently devising a way to introduce nanotechnology into its power source for future iPhones. Apple hopes to completely get rid of the need to replace batteries. It works by taking the granules inside a battery that are a nanometer in scale, and use nanotechnology to recharge your battery using nothing more than kinetic energy. Scientists also hope to make a battery charge faster and last longer, if not indefinitely. You might even be able to charge your iPhone with as little as the heat/vibrations that comes from the users heartbeat.

This isn’t just for phones and will likely replace older computer systems in a mater of a decade or so. The silicon transistors in your computer will probably be replaced by carbon nanotubes. They will likely power, run, and process your computer and it’s information on a microscopic scale. Eventually everything’s just going to get smaller and smaller and rarely ever need to be recharged.

Eventually, scientists are hoping to develop a way to make nanotechnology self-replicating. This means that, in essence, this would create a self-sustaining mechanism built around cloning itself over and over again towards achieving a specific task. This is likely to be used to great success in diagnosing and operating on patents in the future and will probably extend our life spans by several years if not decades. This isn’t to mention how different the world is likely to look in the next 20 years.

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Didn’t Peter Crouch play like a robot last night? Stick to dancing Peter.

Tonight we see the two remaining English teams meeting in the champions league quarter finals, and I feel Chelsea V Man Utd is going to be a classic.  I’m tempted to put money on Torres scoring his first goal for Chelsea.

If you want to watch tonight’s match on your PC for free, then follow this guide to Sopcast and you’ll be watching tonight’s quarter final within minutes.   The guide can also be used to setup Sopcast to  watch matches from other tournaments, even those that are not being broadcast live in your country.  This includes tonight’s other game featuring Barcelona V Shakhtar Donetsk.

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The time has come for another major challenge for my team Spurs, when we face the mighty Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter finals.

If you’re not lucky enough to be able to watch the game on TV then you can watch the Real Madrid V Tottenham Champions League quarter final match for free by following this guide within minutes using Sopcast.  The guide can also be used to watch tonight’s other game featuring Inter Milan V Schalke 04, and tomorrow’s games:

• Barcelona V Shakhtar Donetsk
• Chelsea V Man Utd

I think we might just nip this one, as so far we’ve shown no fear in matches.  I’ve got the place to myself, so there’ll be no interruptions from my wife or daughter.  Let’s hope that tottenham’s defence can shackle Ronaldo and Co, letting Gareth Bale and Van der Vaart to do their damage at the other end.

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Once again I have to take my hat off to Apple for generating such a massive buzz around a new product launch.  Last month we had the mobile world congress, where for three days nearly every (other than Apple of course) mobile and tablet manufacturer showed off their upcoming 2011 products.

If you didn’t watch the usual tech shows, blogs and websites you wouldn’t have known about this event.  Yet, this morning every mainstream news channel had the iPad 2 launch on their front pages and lead items.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the original iPad; I’ve been a proud owner of an iPad for around 5 months and I also use an iPhone 4 as my main phone.  But, I do find it bizarre that Apple have created such a dominant position in the market that most people aren’t even aware of the strong competing products.  When the iPad came out it was fairly unique and created a whole new market sector, but now it doesn’t have a clear run at the market with some great Android and Windows 7 Tablets available vying for potential buyers.

The iPad 2 is an improvement over the original iPad, being thinner, lighter and faster without an increase in price.  But, I don’t think the increase in specification is enough to make current iPad users want to upgrade:

• Addition of cameras: Lots of my friends have iPhone 4s, but I think I’ve only used facetime around a dozen times – adding a camera to an iPad isn’t going to increase this usage.  I also don’t think I’d ever take a picture with my iPad as I use my phone which is much more accessible
• Faster processor: Only useful if you’re playing the latest games
• Thinner & Lighter: My iPad gets chucked in a bag when I’m travelling, so saving a few grams means I can carry an extra packet of sweets in my hand luggage

I personally will hold off on an upgrade until the iPad 3 comes out, as I’m sure by then the original iPad will struggle to run whatever version of iOS Apple are up to by then.  I will probably be in the minority though;  Mashable are reporting that the secondary market for iPads has already taken a hit, as users attempt to offload their unwanted iPads.  Apple of course are also doing their best to whip users into a frenzy by shifting the launch time from the usual 8am slot to 5 o’clock in the evening, ensuring that there will be mile long queues outside Apple stores on March 11th.

Will you be joining the throngs?

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Many of us are trying to save costs in as many areas as possible.  I personally have run through just about everyone of my utilities, hobbies etc this year to see if savings could be made.  One area where I haven’t been able to make savings is with my mobile contract, as I’m tied to O2 for another 9 months on a 24 month contract.  When my contract expires I will definitely be looking at moving to a SIM only contract, as I’m more than happy with my iPhone 4 and I doubt I’ll want to upgrade until iPhone 5 comes out in 2012.

Why a SIM only contract?  Because they tend to offer better value contracts with more minutes and texts for the same price or lower, because you don’t get a new discounted handset with the tariff, where some of the cost of the handset is added into your monthly payment.  Instead you get a new SIM card to insert into your existing phone handset.  You can even keep your existing phone number and 30 day contracts are also available.

http://www.simonly-deals.com can help you find the best sim only deals available from the main networks in the UK such as Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and 3 Mobile.  The site offers a very easy to use search engine that allows you to easily search for the best sim only contracts that provide the number of minutes, texts or total cost that you require.  You  can also specify whether you want a 1 month or 12 month contact to ensure you get the best sim only contracts.

Other search options available allow users to choose which networks to search across, as well as specifying whether a personal or business contract is required.  The results rate each deal, so you can be certain you are getting the best possible deal.

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Choosing a new mobile phone can take a very long time if you don’t have a particular phone in mind.  Not only are there hundreds to choose from, but once you’ve chosen your phone you have to decide on which network to join and which tariff.  Support for buying mobile phones is one of the sectors that the internet specialises in, with excellent sites available such as Mobile Phone Expert. Cutting through all the jargon that phone manufacturers and networks try to bamboozle you with is easy with Mobile Phone Expert, who help you hone in  on the key features you need in your next mobile phone, including finding the best tariff and mobile phone deals.   This is only possible because Mobile Phone Expert are independent and are thus able to provide unbiased overviews of hundreds of phones, allowing you to easily compare prices and tariffs.

For every mobile that is available on the site, two links are provided to reviews and plans available for that phone.  Mobile Phone Reviews are written in a nice user-friendly way, with the amount of jargon kept down to a minimum.  The pros and cons of each phone are listed, and each phone is give an overall star rating out of 5.  To add further credibility to the review section, site users are able to submit their own reviews and and star ratings.

To further aid finding the right phone, a number of search options are provided e.g. Mobile Phones can be sorted by the most popular or the highest rated.  Or, or only phones that have required features such as WiFi, TouchScreen, Bluetooth etc can be listed.  The site even has a special section listing all the latest mobile phones with free gifts.

Once you’ve selected the right phone for you, then finding the right plan is a breeze.  Phone deals from all the major networks such as Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange etc are all compared.  Mobile Phone Expert continuously update the deals available to ensure only available deals are presented.

So, do you fancy a new phone? Then head on over to Mobile Phone Expert.

http://www.mobilephone-expert.co.uk/

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Online RPGs have been a very popular game genre ever since the early days of the internet, allowing gamers to immerse themselves in fantasy worlds taking on new identities. The format for many online RPGs is similar, with new skills, powers, weapons etc typically rewarded for time served or when quests are completed.

Most of the top Online RPGs charge fees to play or to purchase extra items, but there are some good free RPGs out there such as Algadon.  Set in the mystical land of Algadon, players are able to battle monsters, compete with other players and complete quests which if completed will endow their character with new powers and strengths.  To start the game a race must be chosen, where each race has different strengths and weaknesses.  Races available include orcs, elves and dwarfs.  Players can also choose a profession such as knight, mage, assassin or merchant.

As with most of these games, you are able to work cooperatively with other players and this tends to be advisable for new players.  There are also clans within Algadon, providing the usual clan war matches.  Once you’ve joined a band of merry men, you are able to message each other both in the game and outside via a forum.

Registering is easy – all you have to do is provide an email address, chose a password and a race.  As with most of these games, to achieve a high level of skill and ability will take time and it’s nice to see that Android and iPhone apps are available for those who want to play the game on the move.  There’s also a MySpace version of the game, although this has completely goals and challenges.  Hopefully, the developers are working on a facebook version of the game which would seem a logical step.

To enter the world of Algadon, click here.

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SIM only deals have been a huge success in the UK.  Not all users want a new phone every year and are quite happy with the mobile phone they have.  When mobile networks offer you a new handset in return for signing a new 12, 18 or even 24 month contract, you typically pay a higher monthly cost because they have to cover the cost of the new shiny handset as well.

Because a SIM only deal doesn’t have to cover the cost of the handset as well, monthly costs can be up to 50% lower.  Or, you could choose to pay the same amount per month, say £20, but get more minutes and texts for your money.  Not only do you save money, but the lock-in period tends to be a lot shorter – sometimes as short as 30 days.  If you really are desperate to get a new handset, then you can still buy unlocked handsets – which opens up opportunities to choose handsets that might not be offered by your network.

All of the major UK mobile networks now offer SIM only deals, including Vodafone, O2, Orange, O2 and T-Mobile.  Comparing SIM only tariffs is easier than comparing phone+tariff deals, as the cost of the handset is stripped out, and services and sites like sim only deals make this even easier by pulling together in real-time all sim only deals in one place.

Finding the best sim only contracts is a doddle, and sim only deals have probably the easiest search engine to use I’ve seen on similar sites.  All you have to do is select the networks you are interested in, and drag the sliders to choose how many mobile minutes and texts you want.  if you want, you can also specify a maximum monthly cost and contract length:

You should give the search engine a try as you’ll be surprised how many more minutes and texts you can get with a sim only deal e.g. 900 minutes and 500 texts for only £20!

Th site owners are independent, so even though they receive commissions for some signups, they provide an unbiased view e.g. you are not pushed to signup for price plans with network X just because they pay bigger commissions.

If you are in the market for a new contract, then definitely give http://www.simonly-deals.com a try before you do an upgrade.

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I’ve been considering buying an eReader for a few weeks now, although I’ve been uncertain which one to buy.  I was planning on buying an iPad because it can also function as an digital photo frame and because of it’s greater online capabilities, but the introduction of the new low-cost Amazon Kindle Wi-Fi in the UK has made me reconsider this.

The new Amazon Kindle Wi-Fi which doesn’t include 3G access retails for only £109, £40 cheaper than the 3G Amazon Kindle.  For someone like me who reads a lot of books and is starting to run out of shelve space to store books, getting access to such a low cost eReader is tempting.  Many other users seem to think so as well, with the Kindle the bestselling product on Amazon.com for two years running, and is also the most wished for and most gifted item on the site.

The specs of the new Kindle are also impressive:

• Up to a month of battery life
• 3,500 books store
• 50% better contrast
• 20% faster page turns
• Free 3G wireless access – no monthly bills or annual contracts

To pre-order or to read more about the Amazon Kindle, click here.

Are you an Amazon Kindle or iPad user?  Which would you recommend as the ultimate eReader?

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To help promote the launch of their UK online backup service, Mozy have put together a great promotional video where computer users on the streets of London are given an opportunity to get a free new macbook.  The catch?  Well, in order to get their new laptop they have to smash their current laptop up there on the spot.

The video highlights how valuable users’ data is, and how most computer users would decline the offer because they don’t have a backup of their precious photos, documents, music etc:

I wish they’d asked me as I have a fairly good backup regime; all of my PCs are backed up to my Windows Home Server which allows me to do a full restore, or rebuild the image on a new machine in the event of a loss/hardware failure, in about 20-30 minutes.  On my Windows Home Server all of key files are saved on 2 HDDs in case one HDD fails, and I also do an offsite backup to Mozy in case the server ever dies, is stolen or my flat burns down.  My backup regime may seem a bit excessive, but I’m now 100% self-employed so losing my business files would be a disaster, I’ve spent endless hours organising my media collection, and most importantly my wife would kill me if we lost our personal photos and videos, including the birth of our little girl this year.

I chose Mozy as my provider for a number of reasons:

• Great Price: $4.95/month for unlimited backup.  Strangely the new Mozy UK service charges £4.95/month or around $7.5/month – very strange (and unfair…) as UK users are able to signup for the US service
• Unlimited Backup: Genuine unlimited backup with no file exclusions that other providers like Carbonite enforce
• Fast: I have a 1.5Mbps connection and I get my full line speed to Mozy’s servers.  Mozy also compresses files locally before transmission, which makes even large backup jobs complete quickly (mine is 600GB)

Save 10% On Mozy!!

If you are interested in joining Mozy, then if you use the link below you can save 10% on your fees.  Your digital life is worth more than think, and definitely more than $4/month so join now!

Join Mozy Now!

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While I was queuing for my iPhone 4 yesterday, I spent some time following the iPhone 4 launch news on Google Reader and I spotted the early stories about iPhone 4 users having reception issues when they held the  new iPhone by it’s new metal edge.  As soon as I got my iPhone 4 I tested the problem myself and it definitely exists.  Users around the world have confirmed the iPhone 4 reception issues and have narrowed the problem down to the black band in the lower left hand corner of the case (phonedog)

Apple have confirmed that there is a problem and there response has stunned me.  Rather than saying that a fix is on the way, Apple’s response has been to tell users to hold their very expensive iPhones 4s differently or to buy a case!

Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.

I had a play around this morning and I found not holding the offending area on the iPhone 4 to be quite hard to do comfortably for more than a few minutes, and I can imagine some users will try hitting Apple with RSI lawsuits.  As a leftie my thumb/palm tends to cover the offending area when making a call, and even when using the phone with it held in my right hand I find that my little finger covers the seam.

Some commentators believe that Apple didn’t spot the iPhone 4 reception issues because testers tried to disguise their phones as iPhones 3GS handsets, covering up the new antenna on the iPhone 4 and thus masking the problem.  I have to agree with this, because if they had known about the issue earlier in the design process I’m sure they would have put the seam at the top or bottom of the phone.

In fact, in Apple’s own marketing and during Steve Jobs’ iPhone 4 demonstation the iPhone 4 is being held incorrectly!

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I live five minutes away from an O2 store so I decided this morning to join the queue for two new iPhone 4 phones for myself and my wife, if the queue didn’t look too bad from my car. If I saw a big queue from the car, I would turn around and go home and wait for the online store to get iPhone 4 stock.   O2 stores were due to open at 8:02am, so with only around 40 people ahead of me when I arrived at 7:30am I thought it was my lucky day as I was hearing horror stories of people reaching the Regent Street Apple store at midnight and still being 200th in the queue….

Despite being #40 in the queue, it took me over 5 hours to get my iPhone 4…O2′s systems were awful and even though iPhone 4s were only available to existing customers, it still took around 20 mins to process each upgrade.  I roughly calculated that it would take around 2 hours to get my iPhone 4, so I decided I’d wait.  Just as I was about to make it into the store, through the window I could see the store manager checking with his team how many iPhone 4s had been sold and I started to panic, especially when one of the shop assistants finally came to speak to the queue.  She informed us that they no longer had any iPhone 4 32GBs in stock and only had iPhone 4 16GBs in stock.  At first, I was not very happy as I’d been queueing for nearly 3 hours at this point, but I managed to talk myself into accepting a 16GB because (i) I dont’ really need the space as I don’t listen to much music on my iPhone and (ii) I couldn’t bear going home empty-handed and my wife calling me an idiot for queuing for so long!

Things got even worse when I got into the store because my iPhones are on a business tariff, which meant that my upgrade needed to be done over the phone by the store assistant, and because of the iPhone launch all the phone lines were busy which meant a further 90 min holdup.  Then, when he finally got through I was told it was one iPhone per customer, so I couldn’t upgrade both our handsets!

Thankfully my iPhone 4 upgrade only cost me £20 which was a lot less than I had expected and I’m going to put the money raised from selling my iPhone 3GS on ebay, which should raise >£200, towards the cost of an 64B iPad.   I’ve been itching to get an iPad for a while now as I think it’s an ideal device for surfing on a sofa, holidays etc but I was turned off by the 64GB price tag.  However, I’ve (almost) managed to convince myself to buy one as I was going to buy a digital photo frame for approx >£150, and I wanted a smaller laptop for watching tv/movies on whilst travelling and an iPad would cost roughly the same as both devices whilst doing so much more on top

Look out for future posts on my thoughts on iOS 4 and the iPhone 4.

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I discovered a great new windows utility this week on our sister site, Windows 7 News & Tips.  One of the areas that I hoped Microsoft would improve in Windows 7 was providing better tools for keeping desktops organised.  Unfortunately they didn’t, but lucking I’ve now discovered Stardock Fences.  With Fences it is easy to group icons on a desktop into ‘Fences’.  Multiple fences can be created and each individual fence can be moved anywhere on the desktop, keeping groups of icons together. The best way to demonstrate this is to show you my current desktop and my Fences:

As you can see I’ve created several Fences that I’ve organised around my desktop.  Creating new fences is easy – all you have to do is right click on a blank area of the desktop and give your new Fence a name:

Once created, each fence can then be resized and moved.  My favoutite feature is you can double-click on any area of the desktop to remove all icons, and double-click again to bring them back.

There are two versions of Fences, a free and a Premium $19.95 version – the free version will be more than adequate for most users:

To give Fences a try click here.

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Virgin Media have launched in the UK a new PC support service called Virgin Digital Help.  It appears a sensible move as over the years Virgin Media has received hundreds of thousands of calls from broadband users wanting support with their PCs.  Now, Virgin Media are offering this expertise to both Virgin Media customers and non Virgin Media Customers via a mixture of free and premium services.

The free Virgin Digital service allows users to access the Desktop Digital helper.  This application is similar to the desktop diagnostics tools that many ISPs provide from companies like Motive, and will help diagnosis PC and internet connection issues.  In the free version, some features are limited such as the health check and the Speed Up which only diagnose. More features are available in the Premium features, which are available for £2.99 or £4.99:

In addition to the Virgin Media Digital Helper options, there are phone support options available.  Starting at £6.99/mth and rising to £24.99/mth these cover your PC (£6.99) and all your digital kit (£9.99 for one person) e.g. your digital cameras, phones, consoles and printers.  The cover seems reasonably priced, especially as it should provide support for getting all of your kit working together – most manufacturers draw the line at just getting their device working.

The Virgin Digital service lineup looks quite good.  The only feature that the service is a free ‘taster’ phone support service, however users encountering difficulties can also try the free Digital Helper initially.

More: Virgin Digital Help

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Everyday this month we’ve been giving away over $300 of free software or hardware together with out sister site Windows 7 News.  In total we are giving away over $9000 worth of software and hardware!.  Today we have the following great main prize up for grabs: $300 of free computer memory of their choice from Crucial Technology!

Yes, the winner of today’s free reverse auction will win the best quality memory for their PC.  To play all you have to do is visit our Christmas Giveaway auction site and start bidding in our reverse auction- all bids are free!  To read more and how to play click here.

If that wasn’t enough we are also giving away today:

• Uniblue PowerSute Worth $100
• WinX DVD Ripper Worth $29.99

Over on sister site ghacks we are also giving away hundreds of dollars of software away everyday – click here to visit their Christmas Giveway.

Win $300 Of Free Crucial Memory

Win $300 of high quality PC memory courtesy of Crucial Memory. Winner gets to choose their own memory up to a value of $300. Get bidding now! The lowest bid wins!

Crucial is a key brand in the Lexar Media family of products. As Memory Experts Crucial are the only DRAM supplier that’s part of a major memory manufacturer.

Crucial are one of the leading suppliers of high-quality memory that has been qualified and approved by most major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). On their website you can find innovative tools that will make it easy to choose compatible memory and recommended upgrades.

Visit Crucial Memory now for your next memory upgrade.

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A few weeks ago I read about the comedian Drew Carey’s offer to donate $1m to the charity Livestrong setup by the greatest cyclist ever Lance Armstrong for each person that followed him on twitter, up to a million followers.  I expected to see a massive rush of people following Drew but as of today his follower count ‘only’ stands at 256,249:

Now you might be a bit sceptical that this a clever (but expensive) attempt by Drew to promote himself, which Drew denies, but regardless the money is going to a good charity and you can always unfollow Drew in the New Year as the count stops on Dec 31st.  Two seconds is all it will take you to give $1 to charity, so please follow Drew now on twitter.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

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In our $9K Christmas Giveway today we are giving away a Belkin N+ Wireless Router and a Belkin N+ USB Adaptor worth $200 in total.  In addition, we’re also giving away today:

• a copy of Uniblue PowerSuite worth $100
• a copy of MediaMonkey Gold worth $40
• a copy of Tidysongs worth $40

That’s $380 in total in prizes! To win all you need to do is guess the lowest number that nobody else guesses.  All bids are free - click here to play now!

Win $200 of wireless home networking hardware courtesy of Belkin

The Winner will receive a Belkin N+ Wireless Router and a Belkin N+ USB Adaptor donated by Belkin.

Belkin N+ Wireless Router

Belkin’s N+ Wireless Router features a USB Storage port on the back of the router for connecting USB storage devices such as an external hard drive or thumb drive to the network. Now you can centrally store and share media content and files from the USB hard drive to every computer on the network.

This router also features gigabit Ethernet ports for a wired connection that can handle applications that take up a large amount of bandwidth. The N+ router is based on the draft 802.11n 2.0 technology which provides the wireless range to easily cover any-size home or office. The N+ Router has the bandwidth and speed for handling media intensive applications that take up large amounts of your bandwidth.

Belkin N+ USB Adaptor

The N+ Wireless USB Adapter connects your desktop or notebook computer to a wireless network. It Provides optimal wireless range and speeds when paired with an N or N+ Router. roviding greater range and faster speeds, N offers an excellent solution for transferring large files such as video, music, photos, and documents among the networked computers in your home.

Based on the 802.11n draft, N Wireless enables multiple receivers and transmitters to send and receive data using Intelligent MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) spatial multiplexing techniques which greatly increases speed, coverage, and the reliability of the wireless network.

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The Christmas giveaway we’re running with Windows 7 News & Tips is proving to be a lot of fun and it’s nice giving such cool prizes in way over $9000 in prizes in total!!.  On day 4 we gave away several prizes:

• Uniblue RegistryBooster 2010 Worth $30!!
• Uniblue PowerSuite Bundle Worth $100!!
• Free Copy Of WinRAR Worth $45!!
• Recover My Files Professional Worth $100!!
• TidySongs Worth $39!!!
• Bulk Image Downloader Worth $24.95!

Congratulations to the winners!!

Christmas Giveaway Day 5

We’re picking up the pace a bit today and giving away one of our best prizes thanks to the generous team at linksys: The winner of this auction will win a cutting edge Linksys WRT610 Dual-N Band Wireless Router Worth $200!We’ve also got the following available to win today (auctions close at 8pm PST):

• Acronis Disk Director Suite 10+Acronis True Image Worth $100!
• A-squared Anti-Malware worth $40!!
• Media Monkey Gold worth $40!!

To win all you need to do is guess the lowest number that nobody else guesses.

Win Linksys WRT610 Dual-N Band Wireless Router Worth $200!

This top of the range router is built to last. Expect to have it in your household for many years. we’d like to say a big thank you to Linksys for making such a generous donation. If you want to learn more about the Linksys WRT610 then check out the Linksys blog, facebook and also twitter for the latest Linksys offers.

We’ve actually got two of these to give away later on in the giveaway.  Not only does this amazing router support 802.11n giving you the fastest possible transfer speeds and range, it also has two band of Wireless-N. Both bands are available at the same time:

• You can use the more congested 2.4Ghz 802.11n band for surfing and general net usage.
• And you can use the 5Ghz 802.11n band for applications that need the best connection e.g. streaming music, gaming or HD (even 1080p over wireless!) video

The WT610 router incorporates MIMO technology – so smart that it adjusts your signal in realtime based on the router AND card location to ensure you get the best range and coverage.

Key Features:

• Internet-sharing Router and 4-port Gigabit Switch, with a built-in, dual-band, speed and range enhanced Wireless Access Point
• Works simultaneously in the 2.4 and 5 gigahertz radio bands, doubling your network capacity
• Use the less-crowded 5GHz band for time-sensitive music, video streaming or gaming
• Use the 2.4GHz band for non-critical traffic, and your legacy Wireless-G and -B devices
• Both bands use Wireless-N technology for robust speed and range, and more complete coverage throughout your home
• Also works with Wireless-G, -B, and -A devices
• 4-port Gigabit switch delivers wired speeds that are 10 times faster than 10/100 “Fast Ethernet” connections
• Storage Link lets you connect a hard drive or flash-based USB storage device to allow access to your music, video, or data files from within your network, or through the Internet
• Built-in Media Server, streams music, video, and photos to any UPnP compatible media adapter
• Wi-Fi Protected Setup helps make wireless configuration secure and push button easy
• Wireless signals are protected by industrial-strength WPA2 encryption, and your network is protected from most known Internet attacks by a powerful SPI firewall
• Easy to install on a Windows PC or Mac with Cisco Setup Wizard
• Included Network Magic software helps manage and optimize your network
• Includes 30-Day Free Trial of Trend Micro Internet Security software to help protect against viruses, spyware, and identity theft
• All ports support Gigabit speed and Auto-Crossover (MDI/MDI-X) — no need for crossover cables
• Complies with the IEEE 802.11a, 802.11 b, 802.11g, and 802.11n draft 2 standards

Win Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 + Acronis True Image 2010 – Worth $100!!

The lowest unique bid in this auction will win not one, but two great applications – Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 + Acronis True Image 2010 – Worth $100!!

Acronis Disk Director 10

Looking to secure your PC at the same time as making it quicker? The n this classic app is for you. Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 is the easiest and most convenient partition manager and hard disk toolkit. It brings together the most popular disk management functions, partition recovery tools, and boot disk manager for Windows XP and Vista desktop systems.

Key Features:

• Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 combines a number of previous Acronis disk management tools into one solution:
• Partition Manager allows you to resize, move, copy, split, and merge partitions without losing your data
• Boot Manager is a multi-boot software utility that allows you to install multiple operating systems on your PC
• Partition Recovery allows you to recover accidentally lost or deleted partitions
• Disk Editor is a disk drive repair tool that allows you to perform advanced operations on your hard disk drive, such as restoration of boot records and hexadecimal editing.
• Don’t worry if you don’t win the auction, you can try this app for free.

Acronis True Image Home 2010

Acronis True Image is one of the best known PC applications. Now supporting Windows 7, with Acronis True Image Home 2010, rest assured that all your important data including images, music, documents and applications are well protected and can easily be recovered in the event of any disaster.

• Easy and Fast Backup and Recovery: Acronis True Image Home 2010 provides home users reliable and timeless backup and recovery of their operating system, applications, settings and personal files.
• Friendly, Windows®-style User Interface: From an intuitive graphical interface, you can easily define where, locally or online, and how often to backup a PC based on your needs.
• Acronis Online Backupâ„¢ to a secure location: Optional Acronis online storage services are available to automatically backup valuable data or files over the internet to a secure location.
• Continuous data protection: In addition, Acronis Nonstop Backupâ„¢ provides continuous system and data protection, preventing data loss

To try Acronis True Image Home 2010 free, click here.

Christmas Giveaway Day 5: Win a Linksys Router Worth $200!! is a post from Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. - Updated daily with the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.. Visit Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. for the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.

For the first time ever this blog will be open to guest posts.  I’ve decided to open up the site to guests as I think it’s a great way to give exposure to many of the great sites out there at the same time as introducing my readers to new content.

If you are a blogger and you can write 500 or more words on an original topic relevant to this site, then send me an email with your article at guests@connectedinternet.co.uk.  Your name will be published at the top of the article, as well as a link to your site.

Guidelines for guest posts:

• must be on a topic relevant to this site: blogging, tech news, gadgets, mobiles, internet marketing, making money online tips, social networking tips etc
• Be original content and not published on another site
• Supply a byline to be added to the bottom of the post with a maximum of 3 links
• Doesn’t take advantage of our generosity by supplying SEO optimised content i.e. obvious anchor links

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The draw for the greatest sporting event in the world is happening today.  No, it’s not the superbowl (sorry to my American friends), but the FIFA World Cup 2010.  Only the Olympics comes close to the football world cup, with over 1 billion people watching the last world cup final.  The number next year will surely be much bigger as the attraction of the beautiful game just keeps growing.

The draw for the FIFA World Cup 201 Draw starts at  1715GMT and will be done by the beautiful  Charlize Theron and the excitement is growing as countries wait to see who they will be playing next year.  The draw this year is going to be very interesting as although most of the top teams are in pot 1 and will thus avoid each other, there are some very strong teams in pot 4 who will be pitted against pot 1 seeded teams:

• Pot 1: South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina, England
• Pot 2: Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Australia, New Zealand, United States, Mexico, Honduras
• Pot 3: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria, Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay
• Pot 4: France, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Greece, Serbia, Denmark, Slovakia

Below are places where you can watch the FIFA World Cup 2010 Live Online:

• BBC (UK Only)
• Live Soccer Blog

When the world cup tournament starts, live football games can be watched online by following this guide to watching world cup football online.

Who do you think will win the 2010 world cup?  My money is on Spain.  In the meantime, here’s 10 of the greatest world cup goals to keep you entertained:

10 – Archie Gemmill: Scotland V Holland 1978 World Cup

9 – Manuel Negrete: Mexico V Bulgaria 1986 World Cup

8 – Maradona: Argentina V Belgium 1986 World Cup

7 – Saeed El Oweiran: Saudi Arabia v Belgium, 1994 World Cup

I still believe he didn’t mean to do this!

6 – Michael Owen: England VArgentina 1998 World Cup

What pace!

5 – Dennis Bergkamp: Holland V Argentina 1998 World Cup

Great control and commentary!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exlBHTyB1R0

4 – Maxi Rodriguez: Argentina V Mexico 2006

3 – Arie Hann: Holland V Italy 1978

Thunderbolt!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAHJl7jmVK0

2 – Carlos Alberto: Brazil V Italy 1970 World Cup

Just appears out of nowhere – must have run a mile to get onto that ball

1 – Maradona: Argentina V England 1986 World Cup

Brilliant goal, particularly when that was one of the strongest England teams ever.

and the 2007 Messi remake….

Any other favourites?

Watch FIFA World Cup 2010 Draw Live Online & Top Ten World Cup Goals is a post from Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. - Updated daily with the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.. Visit Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. for the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.

I joined Twitter fairly late, but in the last six months I’ve managed to accumulate nearly 4000 followers.  I’ve tried promoting a few affiliate programs via my tweets and I can’t really say they’ve been successful.  However, this week I’m testing a new way to monetise my twitter following; sponsored tweets.  I joined Ad.ly earlier this week, an ‘in-stream’ advertising service that injects a maximum of one tweet per day featuring advertising.  Twitter users get to set their price and advertisers then can purchase those slots.

I’ve set my price at a fairly low $20 as I want to see what sponsored tweets come through.  Even at this price though, one sponsored tweet a day would bring in over $600 of revenue which is great for a service that only took me 2 mins to setup.  There’s also a referral program for users, where users get paid 12% of the income that their referrals make.  There’s even a challenge on at the moment where the person who refers the most ad.ly users between November 16th and December 13th win a free 13′ Macbook Pro.

The current ad.ly Race leaderboard is below:

I think Ad.ly have made a mistake by displaying the leaderboard as it’s dominated by the usual suspects like John Chow and Jeremy Schoemaker, so normal bloggers like you and I have no chance of winning.  However, maybe ad.ly have intentionally done this as they know that mega bloggers like these guys can refer more users than the rest of us put together and displaying the leaderboard will help encourage the rivalry between the big guys.

Overall I think Ad.ly is a good idea, although I’m reserving my judgement until I see the first ads.  If they prove to be totally irrelevant then I will probably leave.

Have you displayed Ad.ly ads in your twitter stream?  what was your experience?  Do you think services like Ad.ly will further decrease the value of twitter as a good medium to communicate?

Sponsored Tweets And Ad.ly- New Revenue Stream? is a post from Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. - Updated daily with the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.. Visit Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. for the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.

Our Christmas Giveaway is proving to be the most popular competition we’ve run to date, with some of the prizes getting thousands of entries each day trying to win a share of  $9000 in prizes.  On day 3 we saw some very frantic bidding to win $300 in Amazon vouchers:

• $300 In Amazon Vouchers – Lowest Unique bid $16.99 (!!), won by vamtastic
• Copy of a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 – Lowest Unique bid $1.08, won by vjnag81

Day 4 Christmas Giveaway

Now that everyone seems to be getting the hang of the free reverse auctions, I thought we’d have our largest prize day so far. Today we are giving away:

• Uniblue RegistryBooster 2010 Worth $30!!
• Uniblue PowerSuite Bundle Worth $100!!
• Free Copy Of WinRAR Worth $45!!
• Recover My Files Professional Worth $100!!
• TidySongs Worth $39!!!
• Bulk Image Downloader Worth $24.95!

Power Suite From Uniblue – Worth $100!!

The lowest bid in this auction wins THREE great applications worth $100!!

This Power Bundle from Uniblue includes:

• RegistryBooster 2010 Worth $29.99
• DriverScanner 2009 Worth $29.99
• SpeedUpMyPC Worth $29.99

RegistryBooster 2010

RegistryBooster is the easy answer to all your Windows registry problems. This award winning software starts by conducting a deep scan of your registry, checking for file extension errors and other registry conflicts. RegistryBooster will then repair or remove unused, corrupted and harmful files so optimizing your PC’s performance. You can then use regular scans to keep your registry structured and your PC speeding along at peak efficiency. With RegistryBooster you’ll see immediate increases in performance and decreases in system conflicts.

Click here to run a Free Registry scan

DriverScanner 2009

With so many drivers installed on your system you cannot reasonably keep track of which drivers have been updated, which is why you need driver update management software to help out. Driver Scanner is the perfect solution for automatically updating drivers, saving you the hassle of having to identifying all your system’s drivers, then find updates for them using, before then downloading them from the manufacturer’s website. Driver Scanner scans your PC’s drivers and checks them against our comprehensive library of the latest drivers, to give you a full list of all those that need to be updated. With single click simplicity Driver Scanner will then install each update on your PC. But what’s more, Driver Scanner will also backup all your drivers to an external device, meaning that the next time you reinstall your system you can load up all your latest drivers, from one place

Click here to run a Free driver update scan

SpeedUpMyPC 2009

SpeedUpMyPC 2009, Uniblue’s award-winning speed up computer solution, lets you monitor and control all your PC resources with easy, one click instructions. System settings, internet usage, disk clutter, RAM and CPU are all automatically scanned, cleaned and optimized for peak performance. You can also selectively disable or remove unnecessary background and auto-start processes to cut valuable seconds off your startup time.

Click here to run a Free Performance scan

Free Copy of WinRAR – Worth $45!!

WinRAR can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.

WinRar Benefits

• Using WinRAR puts you ahead of the crowd when it comes to compression by consistently making smaller archives than the competition, saving disk space and transmission costs
• WinRAR provides complete support for RAR and ZIP archives and is able to unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7Z, Z archives
• WinRAR offers a graphic interactive interface utilizing mouse and menus as well as the command line interface
• When you purchase WinRAR license you are buying a license to the complete technology, no need to purchase add-ons to create self-extracting files, it’s all included
• WinRAR is easier to use than many other archivers with the inclusion of a special “Wizard” mode which allows instant access to the basic archiving functions through a simple question and answer procedure. This avoids confusion in the early stages of use
• WinRAR offers you the benefit of industry strength archive encryption using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a key of 128 bits
• WinRAR supports files and archives up to 8,589 billion gigabytes in size. The number of archived files is, for all practical purposes, unlimited
• WinRAR offers the ability to create selfextracting and multivolume archives
• Recovery record and recovery volumes allow to reconstruct even physically damaged archives
• WinRAR features are constantly being developed to keep WinRAR ahead of the pack

Free copy of RecoverMyFiles - Worth $100!!

Need file recovery? Or hard drive data recovery software?

Recover deleted files Quickly and Easily!

Recover My Files data recovery software will easily recover deleted files emptied from the Windows Recycle Bin, or lost due to the format or corruption of a hard drive, virus or Trojan infection, unexpected system shutdown or software failure.

“Recover My Files combines simplicity of use with the most powerful file recovery software engine, together with a unique capability of “on-the-fly” data preview while the search is being conducted.”

Recover My Files is fast and easy. No technical or data recovery software skills are required to undelete files. Use Recover My Files to perform hard drive data recovery, or if you are trying to unformat and recover data from floppy disk, zip drive, smart media, compact flash or other removable media. It is easy disk recovery software to undelete files and get data back.

Do not waste time and money on other software wondering if you can recover deleted files.Download and try Recover My Files undelete software free. Scan your drive and view your deleted files. If you can see your deleted files then data recovery is quick and easy.

Try Recover My Files

Free Copy of TidySongs

The winner with the lowest unique bid in this auction will win a FREE copy of Tidysongs worth $39!!

TidySongs is an easy and powerful program that will fix any missing or misspelled song details, add album artwork, remove duplicate songs and organize your music. Try Tidysongs free for your first 50 songs.

Try Now!

Remove Duplicate Songs

TidySongs features a smart duplicate song remover that searches your song library to find duplicates – even duplicates that are spelled differently. Use the options to choose to keep the songs with the higher bitrate or longer length. Simulation mode allows you to test things without accidentally removing songs you want to keep.

Fix Misspelled Song Details

Misspelled and missing song details makes your music ugly and impossible to browse on an iPod. TidySongs fixes misspelled and missing artist, album, name, track, year and genre details and renames artists and albums with their correct format (i.e. “Dave Matthews Band” not “Dave Matthews”). This is done automatically – you don’t have to type anything.

Fill In Missing Artists, Years and Genres

Make your song library easier to browse by letting TidySongs automatically fill in the artist, album release year and genre for each song. When fixing songs, you can choose to use information from the original album the song was released on or a compilation or greatest hits. TidySongs keeps your music organized.

Add Missing Album Artwork

Make your music look good. TidySongs automatically downloads high resolution album artwork for each of your songs so that it displays on your computer, in iTunes and on your iPod, iPhone, TV or other music player.

Other programs and websites make you manually find and add each image – TidySongs is automatic.

Automatic! No Typing Necessary!

How long would it take you to fix all of your songs by hand? What if you had more than 1,000 songs? TidySongs uses a smart online music database with information on more than 4 million songs to automatically download the correct details for each of your songs so you don’t have to type it in.

Bulk Image Downloader Worth $24.95!

In this auction we are giving away a full version of the brilliant Bulk Image Downloader, the best way to download multiple images from the web worth $24.95!

Not just for images; BID also supports VIDEO downloading from YouTube, Google Video, DailyMotion, MetaCafe, MegaVideo, YouPorn, PornHub, RedTube, Tube8, MegaPorn as well as directly linked video files (.avi, .wmv, .mpeg, .mov, .flv, etc)

Bulk Image Downloader is a powerful, yet very easy to use web gallery downloader.  Download the FREE 30 day trial and start downloading those images and videos now!

• Downloads entire image galleries automatically (no more endless right clicking to “save image as…”)
• Integrates with IE, FireFox and Opera. Just right click on a gallery page or gallery link and select “Download with Bulk Image Downloader”
• Download from video sites like YouTube, Google Video, DailyMotion, MetaCafe, MegaVideo, YouPorn, PornHub, RedTube, Tube8, MegaPorn
• Downloads thumbnailed video files (.mpg, .avi. .mov, etc)
• No complicated configuration or project files needed – it just works
• Works on sites that the other image downloaders don’t
• Automatically locates and downloads images that have had their true locations hidden by redirection “services” such as usercash, linkbucks, etc.
• Saves time – galleries are downloaded as fast as your connection will allow
• Saves bandwidth – adverts and popups are not downloaded, just the images
• Validates and automatically retries partial or corrupt images, resuming downloads where possible
• Automatically detects and downloads from most multi page forum threads and galleries
• Downloads vbulletin forum attached images
• Multiple gallery download jobs can be queued and downloaded at a later time via the integrated Queue Manager

$9K Christmas Giveaway – Day 4 is a post from Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. - Updated daily with the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.. Visit Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. for the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.

Google have just launched a public DNS service via their blog where the service is positioned as part of Google’s “effort to make the web faster”.  DNS in a nutshell is like a switchboard for the internet, and (normally) your ISP provides your DNS server which tells your browser how to find other websites.  Google’s DNS service offers to speedup this process by providing faster DNS lookups and hence a faster internet.

Instructions on how to use Google’s DNS servers at a PC or router level can be found here.  Before you make the change though, you might want to spare a thought as to why Google have really launched this ‘generous’ offer.  If you route your traffic via Google’s DNS servers, they will be able to see and potentially track ALL of your internet usage.  Not just usage when you visit a google property or use the google search engine, but all usage as all traffic will be routed from your PC or router via Google.  This usage data is obviously worth a fortune and there is currently a battle going on between ISPs, browsers and other companies to control this DNS traffic as opportunities exist to monetise this traffic, particularly DNS errors (e.g. you type a sitename wrong like goooogle.com) and HTTP errors (e.g. 404 page not found – search engines and ISPs want to take over these pages as well).  All of these parties are fighting to get to this traffic first; ISPs in tandem with partners like paxfire, barefruit and infospace at the network level, browsers in their settings and now Google by encouraging users to change their DNS settings manually.

Google have publicly stated that they won’t work at the network level as part of their ‘do no evil’ mantra.  However intercepting DNS traffic to me seems to me to be very close to doing so.  Disappointingly on the Google pages there is no mention of what Google intend to do with the traffic data that they will obtain from users who make the change.  I personally don’t mind as I have nothing to hide online and I welcome more relevant advertising, so I’ve made the change but others may not want to make this change as they are not keen on Google’s latest attempt at worldwide domination.

More: Andy Beard, Download Squad, Lifehacker

Google Launch Public DNS Service – Do You Want Google Tracking Everything? is a post from Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. - Updated daily with the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.. Visit Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. for the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.

We are giving away over $9K in Prizes in our Christmas Giveaway over on Windows 7 News.  Everyday we are giving away great prizes worth over $300!!  Today we are giving away $300 in Amazon vouchers as well as another copy of  A-Squared Anti-Malware 4.5 worth $40!!

To play all you have to do is visit our Christmas Giveaway auction site and start bidding in our reverse auction- all bids are free!  To read more and how to play click here.

Auctions will run from 24 hours each day starting at 8PM PST- keep checking the site each day for details of the new prizes you can win!

Start bidding now!!

Also visit ghacks where Martin is also giving away thousands of dollars in prizes!!

a-Squared Anti-Malware 4.5  - Worth $40!!

a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 provides comprehensive PC protection against trojans, viruses, spyware, adware, worms, bots, keyloggers, rootkits and dialers.

2 cleaning scanners in 1: Anti-Virus + Anti-Spyware

• Not just any scanners, but a combination of two world class products – the a-squared Anti-Spyware, and the Ikarus Anti-Virus engine. Latest tests approve that both are cutting edge in Malware detection
• No doubling of the scan duration as would be the case with two separate scanning programs. Considerable performance improvement is possible thanks to the integration of the two engines on the lowest level
• No double price – two top security products for the price of one.

2 guards against new infections: signature scan + behavior analysis

• When a Malware infection is detected, the scanner puts the found objects under quarantine or deletes them finally
• Anti-Malware holds plenty of advanced options for experts to detect and delete Malware manually. For this purpose the integrated system analysis tool HiJackFree is included, and helps you to have all processes, services, auto-runs, open ports, browser plug-ins, LSPs and host entries under your control
• For tough problems our helpful Malware experts are at your disposal for free. With their help, any infection, no matter how resistant it is, can be purged – guaranteed

Protect your PC and start bidding now! If you don’t win then you can still try a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 free for 30 days!

$9k Christmas Giveaway – Day 3!! is a post from Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. - Updated daily with the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.. Visit Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. for the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.

I’m not sure what Dana Hanna’s new wife thinks of his antics.  The youtube video below captures the moment when Dana Hanna pulls out his mobile while standing at the altar to update his facebook relationship status to say that he was now married.  On top of that he even sent a tweet to announce his marriage!

At least when I got married earlier this year  I waited until the reception to update my facebook status!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSkT5XykJzo

What next?  Live images from the birth of their firstborn?

Groom Updates Facebook Relationship Status And Tweets In Real-Time is a post from Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. - Updated daily with the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.. Visit Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. for the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.

Our prize pot has now swollen to over $9000!!! To be in with a chance of winning prizes in our Christmas Giveaway you need to start bidding – all bids are free and you can bid as many times as you want!!To play all you have to do is visit our Christmas Giveaway auction site – to read more and how to play click here.

Remember to keep checking the auction site everyday as more prizes will be added daily.

Day 2 Christmas Giveaway Prizes

Auctions will run from 24 hours each day starting at 8PM PST

• Free utilities and performance software from UNIBLUE - Worth $100!!
• Free Unlimited Online Backup Account from Mozy - Worth $55!!
• More software from UNIBLUE - Worth $30!!
• Free Copy of MediaMonkey Gold - Worth $40!!
• Free copy of RecoverMyFiles - Worth $100!!

Start bidding now!!

Power Suite From Uniblue – Worth $100!!

The lowest bid in this auction wins THREE great applications worth $100!!

This Power Bundle from Uniblue includes:

• RegistryBooster 2010 Worth $29.99
• DriverScanner 2009 Worth $29.99
• SpeedUpMyPC Worth $29.99

RegistryBooster 2010

RegistryBooster is the easy answer to all your Windows registry problems. This award winning software starts by conducting a deep scan of your registry, checking for file extension errors and other registry conflicts. RegistryBooster will then repair or remove unused, corrupted and harmful files so optimizing your PC’s performance. You can then use regular scans to keep your registry structured and your PC speeding along at peak efficiency. With RegistryBooster you’ll see immediate increases in performance and decreases in system conflicts.

Click here to run a Free Registry scan

DriverScanner 2009

With so many drivers installed on your system you cannot reasonably keep track of which drivers have been updated, which is why you need driver update management software to help out. Driver Scanner is the perfect solution for automatically updating drivers, saving you the hassle of having to identifying all your system’s drivers, then find updates for them using, before then downloading them from the manufacturer’s website. Driver Scanner scans your PC’s drivers and checks them against our comprehensive library of the latest drivers, to give you a full list of all those that need to be updated. With single click simplicity Driver Scanner will then install each update on your PC. But what’s more, Driver Scanner will also backup all your drivers to an external device, meaning that the next time you reinstall your system you can load up all your latest drivers, from one place

Click here to run a Free driver update scan

SpeedUpMyPC 2009

SpeedUpMyPC 2009, Uniblue’s award-winning speed up computer solution, lets you monitor and control all your PC resources with easy, one click instructions. System settings, internet usage, disk clutter, RAM and CPU are all automatically scanned, cleaned and optimized for peak performance. You can also selectively disable or remove unnecessary background and auto-start processes to cut valuable seconds off your startup time.

Click here to run a Free Performance scan

Free Unlimited Online Backup Account from Mozy - Worth $55!!

The winner with the lowest unique bid in this auction will win a FREE Mozy Home Unlimited Backup Account worth $55!

Protect your files now with Mozy who have made online backup possible for everyone with an affordable, secure solution that’s easy to use.

Download and install Mozy to ensure your photos, music, Outlook files and other important documents are safely backed up at a secure, remote location.

Alternatives to MozyHome:

• Burn a new CD or DVD every Sunday night and store it at your brother-in-law’s office.
• Pay $200/year for an online backup service that uses old, mediocre software.
• Buy a $200 external hard drive and hope your office doesn’t burn down.
• Do nothing and don’t worry about backup. (We suggest closing your eyes, plugging your ears and repeating “I’m in my happy place, I’m in my happy place.”)
• Run a cron job of rsync, gzip and mcrypt piped over ssh to your friend’s server over his DSL line.
• Of course, we think MozyHome is the best and easiest solution to the backup problem!

Get MozyHome!

Free Copy of MediaMonkey Gold - Worth $40!!

The winner who has the lowest unique bid in this auction will win a FREE copy of MediaMonkey Gold worth $40!!

MediaMonkey is the best mp3 player on the market and the premium Gold service is even better:

• Organize music and edit tags in your audio library with a powerful, intuitive interface.
• Automatically lookup and tag Album Art and other metadata.
• Manage 50,000+ files in your music collection without bogging down.
• Manage all genres of audio: Rock, Classical, Audiobooks, Comedy, Podcasts, etc.
• Play MP3s and other audio formats, and never again worry about varying volume.
• Record CDs and convert MP3s, M4A, OGG, FLAC and WMA files etc. into other formats.
• Create playlists and let Auto-DJ & Party Mode take care of your party.
• Sync iPhones, iPods, & MP3 players, converting & leveling tracks on-the-fly.

If you want to give MediaMonkey a try, the free version is also excellent.

Try MediaMonkey now!

Free copy of RecoverMyFiles - Worth $100!!

Need file recovery? Or hard drive data recovery software?

Recover deleted files Quickly and Easily!

Recover My Files data recovery software will easily recover deleted files emptied from the Windows Recycle Bin, or lost due to the format or corruption of a hard drive, virus or Trojan infection, unexpected system shutdown or software failure.

“Recover My Files combines simplicity of use with the most powerful file recovery software engine, together with a unique capability of “on-the-fly” data preview while the search is being conducted.”

Recover My Files is fast and easy. No technical or data recovery software skills are required to undelete files. Use Recover My Files to perform hard drive data recovery, or if you are trying to unformat and recover data from floppy disk, zip drive, smart media, compact flash or other removable media. It is easy disk recovery software to undelete files and get data back.

Do not waste time and money on other software wondering if you can recover deleted files.Download and try Recover My Files undelete software free. Scan your drive and view your deleted files. If you can see your deleted files then data recovery is quick and easy.

Try Recover My Files

$9K Christmas Giveaway – Day 2 is a post from Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. - Updated daily with the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.. Visit Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. for the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.

Google Analytics have just released their latest generation of their tracking code.  The new asynchronous tracking code uses a script that uses a “separate lane” to handle part of the processing of your webpage.  This script can process at the same time as other scripts, improving the accuracy of stats of webpages like this one that emply a lot of scripts and use a lot of rich media content, and promises faster page loading times as well.  I can’t wait to see my stats tomorrow to see if there are any big changes!

The new google analytics tracking snippet offers the following benefits:

• Faster tracking code load times for your web pages due to improved browser execution
• Enhanced data collection and accuracy
• Elimination of tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript hasn’t fully loaded

More information can be found in the google analytics help section.  The actual google analytics asynchronous code that needs adding is here:
<script type="text/javascript">

var _gaq = _gaq || [];

_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

</script>
To use this on your pages, copy the code snippet above, replacing UA-XXXXX-X with your web property ID.

New Google Analytics Asynchronous Code Improves Page Load Times is a post from Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. - Updated daily with the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.. Visit Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. for the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.

Millions of Windows 7 users have been confronted with a black screen after boot following a recent security update by Microsoft.  The Windows 7 Black Screen Of Death is easily fixed and a fix can be found at Windows 7 News & Tips.

The new Windows 7 BSOD was caused by the latest Microsoft security updates released on November 25th.  Microsoft are investigating the cause of the Windows 7 BSOD:

“Microsoft is investigating reports that its latest release of security updates is resulting in system issues for some customers,” the software maker said in a statement. “Once we complete our investigation, we will provide detailed guidance on how to prevent or address these issues. “

According to Prevx, the root cause of the Black Screens of Death is a  modification in the Windows Operating Systems lock down of registry keys with the November Microsoft update causing certain registry keys to be invalidated.

How To Fix Windows 7 Black Screen Of Death is a post from Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. - Updated daily with the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.. Visit Connected Internet - tech, mobile and gaming news. for the latest news, tips, tweaks, social networking, wordpress tips & tweaks, windows optimization help and more.