All posts by Utkarsh

Solution designer with Firstsource solutions. A post grad in Networks and IT Infrastructure. Technology enthusiast, blogger, webdesigner, Network security aspirant and in love with electronics and gadgets. This blog is an attempt to share what I find interesting... almost anything @Mtaram on twitter and
Security

Absolute security with WEP and MAC access control

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There has been so much fuss about wifi security about how easy it is to crack WEP and all. We can have a absolutely secure setup for a wireless network by selecting which devices to be able to connect to our network by a simple feature present in all routers known as MAC address control.

Make sure you change the admin login password for your router and set it as something which is atleast 8 character and involves special case symbols as well as numbers.

Enable WEP by loging into the admin console.

Set the WEP key to whatever you want. The key can be of of varied length depending upon the following types

  • 40- / 64-bit WEP: 10 digit key
  • 104- / 128-bit WEP: 26 digit key
  • 256-bit WEP: 58 digit key

Enable MAC address control.

Select Allow – This enables only the listed MAC addresses to be able to connect to the network. Rest will get a DHCP failure error. This way only the devices whose MAC addresses are entered in the table can connect. Rest can keep trying.

Enjoy your secure wifi network.

Mobile

Apple iOS 5

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The iOS preview stole the limelight at the WWDC event in San Francisco. The event also saw the beta release for iOS Developer Program members. The prominent features announced were Notification Center, iMessage, Twitter integration, Newsstand, Game Center, and Airplay.

Apple claims that the Notification Center provides an innovative way to easily access notifications such as text messages, missed calls, calendar alerts, app alerts, and more. This is a nice addition, but it cannot be labeled as innovative, knowing that it’s already present on Androids.

Apple reveals iOS 5

Considering the popularity of Twitter, its integration was inevitable. Twitter integration runs down to apps such as Contacts, Photos, Camera, Safari, YouTube, and Maps. Interestingly, there is no word on Facebook integration. Makes us wonder if the relations between these two companies aren’t that good.

With iMessage, you get the functionality of iPhone messaging to all of your iOS devices such as the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. The application lets you send text messages, photos, and videos to other iOS devices. Thankfully, it not only works with Wi-Fi but also with 3G. iMessages actually sounds like BlackBerry Messenger to me. After all, there is nothing wrong in taking inspiration.

Newsstand will help you organize all your newspaper and magazine subscriptions at one place. Game Center will now let you add photos to your profile. It will also let you find new friends online. Airplay is essentially Apple’s version of DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance), letting you stream videos to your HDTV wirelessly – provided your HDTV supports it.

The Camera app gets a long awaited update. The volume rocker on the phone now doubles up as a shutter key. This is weird, knowing that the Camera + app with the same functionality was banned from iTunes last year.

Facebook, Social NW

Facebook face recognition and how to disable it

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http://www.image-acquire.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/facebook_face_recognition.jpg

Facebook has been rolling out a facial recognition feature that makes it easier to tag friends in snaps, and it has introduced this feature as a default setting.
The feature basically means that whenever you’re offered the chance to tag groups of your friends in an album, Facebook will use its facial recognition technology to group similar faces together and automatically suggest the friend you should tag them with.

The option has been rolling out to international users over the past few months.

The social networking site has been making the facial recognition feature a default setting. Facebook explained the rollout in a post on Tuesday.

If you don’t want Facebook to suggest you , here’s how you disable the feature:

1. Go to your privacy settings.
2. Click “Customize settings.”
3. Scroll down to “Things others share.”
4. Find “Suggest photos of me to friends.”
5. Edit accordingly.

image: http://www.image-acquire.com
Twitter

Twitter adds default ULR shortening to web app

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http://5.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/twitter-link-shortening.jpgTwitter has announced that links shared on Twitter.com will be automatically shortened using the service’s t.co URL shortener.

Links of any length will be cut down to a tidy number of characters — 19, to be precise — and an ellipsis when the sender clicks the Tweet button.

Although each link is assigned a unique t.co link ID, the links will appear on Twitter as abbreviated versions of their originals so users always have some idea of where their next click will take them — a smart move on Twitter’s part given the number of URL-shortened spam or scam links that have made the rounds on the microblogging platform over the past year or so.

Technology

Apple iTunes 10.3 with the flavor of iCloud

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http://multimedia.heraldinteractive.com/images/20110606/e83ce5_ltpjobs20110607.jpgApple has released a new version of iTunes that ties into a beta incarnation of the company’s just announced iCloud web services.

iCloud doesn’t officially launch until the fall and many of its services won’t be available until then, but the new iTunes – version 10.3 – provides access some of the tools announced yesterday under the iCloud name.

With iTunes 10.3, all items you purchase from the iTunes store to be automatically downloaded to your other Mac and iOS devices running the app. And you can download past iTunes store purchases to your devices at no extra charge (if your past purchase is no longer available in the iTunes store, however, you’re out of luck).

ITunes 10.3 also adds book purchases to the iTunes store, letting you download titles to Apple’s iBooks application on iOS devices.

You can download iTunes 10.3 for Mac here. And there’s a version for 64-bit Windows here. If you’re on 32-bit Windows, you should be able to download a version here.

iCloud is designed to automatically store all sorts of data on Apple’s servers and automatically push it to multiple devices. It will offer new versions of some Apple MobileMe services, including Contacts, Calendar and Mail, and it will let you download App Store and iBookstore purchases to multiple devices.

Apple will also offers backup and photo storage services and a tool, known as iTunes Match, that will let you replace your non-iTunes with iTunes tunes that can then be shared across devices. iTunes Match will be available in the fall for a $24.99 annual fee.

Internet

Box Office on Youtube

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All netizens in India have more reasons to rejoice as YouTube is introducing a new destination for all the movie buffs titled ‘YouTube Box Office’. This exclusive channel will feature a premium block buster movie every month absolutely free of cost. Kick-starting the initiative will be the latest hit ‘Band Baaja Baaraat’, starring Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma.

The YouTube Box Office channel will also feature other popular movies which users can watch for free from the YouTube catalogue of movies which includes over 1,500 titles including regional language films. The channel will be available to all users in India and will be IP blocked for users in other countries. Intel will be the exclusive presenting sponsor for the channel in India.

Sandeep Aurora, Director-Marketing, Intel South Asia said, “The YouTube Box Office channel provides the consumers an opportunity to view premium, high quality movies on their PCs. Consumers can also enjoy these movies on their big screen HDTV with Intel® Wireless Display (WiDi) feature on the 2nd Generation Intel Core Processor based PCs and bring YouTube to life in HD format on their TVs.”

YouTube will collaborate with its partners in India on a revenue share basis to bring more of such premium content on YouTube Box Office every month.

Environment

Mercury rising in Punjab and Haryana

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http://www.staffsoc3.org.uk/UserFiles/Image/rising_temperature.jpgWith climate change a real concern, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has found that, since 1980, temperatures have been increasing in Punjab and Haryana while there is a decrease in rainfall in both states. The findings are based on the analysis of quantified data,collected over a 30 year period, from 1980 to 2010.

The data shows that in Punjab, there is a rise of 0.3 degrees Celsius to 0.9 degrees Celsius in maximum temperature and a 0.3 degrees Celsius to 1.2 degrees Celsius increase in minimum temperature over the last 30 years. In Haryana, there is a rise of 0.3 to 0.6 degrees Celsius in maximum temperature with no significant change in the minimum during the same period.

News

Nokia ovi to be rebranded as Nokia

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http://www.fonearena.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/nokia-ovi-logo-app1.png

Nokia today announced that it will phase out its Ovi brand and rebrand it as Nokia from July.

“The target for rebranding is 18 months, but we hope to do it earlier. It will be seamless switchover to the new brand and there will be no impact on customers,” Nokia marketing director Viral Oza said here on the sidelines of the launch of a dual sim phone.

The new devices to be launched will have the new branding of Nokia and for older handsets new applications will be upgraded gradually, he said.

The company expected to do well in the dual-sim phone market that contributed 40 per cent of the total Indian handset market.

Computers, Technology

Apple’s iCloud service announced

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http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/06/06/phpQ8paLHdownload_610x399.png

Apple CEO Steve Jobs today announced an online cloud storage service called iCloud, designed to make it simple to wirelessly share music, e-mail, photos, calendars, and other data between handheld gadgets and desktop computers.

The new Apple service, which has been the subject of intense speculation for more than a year, attempts to harness the power and flexibility of cloud computing for home users. It uses techniques that have already proved popular with businesses to make it easier to move data back and forth between multiple devices and applications.

Jobs introduced iCloud this morning at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco as part of a broader announcement that also highlighted the forthcoming version of Mac OS X Lion, available in July for $29.99, and new features for iOS including a newsstand and tabbed browsing on the iPad.

iCloud represents a direct response to Google’s cloud-based offerings, which already use services like Gmail, Calendar, Picasa, and Google Docs to show users the same document across multiple devices. In addition, Google recently announced Google Music and Amazon.com unveiled Amazon Cloud Drive.

About 10 years ago, Jobs said, Apple had one of its most important insights: The PC would become the digital hub for your digital life and store photos, video, and music, which would in turn be synchronized with mobile devices plugged in to it. Now, he said, we’re at a similar turning point, where iCloud can store data and wirelessly push it to every device you own.

iCloud will be supported by new versions of applications including Calendar, Mail, and Contacts, so if information is changed for one contact, it goes to the cloud and then is pushed to the other devices. Cloud backup is another part of the service, including daily wireless backup of an iOS device. Third-party apps can also store documents in the cloud through new interfaces that will be made available to developers.

Read more: @ Cnet

Applications

Microsoft office 365 to launch soon

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Microsoft spokespeople have been coy about when the Office 365 cloud service will launch, saying only that it will come out later in 2011. But CEO Steve Ballmer has revealed that it will launch in June.

Speaking in Delhi, India, to an industry group last week, Ballmer said, “We’re pushing hard in the productivity space. We’ll launch our Office 365 cloud service, which gives you Lync and Exchange and SharePoint and Office and more as a subscribable service that comes from the cloud. That launches in the month of June.”

Ballmer also recently announced that Windows 8 will be released in 2012.

We’re checking with Microsoft’s public relations firm to see if June is the official launch date for Office 365.

The cloud service will replace the current Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), and include access to Exchange, SharePoint, the Lync unified communications suite, and both desktop and Web-based versions of Office tools such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The Office 365 beta has attracted more than 100,000 customers, and was recently expanded to become a public beta available to anyone.

In April, Microsoft would only say that Office 365 will launch later this year, but a midyear launch would make sense given the competition Microsoft is facing from Google Apps.