Tag: Color

Are you on Fire for Kindle?

Paul

Amazon Introduces the Kindle Fire!

I must say that seeing this is definately something that I would like to get myself. After reading what it will do I am thinking this will make Ipad drop their price. I did predict this a few months back, and I knew it would have to be an Android tablet. This would greatly increase their market share and also get more and more people to buy their Premium Service and that will make it that much easier for people to watch their streaming media also.

Will it Succeed??

I don’t know if it will but I am certain it will make a big impact on what happens in the future. I do hope that the $199 version will allow me to stream on the road without a wifi signal but I can only wait to see. I would guess that if not Amazon would start to offer services for this also probably through Sprint or Verizon since they already have deals with them on their Wireless Amazon Website but then again I could be wrong. Even though I have played around with the Ipad 2, I am still trying to figure out if it is really worth the money to buy it.

This is Eye candy!

I must say just looking at this tablet makes me want to pre-order it now but I will wait a little while before I start buying it because of the price. Maybe in the next few weeks they will drop the price because of the high demand of this tablet. They will make a killing on people buying it just to watch their favorite movies where ever they are without having to boot up their laptops or computers. I can am curious if they will let you download your amazon movies or shows to the tablet so you can view them while on the road or other places. I will definitely have to see in the next few months what Amazon has planned but that would be a nice feature to be able to take my shows and movies with me either on a SD cardor on the internal memory. Although I suspect that is in the design somewhere, I am hoping they do have a card reader on this device if not they should add that for people like to make even more space available for it. I can’t wait to see all the reviews of this and how people like it. I wouldn’t mind getting one of these myself to test and explore even more.

Have a Good day!

Paul Sylvester

PDF Zero Day Vulnerability in the Wild

Paul

From sources all over the internet, Adobe made a sent out a Security bulletin yesterday:

APSA09-01 (Buffer overflow issue in versions 9.0 and earlier of Adobe Reader and Acrobat)

[ad#ad2-right]A critical vulnerability has been identified in Adobe Reader 9 and Acrobat 9 and earlier versions. This vulnerability would cause the application to crash and could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. There are reports that this issue is being exploited.

Adobe Plans on patching this March 11, 2009

and According to some other reports are saying:

Symantec Security Response has received several PDF files that actively exploit a vulnerability in Adobe Reader. We are continuing to remain in contact with Adobe on this vulnerability in order to ensure the security of our mutual customers.

[via Symantec]

With PDF files being used all over the business world, this will create undo problems with the IT Field.  This also could be used to make Botnets and make the network involved become sluggish.   It must be warned that there are a whole wide variety of possibilities that could be done with this exploit.  Shadowserver Foundation recommends disabling the Javascript in your Adobe Reader.  Until the patch comes out you will need to be careful on what you open up and possibly check each and every PDF with an Anti-virus.  This should help minimize the likely hood of getting a virus or Trojan, but is not going to be a 100%.  The only way you can prevent a 100% right now is not to use PDFS until they have Fixed this problem.

Warning Signs of Hard Drive Trouble

Paul

For every computer there comes a time when you have a problem with hardware or software. This is for those who want to learn the signs of possible fixes for having hard drive problems. Although if you know you’re hard drive is dieing then you better back it up as quickly as possible. You will of course need to get the back up software to protect your data.  If you have special drivers you will need to backup yours drivers.  If you have an OEM system then you will need to backup the Hidden Partition.

So what are the warning signs of a hard drive failure:

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  • Unexpected freezing of Windows — When Windows Locks up and you have to reboot or getting a Blue Screen of Death.   You have no choice but to restart because you can’t do anything with windows.

  • Losing data files — if you seem to see files being lost or deleted without your direct input.  It might be a sign of a computer virus or it could be a damaged hard drive.

  • Locking up during boot — this is most common when you have a hard drive failure, although if you can restart and not be a problem then just keep in mind that it might be the beginning.  The more frequent you have the lockup boot problems the more chance of the hard drive dieing.

  • Hard drive isn’t recognized in BIOS– Although this can be a old hard drive, if the bios can’t see it then the problem might be a hard drive failure, usually this is meaning you just have to replace the hard drive.  there’s isn’t much you can do with this problem, just replace the hard drive.  Most of the time it is a problem inside the Hard drive bios and you really can’t fix this, you’d have to send it off to possibly save the hard drive data.

  • Clicking, Scratching, Whirling, Grinding sounds from Hard drive — This is the most dangerous signs of hard drive failure and means you need to get your data off ASAP.  If you want to hear some of the waring sounds of a dieing hard drive click here.

Although some of these can or can not be a hard drive failure, some can be driver issure or disk defragmentation and should be check out to rule out these problems.   There can be several problems that might be easily fixed.  If you think it is a failure you might try Spinrite.  The program is made by Steve Gibson and he actually has a “Absolute Satisfaction Guarantee“.  So if it doesn’t work or your not satisfied you aren’t out any money.  I’ve used this in the past for hard drives that are dieing so I could get all the important data off before it died all together.  It is essential that if you can get it working for a short time to get a backup.

Disclaimer: Although spinrite might fix some of the problems associated with a hard drive failure, it might not fix all the problems or any problems.   So it is left up to the user to decide if it is worth it or not to buy it.   I don’t recommend this for every situation or every problem only for the off chance that it might let you get the important data off the computer before you lose it.  Use at your own risk.

Bandwidth Tools For Monitoring your bandwidth

Paul

<<See Previous Post

So I’ve done some looking around for bandwidth programs.  So here’s what I found so far.  The programs I’ve got listed are not test and are therefore your responsible for any and all use of the programs.

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  • FreeMeter Bandwidth Monitor For Windows – Monitor network bandwidth (C#.NET 2k/XP+). Desktop and Systray graph. Configurable connection speed, update interval, color, transparency. Monitor any or all network interfaces. Ping/Trace/UPnP utilities. Email notifier (POP/IMAP). Requires .NET 2.0.

  • Pipelog – Windows Bandwidth Meter — Pipelog is a Windows bandwidth meter that gives live statistics of accumulated bandwidth usage. It is written in C# and runs on the .NET Framework.

  • Windows Service Monitor — Monitor and automatically restart Windows Services with this small Win32 command line utility. Windows Service Monitor (WinSMon) can monitor several services, restart services that stop/fail and limit the number of restart times.

  • iptotal — iptotal is an IP traffic monitor. It listens to a network interface in non-promiscuous mode, and measures IP bandwidth usage. After the specified number of seconds, the average throughput is printed at total, input and output usage.

  • Bandwidth Vista 1.0.0.8 — Bandwidth Vista is modern, informative and intuitive to use. Whether you are looking for network problems or simply want to check the speed of your Internet connection Bandwidth Vista is for you. Bandwidth Vista monitors all your connected interfaces at once and holds a history of transfers, which can be viewed down to the minute. This dynamic application also indicates the countries of remote computers con.

  • Bandwidth Monitor 2 — An ideal tool for the bandwidth conscious, Bandwidth Monitor enables you to keep a close eye on the amount of bandwidth accumulated over the current hour, day, week, month, or even year! Advanced logging tools make it easy to view your bandwidth usage and make alterations to bandwidth logs. Clean up old data at the touch of a button, and import your bandwidth data from our predecessor Bandwidth Monitor 1.0. Version 2 adds Vista compatibility.

  • Axence NetTools 3.2 — NetWatch – network monitoring with e-mail alerting, real-time & historical charts of response time & packet lost. WinTools lists exhaustive system information from Windows computers: running processes & services, registry, event log, disk, memory & CPU information. Port scanner checks for all open ports and running services.

  • BitMeter 3.5.7 — BitMeter 2 is a bandwidth meter, it allows you to visually monitor your Internet connection by displaying a scrolling graph that shows your upload and download speed over time. Features include: Graphical and numerical displays of historical data, Web interface, alerts, stopwatch, calculator, transparent/float/click-through modes, 36-page help file, audio notifications, configurable color-schemes and many other options. Version 3.5.7 offers minor fixes and feature enhancements.

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These are just a few that I could find to better keep track of your bandwidth.  These haven’t been tested but should get your started in the right directions.  If you have any good suggestions by all means let me know!!

More Color Scheme Control with Agave

Paul

agave_screen3.png
Linux only: Webapps like colr.org are great for exploring color theme ideas, but some users might require a little more fine-tuning. Enter Agave, a program for GNOME-based Linux systems that gives you more than enough color information to plan your web site, desktop theme or design projects. Choose from standard palettes, use a Photoshop-like selection tool to grab any color on your screen or manually set color, saturation and brightness levels to save in a list of favorites. Agave is a free download for Linux systems only, available as a source download and in many standard repositories.

Agave [via FOSSwire]

Nice little program for linux, I’ll have to try it out on Kubuntu and see how well it works!!