Computer Blog: News and Updates About Computers

Digg.com is spreading to China?

Today, one of my friends told me about this so called “Chinese version of Digg.com”. We all know how popular digg.com is and yet the whole business model of digg.com is very simple. People submit whatever they liked and share it with other people. At first, it is truly user generated content and the intent is to share. As time goes by, digg.com become a powerful marking tool for online stores and webmasters.  It has powerful PR and has millions of visitors and it is free to submit.

So what is it like in China?  In China, the situation is a bit different as there are way fewer online stores and less people actually shop online. If there is a true “digg.com” in China, it will still be a place for sharing, not for markting. Due to this reality, webmasters of Chinese version of digg.com has to submit everything themselves and promote in other places to attract visitors. But who knows what will happen in 3 years?   Not suprisingly, you are seeing Chiense version of twitter, squidoo and stylehive.

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Leave Laptop at Home

Lugging a laptop and searching endlessly for a wi-fi hot spot could be a thing of the past for savvy traveler. As cell phones become more powerful, so does the software that allows them to be more complex and useful. Whether you have an iphone, a BlackBerry, or just a smartphone, there are tons of apps that can turn your cell ito multiasking travel companion.

iPhone
You know how handy it is when you are are on the go.  You can use iphone to let your friends know what you aredoing with Facebook for iphone. You can check your flight before getting to airport with FlightTrack ($4.99)

BlackBerry
For BlackBerry users, there’s a one-stop app for travelers called WorldMate Live (free). With this tool, you can create itineraries, use the hotel booking service, check the weather, see if your flight is on time, and use the Conections feature to find people at your destination. Another handy app is Poynt that allows you to find local businss from yellow pages.

Windows Mobile
You can use Evernote (free) for Windows Mobile to tag and organize important travel information online, as wll as write notes to yourself. Metro (free) is another must-have app for traveling to urban areas, because it gives you public transportation schedules for bus, train, subway, and more for most of the world’s major cities.

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Computer Keyboard Shortcut Keys

If most of us know how to best utilize these short keys, he or she can probably increase the effectiveness of the job by 30% (assuming most of the work is done on the computer)

F1 Show Help Doc

F2 When you have file selected, it means rename the file

F3 when you are on desktop, it opens up search box

F10 or ALT activate current window

CTRL+ESC opens start menu

SHIFT+DELETE – Delete completely (not in recycle bin)

CTRL+N – create a new file

CTRL+O- open file window

CTRL+P – open print window

ALT+BACKSPACE or CTRL+Z – cancel your last execution

ALT+SHIFT+BACKSPACE -Repeat the last canceled execution

Windows+M – minimize all windows

Windows+E – open windows explorer

Windows+F – Open search file box

ALT+F4 -Close current active window

ALT+TAB Switch all open applications

PRINT SCREEN -Capture a screen shot

ALT+LEFT ARROW Show previous browsed page

CTRL+F5 – Force Refreshing

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GeForce GTS250

After the smooth transition from Geforce 8 Series to Geforce 9 Series, NVIDIA is entering a new ear of GT200. Toady, let us take a look at the newest release of Nvidia GTS250

Comparing to GTX9800, GTS250 gets better at handling overheating and over clocking.   Just as other Geforce 9 Series, the GPU is equipped with CUDA technology.

Comparing to  9800 GT, it is a bit shorter but more powerful

We’re looking at a fairly modest boost to a 771MHz core, 1890MHz shaders, and 1123MHz memory. You’ll pay about ten bucks for the additional speed; list price for GST250 is $159.

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Nokia E55 Comes in Red

When Nokia first officially announced the ultrathin Nokia E55, it only comes in two color versions: black and white.

Seems Nokia is eager to roll out new versions of E55, Here we have some pictures showing Nokia E55 in red. I know this color mostly appeals to girls, but now guys. ( I could be wrong though)

For me, i particularly like the fact that it provides up to 8 hours of talk-time or up to 30 days of stand-by time. But don’t just believe what it says because in a lot of cases, the real stand by time and talk time could be significantly lower than what was advertised.

For those people who have the money in your pocket, you probably need to wait till the 2nd quarter of 2009.  It is reported that the retail price of the handset is about $340. However, it is not clear at this point whether the red version will entry into the market at the same time.

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Compaq Presario Laptop Review

Bought a Compaq Persario CQ50 after the new year. Used it as a replacement for my previous Dell Inspiron 1501. This laptop comes with a dark blue cover. AMD Dual Core QL-60, 160 GB hard drive and 2 GB memory. It comes with pre installed Vista Home Premium Version. I tried to install XP on the laptop but somehow could not find proper dirvers for the laptop. So i installed Vista back and purchased another 2GB-memory to make it a 3GB laptop. Generally speaking 2GB ram is not enough for Vista.

I have to say this is a decent laptop for only $500 (i bought it as open-box). Wireless is use to use as you can turn it on or off by a button right beside the power switch. Touch pad is easy to use and it has one audio jack in front of the panel. One drawback is that this laptop only has 3 USB ports. HDMI port is not available and therefore is not a multi media laptop.

It has some combination keys that makes it easier for certain daily tasking. Fex example, Fn+F3 opens the web browser, Fn+f9 works like a play button, fn + phup or phdown controls the volume. To me, this is very important becausewhen i am watching moving, i don’t want to quit full screen to adjust the volume.

Pros:
Cheap, decent performance, keyboards

Cons:
not a multi-media laptop, lacks USB port, no built-in web-cam

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Use VMWARE install Windows Vista

• First, convert your vista into an iso image, then use Alcohol 120% virtual drive to open it
• Then run Vmware and start a new virtual disk with a space of at least 9GB. Then connect Alcohol 120% to the virtual disk
• Don’t start installing yet. You need a temporary data swap area for installing Vista.
  
• Then you can start installing vista and time you needed depends on your hardware configuration
• After the installation of Vista is completed, don’t forget to install the “Vmware tools. Otherwise you get a “ugly” interface.

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Iconix as defense to Phishing

Paypal, an division of Ebay, announce Monday that it is going to use iconix as solutions to phishing problems. This technology has been fully tested last year and on Monday, it will be officially promoted to Paypal’s 164 million accounts. Over the past few years, phishing has been a problem to paypal and other online banking users. A email that looks like was sent by Paypal states that you need to login to validate your account. As a result, the information you entered will be get stolen and you may end up lose all the money in your paypal account.

Iconix says its technology works with most Webmail programs, including Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, and Earthlink, as well as some of the more popular office suites. To date, however, the technology only works with Microsoft Outlook 2003 (in beta form) and Outlook Express.

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Shuttle’s PC for only $199

Open source rocks! Shuttle introduces KPC linux PC for only $199. It’ll have an Intel Celeron processor, a 945GC chipset, 512MB of memory and either a 60GB or 80GB hard drive. What it won’t have: an optical drive or a PCI Express slot. Despite that, it’s a pretty good-looking box, and comes in red, blue, white, and black, each with a different icon stamped on the front.

What’s so great about this computer is not its price but the computer case in my opinion. The computer case comes in red, blue, white and black. So it will be a great computer if you care less about the functionality but more about the look of the computer.

Shuttle also says there will be a $99 barebones version of the KPC. That version will have the option of upgrading to a Core2Duo processor and 1GB of memory. Both will be available for purchase near the end of the first quarter.

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Best Firefox Extension -1

If you are using firefox, you probably have a good reason. Personally, I really like the extensions provided by various contributors. These extensions are open-source and free. Cnet.com recently introduced the top 10 extensions. You may not need all of the extensions, but certainly some of the extensions are highly recommended.

1: Tab mix plus
TMP can change nearly every behavior and action performed by tabs. With this tab, you can specify where pages will open, duplicate a tab, prevent it from closing, merge tabs and more.

2:MR local tech install
This tool can be used if you want more control over the plug-ins. It gives the user a restart button that reboots the browser quickly and re-open all the tabs that were closed.

3: All-in-one sidebar
All-in-one sidebar gives the users a sidebar and plenty of things to do with it. You can set it live to either side of the browser and use hot key controls.

4: CustomizeGoogle
This tool lets you tweak services provided by Google. Things you can do including removing sponsored ads and adding position ranking. A new feature of CustomizeGoogle gets you to stream the Web search results.

5:Gmail Space
Gmail Space is one of my favorite extensions. It converts 6 GB free online space for email to free online space for whatever you like. You can use it like a FTP program and transfer files to your gmail.

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