In The News: Apple iPad Captured .04% of Browser Market Share

Even before its launch in the US, the latest offering from Apple Inc. has already hit the headlines; people are talking about its beauty, its Wi-Fi and 3GS capability, its sleek and modern design and its feature lineup which surpasses the Apple iPhone. So successful was this new baby, that Apple was forced to delay worldwide launch of iPad by a month due to strong U.S demand and limited iPad supply. This caused annoyance among worldwide fans but hey, it wouldn't matter much, just as how Israel banned Apple iPad to protect its wireless network does not affect anything; Apple had already sold massive amount of units in the U.S alone and the iPad hype just continued...


iPad even made headlines most recently with its browser market share. Just a mere 10 days off from its launch in the U.S, NetApplications' data is already reporting that iPad captured some 0.04% of browser market share; the numbers even rivaled those of Windows Mobile, Android and Blackberry.

  
Apple's mobile products literally still dominate the mobile browsing scene, even if iPad isn't in there to mix things up. iPhone recorded a 0.51% market share, while iPod touch comes in at 0.11%.  However, with iPad going so strong barely a few days into its launch, i guess we can expect a massive shake in the browser market share pretty soon...shall i guess, three months? Some people may suggest that iPad had been successful thus far due to initial launch hype, but remember, that amount was in the U.S alone, with full-featured iPad yet to come and another worldwide launch yet to happen.


All i can say for now is: iPad, you really got the right stuffs in you!

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Chrome v4 vs Opera v10.50: Both Very Fast, But Who's Really Better?

Released a couple of weeks ago for Windows and Mac users, the Opera 10.50 web browser seeks to regain the undisputed title of “Speedking” when it comes to web browsing pleasure. With a host of innovative functions introduced to keep the most inquisitive web geek fascinated, Opera hopes to increase their market share of users. We matched it up in a series of tests against Chrome 4.0.249.89 (stable release) which we considered to be the best yardstick for speed, and this is what we found. 
 
Using V8 Benchmark Suite (admittedly a Google program), Chrome fared better overall (see image) but there were certain areas where Opera 10.50 was outstanding. The DOM selection speed test went to Opera as did the page load speed using the Opera Turbo function (although the picture quality is initially poor). Chrome was a bit heavier on RAM usage, but Opera was extremely reluctant to release it when we asked it to close.
 

Chrome looks good, acts smoothly and has speeded up its automatic translation bar. It has caught up with Opera when it comes to internet privacy (look for the little detective icon) and the new tab features are incredibly user friendly.

The Carakan Javascript engine and the speed dial thumbnails on the Opera browser are slick additions to an already powerful browser, but the biggest “eyebrow raiser” is the file sharing facility offered by Opera Unite. In these days of cloud technology this feature is against the run of the mill. Some individual users will find it a huge advantage whereas others will find it an encumbrance. 

In conclusion – Chrome wins narrowly in our opinion. Each user will have their own likes and dislikes of the respective browsers, but we cannot see an end to the growth in market share which Chrome is currently enjoying.



This article is contributed by Melissa Tamura and review, edited and published by James. Melissa Tamura blogs about topics such as this example for the Zen College Life Blog. She would like to hear from you @ melissatamura@gmail.com

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The Future Is In The Clouds: Microsoft Launches Cloud Services Website

In my opinion as a future Business Information System graduate, the first launch of Cloud Services back during the PDC conference in 2008 sounds like a breakthrough, though i can say i do not know how serious Microsoft is towards this 'new technology' development. It is now 2010 and well...Microsoft is going all-out on Cloud Computing...with the upcoming release of Microsoft Office 2010 on May and June 2010 and the launch of a new Cloud Services website.

  
Why do i say that Office 2010 is the beginning of the cloud era? Well, some of the applications in Office 2010 is developed with cloud computing in mind...for example, Microsoft Office Live Meeting and Office Communications Online.The website also have a Silverlight-powered video where Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talks about how he thinks cloud is the future path for Microsoft's development and how cloud provides an opportunities for Microsoft to improve and stay ahead of technology rivals such as Google. Better toggle off the video though, if you're sick of Ballmer's speech (LOL). Well if you notice carefully enough, you'll notice that cloud-based services from Microsoft is slowly taking shape as of today; see below image for reference:

 
Microsoft's Cloud Service is powered by a service platform known as the Azure Services Platform. Within the Azure Service Platform, a cloud operating system called Windows Azure will be the acting medium for applications's operation such as Office Live, SharePoint Services etc. 

Visit the new Cloud Services website and see for yourself: Microsoft officially lists six software categories as the firsts to be hosted in the cloud, though i'm convinced with the progress of services infrastructures and developments, more services will be added to the current list in the future:

1. Windows

Development of Windows Azure, Microsoft's first ever cloud-based OS, is first mentioned in the 2008 PDC Conference by Ray Ozzie. Windows Azure supports cloud computing in a sense that it serves as a platform for in-the-cloud applications to run together as a bundle of internet services which is accessible from the on-premises environment and the Internet itself. 

Meanwhile, Windows Live ID (your Hotmail/Live ID which incorporates your username and password) will be sort of like your online identification card on which Microsoft requires to provide services to you. This indirectly means that your Windows Live ID is starting from today, something which importance is as high as your IC and your Passport.


2. SQL (Structured Query Language) Servers

SQL databases used to be created & managed with the help of physically-hosted ERP software or Database Management System (DBMS) such as SAP, Oracles and at the simplest, Microsoft Office Access. Since Windows Azure provides the ability to host SQL database online, database managers now don't have to create, setup, manage or patch their database anymore.


3. Exchange

Microsoft Exchange is the predominant mail client of Microsoft way back during the popularities of Windows 95 and 98 until it was replaced by Microsoft Office Outlook.Meanwhile, Microsoft Exchange Server survives and thrives until now, where it is often used by enterprise as infrastructure providers in Windows Server 2003 & 2008. With cloud computing, Exchange is now brought to the cloud and run as an in-the-cloud services.


4. SharePoint


Microsoft SharePoint also goes to the cloud now, giving business employees the power to share information and data online from anywhere, at anytime and not forsaking the idea of being able to collaborate with each other as usual. Going to the cloud means that SharePoint is now more secure and more centralized in terms of management.


5. Office

Office Live Meeting, Office Communications Online and Office Web Apps also goes into the cloud. Starting with the latest Microsoft Office 2010, users can now host real-time conference online, real-time communications with text, voice and videos, plus the ability to now access and edit your Office-based documents (eg, your Word, Excel and Access) anywhere.


6. Dynamics CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Previous CRM management means that information managers have to keep track of customer information & relations with the aids of either separate or integrated applications, meaning that costs will be high and CRM systems are constantly bugged with planning, implementation and adoption issues. With Microsoft Dynamics CRM now in the cloud, CRM can be centrally managed through an integrated system online, saving business organizations the troubles of having to develop, implement and manage the CRM systems themselves. The only concern left is getting clients to adopt to them!


Microsoft also clearly states that the new cloud services provided will be useful for technical professionals business professionals and government and educational sectors. For technical professionals, they can now utilize all the provided applications to enhance, create new and manage their current information systems when they are trying to develop an IT infrastructure that meets business needs. All they need to focus now is on producing quality codes and defining business needs. For business professionals and government & education, they've been provided with a complete set of online applications to manage their business information online; without the need to even change or implement new services anymore!


Sources suggest that a huge majority of Microsoft employees are now working on cloud development, and we are talking about a majority of the 93000 employees at Microsoft, which is a ridiculously huge number. Honestly, if Microsoft are really so dedicated that they could reduce attention on developing host-based software like Windows 8, then they must really be serious about things. Bring on the cloud, then!

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NVIDIA ION 2: Coming Soon To Netbooks In April!

Folks who want to buy a netbook fitted with NVIDIA graphic processing unit (GPU) in the coming days, weeks or months, please hold up! Asking for you to delay your purchase has its reason: NVIDIA has finally released an announcement on its upcoming next-generation graphic card technology, collectively known as NVIDIA ION v2, due this coming April!

You may wonder what's so special about this upcoming hardware release from NVIDIA. The reason is simple: it is a pretty significant upgrade over contemporary NVIDIA graphic cards you see in the current market, even its predecessor, the NVIDIA ION 1st generation. The biggest difference between the ION 1st generation and the upcoming 2nd generation is that while ION 1 is a combine Northbridge/GPU chipset, the ION 2 is instead, a standalone, independent GPU.

According to the official NVIDIA ION website, NVIDIA ION 2 is developed to be media-savvy, which was supported by statements on which they claim the new ION graphic card can perform lots of media-intensive jobs such as support full 1080p video streaming on Youtube, Blu-Ray disc etc, accelerate popular video and music applications and enhance modern games' gaming experience such as World of Warcraft. 

If you take the above chart as reference, NVIDIA ION easily supercharges netbooks into the ranks of notebooks and desktop. The NVIDIA ION 2 boast a performance of ten times the performance of integrated graphic card, while Windows 7 Home Premium will be the platform on which the NVIDIA ION 2 is run.

However, the interesting news is offered to those netbook fans: NVIDIA ION 2-powered netbooks have integrated NVIDIA Optimus Technology, the solution for common weaknesses of netbooks, which are regarding short battery lifespan and inferior performance compared to desktop rigs or contemporary notebooks. What NVIDIA Optimus Technology offers is the ability to automatically and intelligently manage battery life and performance; a very compelling feature for novice users who does not know how to manually configure their netbooks to optimize performance and battery life.

Here are a summary of how the NVIDIA ION integrated into metbooks will work:


1. Optimus powers down the GPU for basic tasks like web surfing, further extending battery life. Likewise, when more graphic processing is needed for playing graphic-intensive games, streaming videos, or using GPU-compliant applications (for example, Adobe Photoshop), Optimus automatically activates the ION GPU.

2.  No user interaction is required for NVIDIA ION to work: Optimus seamlessly figures out how to best optimize the users' notebook computing experience.

NVIDIA ION's official website listed two netbooks: the Acer Aspire One 532G and the ASUS EEE PC 1201 PN as the first to-be-released netbooks in the market to run the much anticipated NVIDIA ION GPU fitted with Optimus Technology. And it's not just this two product: more than 30 product featuring NVIDIA ION & Optimus Technology are due to debut in the market ranging from desktops to motherboard manufacturers and add-in cards. The first batch of ION 2-powered ASUS EEE PC 1201 PN will go live on sale on April 2010, as well as the 30 different products.

Of course, at the end of the day, this is good news to those who wanted a netbook. Small, lightweight and now with NVIDIA ION 2, netbook can now officially share the same ability as notebooks and desktops in enjoying hi-def media streamings and gaming. Previously, netbook is bad at media-related stuffs and gaming, yet NVIDIA ION's the only thing that will make enjoying media and gaming on netbooks enjoyable. Therefore, if you are thinking about a long-term investment in netbooks, do just held back until April 2010...when the first NVIDIA ION 2-powered product hits the market. It is worth the wait and the money!

*Thanks to eweek.com, engadget,com and the official NVIDIA ION website for the information and pictures.

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Customize Facebook Appearances With Firefox Through Stylish Or GreaseMonkey

For Mozilla Firefox users only:

Facebook keeps its user interface and layout pretty standardized, meaning that all users will be given the same GUI and layout, including the colors and background applied. Well, one of my criticism of Facebook is exactly this; although it offers an abundance of features which i appreciate very much, i could not understand why Facebook won't allow us to apply graphic customization to our own page when other social networking sites like MySpace and Friendster could.

Here's a tip for Mozilla Firefox users who are bored with the lack of graphical customization on Facebook: They can use either Stylish or GreaseMonkey, both user script manager specially for Firefox, to change their Facebook's graphical appearance. It won't result in a slower loading of Facebook's webpages nor would it affect any available features on Facebook!

  

For novice users, user script is one of the key elements in web design and one which determines what a web page is supposed to have/do/show. So quite simply, if we want to change Facebook's graphic appearance, all we have to do is to edit the script of the web page itself! Problem is, scripting is complicated and will easily bore most users out. Fortunately, there are those who have learned, and are willing, to create tonnes of user scripts that will change the appearance of Facebook online...and all we have to do is use Stylish or GreaseMonkey, as previously stated!

Let's get started: 

1. Visit the Firefox Addon Site and install the add-on 'Stylish' or the add-on 'GreaseMonkey'. You will be prompted to restart Firefox.

2. After Firefox restarted, visit the website UserStyles.org, where many user scripts writers have generously posted tonnes of user scripts which include scripts for Facebook.
 
3. Browse through the library of user scripts for Facebook and select an appearance you like. On your right hand side, you'll notice that there are two options; one is for Stylish, the other for GreaseMonkey. Choose the 'Install with Stylish' button if you installed the Stylish add-on; choose 'install as a user script' button if you installed the 'GreaseMonkey' add-on.

4. Visit Facebook and see the changes! Here's a sample of a customized Facebook Login Page using the Greasemonkey add-on:

5.  Scripts installed as Stylish is manageable from the Stylish Menu. On your Firefox toolbar, find Tools>Add-ons>Extensions>Stylish. 

Similarly, you can install as many scripts as possible and manage them from the GreaseMonkey addon's Options menu. On your Firefox toolbar, find Tools>Addons>Extensions>GreaseMonkey and select the 'Option' button. This is what you will get:

From here, you can manage your scripts easily: disable or enable scripts, add or delete scripts and many more!

The one thing that bugs this customization method though, is that it only allows users to enjoy the customized appearance on the PC where either one of the two add-ons are installed within Firefox. Another similar problem is that other users will not be able to enjoy your customized appearance elsewhere even if they do have the add-ons installed; all they see out of your Profile page is still the same old standardized background. Nevertheless, if used for personal enjoyment, the scripts really work on all Facebook sites, including users' Home page, Profile page and even Application page. A little tip for all: it even works on the Lite version of Facebook as shown below!

Thank you, Firefox, for the addon. You make Facebook more beautiful now!

NOTE: It took hard work and effort for those script authors to write user scripts and share it to us, so if you like the user script and would like to support them through money, do make a tiny donation at their respective user script pages!

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Microsoft Releases Silverlight 4 Beta Client For Facebook

For the first time ever...to both Windows and MacOS fans~


Remember Fishbowl for Facebook? Well, for those who didn't, it was a Facebook desktop client released by Microsoft during their annual PDC back in late 2009. Fishbowl is developed by UXLabs@Microsoft and is entirely powered by Microsoft Silverlight, providing an incredible browsing experience of the popular social networking site. Question is, Fishbowl is slightly slow and can be a bit hard to get used to.


Worry not, for Microsoft came up with another alternative - a better one! Microsoft released a Silverlight 4 Beta Client just for Facebook as of now. Like Fishbowl, it runs Facebook using a desktop application instead of the browser, but compared to Fishbowl, it is much faster and more complete in features! This new desktop client for Facebook spots a dark and sleek interface, starting off with the Home screen right down to the Photo-browsing page. Even the photo uploader is pretty neat and workable compared to Fishbowl.


I would ditch Fishbowl any day for such an improvement, but there are setbacks too. If there's anything...anything that this desktop client lack in features, it doesn't have the chat function which is available in the browser-based Facebook. Besides, since Silverlight 4 will required reinstallation once it is out of beta, so it may be a troublesome thing that novice users will have to worry about in the future.


Some additional screenshots for your viewing pleasure:

 

For those interested to use Facebook poweredby the latest Silverlight 4 Beta, you can get them from this website.

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Recent Beta Program Updates

I have been busy learning new stuffs in and out during my holidays, so i couldn't fulfill my promise as stated in my announcement area. Nevertheless, i felt it's time i pull myself away from all this learning and started posting something here.



Today i'll not be introducing software or promotions to you, but i'll instead, give you a brief update on some of the interesting beta programs i keep tabs on throughout my holiday periods:

1. Avast! Antivirus v5

This popular antivirus has just came out of beta on the 20th of January. The new v5 has a revamped interface design, more user-centric charts and options plus several new features and scan engine updates. It is incredibly light on PC resources as well. Not bad for a free antivirus, i must say!


2. Trend Titanium

Remember my previous post about Trend Micro Security Beta? Well, this is essentially a renamed version of the previous Trend Micro Security Beta program. Trend Titanium is released as renamed, recolored and optimized feature. Having said that, it still keeps its virtue of operating from the cloud, so it is extremely light on resources. The beta program is still going on at Trend Micro Beta Portal and will proceed all the way into March 2010.

3. Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate (RC)

Firefox is pretty much the trendsetter in terms of add-on features and security standards for browsers, but in v3.6, due to release in the coming weeks, Firefox developers are more focused on performance and speed improvements. Personal testing revealed that v3.6 is indeed, more responsive and produces minimal crashes for a beta program, but then it's speed significantly trails behind those of Google Chromes and the latest Opera v10.5.


4. Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta

Although the current Adobe Flash Player 10 works just fine with no reported vulnerabilities, the fact is that it is still slow...incredibly slow on graphic rendering. Imagine Youtube's hi-def videos going sluggish on your PC, or the Flash games on Facebook maxing out your CPU cycle, making your PC as slow as a snail! The latest beta version of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 bring GPU acceleration technology to your PC, or in other words, Adobe Flash Player now utilizes your PC's graphic cards in order to render high-definition flash videos and games, therefore reduce CPU stress! Bad news is, there are only some processors in the market that supports this new tech...


5. BitComet 2010 Beta

 BitComet's high times are over; people nowadays would rather recommend uTorrent or Vuze to manage downloads, but then to hardcore fans, BitComet serves them just fine. The new BitComet emphasizes on GUI improvements and  bug fixes, plus some minor network tweaks to improve overall experience.

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Hitman Pro, the World's First Ever Multiple-Engine-Powered Cloud Virus Scanner

It's common knowledge that a system is best to have only one antivirus onboard...well, sort of, because there ARE some antivirus pairings that work well together, for example, Kaspersky with Microsoft Security Essentials. Problem is, sometimes malware still get pass your system undetected, even when you have two antivirus installed on your PC. You can always upload suspected files up to online scanning service such as VirusTotal.com, but then what if you don't know which file to suspect? Surely you can't upload everything one by one?

Hitman Pro, a cloud-based virus scanning software developed by SurfRight, has the closest answer to the problem above. Unlike Panda Cloud Antivirus or Immunet Protect, which are both independent cloud antivirus, Hitman Pro utilizes FIVE scanning engines as their in-the-cloud detection, where users can immediately scan their PC directly from the desktop. Like all cloud scanning technology, Hitman Pro is designed to be portable, light on system resources, requires minimum interaction and improved scanning time. Hitman Pro also works alongside any existing antivirus software without compatibility issues. The free version of Hitman Pro allows users to scan their PC for infection (with a free 30-day period removal), while the paid version allows users to scan for and remove infections from their PC.

The five scanning engines are publicly revealed as G DATA, Avira, ESET NOD32, Prevx CSI & A-Squared Antimalware, although one can argue that with this lineup, Hitman Pro is essentially utilizing 7 scanning engines, since GDATA uses the Bitdefender and Avast scanning engines, while A-Squared uses its own scanning engine together with Ikarus scanning engine. According to inside sources, Hitman Pro carefully chooses their scanning engines based on their distinctive advantages. G DATA and Avira is chosen for their proven high and accurate detection rate, while NOD32 is chosen for its famous ThreatSense heuristic scanning engine. Prevx is chosen for its HIPS detection and rootkit detection while A-Squared is chosen for its antispyware and common malware detection.

Hitman Pro scans fast and reliably, identifying the main key areas for scan based on collective intelligence from its five scanning engines. On its scan result page, it displays the amount of files scanned and the total time taken for scanning the files. It is also more configurable than Panda Cloud Antivirus, A-Squared MalAware and Immunet Protect in some areas, notably the option to scan the PC during every computer bootup.

The limitations of Hitman Pro, however, is that is is meant to be a scanning and removal tool instead of a monitoring tool. Therefore, it is recommended that users still have a real-time antivirus running on their desktop. If users decide to rely on Hitman Pro for detection, then they must frequently scan their PC for infections. Since the free version does not provide removal, Hitman Pro is also not a really good free virus scanner for novice users who does not have sufficient knowledge in manually removing malwares.

All in all, Hitman Pro is the best portable cloud virus scanner available for both novice and advanced users.
 
Hitman Pro is currently a v3.5 final release (Build 80), available in both 32-bit and 64-bit. Windows XP, Vista, 7 and all Server OS (2003 & 2008) are supported.

Download Hitman Pro v3.5 32-bit

Download Hitman Pro v3.5 64-bit

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Microsoft launched Fishbowl, a Silverlight-Powered, Desktop-Based Facebook Client

I've been following news regarding the annually-held Professional Developers Conference (PDC), where this year Microsoft really debuted tonnes of stuffs, from the latest news on Internet Explorer 9, Windows Azure, Microsoft .NET 4, the newly unveiled Silverlight 4 and then...Fishbowl, a Facebook Client!


It sounded pretty unusual that Microsoft would even spend precious time & resources in developing something like this but hey, they must be Facebook fans as well! After their preview of the upcoming Silverlight 4, they demoed Fishbowl, which is now officially available for download. Not only does Fishbowl provide a nice, clean display of your stream, but Fishbowl stand out as a better Facebook client than any other applications because it is packed with excellent stability & features (some not even available on Facebook itself), is pretty responsive (even more so if you have a high-end machine), and extremely intuitive to use.

Although Fishbowl supports the 32-bit version of Windows XP and both the 32 & 64-bit of Vista and 7, Microsoft has stated that the application is designed best for Windows 7, and it's no wonder why. Yes, Windows 7 is the latest OS released by the corporation from Redmond, but its features notably the Windows 7 taskbar with jumplist (as shown in the image below) and Aero Peek, gives Fishbowl an edge in terms of design & usage over XP and Vista. Most importantly, Fishbowl is designed to be touch-screen supported, meaning that users of Windows 7 can literally control Facebook using their fingers!

Some of Fishbowl's best features I immediately noticed is the way it lets you explore photos & friends' pages. Pick an album/friend to browse, then flip through the images/friends list using your mouse's scroll wheel. Zoom is also supported (you can zoon in and out anytime!), and you can also print or save images (or an entire album) in a single click. There's even a full screen Slideshow Mode for hands-free viewing. As for uploading your own images, the drag-and-drop feature heavily used in Windows makes uploading an almost-too-easy task with Fishbowl.

However, if you've gotten used to browsing Facebook using Firefox, Chrome, Opera or any other relatively unknown browser, be prepared for some slow speed, because Fishbowl is probably using IE8's rendering engine (it's Microsoft's product, after all), so opening external web content is going to feel slow. Also, Fishbowl is notably slow at rendering walls on profile pages, which sort of showed off Silverlight's weakness.There are options for users to change the color of the application, but then the color choices are limited (though it looks good) if you're a hardcore customizor, anyway.

To conclude all, if you're a user of Microsoft Windows XP & above, a Facebook user and a hardcore photo-sharing and status-updating person, then Fishbowl's the right tool for you!

Visit Fishbowl's official website here.

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Get Free O&O DriveLED 3 (Genuine) (Save 30$)

Chip.de is offering  full version of O&O DriveLED 3 in German language but the good thing is same license can be used on O&O DriveLED 3 (Eng). First of all few highlights of O&O DriveLED 3:

*Display of read/write access for logical volumes

*Display of current storage capacity on logical drives

*Automatic monitoring of all S.M.A.R.T. properties

*Display of current temperatures on all hard disk drives (when supported by manufacturer)

*Prognosis of remaining operational life for all hard disk drives

*Self tests run directly in Windows without the creation of a boot disk!

*Warning notification of possible operational errors on all hard disk drives

*Support of all Windows-compatible storage volumes

*Support of SCSI-disk drives

Grab It:

1: Open the following URL into your browser (URL copy n paste) and fill a short form. The form is in German language so follow snap P1 for guaidance. After filling form, submit it. On the next page you will see a message in German language telling you that you will get your free personal license soon. You will get it in 5 minutes.

http://www.oo-software.com/home/de/special/driveled/

2: Find email from O&O in your inbox or Spam folder. The subject of email will be Ihre Lizenz von O&O DriveLED 3. Find the part of email containing your registration infos. Follow snap P2 for guidance.

3: Download the O&O DriveLED from the following URL (URL copy n paste). The installer is in English.

http://dl.filekicker.com/send/file/227394-7I66/OODriveLED3Enu.exe

4: After installation, at first run, you will be asked to enter your license info. Read Step 2 again to locate your license. Register it and enjoy. Follow the following snap to find where to fill what during registration.

Chip.de promotion page can be found here (URL copy n paste):
http://www.chip.de/downloads/Vollversion-DriveLED_13013880.html

More info on O&O DriveLED 3 can be found here (URL copy n paste):
http://www.oo-software.com/home/en/products/oodriveled/index.html
Enjoy it.

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Internet Explorer 9 Revealed (Still In Development Phase, Though!)

 Internet Explorer 9 has officially been unveiled today at the annually-held Professional Developers Conference (PDC). In fact, as this article is being published here, attendants and speakers on the PDC conference are still talking about IE9 and other tech advances. You can check out the discussions yourself at the Microsoft's PDC2009 website.

We all know what Microsoft should do with IE9, and apparently their goals with IE9 is pretty much the same as we are since they are pretty obviously heading into the right direction. From the graphs shown in their presentation during the PDC, IE9 is depicted as faster, with more standards-compliant website rendering. The test is based on Webkit.org's SunSpider test, a browser testing site very commonly used for benchmarking browser performance. For a browser which is barely three weeks into development, that is really some achievement. 

According to them, they're also including 'hardware accelerated' rendering using Direct Write and Direct 2D, along with users' graphics card with the aid of DirectX D2D technology. This means that whether you're trying to do CSS3, Javascript or DHTML, IE9 should render things much faster. Stephen Sinofsky mentioned that one particularly impressive rendering showed how with the existing browser, Bing Maps could render a map at about 13-14 frames per second;  but using hardware acceleration,  it was running at 60 frames per second. We're talking about a new browser which performance is tripling its predecessors!


In other words, Internet Explorer 9 will be the first-ever browser to utilize both hardware and software to render its performance. So long your PC's graphic cards are high-end, you can literally expect IE9 to fly. Sweet, isn't it (pray that it wouldn't come out as a disappointment, though)?




As mentioned that IE9 is only three weeks old, we shouldn't be expecting its launch in the near future but then as Sinofsky mentioned, there's still lots of works to do. I think most of us would pretty much be willing to wait for Sinofsky's team to fully develop the new browser, wouldn't we?

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