For those in need for a valid, free antivirus for one year, Bitdefender is giving away 20 license keys of their Internet Security 2012 in a contest on their Facebook fan page.
The contest starts from a video of a WoW fan whose account was hacked into. Tragic, but true, unfortunately. In order to be elected as a winner, participants have to imagine this scenario (fortunatelly, I have never been a victim of such scams, so I would have to imagine the story) with them in the shoes of the guy who gets hacked, and post a comment as a response to the What would you do if your account got hacked? question.
Here's what Bitdefender Internet Security 2012 offers:
Keep your friends close and your enemy closer. Recognizing that the friendlier you are, the more you may be preyed upon by opportunistic attackers, Bitdefender invented the safego safe-net concept for both Facebook and Twitter. Bitdefender Safego is a free tool designed to scan links posted on a user’s social network accounts and protect against spam, scams and other e-threats, while also keeping users aware of personal information exposure. The safe-net concept is based on a simple idea: the more friends are protected with safego, the safer your network is. And of course, you need your friends net on Facebook and Twitter to be safe.
The same way as the Facebook app, users first authorize the application to access their Twitter accounts, after which Bitdefender safego starts scanning content posted on the users’ stream.
This is how the interface of this app looks (I like the geeky bird that seems to be keeping an eye on all the tweets).
Safego..
checks unknown users before you follow them,
checks the accounts of people you’re following
scans direct messages for spam, suspicious links and high jacking attempts
Threats are ranked trough a color code, by their severity as red, yellow, grey or green in the notification area. There is also an option where users can warn a friend if safego finds his account has been compromised.
So far, Safego looks like a valuable free app to protect your Twitter network and get rid of the spam bots and “get more followers, click here” tweets.
Have you ever tried to add more than 1 Like button on the same webpage?
If yes, you probably learned that placing more that one Like button on a page can cause some validation erros such as the Duplicate ID fb-root.
Luckily, I have the solution and it is quite simple: all you have to do is to include the Facebook Javascript just once, somewhere in the HTML, inside the body tag
<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>(function(d){
var js, id = 'facebook-jssdk'; if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;}
js = d.createElement('script'); js.id = id; js.async = true;
js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1";
d.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(js);
}(document));</script>
and place the button code where you want to be displayed:
The first phase of the Internet was about access and Web 2.0 allowed users to do more than just retrieve information, by increasing what was already possible in Web 1.0. The term Web 2.0 or “the social Web” is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the Web. Web 2.0 brought a fundamental shift in the way people communicate.
Web 2.0 can be described in 3 parts which are as follows:
Rich Internet application (RIA) — the experience brought from desktop to browser
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) — how Web 2.0 applications expose their functionality so that other applications can leverage and integrate the functionality providing a set of much richer applications
Social Web — how Web 2.0 tends to interact much more with the end user and make the end-user an integral part.
The next phase has been about the platform, so you've seen Apple, Google and Facebook there. But the phase after this is going to be more of the about content, creativity and really putting a human face on the Internet, at the same time letting the users to sit back and let the Internet do all of the work for them. The beginnings of WEB 3.0 are set by HTML5, which is being set up with the expectations of a very powerful markup language .There are many great features to look forward to, and I am going to briefly describe some of them below.
So, why is WEB 2.0 dead? Maybe dead is a dramatic word, probably “transformed” would describe it better and it would also imply its evolution. Because The Web is now enhanced. Enhanced with HTML5’s new features:
Canvas: consists of a drawable region defined in HTML code with height and width attributes. JavaScript code may access the area through a full set of drawing functions similar to those of other common 2D APIs, thus allowing for dynamically generated graphics. Some anticipated uses of canvas include building graphs, animations, games, and image composition.
Drang&Drop: the action of (or support for the action of) selecting a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object. Many apps that utilize DnD would have a poor experience without it. For example, imagine a chess game pieces that don't move. See an example of drag and drop in action.
Geolocation: It defines a set of objects, that executing in the client browser give the client's device location. Location-based social media APIs have been storming the social-sphere as search engines have trended towards localization. Over the years, technology starts at a macro level and then evolves to service users on a more personal level. With location-based social media services like Foursquare, Brightkite, iPhone apps– social media will continue to evolve from “What are you doing?” to “What are you doing and where are you doing it?” As behavior is 'socially contagious', location-based social media gives a new tool for advertisers, which are developing more and more campaigns integrating such services and mobile location-based ad tools.
Offline Web Apps: When connecting to a network for the first time a web browser will download the resources given (specified by the app developer) and store them locally. Then, in the absence of a network connection, the web browser will shift to the local copies instead and render the web application offline. The most famous example is Gmail.
Finally, to better illustrate the evolution of web technologies Google teamed up with Hyperakt and Vizzuality and the result is the Evolution of Web infographic. The infographic, which was made in HTML5, shows the new features that the new technologies offer “in action”.
So, how are the new technologies going to change things from the user’s perspective? The web user will have access to more and more complex web applications, many of the regular activities will migrate towards mobile and the web, making the future more about collaboration, interaction & integration of services and new technologies.
When it comes to PC protection, I have a few favorites antivirus suites, but I decide today to present one of them, as it is available for free (90 days) on their Facebook page.And here it is, BitdefenderTotal Security 2012.
Bitdefender Total Security 2012-which was recently launched, is the most complete suite offered by Bitdefender and it offers protection against online threats, malware, spyware, rootkit, trojans, and all kinds of PC viruses. It also is rated as “Very Good” by PCmag and recommended for those who “want protection without drama.”
What you’ll get from Bitdefender Total Security 2012
- Blocks viruses, spyware & spam
- Halts ID theft attempts
- Filters the links you receive from your Facebook (this is my favourite part, Bitdefender Safego is an “anti-scam” app for Facebook, very well rated as well) and Twitter friends
- Keeps kids safe with cutting-edge parental controls
- Online Backup
- Tunes up your PC for optimal speed & performance
Here’s what you need to do to get the 90 days for FREE antivirus kit:
Social media is a phrase being tossed around a lot these days (since social media are blamed for facilitating the organisation of the London riots), but it surely is also a growing phenomena. The stats junkie in me was thrilled to run across 50 fascinating Social Media facts compiled by Ad Age, from which I've listed the first 25.
1. "Social media accounts for one out of every six minutes spent online in US." (Journalism.co.uk)
2. "Seventy-seven percent report that they use social media to share their love of a show; 65% use it as a platform to help save their favorite shows; and 35% use it to try to introduce new shows to their friends." (TVGuide.com study via TVNewsCheck.com)
3. "Facebook users are overall more trusting than non-internet others. Pew reported, 43% of survey participants were more likely than other internet users to feel that most people can be trusted." (Pew Internet via Social Media Club)
4. "22% of all grandparents in the UK are using social networks, according to Mashable. The study, which collected results from 1,341 grandparents from the UK, showed that 71% of grandparents who use a social network use Facebook, 34% are on Twitter and 9% use the business social network LinkedIn." (Mashable via Social Media Today)
5. "In the first four months after its January 2010 launch in Russia, Facebook use grew by 376%, and today more than 4.5 million people use the site regularly." (comscore.com via Mashable)
6. "The 'Weinergate' scandal caused a significant drop in tweeting politicians. According to VentureBeat, after the scandal 'the number of tweets by Republican members of Congress dropped by 27 percent, while those of Democrats dropped by 29 percent.'" (VentureBeat via Marketing Pilgrim)
7. Instagram "currently has a user base of 4.25 million in only seven months, with ten photos being posted a second." (prsarahevans.com via TechCrunch)
8. "It only takes 20 people to bring an online community to a significant level of activity and connectivity." (Ning via TheNextWeb)
9. "Nearly twice as many men (63%) as women (37%) use LinkedIn." (Pew Internet via prsarahevans.com)
10. "In the last election Google was the largest player -- the Obama campaign directed 45% of its online campaign dollars to the search site." (Advertising Age)
11. "59% of adult Facebook users had "liked" a brand as of April, up from 47% the previous September. Uptake among the oldest users appears to have been a major factor in this rise." (eMarketer)
12. "In 2010, 29.3 million readers read some 270 million pages of Post journalism each month, a record for The Washington Post. Of that, 28.1 million did so online and, while [Washington Post] brought in 4.2 million new readers on average each month compared to the previous year, [they] also lost some 35,000 print subscribers in 2010 alone." (Forbes)
13. "25% of hotels [are] still ignoring social media." (TravelClick via Econsultancy)
14. "Businesses are paying Twitter $120,000 to sponsor a promoted trending topic for a day. [...] That's up from $25,000 to $30,000 when the feature was launched in April 2010." (via Poynter)
15. "AOL's newsroom is now bigger than The New York Times'." (Business Insider)
16. "Mobile is one of the fastest-growing platforms in the world. With 40% of U.S. mobile subscribers regularly browsing the internet on their phone and a projected 12.5% of all e-commerce transactions going mobile by the end of the year, it's a channel that you need to be aware of. According to Google, mobile web traffic will surpass PC traffic by 2013." (60 Second Marketer)
17. "Twitter is 6-7 times smaller than Facebook." (via Social Media Today)
18. "There are now 54 million active Mac users around the world." (AllThingsD)
19. "130 million books have been downloaded from iBooks." (AllThingsD)
20. "Users say they're more likely to buy if a business answers their questions on Twitter." (NYTimes.com)
21. "Nearly half (42%) indicated that if they've already allocated a portion of their marketing spend to social media, they would increase this spend over the course of the year. Only 8% of those surveyed indicated that they would decrease social media spend." (The Next Web)
22. "13% of online adults use the status update service Twitter, which represents a significant increase from the 8% of online adults who identified themselves as Twitter users in November 2010. 95% of Twitter users own a mobile phone, and half of these users access the service on their handheld device." (Pew Internet)
23. "According to HubSpot, small businesses plan to spend 19 percent of budgets on social media vs. only 6 percent in larger businesses. A similar gap is shown for blogging with 10 percent of budgets for small business vs. just 3 percent for large." (Hubspot via ClickZ)
24. "33 percent of its worldwide traffic is inside the United States." (Problogger)
25. "Facebook has three times as many accounts as Twitter, and 20 percent of Twitter's users produce at least 80 percent of the site's content." (Problogger)
More stats? Check out the one of the world's most watched Social Media video, Based on #1 International Best Selling Book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman.
Ports are used when any program accesses the Internet so that the system can keep separate applications' data separate. Some port numbers are reserved for functions such as e-mail or FTP. To prevent potential security risks if a protocol was allowed access a port reserved for a seperate protocol, Gecko applications contain a list of banned ports. This preference allows you to unban a port banned by default and therefore prevent the "Access to the port number given has been disabled for security reasons." or "This address uses a network port which is normally used for purposes other than Web browsing. Firefox has canceled the request for your protection." messages.
During the last 2 weeks the ‘social’ Internet has been preoccupied to provide, trough mostly visual comparisons, an answer to the Will google+ beat Facebook? question.
It was about time for Facebook - the giant social media network to meet a rival suited for its 750 million active users. While Facebook is still dominating the social media market, Google + managed to heat up the supremacy battle and gain 10 million members, the popularity of a fierce rival and, in some ‘circles’, the reputation of being the perfect combination between Facebook and Twitter.
So, who’s going to win the fight? The question remains, of course, unanswered. At least for the moment. While Google+’s features: circles, group video chats, integration with other Google services are impressive (+ the striking resemblance with its competitor), Facebook remains the established platform for sharing with friends and family
Until you decide on which side you belong to, check out this infographic powered by singlegrain.com
Google has a solution for printing documents in Chrome OS. Instead of preloading the drivers for printers, Chrome OS will use an online service for printing: Google Cloud Print.
In Google Chrome OS, all applications are web apps. Therefore, in designing the printing experience for Google Chrome OS, we want to make sure printing from web apps is as natural as printing from traditional native apps is today. Additionally, with the proliferation of web-connected mobile devices such as those running Google Chrome OS and other mobile operating systems, we don't believe it is feasible to build and maintain complex print subsystems and print drivers for each platform. In fact, even the print subsystems and drivers on existing PC operating systems leave a lot of room for improvement.
The only problem is that no printer supports Google Cloud Print and that's why Google revealed some details about the service's interfaces, hoping that printer manufacturers will update their software and support it. If a printer doesn't support Google's service, you'll need a proxy software for the computer where the printer is installed. Google says that the proxy software will be bundled with Google Chrome.
It may seem that Google's solution is complicated and difficult to implement: we need an open standard for cloud printing, cloud-aware printers and users need to associate printers with an online service. Instead of sending the printing job directly to the printer, you'll send it to the online service, which forwards it to the printer.
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