Microsoft Surface vs Apple iPad

Microsoft announced its first home-grown tablet called surface on June 18, 2012. The surface was designed as a platform to showcase its upcoming Windows 8 OS, which is a huge step forward for Microsoft as it's the first time it will be embracing the ARM platform as well. There will be two distinct versions of Windows this time - Windows RT for ARM-powered devices will be launched some time in October followed by Windows 8,  an upgrade to Windows 7 that will work on existing Intel and AMD-based systems. Today I'll be comparing the Surface to the Apple iPad, since that's going to be it's biggest competitor.

Display

Apple still reigns supreme here with the Retina Display on the new iPad. The surface has a 10.6-inch ClearType display with a HD-ready resolution and though Microsoft doesn't specify the resolution, it's not Full-HD. So, the iPad wins here.

The Surface does have a slightly larger display and it conforms to the 16:9 aspect ratio; so, watching movies should be better on it than on the iPad.

Processor

Microsoft has once again not specified which SoC will sit in the Surface, but we do know Nvidia is making it, so everything points to Tegra 3.

This packs in a quad-core CPU and 12-core graphics chip which does make it a lot more powerful on paper compared to the new iPad. However, it's yet to seen if Microsoft can actually exploit this to the fullest.

Connectivity

This is one area where the Surface wins hands-down. The tablet is about the same thickness as the iPad and yet packs in a full-sized USB port, microSD card slot and HD video-out. The iPad does support these features as well (except memory expansion), but you need to buy adapters for it and they aren't exactly cheap. Microsoft also has an upper hand when it comes to it Touch Cover and unlike Apple's Smart Cover that simply protects the screen. Touch Cover has as an embedded keyboard in it, so the tablet transforms into a notebook make it more comfortable to type on.

App Support

Apple has an edge here for the time being as it will be a while before the Windows Store is populated with all the popular apps. This shouldn't take long though as apps ported over to the Metro UI will work across Windows RT and Windows 8, giving developers an incentive to port their  apps quicker.

Nokia Hacks: Tips & Tricks

These Nokia codes will work on most Nokia Mobile Phones,

Code Description

*#3370# Activate Enhanced Full Rate Codec (EFR) - Your phone uses the best sound quality but talk time is reduced my approx. 5%.

*#3307# Deactivate Enhanced Full Rate Codec (EFR)

*#4720# Activate Half Rate Codec - Your phone uses a lower quality sound but you should gain approx 30% more Talk Time.

*#4720# Deactivate Half Rate Codec.

*#0000# Displays your phones software version, 1st Line : Software Version, 2nd Line : Software Release Date, 3rd Line : Compression Type.

*#9999# Phones software version if *#0000# does not work.

*#06# For checking the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI Number).

#pw+1234567890+1# Provider Lock Status. (use the "*" button to obtain the "p,w" and "+" symbols).

#pw+1234567890+2# Network Lock Status. (use the "*" button to obtain the "p,w" and "+"  symbols).

#pw+1234567890+3# Country Lock Status. (use the "*" button to obtain the "p,w" and "+" symbols).

#pw+1234567890+4# SIM Card Lock Status. (use the "*" button to obtain the "p,w" and "+" symbols).

*#147#(Vodafone) This lets you know who called you last.

*#1471#(Vodafone) Last call.

*#21# Allows you to check the number that "All Calls" are diverted to.

*#2640# Displays security code in use.

*#30# Lets you see the private number.

*#43# Allows you to check the "Call Waiting" status of your phone.

*#61# Allows you to check the number that "On No Reply" calls are diverted to.

*#62# Allows you to check the number that "Divert If Unreachable (no service)" calls are diverted to.

*#67#  Allows you to check the number that "On Busy Calls" are diverted to.

*#67705646# Removes operator logo on 3310 & 3330.

*#73# Reset phone timers and game scores.

*#746025625# Displays the SIM Clock status, if your phone supports this power saving feature "SIM Clock Stop Allowed", it means you will get the best standby time possible.

*#7760# Manufactures code.

*#7780# Restore factory settings.

*#8110# Software version for the nokia 8110.

*#92702689# Displays - 1.Serial Number, 2.Date Made, 3.Purchase Date, 4.Date of last repair (0000 for no repairs), 5.Transfer User Data. To exit this mode you  need to switch your phone off then on again.

*#94870345123456789# Deactivate the PWM-Mem.

**21*number# Turn on "All Calls" diverting to the phone number entered.

**61*number# Turn on "No Reply" diverting to the phone number entered.

**67*number# Turn on "On Busy" diverting to the phone number entered.

*1# To know your own mobile phone number.
press and hold # Lets you switch between lines.

How to give your processor your name?

Ever wanted to change the name of your processor to your name.

Go to

Start>
 

Run>

 
Type regedit>

 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>

HARDWARE>

DISCRIPTION>

SYSTEM>

Central Processor>
On right side, click on ProcessorNameString and then write anything you want in that textbox.

If you have Core 2 duo processor then you'll see 2 folders each for one core

0>
On right side, click on ProcessorNameString and then write anything you want in that textbox.

1>
On right side, click on ProcessorNameString and then write anything you want in that textbox.

Any suggestions/improvements/complaints are heartily welcomed...

What is csrss.exe? An essential Malware

For the last some days I was unable to connect to the internet, and was unable to find the cause for that, DSL disconnected was shown on the Admin control Panel page. I was cursing the MTNL (my Internet Service Provider), and was thinking to register a complain about this. But I was shock to know, who the culprit was?

My internet security program was showing a warning of 'ICMP Flooded' and just after that my internet connection went off. Since it was mid-night and cold, I've switched off my fan and my Notebook was on just idle mode, and I heard my Laptop's fan was too crying out too loud. I saw the CPU usage meter gadget, it was showing the 100% usage on both the cores.

I opened the Task Manager, I was shock to see that 352 processes were running, among which only 76 processes were running in the processes tab, I clicked on the button, show processes from all users, and there's I found the culprit, it was csrss.exe. I found that there are number of the csrss.exe application running. Now from Microsoft website I found that it was an essential Client Server Runtime Process.

But the reason I was shocked is that there are more than 275 copies of the csrss.exe, so I googled it and found that it is a malware and essential both.. Confused? Let me explain it...

I suspected, there may be duplicate csrss.exe but all were ran by SYSTEM, so to confirm that, I used my old technique of identifying viruses.

Under the memory(Private working set) column the first two csrss.exe were using 1,296 and 1,284 K memory respectively, while rest of them were just using 108,104,112 or 100 K, that's it, these are the culprits.

To ensure that these are the real unwanted processes I right clicked on them and selected 'End process tree' and got usual warning which comes for non essential processes, further by clicking an error was prompted "Unable to terminate process- Access is denied", clearly a virus.

But when I tried to do the same on the Original essential process, I got the message window stating    "Ending this Process will immediately shut Down the system and you will loose all data. Are you sure to continue?"

So, now the question arises how it was affecting my internet connection?
The answer is simple, by DOS(Denial-of-Service) Attack. Also termed as Ping of death Attack.
a number of simultaneous connection requests are sent to the target that it cannot handle and fianlly crashes. It was very popular at the time of windows 98. Thus after investigating Event Log of my Internet security software I found ICMP Flooding reports from last three days which comes under DOS attacks.

Any suggestions/improvements/complaints are heartily welcomed...

How to download torrent from blocked sites

Many torrent sites are now blocked due to the SOPA(Stop Online Piracy Act). But as we all know that torrent sites are one of the most important sites on the internet since it gives us access to all the data that what we want in our daily life.This post will tell you to how to get passed from blocked sites.

But due to SOPA, we're in a crisis since we are unable to download new movies, songs, games, classics, TV series, softwares, etc. I think you all receive this message when you try to access a torrent site
"This website/URL has been blocked until further notice either pursuant to Court orders or on the Directions issued by the Department of Telecommunications"

So what to do now? Should we just stop downloading the stuff? Or should we just keep our mouth shut and let the makers of the stuff to "sell" there work at the ridiculous prize to us?

No I don't accept it. We should not accept that. Here's what I came to know about the torrent sites after searching.

The normal sites i.e. the http sites that you click on, are now blocked due to SOPA, but the sames sites are now on https.

So here's the answer to access the block sites

Just change the http to https in your browser's address link.

Sometimes you may see that for example www.thepiratebay.se or www.kickasstorrents.se then also just add https at the starting i.e. it becomes https:www.thepiratebay.se or https:www.kickasstorrents.se.

That's it.

You can also use public DNS server address like one of the Google DNS address 8.8.8.8
Steps to apply DNS server:
Open Networking & Sharing Center-> Local Area Connection-> Properties-> Internet Protocol Version 4-> Preferred DNS server -> 8.8.8.8

Enjoy and keep downloading, and oppose SOPA.


Any suggestions/improvements/complaints are heartily welcomed...

5 Reasons of Google+ failure

As we all know the Google+ was not as much successful as the Google Co. taught it would be.

At the time of launch of Google+, Google often announced that it is an independent site and had nothing to do with the success of other social networking sites especially with the Facebook, which we all know that it was a complete hoax. Google was greatly influenced  by the success of the Facebook and wanted to suppress it. Although Google is a huge company to admit that it is in direct competition with the Facebook; since Facebook was the prime reason for the unpopularity of the Orkut( One of the initial Social Networking Sites from Google which was very much popular in it times).

So lets now understand the reasons that led to the failure of the Google+

Reason 1: Sign Up

To create an account in Google+, you required to have an email id or one should say that to have an Gmail id; which obviously means that you need to create an Gmail account first and have to say Goodbye to your older email id of Yahoo or of Hotmail. Although you can associate your Yahoo, Hotmail id's with Gmail; but most of the peoples are not that desperate to have Google+.
On the other hand, you can create a Facebook account with any of the email id's either of Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo.

Reason 2: Limited Opening

When Google announced about that they will be coming with the Google+, many people where eager to have an account in that, the people taught that it would be awesome and would have something new in comparison with the Facebook and it had, the concept of circles was fantastic, almost everybody loved it, Google+ didn't disappointed its users. Users? The initial opening was very limited, whatever the technical reasons have to be, or whatsoever, but limiting the audience resulted in discrimination among the people. However the Google+ was flooded with the members in the initial limited opening.

Reason 3: Heavy Site

The Google+ contains a lot of flash work on the home page. For the audience of the developed countries like US, UK, Canada etc. its fine, but what about the people who aren't in, like India, Philippines, African countries etc.where the overall internet speed is not so good. I don't think people from these countries would like to wait for 5 minutes just to open their home page, do they?
On the contrary the Facebook site was too lite in comparison with the Google+.

Reason 4: Advertisement

When Google+ was launched at that time it didn't supported the advertisement pages and wasn't ready for the commercial use. Google+ launched the  advertisement pages much later in about 6 months. While Facebook was already giving this service.

Reason 5: Importing contacts from other social networks

Google+ includes a feature to invite contacts from Yahoo! and Hotmail. At this time, however, there is no official way to import Facebook contacts into Google+; but there are some workarounds to achieve it^. Facebook allows users to download their data, but not in a simple format easy to import; network effects make it difficult for a new social network such as Google+ to be successful, and an easy tool to migrate to a rival service would reduce the effect.


Today Google+ has more than 200 million registered members, which is a huge number for any site, but its only the 1/4^th of the total number of the same on the Facebook.


Any suggestions/improvements/complaints are heartily welcomed...