Office 2010

leaked version of Microsoft office 2010 Technical preview on Torrent trackers. There are many new features which came packed with this version to be noticed if you have tried hands on it after downloading. Let’s take a sneak-peak of all the new improvements and features in this thorough review and analysis of Office 2010.

First noticeable thing is that performance has improved a lot compared to Office 2007. Just as with Windows 7, Office 2010 not only requires the same resources as requested Office 2007 to run, but the same resources to work better than its predecessor. And now there are 64-bit versions also helpful when using an operating system of this kind.

Image Editing and Management

This is a new utility included in Word to make screenshots. It works in a way very similar to the “cuts” already included in Windows to begin using Word is minimized and let us select the desktop area to capture. But it comes with an interesting advantage, by taken screenshot is saved in the gallery, regardless of whether the use or not, and stays there even after closing Word without saving changes. Thus it is easy to find an image within this “Gallery captures” for inclusion in a document.

It has incorporated several tools to make a simple image editing in Word. For example, applying artistic effects to images can be very interesting . We also have a powerful tool to eliminate the background of the photos (which would be an evolution of the tool “to define transparency“), whose results are so good that almost seem out of professional retouching tools such as Photoshop.

Interface improvements

Something we can see that Microsoft has done is to create a consistent appearance for all applications. They have eliminated all traces of the interface for Office 2003 (except for minor utilities, such as Picture Manager, or the gallery, which follow exactly the same), and the Ribbon has been implemented in all applications of the suite.

But mainly, I think Office 2010 wins in many parameters with the new behavior of the “Office Button”. Now this button displays a menu with options, but it shows a box that holds all the options window that allows us to quickly perform actions such as selecting a template for a new document, change metadata, or print a file, all without having to open new windows and from an extremely user-friendly.

Button behavior on MS Word

Office Button in Outlook allows us to perform tasks with few clicks in Office 2007/2003 which required a huge amount of navigating menus and dialog boxes, such as adding a new email account or set up automatic responses. Also, thanks to the implementation of the Ribbon, the Outlook interface is much easier to customize according to our needs.

Other New Features

Translation Tool now comes pre-installed (and before we could only use them after you have installed an add-on for Windows Live Translator), new SmartArt templates that have been added, and new animations and transitions in PowerPoint. In addition, we have Word 2010 that allows us to save files directly to SharePoint sites, and there is native support for open and save documents in ODF format, along with the ability to export documents to PDF (without installing any add-on ).

Also, the context menus for editing applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc) are now more powerful and incorporating the Live Preview technology previously only available if used in the Ribbon. This technology allows us to see the results of the edit option to just put your mouse over them. For example, now simply move the mouse over buttons as “Paste and preserve format” and “Paste text only” to see the difference between the two, or move the mouse over different types of bullets to see how the text is each. Furthermore, the context menu will become semi-transparent while using the Live Preview, to see clearly how the document with each option.

Protected Mode – Security feature that works every time you open a document downloaded from Internet. What it does is lock the file so that we can not do any work without first edition we have explicitly allowed (something similar to what Windows Vista / 7 with the files you have downloaded from the web).

Source:blogsolute

Battle of the Browsers

Serving as a window to your online world, the web browser has become one of -- if not -- the most important pieces of computer software used on a daily basis.

Not only are browsers used to access websites for information and e-commerce, but for many, it's a conduit to entertainment (such as streaming videos or online games), communication (including web mail sites) and social networking with friends (be it Facebook, MySpace and Twitter).

At this point in time, there are five major browsers to choose from: Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome and the self-titled browser from Opera. All of them are free to use, they work with most operating systems and enjoy frequent updates to fix problems or add new features.

Deciding which one to go with, however, boils down to personal preference -- or in some cases, laziness, if the web browser was already installed on your PC and you don't care to change it.

If you're reading this article then you already have a browser, but those curious as to what the "other guys" are offering should read on for a brief look at each of the big players in this space, and consider our pros and cons for each after spending a week with all five.

Internet Explorer 8 (microsoft.com/ie8)

Launched in 1995, Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) web browser successfully battled against the almighty Netscape graphical browser -- and it didn't hurt IE shipped with every version of the Windows operating system -- and has maintained its commanding market share over the years.

Available in 25 languages, the newest version, 8, is much faster than past IE browsers, and includes some handy tools that speed up your surfing. This includes: a "Favorites" bar for one-click access to your most visited web sites; "accelerators," which help you search for something quickly via a pull-down menu; and the ability to highlight a word or phrase and immediately look up its definition, translate it, email it, map it, and so on.

While it still has a ways to go, it's also more secure than past versions of IE, which have been plagued with security vulnerabilities.

Pros: Most websites and plugs-ins work well with IE. Faster speeds and handy time-saving tools. Compatibility View helps see older websites easier. Available in multiple languages. Built into Windows.

Cons: Security holes still found. Market share leader means more susceptible to attacks. Some crashing.

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 (mozilla.com/firefox)

Since its fall 2004 release, Mozilla's Firefox has grown to become a serious contender to IE, and second place overall in the browser wars.

The latest release of this lean and fast browser has added a few new bells and whistles, including "Tear Off Tabs" (a feature that, like Apple's Safari, lets you drag and drop tabs into a separate browser window), a private browsing option that destroys any history left by the surfer (catching up to Microsoft and Google's browsers) and an interesting addition called "location-aware browsing," where a website can prompt for your location to help serve you better (such as recommending a pizza restaurant in your neighborhood if you're craving a slice).

As with past versions, Firefox is easy to develop for and has an active development community that creates plug-ins and "extensions" for the browser -- often letting Firefox users do neat things inside the browser not found in competing software (check out a few at addons.mozilla.org).

Pros: Newest version is roughly 3x faster than Firfox 3.0. Tabbed browsing works well. Convenient features, including location-aware browsing. Vibrant and passionate development community.

Cons: Some bugs and security issues that requires "patching."

Opera 10 (opera.com)

Fast and secure are the two priorities for Opera Software, the company that launched its first commercial open-source web browser in 1996.

This lean download -- a mere 5.36MB in size for the Windows version (five times smaller than Microsoft's IE8) -- does indeed run fast and smoothly, and supports multiple operating systems (and mobile phones). Integrated malware protection and strong encryption help protect the surfer from the ills of the Internet.

Popular features include tabbed browsing (the first major browser to offer this feature in late 2001), integrated spell checker, "speed dial" access to your favorite websites, page zooming and mouse gestures (example: hold down the right mouse button and move the mouse to the right to go back a web page).

Also embedded in Opera 10 is a new technology called Opera Unite, that turns your web browser into a web server so you can do neat things like share files with friends via the browser window.

Pros: Lean and fast. Secure. Mouse gestures and other extra features in Opera (including Opera Unite) are handy additions.

Cons: Doesn't fare as well on heavy multimedia sites. Not as much plug-in support than IE and Firefox.

Apple Safari 4 (apple.com/safari)

Released as a free upgrade to the Mac OS X operating system in 2003, many Apple computer users have embraced the elegant-looking Safari as their browser of choice, and have since won over many Windows users, too. Plus, its install base on 40+ million iPhones and iPod touch devices has helped with its success.

While its claim as "the world's fastest browser" isn't substantiated on every website we tested it on (IE8 and Opera, for example, beat it out on certain sites), Apple's Safari is a speedy web browser with smooth and reliable performance; it crashed the least out of the five browsers in our testing (not even once).

While other browsers offer a similar feature, we like Safari's Top Sites, that shows you a graphical thumbnail of the websites you visit frequently. Attractive "Cover Flow"-like horizontal image gliding with bookmarked and tabbed thumbnails, resembles the iTunes feature and helps make website viewing a more visual experience.

Pros: Good looking. Fast. Reliable. Minimalist design.

Cons: Close button on left side. Not much mouse functionality (e.g. middle button). No status bar. Not all plug-ins supported.

Google Chrome (chrome.google.com)

The newest player in the highly competitive browser space is Google, which launched a public beta version of its Windows browser in September of 2008.

This lean and fast open-source browser fuses a minimalist design with many features to make your web surfing experience an easier one. For example, leveraging its experience as the world's biggest search engine, you can type a query right in the address bar (for both search results and relevant web pages) and includes auto-complete options.

Along with "stealth" privacy options for anonymous browsing, Google Chrome offers handy keyboard shortcuts to speed up surfing, one-click bookmarks (the little star) and quick tabbed browsing with thumbnail previews of most-visited sites.

In July 2009, Google announced it would create a Google Chrome operating system, based on the browser, designed for netbooks. This direct aim at Microsoft will be available in late 2010.

Pros: Clean and fast. Some nice features like shortcuts. Available in 50 languages.

Cons: Lack of add-ons; not all websites/plug-ins are supported. No support for Macs.

Source: Marc Saltzman

cyber attacks that paralyzed major South Korean and U.S. government Web sites

An updated version of the MyDoom virus is responsible for a large DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack that took down major U.S. Web sites over the weekend and South Korean Web sites on Wednesday, according to Korean computer security company AhnLab.

When it was discovered in January 2004, MyDoom quickly became the fastest-spreading e-mail worm in Internet history. Once a PC was infected with MyDoom, it would harvest e-mail addresses and e-mails itself out repeatedly. Early variants MyDoom were coded to conduct DDOS attacks against other Web sites within certain time periods.

The latest MyDoom variants seen by AhnLab also include a downloader that can bring other malicious code into the compromised PC, a feature also present in earlier versions of the malware. An additional file contains details of Web site to be attacked.

It lists 13 South Korean Web sites and 23 U.S. sites, according to a Korean blogger who analyzed the source code. Most of the sites on the list are those reported to have been attacked or are still under attack.

Source: yahoo news

So what is the so called DDOS?

A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person or persons to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks, credit card payment gateways, and even root nameservers.

One common method of attack involves saturating the target (victim) machine with external communications requests, such that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic, or responds so slowly as to be rendered effectively unavailable. In general terms, DoS attacks are implemented by either forcing the targeted computer(s) to reset, or consuming its resources so that it can no longer provide its intended service or obstructing the communication media between the intended users and the victim so that they can no longer communicate adequately.

Diassembled DDOS code

DDOS sampletools used by some unethical hackers..

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