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  • Understanding Photography Lighting with a Single Egg [Video]

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    In this informative video, veteran photographer Joe Edelman demonstrates the basics of photography lighting with a humble egg. An egg is an excellent shape for experimenting with and studying lighting because the curved surfaces provide a nice clean gradient to study how the light wraps and falls as you move around the light source. Check out the video above to see Edelman’s full demonstration of the humble egg as a photography teaching tool. [via DIY Photography] The Best Free Portable Apps for Your Flash Drive Toolkit How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 3 How to Sync Your Media Across Your Entire House with XBMC

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  • Desktop Fun: Heroes of DC Comics Wallpaper Collection

    - by Asian Angel
    DC Comics has a great line-up of super hero characters and we have gathered together some of DC’s finest for you in today’s collection. Give your desktop super powers with our Heroes of DC Comics Wallpaper collection. Note: Click on the picture to see the full-size image—these wallpapers vary in size so you may need to crop, stretch, or place them on a colored background in order to best match them to your screen’s resolution. How to Make and Install an Electric Outlet in a Cabinet or DeskHow To Recover After Your Email Password Is CompromisedHow to Clean Your Filthy Keyboard in the Dishwasher (Without Ruining it)

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  • Asciifi Is a Lightening Fast Web-Based ASCII Converter

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you have a hankering from some old-school ASCII artwork, Asciifi is a free and lightening fast HTML5 ASCII converter. Despite the simplicity of ASCII images (pictures created not out of a grid of colored pixels like a standard digital photograph but out of a grid of text characters) many ASCII converters are rather slow. Asciifi speeds up the process by rendering your images on the fly with a snappy HTML5-based converter. Visit the site, drag and drop your image, and almost instantaneously you’ll see the results. The output can be further tweaked by adjusting the line width and the character set used. Hit up the link below to take it for a test drive. Asciifi [via Digital Inspiration] HTG Explains: Understanding Routers, Switches, and Network Hardware How to Use Offline Files in Windows to Cache Your Networked Files Offline How to See What Web Sites Your Computer is Secretly Connecting To

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  • What is Cyber Monday? [Infographic]

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Nearly everyone is familiar with Black Friday, the massive shopping day right after Thanksgiving, but Cyber Monday is a recent invention. Check out this infographic for the low down. Cyber Monday is only a scant six years old, an invention of online retailers looking to create a shopping day to compete with the in-store frenzy of Black Friday. Although quite a few retailers offer online Black Friday deals, Cyber Monday is a the biggest day for online deals–many shoppers fail to find the things they were looking for on Black Friday and turn to online sources. You can read more about Cyber Monday here or visit the link below for a higher resolution copy of the infographic. What Is Cyber Monday? [YouNeverLose via Mashable] How to See What Web Sites Your Computer is Secretly Connecting To HTG Explains: When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers? How to Make the Kindle Fire Silk Browser *Actually* Fast!

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  • Star Wars: An Infographic Flowchart

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you can’t get enough of Star Wars lore, this minimalist set of infographics details major characters, conflicts, and alliances in the Star Wars universe. Courtesy of designer Marc Morera, the series of Star Wars infographics give a quick summary, presents all the major players in the movies, and connects all the players and events via flowchart. Hit up the link below to see all of them in their high-resolution glory. Star Wars Infographic [via Cool Infographics] How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates How to Get Pro Features in Windows Home Versions with Third Party Tools HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using?

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  • How To Create a Shortcut That Lets a Standard User Run An Application as Administrator

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Want to allow a standard user account to run an application as administrator without a UAC or password prompt? You can easily create a shortcut that uses the runas command with the /savecred switch, which saves the password. Note that using /savecred could be considered a security hole – a standard user will be able to use the runas /savecred command to run any command as administrator without entering a password. However, it’s still useful for situations where this doesn’t matter much – perhaps you want to allow a child’s standard user account to run a game as Administrator without asking you. We’ve also covered allowing a user to run an application as Administrator with no UAC prompts by creating a scheduled task. HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using? HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It HTG Explains: How Windows Uses The Task Scheduler for System Tasks

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  • Get Hands On with Raspberry Pi via Free OS-Building Course

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Cambridge University is now offering a free 12-segment course that will guide you through building an OS from scratch for the tiny Raspberry Pi development board–learn the ins and outs of basic OS design on the cheap. You’ll need a Raspberry Pi board, a computer running Windows, OS X, or Linux, and an SD card, as well as a small amount of free software. The 12-part tutorial starts you off with basic OS theory and then walks you through basic control of the board, graphics manipulation, and, finally, creating a command line interface for your new operating system. Hit up the link below to read more and check out the lessons. Baking Pi – Operating Systems Development HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It HTG Explains: How Windows Uses The Task Scheduler for System Tasks HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows?

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  • LED 49-unit Quadcopter Formation Foreshadows The Robot Takeover

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Perhaps there are a few more steps between 49 semi-autonomous quadcopters doing a little aerial dancing and Skynet, but we’re awed and apprehensive at the same time. Check out the video to see them in action. The video comes to us courtesy of a German art conference, Ars Electronica, and a colloboration between two design groups Futurelab and Ascending Technologies GmbH. The above video is just their warmup routine; according to YouTube comments they’ll be uploading even more videos of the quadcopters and their synchronized night flights in the coming days. [via Motherboard] HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using? HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It HTG Explains: How Windows Uses The Task Scheduler for System Tasks

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  • How to Use the File History Feature in Windows 8 to Restore Files

    - by Taylor Gibb
    Jealous of your Mac OS X friends and their great Time Machine feature? Windows 8 has a new feature called File History that works much the same way, giving you an easy method to restore previous versions of your files. We are going to use a networked folder in for our article but you could always skip creating the network folder, and just use a USB drive. To use a USB drive you can just go to the setting for File History and turn it on, it should automatically find your USB and immediately start working. How to Sync Your Media Across Your Entire House with XBMC How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 2 How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 1

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  • Why Is Vertical Resolution Monitor Resolution so Often a Multiple of 360?

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Stare at a list of monitor resolutions long enough and you might notice a pattern: many of the vertical resolutions, especially those of gaming or multimedia displays, are multiples of 360 (720, 1080, 1440, etc.) But why exactly is this the case? Is it arbitrary or is there something more at work? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Trojandestroy recently noticed something about his display interface and needs answers: YouTube recently added 1440p functionality, and for the first time I realized that all (most?) vertical resolutions are multiples of 360. Is this just because the smallest common resolution is 480×360, and it’s convenient to use multiples? (Not doubting that multiples are convenient.) And/or was that the first viewable/conveniently sized resolution, so hardware (TVs, monitors, etc) grew with 360 in mind? Taking it further, why not have a square resolution? Or something else unusual? (Assuming it’s usual enough that it’s viewable). Is it merely a pleasing-the-eye situation? So why have the display be a multiple of 360? The Answer SuperUser contributor User26129 offers us not just an answer as to why the numerical pattern exists but a history of screen design in the process: Alright, there are a couple of questions and a lot of factors here. Resolutions are a really interesting field of psychooptics meeting marketing. First of all, why are the vertical resolutions on youtube multiples of 360. This is of course just arbitrary, there is no real reason this is the case. The reason is that resolution here is not the limiting factor for Youtube videos – bandwidth is. Youtube has to re-encode every video that is uploaded a couple of times, and tries to use as little re-encoding formats/bitrates/resolutions as possible to cover all the different use cases. For low-res mobile devices they have 360×240, for higher res mobile there’s 480p, and for the computer crowd there is 360p for 2xISDN/multiuser landlines, 720p for DSL and 1080p for higher speed internet. For a while there were some other codecs than h.264, but these are slowly being phased out with h.264 having essentially ‘won’ the format war and all computers being outfitted with hardware codecs for this. Now, there is some interesting psychooptics going on as well. As I said: resolution isn’t everything. 720p with really strong compression can and will look worse than 240p at a very high bitrate. But on the other side of the spectrum: throwing more bits at a certain resolution doesn’t magically make it better beyond some point. There is an optimum here, which of course depends on both resolution and codec. In general: the optimal bitrate is actually proportional to the resolution. So the next question is: what kind of resolution steps make sense? Apparently, people need about a 2x increase in resolution to really see (and prefer) a marked difference. Anything less than that and many people will simply not bother with the higher bitrates, they’d rather use their bandwidth for other stuff. This has been researched quite a long time ago and is the big reason why we went from 720×576 (415kpix) to 1280×720 (922kpix), and then again from 1280×720 to 1920×1080 (2MP). Stuff in between is not a viable optimization target. And again, 1440P is about 3.7MP, another ~2x increase over HD. You will see a difference there. 4K is the next step after that. Next up is that magical number of 360 vertical pixels. Actually, the magic number is 120 or 128. All resolutions are some kind of multiple of 120 pixels nowadays, back in the day they used to be multiples of 128. This is something that just grew out of LCD panel industry. LCD panels use what are called line drivers, little chips that sit on the sides of your LCD screen that control how bright each subpixel is. Because historically, for reasons I don’t really know for sure, probably memory constraints, these multiple-of-128 or multiple-of-120 resolutions already existed, the industry standard line drivers became drivers with 360 line outputs (1 per subpixel). If you would tear down your 1920×1080 screen, I would be putting money on there being 16 line drivers on the top/bottom and 9 on one of the sides. Oh hey, that’s 16:9. Guess how obvious that resolution choice was back when 16:9 was ‘invented’. Then there’s the issue of aspect ratio. This is really a completely different field of psychology, but it boils down to: historically, people have believed and measured that we have a sort of wide-screen view of the world. Naturally, people believed that the most natural representation of data on a screen would be in a wide-screen view, and this is where the great anamorphic revolution of the ’60s came from when films were shot in ever wider aspect ratios. Since then, this kind of knowledge has been refined and mostly debunked. Yes, we do have a wide-angle view, but the area where we can actually see sharply – the center of our vision – is fairly round. Slightly elliptical and squashed, but not really more than about 4:3 or 3:2. So for detailed viewing, for instance for reading text on a screen, you can utilize most of your detail vision by employing an almost-square screen, a bit like the screens up to the mid-2000s. However, again this is not how marketing took it. Computers in ye olden days were used mostly for productivity and detailed work, but as they commoditized and as the computer as media consumption device evolved, people didn’t necessarily use their computer for work most of the time. They used it to watch media content: movies, television series and photos. And for that kind of viewing, you get the most ‘immersion factor’ if the screen fills as much of your vision (including your peripheral vision) as possible. Which means widescreen. But there’s more marketing still. When detail work was still an important factor, people cared about resolution. As many pixels as possible on the screen. SGI was selling almost-4K CRTs! The most optimal way to get the maximum amount of pixels out of a glass substrate is to cut it as square as possible. 1:1 or 4:3 screens have the most pixels per diagonal inch. But with displays becoming more consumery, inch-size became more important, not amount of pixels. And this is a completely different optimization target. To get the most diagonal inches out of a substrate, you want to make the screen as wide as possible. First we got 16:10, then 16:9 and there have been moderately successful panel manufacturers making 22:9 and 2:1 screens (like Philips). Even though pixel density and absolute resolution went down for a couple of years, inch-sizes went up and that’s what sold. Why buy a 19″ 1280×1024 when you can buy a 21″ 1366×768? Eh… I think that about covers all the major aspects here. There’s more of course; bandwidth limits of HDMI, DVI, DP and of course VGA played a role, and if you go back to the pre-2000s, graphics memory, in-computer bandwdith and simply the limits of commercially available RAMDACs played an important role. But for today’s considerations, this is about all you need to know. Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.     

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  • Running Windows 98 in 2013 with Modern Apps and Web

    - by Akemi Iwaya
    Do you ever have those moments when curiosity for the sake of fun gets a hold on you? Perhaps that curiosity gets focused on computer-related “what ifs” such as how well would a very old operating system handle being used with today’s modern apps and web? Nazmus Shakib Khandaker decided to find out how well Windows 98 could and would do in 2013. Have you tried something similar to this? Do you know of any individuals who are holding on to an older operating system no matter what? Share your experiences in the comments! Running Windows 98 in 2013 with Modern Web and Apps [YouTube]     

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  • Christmas Captured with LEGO Star Wars

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Combine the mini figures and modules from a LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar with some creative photography, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for this some rather fun Star Wars-themed Christmas photos. LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar Photos [Flickr via Boing Boing] Secure Yourself by Using Two-Step Verification on These 16 Web Services How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot

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  • Does Hard Drive Orientation Affect Its Lifespan?

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Many cases allow you to mount drives in vertical or horizontal configurations and external drives can be easily repositioned. Does the orientation of the hard drive affect the performance and longevity of the drive? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-drive grouping of Q&A web sites. 6 Ways Windows 8 Is More Secure Than Windows 7 HTG Explains: Why It’s Good That Your Computer’s RAM Is Full 10 Awesome Improvements For Desktop Users in Windows 8

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  • From the Tips Box: Telescope Laser Sights, Drobox Desktops, and Kindle Clipping Conversions

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Once a week we round up some great reader tips and share them with everyone; this week we’re looking at telescope laser sights, syncing your desktop with Dropbox, and converting your Kindle Clippings file. How To Properly Scan a Photograph (And Get An Even Better Image) The HTG Guide to Hiding Your Data in a TrueCrypt Hidden Volume Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage

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  • How To Safely Eject Your USB Devices From the Desktop Context Menu

    - by Taylor Gibb
    If you are one of those people who don’t safely remove their USB Devices just because you’re lazy, here’s a neat trick to do it from the context menu on your desktop. Even if you are not lazy and just forget, the icon will serve as a mental reminder. So let’s take a look. How to Run Android Apps on Your Desktop the Easy Way HTG Explains: Do You Really Need to Defrag Your PC? Use Amazon’s Barcode Scanner to Easily Buy Anything from Your Phone

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  • Do Not Track Plus Stops Web Sites from Tracking You

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Do Not Track Plus is a Firefox extension that combines the do-non’t-track header with protection lists for comprehensive tracking avoidance while surfing the web. Unlike all-or-nothing no tracking flags, the Do Not Track Plus extension for Firefox allows you to set white and black lists for websites you would prefer to be tracked or not tracked by. You may, for example, want a shopping site you get benefits from or a news site that gives you customized articles to be allowed to track you. The tool also preserves anti-tracking cookies even when you wipe the rest of the cookies in your browser’s cache; effectively stopping you from accidentally rescinding your opt out cookies from anti-tracking sites. Do Not Track Plus [Abine via Wired] How to Enable Google Chrome’s Secret Gold IconHTG Explains: What’s the Difference Between the Windows 7 HomeGroups and XP-style Networking?Internet Explorer 9 Released: Here’s What You Need To Know

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  • Hack a Nintendo Zapper into a Real Life Laser Blaster

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Why settle for zapping ducks on the screen when you could be popping balloons and lighting matches on fire? This awesome (but rather dangerous) hack turns an old Nintendo zapper into a legitimate laser gun. Courtesy of the tinkers over at North Street Labs, we’re treated to a Nintendo zapper overhaul that replaces the guts with a powerful 2W blue laser, a battery pack, and a keyed safety switch. Check out the video below to see the laser blaster in action: For more information on the build and a pile of more-than-merited safety warnings, hit up the link below. Nintendo Zapper 2W+ Laser [via Boing Boing] 8 Deadly Commands You Should Never Run on Linux 14 Special Google Searches That Show Instant Answers How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates

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  • What You Said: How You Monitor Your Computer

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Earlier this week we asked you to share your computer monitoring tips and tricks, now we’re back to share the wealth. Read on to see how your fellow reader monitor their gear. One of the more popular monitoring tools, thanks in part to the amount of things beyond just hardware it can monitor, in the comments was Rainmeter. Lee writes: I don’t really monitor my computer constantly, only when something is hanging up and I need to see what’s causing it. That being said, I do have Rainmeter so I can quickly see how much RAM or CPU is being used. For anything more detailed, I just go into the task manager and sort by RAM or CPU. Shinigamibob uses a wider range of tools to get a more in-depth look at difference aspects of his computer: 7 Ways To Free Up Hard Disk Space On Windows HTG Explains: How System Restore Works in Windows HTG Explains: How Antivirus Software Works

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  • The Most Useful Bookmarklets to Enhance Your Browsing Experience

    - by Lori Kaufman
    Bookmarklets are JavaScript links you can place on your browser’s toolbar that add one-click functionality to the browser or webpage. They are free and help make repetitive tasks in your browser quicker and easier to perform. Use bookmarklets to add functionality to your browser, such as modifying the appearance of a webpage, extracting data from a webpage, and search for highlighted text in a search engine or online encyclopedia. We’ve collected some links to useful bookmarklets here to enhance your browsing experience. 7 Ways To Free Up Hard Disk Space On Windows HTG Explains: How System Restore Works in Windows HTG Explains: How Antivirus Software Works

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  • What You Said: Your Must Have Presentation Tools

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Earlier this week we asked you to share your must have presentation tools and tricks; read on to see how your fellow readers jazz up their presentations and keep things flowing smoothly. Image by VectorOpenStock. Several readers favorites PowerPoint alternatives to break out of the PP doldrums. Kaitlin writes: Prezi.com An amazing tool! Enables you to create really dynamic zooming presentations, on one big canvas, with no slides! Wow-effect guaranteed. If you were reading down the comments thread and not quite sure if you wanted to check out Prezi, Dan’s passion for the presentation tool might push you over: How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates How to Get Pro Features in Windows Home Versions with Third Party Tools HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using?

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  • Let Your Desktop Run Wild and Free with the Mustangs Theme for Windows 7

    - by Asian Angel
    Add the natural, untamed beauty of Utah’s Onaqui mustang herd to your desktop with the Mustangs Theme for Windows 7. The theme comes with sixteen images featuring beautiful mustang photography by Gene Praag. Download the Mustangs Theme [via Softpedia] How to Get Pro Features in Windows Home Versions with Third Party Tools HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using? HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It

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  • How to Highlight a Row in Excel Using Conditional Formatting

    - by Erez Zukerman
    Conditional formatting is an Excel feature you can use when you want to format cells based on their content. For example, you can have a cell turn red when it contains a number lower than 100. But how do you highlight an entire row? If you’ve never used Conditional Formatting before, you might want to look at Using Conditional Cell Formatting in Excel 2007. It’s one version back, but the interface really hasn’t changed much. But what if you wanted to highlight other cells based on a cell’s value? The screenshot above shows some codenames used for Ubuntu distributions. One of these is made up; when I entered “No” in the “Really” column, the entire row got different background and font colors. To see how this was done, read on.How To Make a Youtube Video Into an Animated GIFHTG Explains: What Are Character Encodings and How Do They Differ?How To Make Disposable Sleeves for Your In-Ear Monitors

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  • How to Apply a Business Card Template to a Contact and Customize it in Outlook 2013

    - by Lori Kaufman
    If you want to add a business card template to an existing contact in Outlook, you can do so without having to enter all of the information again. We will also show you how to customize the layout and format of the text on the card. Microsoft provides a couple of business card templates you can use. We will use their Blue Sky template as an example. To open the archive file for the template you downloaded, double-click on the .cab file. NOTE: You can also use a tool like 7-Zip to open the archive. A new Extract tab becomes available under Compressed Folder Tools and the files in the archive are listed. Select the .vcf file in the list of files. This automatically activates the Extract tab. Click Extract To and select a location or select Choose location if the desired location is not on the drop-down menu. Select a folder in which you want to save the .vcf file on the Copy Items dialog box and click Copy. NOTE: Use the Make New Folder button to create a new folder for the location, if desired. Double-click on the .vcf file that you copied out of the .cab archive file. By default, .vcf files are associated with Outlook so, when you double-click on a .vcf file, it automatically opens in a Contact window in Outlook. Change the Full Name to match the existing contact to which you want to apply this template. Delete the other contact info from the template. If you want to add any additional information not in the existing contact, enter it. Click Save & Close to save the contact with the new template. The Duplicate Contact Detected dialog box displays. To update the existing contact, select the Update information of selected Contact option. Click Update. NOTE: If you want to create a new contact from this template, select the Add new contact option. With the Contacts folder open (the People link on the Navigation Bar), click Business Card in the Current View section of the Home tab. You may notice that not all the fields from your contact display on the business card you just updated. Double-click on the contact to update the contact and the business card. On the Contact window, right-click on the image of the business card and select Edit Business Card from the popup menu. The Edit Business Card dialog box displays. You can change the design of the card, including changing he background color or image. The Fields box allows you to specify which fields display on the business card and in what order. Notice, in our example, that Company is listed below the Full Name, but no text displays on the business card below the name. That’s because we did not enter any information for Company in the Contact. We have information in Job Title. So, we select Company and click Remove to remove that field. Now, we want to add Job Title. First, select the field below which you want to add the new field. We select Full Name to add the Job Title below that. Then, we click Add and select Organization | Job Title from the popup menu to insert the Job Title. To make the Job Title white like the name, we select Job Title in the list of Fields and click the Font Color button in the Edit section. On the Color dialog box, select the color you want to use for the text in the selected field. Click OK. You can also make text bold, italic, or underlined. We chose to make the Job Title bold and the Full Name bold and italic. We also need to remove the Business Phone because this contact only has a mobile phone number. So, we add a Mobile Phone from the Phone submenu. Then, we need to remove enough blank lines so the Mobile Phone is visible on the card. We also added a website and email address and removed more blank lines so they are visible. You can also move text to the right side of the card or make it centered on the card. We also changed the color of the bottom three lines to blue. Click OK to accept your changes and close the dialog box. Your new business card design displays on the Contact window. Click Save & Close to save the changes you made to the business card for this contact and close the Contact window. The final design of the business card displays in the Business Card view on the People screen. If you have a signature that contains the business card for the contact you just updated, you will also need to update the signature by removing the business card and adding it again using the Business Card button in the Signature editor. You can also add the updated Business Card to a signature without the image or without the vCard (.vcf) file.     

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  • A Short History of the GIF [Video]

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    From the earliest blinking “Under Construction” signs on web sites to joke images still passed around, the humble little GIF has been with us a long time. Check out this video to learn more about it. Courtesy of LEGS Media, we’re treated to a cute claymation-style look at the birth, revision, and long life of the ubiquitous little GIF. [via Geeks Are Sexy] Secure Yourself by Using Two-Step Verification on These 16 Web Services How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot

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  • Ransomware: Why This New Malware is So Dangerous and How to Protect Yourself

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Ransomware is a type of malware that tries to extort money from you. One of the nastiest examples, CryptoLocker, takes your files hostage and holds them for ransom, forcing you to pay hundreds of dollars to regain access. Most malware is no longer created by bored teenagers looking to cause some chaos. Much of the current malware is now produced by organized crime for profit and is becoming increasingly sophisticated. How Ransomware Works Not all ransomware is identical. The key thing that makes a piece of malware “ransomware” is that it attempts to extort a direct payment from you. Some ransomware may be disguised. It may function as “scareware,” displaying a pop-up that says something like “Your computer is infected, purchase this product to fix the infection” or “Your computer has been used to download illegal files, pay a fine to continue using your computer.” In other situations, ransomware may be more up-front. It may hook deep into your system, displaying a message saying that it will only go away when you pay money to the ransomware’s creators. This type of malware could be bypassed via malware removal tools or just by reinstalling Windows. Unfortunately, Ransomware is becoming more and more sophisticated. One of the latest examples, CryptoLocker, starts encrypting your personal files as soon as it gains access to your system, preventing access to the files without knowing the encryption key. CryptoLocker then displays a message informing you that your files have been locked with encryption and that you have just a few days to pay up. If you pay them $300, they’ll hand you the encryption key and you can recover your files. CryptoLocker helpfully walks you through choosing a payment method and, after paying, the criminals seem to actually give you a key that you can use to restore your files. You can never be sure that the criminals will keep their end of the deal, of course. It’s not a good idea to pay up when you’re extorted by criminals. On the other hand, businesses that lose their only copy of business-critical data may be tempted to take the risk — and it’s hard to blame them. Protecting Your Files From Ransomware This type of malware is another good example of why backups are essential. You should regularly back up files to an external hard drive or a remote file storage server. If all your copies of your files are on your computer, malware that infects your computer could encrypt them all and restrict access — or even delete them entirely. When backing up files, be sure to back up your personal files to a location where they can’t be written to or erased. For example, place them on a removable hard drive or upload them to a remote backup service like CrashPlan that would allow you to revert to previous versions of files. Don’t just store your backups on an internal hard drive or network share you have write access to. The ransomware could encrypt the files on your connected backup drive or on your network share if you have full write access. Frequent backups are also important. You wouldn’t want to lose a week’s worth of work because you only back up your files every week. This is part of the reason why automated back-up solutions are so convenient. If your files do become locked by ransomware and you don’t have the appropriate backups, you can try recovering them with ShadowExplorer. This tool accesses “Shadow Copies,” which Windows uses for System Restore — they will often contain some personal files. How to Avoid Ransomware Aside from using a proper backup strategy, you can avoid ransomware in the same way you avoid other forms of malware. CryptoLocker has been verified to arrive through email attachments, via the Java plug-in, and installed on computers that are part of the Zeus botnet. Use a good antivirus product that will attempt to stop ransomware in its tracks. Antivirus programs are never perfect and you could be infected even if you run one, but it’s an important layer of defense. Avoid running suspicious files. Ransomware can arrive in .exe files attached to emails, from illicit websites containing pirated software, or anywhere else that malware comes from. Be alert and exercise caution over the files you download and run. Keep your software updated. Using an old version of your web browser, operating system, or a browser plugin can allow malware in through open security holes. If you have Java installed, you should probably uninstall it. For more tips, read our list of important security practices you should be following. Ransomware — CryptoLocker in particular — is brutally efficient and smart. It just wants to get down to business and take your money. Holding your files hostage is an effective way to prevent removal by antivirus programs after it’s taken root, but CryptoLocker is much less scary if you have good backups. This sort of malware demonstrates the importance of backups as well as proper security practices. Unfortunately, CryptoLocker is probably a sign of things to come — it’s the kind of malware we’ll likely be seeing more of in the future.     

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