Asus to have Kindle PC app Pre-installed

Press release:
ASUS today announced that Amazon’s “Kindle for PC” application, which lets readers enjoy Kindle books on their personal computers (PC), will come pre-installed on select ASUS netbooks and notebooks sold at Amazon.com. Kindle for PC enables customers to discover and read from over 540,000 books in the Kindle Store -the largest selection of the most popular books that people want to read — including New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases priced from $9.99.

Like all Kindle apps, Kindle for PC includes Amazon’s Whispersync technology, which saves and synchronizes a customer’s notes, highlights, bookmarks and last page read across their Kindle, Kindle DX, PC, Mac and other devices* so customers always have their reading material with them and never lose their place whether at home or on-the-go.

“We are thrilled that customers will begin to enjoy the Kindle for PC experience right out of the box with ASUS devices,” said Ben Thacker, VP Sales and Product Management, Systems Business Group, North American Channel, ASUS Computer International. “Kindle is something our customers have been asking for and by pre-installing Kindle for PC on select long battery life products, we believe we are providing our customers an even richer PC experience. Working with a customer-centric company such as Amazon and pre-installing their Kindle for PC application is a natural fit for ASUS.”

With the free Kindle for PC pre-installed on select ASUS netbooks and notebooks, consumers can take advantage of the following features and more:

· Purchase, download, and read more than 540,000 books, including 96 of 110 New York Times Bestsellers, plus tens of thousands of the most popular classics for free directly from their ASUS device. Bestsellers such as “Backlash” by Aaron Allston, “Big Girl” by Danielle Steel, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot and “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown, and hundreds of thousands of other popular books are $9.99 or less in the Kindle Store

· Browse by genre or author, and take advantage of all the features that they enjoy in the Kindle Store, including Amazon.com customer reviews, personalized recommendations and editorial reviews
· Read the beginning of books for free before they decide to buy
· Access their Kindle books even if they don’t have Kindle with them
· Synchronize last page read between their Kindle, Kindle DX, PC, Mac, and other devices*
· Create new highlights, notes and bookmarks, and manage those created on their Kindle
· Choose from three different color modes: read in white, sepia, or black color modes and adjust the brightness of the display from within the application
· Choose from more than 10 different font sizes and adjust words per line
· Read books using full-screen mode of their PC

“We think customers are going to love the convenience and simplicity of having instant access to Kindle for PC from their ASUS device and access to a massive selection of Kindle books,” said Jay Marine, Director, Amazon Kindle. “Kindle for PC lets customers enjoy over 540,000 books in the Kindle Store even if they don’t yet have a Kindle, and its the perfect companion application for the millions of Kindle and Kindle DX owners.”

Kindle for PC* is available today and comes preinstalled on the following ASUS Eee PC Netbooks with battery life** up to 11 hours:

1005PE-MU27- BK

1005PE-MU27-BU

1005PE-MU27-WT

1005PE-MU27-PI

And on the following ASUS ultra thin and light UL Series notebooks featuring over 11 hours of battery life **:

UL30A-X5K
UL30VT-X1K

These select ASUS netbooks and notebooks are available at Amazon.com with additional models arriving soon.

###

* Kindle for PC, a free application that allows customers to read Kindle content on a PC, is available for download on http://www.amazon.com/KindleforPC .

**Battery life measured with MobileMark 2007 in reader mode and can be different based upon usage and conditions. Please visit http://usa.asus.com for more information. Specifications are subject to change without prior notice.

Kaspersky Lab reached an agreement with Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro

Press release:
Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content management solutions, announces that it has reached an agreement for a technical partnership with Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro.

“It is a great honour for us to commence a partnership with the team, world famous for its race history and huge success,” Eugene Kaspersky CEO and co-founder of Kaspersky Lab commented. “Ferrari and Kaspersky Lab share many values, such as the constant research for excellence, technological innovation and love for competition in our respective businesses”.

Although the agreement with the Scuderia has been extended to the 2010 and 2011 seasons, the ties between the two companies go further. Kaspersky Lab becomes one of the main sponsors of AF Corse, the team from Piacenza, Italy. The Kaspersky Lab logo will appear on the team’s cars with effect from this weekend in occasion of the 1000 Km of Spa-Francorchamps, the second round of the series.

About Kaspersky Lab

Kaspersky Lab is the largest antivirus company in Europe. It delivers some of the world’s most immediate protection against IT security threats, including viruses, spyware, crimeware, hackers, phishing, and spam. The company is ranked among the world’s top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users.  Kaspersky Lab products provide superior detection rates and one of the industry’s fastest outbreak response times for home users, SMBs, large enterprises and the mobile computing environment. Kaspersky® technology is also used worldwide inside the products and services of the industry’s leading IT security solution providers. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com. For the latest on antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-spam and other IT security issues and trends, visit www.securelist.com.

About AF Corse
Since 2006 AF Corse takes part in GT2 races with Ferrari F430 cars. During these years Amato Ferrari’s team won 21 FIA GT races, two 24 hour races of Spa, four FIA GT2 titles. This 2010 year is starting with a new challenge: the Le Mans Series, where AF Corse lines up three F430 driven by very famous drivers such as Fisichella, Alesi, Vilander, Bruni e Melo

NetGear launches the RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router’

Press release:
NETGEAR, a worldwide provider of technologically advanced, branded networking and storage products, has launched in the UAE the ‘RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router’, its latest, award-winning router ideal for online gaming, high-definition video streaming and secure, large data transfers. Dubbed as ‘the ultimate networking machine’, the new networking device is packed with unique, high performance features that set a new bar for the industry in terms of advanced speed and range.

Powered by a 680 MHz MIPS processor – one of the highest in the consumer router category today – and featuring built-in gigabit Ethernet ports, the router enables gamers and media enthusiasts to run multiple bandwidth-intensive applications simultaneously. It also boasts of dual band technology, which blocks frequency interference with wireless home appliances such as cordless phone and microwave oven thereby ensuring uninterrupted network and Internet access. Meanwhile, businesses will appreciate the networking device’ enterprise-class wireless security with Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-Enterprise and WPA2-Enterprise) encryption and ease-of-installation for small wireless hotspot products.

“The region has been witnessing a significant requirement for wireless networks that can handle the strain of supporting many bandwidth-demanding applications, given the growing popularity of online gaming, high definition video streaming, and large-scale file sharing and Voice over IP for both homes and businesses,” said Sayed Jawed, NETGEAR’s Sales & Marketing Manager, MEA. “By offering this new router to the Middle East market, we are aiming to enhance the overall consumer experience by letting users enjoy fastest speed, highest reliability and maximum range to support whichever application they are using.”

Winner of a ‘Best of Innovations’ Award at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, the ‘RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router’ boasts not only of highly advanced functions, speed and range, but also of ‘green’ features. With three adjustable power and range settings, the router can reduce wireless transmit power by up to 75 percent compared to when the router is transmitting at full power. The auto-sensing gigabit Green switch automatically adjusts power consumption based on cable length and unused ports, and a ‘ReadyShare’ function to enable high-speed access to a USB hard drive from any device on the network. Furthermore, the router is backed by a one-year warranty and local technical support and is available in the UAE through leading retailers including SharafDG, Jumbo Electronics, Plug-Ins, E-City and other IT resellers.

“As ‘the ultimate networking machine’, the ‘RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router’ also allows users to measure their Internet bandwidth usage, which is increasingly important as many ISPs begin to set the limits lower. In addition, we also offer other products that are compatible with our new router such as storage, wireless range extender and digital entertainment device, which can further enhance customers’ networking and gaming experience. With its strong capacity to facilitate seamless streaming of data across the network and cost and energy-saving ‘green’ features, we are confident that ‘RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router’ will be the ideal router for the growing number of online gaming fans, media enthusiasts and SMBs in the region,” concluded Jawed.

Canon EOS 500D DSLR Review

The Canon EOS 500D (also known as the Rebel T1i) was released in 2009 as a replacement to the popular Canon EOS 450D (also known as the Rebel XSi) as Canons entry level DSLR. It’s more of an evolutionary improvement over the 450D by providing a similar package with some new features and upgrades. The most visible changes on the EOS 500D are the higher resolution sensor, HD video mode and the new high resolution LCD display.

The table below shows the important changes between the two models.

Camera	EOS 500D	EOS 450D
Sensor	15.1 million effective pixels	12.2 million effective pixels
Image processor	DIGIC 4	DIGIC III
Image sizes	4752 x 3168 3456 x 2304 2353 x 1568	4272 x 2848 3088 x 2056 2256 x 1504
ISO range	ISO 100 to 3200, expandable to 6400 and 12800	ISO 100 to 1600
LCD display	3.0 ” TFT LCD, 920,000 dots	3.0 ” TFT LCD, 230,000 dots
Video mode	1080p @ 20fps 720p @ 30fps VGA @ 30fps MOV (Video: H.264, Sound: Linear PCM)	No video capability
Noise reduction	4 levels adjustability	On/Off
Auto lighting optimizer	4 levels adjustability	On/Off
Peripheral illumination correction	Profiles provided for 25 lenses
High-speed continuous	3.4 fps 170 JPEG/Fine frames 9 RAW frames	3.5 fps 53 JPEG/Fine frames 6 RAW frames
Connections	USB 2.0 Video output HDMI Type C	USB 2.0 Video output

Package

The 500D like its predecessor is available in two kits. One that is a body only option while the other one available is packaged with the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS lens. You’ll also find a LP-E5 lithium-ion battery, LC-E5E battery charger, body cap, shoulder strap, USB cable, video cable, printed camera manual and two CDs containing the Canon EOS Digital Solution software and documentations.

Canon does not provide a memory card with the camera so you’re going to have to buy one unless a local retailer gives one as a freebie with the camera. With the cameras capability of taking 15mp images that translates into large file sizes, it would be recommended to buy a 4GB or higher capacity memory card. The camera uses SD or SDHC memory cards and Canon recommends Class 6 card for HD movie recording.

The camera body

The 500D being the entry level camera is entirely made of plastic which makes it lightweight and feel a little delicate. It’s also quite small and the grip will seem inadequate for people with bigger hands so I would would recommended you to try the camera out before buying it just to get a feel of the size. Built quality is top notch though a few areas of the body were already showing signs of wear especially around the I/O ports and the bottom part of the camera.

On the flip side, it’s amongst the smallest and lightest when compared to competitors which makes it easy to carry around especially for people who don’t want the bulk of a heavy professional camera. Looking carefully, I noticed the following specific physical features of this camera:

• The camera supports both the EF and EF-S lens and has a crop factor of 1.6x which basically means if you mount a 18mm lens, it’ll give you a field of view of almost 29mm.

• The electronically released pop up flash that has a guide number of 13 meters at ISO 100 with field of view coverage of up to 17mm. It also doubles as an AF assist lamp.

• The microphone records sound in mono and can be found on the front above the EOS label.

• On the mode dial, a new mode called the Movie Mode has been added to enable you to take videos.

• Unlike several older DSLRs, the LCD can be used to compose shots through the Live view option just like a point and shoot camera though it isn’t as quick at locking focus.

You have three auto focus options in live view:

o Live: This uses the contrast detect AF which is quite slow. It takes the camera a few seconds to lock focus.
o Live with face detection: Same as the Live AF mode but with the ability to detect a face. Unlike the face detection of a point & shoot, this system isn’t accurate as it detected a face even in scenes that didn’ have people in it.
o Quick: In this mode, to focus, the camera flips the mirror down, uses the cameras AF points to lock focus, flips the mirror back up and returns to Live view. A faster way to focus if you don’t mind the short period of blackout and the sound the flipping mirror makes.

• In live view, you can zoom in by 5x to 10x that allows you to make sure your subject is perfectly in focus especially when manual focusing.

• A dedicated record button in Video mode is provided on the right side of the screen which also doubles up as a button to switch on live view mode in P/TV/AV/M/A-DEP mode. The same button can be used to choose what pictures to transfer when the camera is connected to a PC or Mac.

ESET Buys COMDOM Software

Press release:
ESET, a global provider of security solutions, announced the acquisition of COMDOM Software ̵ a Kosice-based software company acclaimed for antispam solutions. The latest acquisition underlines the company’s strategy of solidifying its position as a premier developer of security software.

By making this acquisition, ESET is increasing its capacity for developing advanced security solutions. According to Miroslav Trnka, ESET CEO “ESET is a research and development-oriented company that is going to benefit from this merger by tapping into the potential of this manufacturer of advanced antispam solutions. Building on the team of skilled programmers and researchers,  we envision introducing new activities, along with injecting new potential   into the development of security software.“

COMDOM Software is ESET’s second acquisition since 2008 when it purchased a Czech-based company Setrnet, expanding its offering to information security services.

ESET has currently branch offices in Prague, Czech Republic; San Diego, U.S.A; Buenos Aires, Argentina. The recent acquisition reaffirms ESET’s commitment to R&D and comes 2 years after the greenfiled investment into ESET development center in Krakow, Poland.

About ESET
Founded in 1992, ESET is a global provider of security solutions for the home and business segment. The industry leader in proactive malware detection, ESET NOD32 Antivirus holds the world record for the number of Virus Bulletin “VB100 Awards,” never to have missed a single “In-the-Wild” worm or virus since the inception of testing in 1998.

ESET has headquarters in Bratislava, Slovakia and offices in San Diego, USA; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Prague, Czech Republic, and an extensive partner network in 160 countries. In 2008, ESET has opened a new research center in Krakow, Poland. ESET was named by Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the region of Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Check how Reliable your PC is using Windows 7

Being away from Windows made me miss out on some of its functionality and today, I discovered a tool called “Reliability Monitor” that can actually be quite helpful in troubleshooting your PC. I don’t know if this was included in Windows Vista but it is a part of Windows 7.

Reliability Monitor basically records any hardware and software problems/changes that have occurred on your PC and based on that, provides an index that ranges from 1 to 10 with 10 being the most reliable. You can launch it by clicking on the start menu and type reliability which bring a result to “View reliability history” on which you can click. Let me post a screenshot from my Sony laptop and then explain the information this tool collects.

The first thing on top in that graph is whether to view your information in days or weeks. When your PC is new, the days link is selected which shows you information about your PC on a daily basis. Once your PC becomes a few weeks or months old, you would probably want to switch to a weekly view.

As you can see, my PC has been fairly reliable over the last over the last twenty days with the graph closer towards the top (10) than the bottom. There are three types of icons in that graph- the red x is a show stopper while the yellow triangle is a warning. The blue circles are just information dialogs that tell you if an application was installed/uninstalled or a Windows Update applied. The yellow triangle you see informed me that an application was unsuccessfully installed which in this case was the older version of the Flip Share application that was on my Flip MinoHD video camera.

The red x signs are the one that you should be concerned about and two of those on my graphs are due to improper shutdown of windows which generally means that your PC crashed. Unfortunately, Reliability Monitor doesn’t provide you with the exact information on what caused the error. For that, you will probably need to look at system logs. The third red x on my graph was for Superfetch that had stopped working. Superfetch is a disk caching mechanism in Windows and since I have an SSD (Solid State Drive) on this laptop, I disabled this service as it’s a lot more helpful with standard mechanical hard drives.

It would be interesting to find out what others are scoring. Please do share your index and your PC make with us.

First UAE Arabic Web Address Goes Live

The Presidential Affairs Ministry in conjunction with the Telecommunications Regulator Authority (TRA) launched UAE’s first Arabic website on the internet, Khalifa.emarat.

HH Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs launched the website of President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The UAE becomes one of the four countries to have a website address in their mother tongue, following Internet Corporate Assigned for Names and Numbers (ICANN)’s decision to allow websites to have non-Latin characters in the addresses.

The Ministry of Presidential Affairs says the new domain “reflects UAE’s pride in Arabic language due to its role in the Arab culture” and that it conveys to the world the progress being made by UAE.

Source: Khaleej Times

iSpot launches new Apple Store in Wakra, Qatar

Press release:
iSpot, Qatar’s leading Apple Premium Reseller, today announced the launch of its third retail outlet in Qatar, in the city of Wakra as a mark of celebration of their 2nd year anniversary. iSpot, a part of Ali Bin Ali Group in Qatar has been a catalyst of Apple technology in the market for the last two years. Since the launch of iSpot two years ago, the brand today has successfully become the leading Apple Store in Qatar.

Mr. Mohamad Al Ebrik, Chief Operating Officer of Ali Bin Ali Group / ICT said “ We are extremely happy and excited that iSpot which was launched two years ago is now celebrating its 2nd anniversary and also opening its third showroom in Qatar. This is a major milestone for the company. The success at iSpot has come in many forms. Mainly our customers have been the center of this, with the trust they have always placed in our products and services. It is they who set the benchmarks for us to reach. Finally, its our team that has made sure all this becomes a reality by putting in extra efforts with their passion and dedication to live the iSpot dream. We plan to go beyond this and will be launching several specialized services within the next few weeks to the market. We invite everyone to step into our Wakra store and experience the latest technologies available.”

iSpot has continually understand customer requirements and offers products & services to fulfill those needs. Over the last two years the company widened its business engagements beyond the retail channel to education, corporate and distribution sectors. As a part of this strategy iSpot holds the distribution rights to many leading technology and accessory brands. iSpot also has emerged as the most preferred partner to many educational and corporate institutions in Qatar. With its customer-friendly stores at City Center, W DOHA Hotel and now in Wakra, iSpot’s aim is to provide an exceptional buying experience for both new and existing Apple customers. Today the company is the most certified and accredited Apple store: iSpot is an Apple Premium Reseller, Authorized Reseller, and Solutions Expert for Education and an Authorized Service Provider.

Today’s customers need more than a traditional retail experience. They want professionals who can demonstrate and help them to make the right choices for their needs. iSpot delivers support service, installation advice, and offer training as well as specialist software expertise to give customers confidence in their purchase. iSpot showrooms are the best places in Doha to test drive any Mac product and get demonstrations of the latest Apple products. It’s also the optimum place to get expert advice if you’re a business or a professional user wanting to do more with your Mac. The new Wakra Showroom has all the latest Apple products including the iPhone, the full range of Apple Mac computers and a wide range of complimentary third party Software products and accessories.

HTC launches in the HTC Smart in the UAE

Press release:
HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, has announced the launch of HTC Smart, an affordable and easy-to-use smartphone in the Middle East. The HTC Smart is a new type of smartphone that offers easy-to-use widgets, browsing and connectivity at an affordable price.

HTC Sense
The HTC Smart embodies HTC Senseä, HTC’s unique design philosophy that focuses the mobile experience on people. The HTC Smart’s compact touch design integrates the pillars of HTC Sense – Make It Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected – to deliver a user-friendly experience. People can customise their own, personal HTC Smart experience using a variety of widgets for quick access to contacts, photos, music, weather and more. People are able to follow their friend’s status updates using HTC Friend Stream, an application that seamlessly aggregates all of social communication including Facebook and Twitter into one organised flow of updates. This simple aggregation makes it easier than ever to focus on what friends are doing as well as the images and links that they share.

HTC Smart utilizes Qualcomm’s Brew Mobile Platform™ (Brew MP), a powerful and popular mobile operating system that enables HTC to deliver the HTC Sense experience on more affordable smartphones. By pioneering a new era of mass-market smartphones, Brew MP also provides the HTC Smart with a mass-market opportunity for new applications and services from software developers worldwide.

“Qualcomm’s collaborations with HTC have resulted in some of the most innovative smartphones the market has seen in recent years,” said Paul Jacobs, chief executive officer of Qualcomm Incorporated. “The HTC Smart is a budget-friendly smartphone that delivers a really exciting user experience. We are pleased to be supporting HTC’s move to bring this advanced mobile experience and HTC Sense to the widest possible audience.”

Nikitas Glykas, regional director of HTC South Eastern Europe and the Middle East, said: “With the launch of HTC Smart, we are offering advanced mobile phone experiences in an intuitive handset to a wider consumer segment. We have seen regional demand for phones offering email, web browsing and social networking increase dramatically, which is why we are introducing the HTC Smart.”

Availability
HTC Smart is available in leading electronic stores across the Middle East at a retail price of AED 899.

IBM Hands-out Malware Infected USB sticks at Conference

At the AusCERT conference, where hundreds of IT professionals go on to listen about the latest developments in security technology, saw IBM dishing out complimentary USB drives from their booth. Pretty cool, right? Free USB drives, yeah!? No. IBM pulled of a Telstra by handing out USB drives that were infected with malware. At a security conference. It’s a funny little guy, this irony.

“At the AusCERT conference this week, you may have collected a complimentary USB key from the IBM booth,” Australia chief technologist Glenn Wightwick wrote.

“Unfortunately we have discovered that some of these USB keys contained malware and we suspect that all USB keys may be affected.”

Source: The Age

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