Error: Feed failed! Causes may be (1) No data found for RSS feed http://feeds2.feedburner.com/de/bitdefender-latestnews?format=xml; (2) There are no items are available for this feed; (3) The RSS feed does not validate.

Please verify that the URL http://feeds2.feedburner.com/de/bitdefender-latestnews?format=xml works first in your browser and that the feed passes a validator test.

Make Tech Easier

OfficeMedium ? A Social Collaboration Platform For The Small Business + Free Promotions
For those business owners who are looking for a easy and good solution to manage their clients and also to collaborate between their team members, Office Medium is one such good platform that they can use. Office Medium is a web-based collaborative suite and office intranet built with the open source Drupal. It is easy to use and comes with several useful features (especially in the social aspect) that the small business users will come to appreciate. I were introduced to OfficeMedium a while back and my first impression is that it is well designed with plenty of useful collaborative and social features. When you first logged in, you will be greeted by the dashboard. This is where you can get an overview of what happening in your business social area. The interior of OfficeMedium is organized into several sections, namely Tasks, Events, Calendar, Contacts, Resouces, Files, Polls, Shoutbox and Blog. Each section plays an important role. Tasks allows you to create to do lists and track the progress of your work. Events shows all your upcoming events and the Calendar allows you to schedule appointments and add events. There is also a group calendar where you can view your colleague’s schedule. The Resources, Files and Polls sections are some of the useful collaborative tools while the Shoutbox enables you to update your status so your colleagues/clients know what you are busy with. Client management The best part about OfficeMedium is the integration of client management into the software. You can create a limited user account for your clients and allows them to participate in the collaboration/discussion process. The limited user account give the client permission to view/submit tasks, events, and files, and are only allowed to see content and data that is meant for, or created by them. It is more like Google wave, but with more flexibility and usability. One caveat – Not able to backup data While OfficeMedium provides a great platform for the end user, there is one thing that I am concern of – the inability to back up your data. Unlike your self-hosted intranet where you can keep everything in your control, Office Medium does not provide any way for you to backup all your data (Perhaps it does, but I can’t find any backup option in the interface). That means, if one day they were to close down, all your data will go down with them. If you keep plenty of confidential data online, this is definitely a cause for concern. Office Medium is currently priced at $6 per user and comes with a free 512MB account. Extra space can be purchased at $1 per Gb per month. New users get a 1 month free usage before they are required to pay the subscription fee. Promotion for Make Tech Easier readers Office Medium allows anyone to use the software free for 30 days before you are required to make any payment. Now, for MakeTechEasier readers, as long as you email ‘MAKETECHEASIER‘ to support@officemedium.com within 24 hours of this post, you will get 60 days of free usage. Don’t wait, GET IT NOW! OfficeMedium – A Social Collaboration Platform For The Small Business + Free Promotions originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

MakeTechEasier Is Now Hosted On KnownHost
I am proud to announce that MakeTechEasier is now hosted on Knownhost. About half a year ago, we decided to move out of our shared Hostgator account and migrate to ServInt. Not that Hostgator is no good, it just that MakeTechEasier has grown rapidly over time and we need to get a bigger server to host our site. In my opinion, Hostgator is one of the best shared web host company around and I would seriously recommend them for those who just started blogging. On the other hand, we switched to ServInt because there were many good reviews about them. But somehow, things just doesn’t go well for us. The server is slow and sluggish. Can you imagine that it takes five mins just to save a post? And the staffs aren’t too helpful in solving my issues too. This time round, we make a switch to Knownhost and it was the best decision we made this year. Our experience with KH Fast and stable server: The server performance is speedy (Josh can swear by that). There is no downtime. Super Fast Response Time: Most web hosts take at least 1 hour to answer your ticket and if the issue require higher technical expertise, your ticket will be forwarded to the respective department and you have to wait for another few hours to get your ticket answered. For KnownHost, the response time is almost instantly. Whenever I submit a ticket, I will surely get a response within 10 mins. And in most cases, my issues are settled within 30 mins. Amazing customer support: Kate, William and many other friendly staffs who are always trying their means to help you. Managed VPS is superb: Even know we have the knowledge and skill to adminster a server, it is always great to have someone who is taking care of all the stuffs for you 24/7. With all said, here?s is a much faster and more stable MakeTechEasier.com, thanks to KnownHost. If you are in need of a new host, Knownhost is definitely the one. MakeTechEasier Is Now Hosted On KnownHost originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

KTorrent: KDE?s BitTorrent client
Many people use BitTorrent clients to download popular movies, music, and television shows for free, although this practice is illegal in several countries. But legal issues aside, distributing files through torrents is an excellent way to reduce server bandwidth and spread them quickly. For example, many Linux distributions will distribute their ISOs using torrents in addition to their server mirrors. BitTorrent makes distributing large files easy and fast because the files are hosted on users’ computers. In order to download the files associated with torrents, you need a BitTorrent client.  KTorrent, a KDE project, is a feature-rich client that is completely self-contained from the moment you start searching for torrents until the last chunk finishes downloading. Ktorrent is available for download in most Linux repositories and requires minimal KDE dependencies to run. Searching for torrents There are two ways to search for torrents: 1. the traditional way, using your web browser and opening the torrent file in KTorrent, or 2. searching directly within KTorrent. By default, there is a search bar in the top toolbar. From there you can select the engine you want to use. For example, if you select bitjunkie.org and then type some keywords into the search bar, pressing enter will automatically switch to the search panel and bring up a new tab. This panel behaves like a web browser, giving you the ability to navigate backward and forward. Once you find the torrent you want, click the link, and a dialog will appear asking if you want to download it or save it. Click “download”, and it will bring up another dialog asking you where to download. To add or remove search engines, click “Settings” and select the “Search” icon in the left column. From this dialog, you can also clear search history and open searches in an external browser like Firefox. Downloading torrents One thing to love about KTorrent is the flexibility it offers you. In the download dialog, you can select exactly which files within the torrent you want to get, rather than being forced to download multiple files you might not even need. This is particularly useful if the person who created the torrent added his own advertisements or useless images, or if you want a particular episode of a TV series. In the “Torrents” panel, you will see information about your download, such as the current status, amount of data downloaded, seeders, leachers, etc. At the bottom of this panel are several buttons that will give you more information in the bottom pane. “Status” gives you a visual representation of the chunks available and downloaded. “Files” gives you a detailed list of each file and how much of it has completed. “Peers” shows you current seeders/leechers and their location. “Chunks” shows you which chunks are downloading, from which peer, and the download speed. “Trackers” provides critical information about the torrent’s trackers. From here you can add trackers, remove then, or update ones that might have failed to connect. Plugins KTorrent offers a plethora of plugins that add to its rich collection of features. From RSS syndication to a built-in media player that supports KDE’s Phonon backend, most users will be able to find something, if not everything they need. Some plugins I found extremely useful are: 1. Download Order – decide the order in which files in a torrent download. 2. Search – the previously mentioned search feature. 3. Web Interface – to control Ktorrent remotely from a web browser. The amount of tweaking you can do in Ktorrent’s configuration is extensive. You can specify default ports, maximum download speeds, connection limits, proxies, seeding settings, specify file and disk settings, and select a default save location for your files. The interface is quick and easy to use, while users who expect a powerful file-sharing application will not be disappointed. Ktorrent is free software released under the GNU General Public License and is available for download for Linux, versions of BSD, Windows, and Mac OS X. KTorrent: KDE’s BitTorrent client originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Create a Customized Toolbar for Your Browser
Toolbars as they are named, provides us with invaluable help with the set of tools that they come with. But most of the time, the toolbars are from any software developer or online service provider. They serve some purpose but have a little bit of self promotion involved. Wouldn?t it be nice if we could possibly create our own toolbar with tools that we prefer to use. This article will help you create your own toolbar which is compatible with Firefox & Internet Explorer. Conduit is an online service that allows tons of website publishers to create their own toolbars. It can also be used by any individual to create their personal toolbar and improve their productivity. First things first, you have to signup for a free account to start using the service. After that, you will land on a page with a default toolbar which looks like following: Let’s see how you can create a customized toolbar using Conduit. Adding a Logo To Your Toolbar I?ll be adding the MakeTechEasier logo to our toolbar. Lets see how to do it. 1. Go to the “My Toolbar” section and click the “Your Logo” link placed just under the Basic Components section. It will take you to a setup page from where you can add the logo. 2. You can add text to the logo or select from many predefined text styles. You can also upload a picture from your hard-drive. 3. When you are done with the logo, scroll down and add a link to the logo. This will open a URL of your choice when you click the logo. Add the alternate text for the logo so that when you hover over the logo, you will see a small hint. As this toolbar is for MTE readers, I will be choosing the destination URL as the blog?s home URL. 4. Press “Save” at the bottom to save all the changes that you have just made. NOTE : Under the Basic components section, there are many more links that can be added to a toolbar. As they are not that useful to common users, I?m ignoring them. Adding a Feed Reader to your toolbar Go to the “My Toolbar” section and click the RSS reader under the “Popular Components” section. It will take you to a setup page to add RSS sources to your toolbar. On step 1, select any RSS icon of your choice. Then skip the 2nd step and press the “Add an RSS Feed” button in step 3. You will see a page to add RSS feeds. Define the feed URL and press save. You can add multiple feeds, one at a time. Press “Save” to add the RSS widget to the toolbar. Adding a News Ticker to your Toolbar Most people are really addicted to news alerts, which they read from different blogs or websites. This toolbar can be optimized to give you news alerts on any number of topics that you select. 1. Go to the “My Toolbar” section and click the “News Ticker” under the “Basic components” section. It will take you to a setup page where you can add the news sources to your toolbar. 2. In the setup page, you can select from some predefined news sources which are available under step 1. 3. And if you like to import your own sources manually, you need to add the RSS URLs from that blog /website. Similarly, you can also update multiple feeds one at a time. 4. You can also define the length and breadth or other behaviors of the ticker using the sliders in step 3. After you have finished defining the element, press “Save” to complete the setup. Add Email Notifier to Your Toolbar This feature can be found under the “Popular section” and can be added very easily. Go to the page and save the settings. You can add the email addresses after you install the toolbar on your browser. Adding a Chat Room And Twitter Widget If you want a dedicated chatroom for your friends, Conduit toolbar offers you one. Conduit also lets you add a simple Twitter reader so that you can read Twitter updates directly from the toolbar. All you have to do is add the Twitter profiles you wish to follow. Under ?Social And Messages? section you can find these two most used utilities. The search field in the toolbar is set to Google by default, you can define it by configuring the search widget. Among other tools that are mostly used, radio player, TV and games can also be installed in the toolbar. Toolbar Components For Web Masters The toolbar has endless possibilities and it is really useful for oneself to promote his/her blog or website. For experienced developers, you can even add XML links, custom defined HTML components and Java scripts with the Conduits API. The best part is that you get paid for every installation. Isn?t that like hitting two birds with one stone ? Make Tech Easier Toolbar I have prepared one such toolbar for all MTE readers, which can be downloaded from MTE Toolbar Page. In conclusion, regardless whether you are a blog owner or just a casual web surfer, Conduit toolbar is an useful tool that can be used by anyone to improve their productivity. How to Create a Customized Toolbar for Your Browser originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

13 Ways To Customize Ubuntu Netbook Remix For Better Usability
Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) is a modified version of Ubuntu specially for the netbooks. The latest version of UNR runs Ubuntu Karmic in the backend, but the interface has been heavily customized to make it looks/functions good in small screen. Recently, I installed UNR on my netbook (as a replacement for WinXP). While I like the interface, I find that there are still many places that can be improved for better usability and performance. Here I will highlight several of my own customizations. 1. Complement Maximus with Namebar Maximus is a desktop daemon used in UNR to automatically maximise the windows when they are opened and also hide the title bar to save space. While this is a good feature, it doesn’t give you any option to minimize/unmaximize the window. NameBar is an applet that puts the name list of the top-most maximized or the focused window in the gnome-panel so that it doesn’t take up precious space elsewhere. It also adds the minimize/unmaximize option to the namelist. To install namebar, download the deb file. Double click the deb file to install. Once the installation is done, open a terminal and type: killall gnome-panel Now right click on the top panel and select ?Add to Panel?. Scroll down until you see Namebar Applet. Add it to the panel. Before Namebar After installing namebar (You have to remove the window picker applet from the panel to achieve the full effect of the namebar) 2. Replace the window picker applet with DockbarX The window picker applet is the default window management app that allows you to switch between windows. One bad thing about this applet is that it doesn’t group similar windows together and can take up a lot of space as you open more windows. DockbarX is a better replacement for the window picker applet. It groups all the similar window together and only displays them all when you mouse over. In addition, you can also pin applications onto it. To install DockBarX, add the following Ubuntu PPA to your UNR: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dockbar-main/ppa In the terminal, type sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install dockbarx Remove the window picker applet from the top panel. Add the DockbarX applet onto the panel. 3. Hide the date The date/time applet in the top panel is taking up far too much space. Personally, I don’t need to keep myself reminded of the date all the time, so it is a redundant information for me. The best thing is to remove it. Right click on the time/date applet and select Preferences. Uncheck the box ?Show date? 4. Make Top Panel autohide If you value your screen real estate very much, you may want to autohide your top panel so that it does not take up any screen real estate when not in use. Right click on the top panel and select Properties. Check Autohide. 5. Add CPU freq scaling applet to the panel The CPU frequency scaling applet allows you to change the frequency of your CPU and save your battery life. Follow the usual method to the applet onto the panel. 6. Remove Game from the side pane On the main screen, you will see the menu on the left and the respective applications on the right. I don’t play game on my netbook, so the Game section is kind of redundant. To remove it, scroll down to System section and select the Main Menu application. Uncheck the box ?Game?. Free feel to uncheck any other categories that you have no use for. 7. Install swiftfox Swiftfox is an optimized build of Firefox and it performs much faster than Firefox. To install swiftfox, open your terminal and enter sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list Add the following line to the end of the file deb http://getswiftfox.com/builds/debian unstable non-free Save and close the file. Back to your terminal: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install swiftfox-i686 Note: In a standard Intel laptop configuration, you should install swiftfox-prescott. However I find that swiftfox-prescott does not work in Intel Atom netbook. Swiftfox-i686 works fine 8. Install meerkat extensions for Firefox Meerkat is a Firefox extension that optimizes the Firefox interface to make it more netbook friendly. What it does is: - Hides the status bar when there is no activity - Removes the menu bar, rebuilt into a drop down button placed on the navigation bar - Adds downloads and bookmarks buttons to the right of the location bar, followed by above mentioned menu bar button - Reduces the navigation bar icon size to the small setting 9. Install Google Chrome If you are willing to ditch Firefox, I would recommend installing Google Chrome. It runs much faster than Firefox/Swiftfox, especially when you have a lot of tabs opened. 10. Reduce the number of startup items The number of startup applications determines how fast your netbook boots up. Also, the more background tasks you run, the faster your battery drains. Go to System->Preferences -> Startup Applications You can safely uncheck the following: - Bluetooth Manager (optional. Leave it checked if you are using the bluetooth function) - Check for new hardware driver (unless you change your hardware regularly) - Evolution alarm notifier - Gnome login sound - Gnome setting daemon helper - Print queue applet (if you use your netbook for printing, don’t remove this) - User folders update - Visual Assistance 11. Rearrange your Favorite items The Favorite section, as its name implies, should contain all your favorites (and frequently accessed) applications. The default list of Favorites Items is not useful at all. What I have done is to remove all the items and manually add my own favorite items into the list. To add item to your Favorites, simply navigate to your favorite apps and click the ‘+’ symbol at the top right of the icon. 12. Disable the touchpad when typing If the touchpad always disturb your typing, you can use syndaemon to disable it while you are typing. Syndaemon is pre-installed in UNR, so you need only to add the following to your startup entry: Name: Synaptics Touchpad Syndaemon Command: syndaemon -i 1 -d Comment: Disable the touchpad when typing 13. Install powertop Powertop enables you to find out the processes that are draining your battery away and provide you a simple method to remove them. You can follow the tutorial here to install PowerTop. What other ways do you use to customize your netbook? 13 Ways To Customize Ubuntu Netbook Remix For Better Usability originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

3 Useful Tools To Optimize your Blog?s CSS
CSS stands for cascading stylesheets which is an important aspect of modern day web designing. If you are a web designer and know how to design Wordpress themes or blogger templates, you can not ignore CSS anymore. However, if you have a blog and want to optimize the CSS files for better performance and quicker loading, here are all the tools that you need. How to Find the CSS file of your blog template If your blog is on Wordpress then the CSS file is placed ideally in the themes folder under wp-content/themes/yourtheme. To know the exact location, open your blog and check the page source. You will find a link to the CSS of your theme as shown below If your blog is on Blogger, open the Blogger dashboard and go to the “Layout” tab. Select “Edit HTML” and the checkbox “expand widget templates”. Next, copy the CSS code in a notepad file defined just after the opening body tag. Download a copy of that file and do the modifications described in this tutorial. It would be better if you take a backup of the stylesheet for if things go wrong, you can restore your site’s design by using the backup. Optimize the CSS code Format your CSS code The first step towards optimization of any CSS code is proper formatting. You should carefully format the style elements and the attributes so that they are easy to understand. Moreover, the code should be written so that they do not overlap with other classes or ID’s. Formatting the code manually is a tough job and you can use the Format CSS tool to get started. Copy the style sheet which you want to format and paste it in the text box. Next, select the preferred rules of formatting from the right panel. For example: You may want to insert a new line after the CSS property of each div tag. You may also want to remove all the white spaces placed after a semicolon. Set all the rules which you want the program to perform and then hit the “Format CSS” button. All the specified rules would be applied and the code will be formatted as shown below: Optimize CSS to remove redundancies Now that you have formatted your code for readability, it’s time for some optimization. Go to Online CSS optimizer and paste the entire code in the text box provided. You may also enter the URL of your CSS file, if you want. This tool can be used for the following purposes: convert all the RGB color values to hexadecimal thus reducing overhead and increasing efficiency. remove all the comments and white spaces. optimize the border values to modern metrics. For example: the attribute border: 2px 5px 2px 5px is changed to border: 2px 5px;. convert absolute values to relative ones. For example: the attribute font-size:18px; can be changed into font-size:2em; converts multiple background, font, margin, padding, list attributes into a single attribute. Clean Your CSS File and reduce Size Now it’s time to clean your CSS code for errors and reduce the file size. Reducing the size of CSS is important as it affects the load time of your blog’s pages. Go to Clean CSS and paste the CSS code which you optimized in the earlier step. Select the compression mode as highest and select the options shown below Clean CSS is based on CSS Tidy and can be used to merge shorthand properties, compress colors and font weights. A similar tool for compressing CSS code for faster loading is CSS Drive. Some Tips Following are some tips and tricks you should keep in mind while writing the CSS code for your blog’s template: 1. Always use external stylesheets rather than pasting the entire code before the tag. 2. Use universal classes to avoid repetitions. For example: you can use a simple class div.floatleft{float:left;} to float any element to left rather than using the same attribute on multiple classes. 3. Use browser specific CSS files for fixing bugs. That means, if you spot a bug which occurs only in a particular browser ( generally Internet explorer 6 or older versions), use a separate style sheet to fix that bug. This keeps your main style sheet neat and clean. For Wordpress bloggers: Apart from optimizing the CSS code, you must check out how to reduce blog’s page load time and how you should clean up the Wordpress database. Have you optimized the CSS of your blog template yet? What are your favorite tools for optimizing CSS code? Share your ideas in the comments section. 3 Useful Tools To Optimize your Blog’s CSS originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

5 Useful and Fun GIMP Plug-ins
For those of you who use GIMP, you know it is a really great alternative to Photoshop. Like any program, free or not, there is always room for improvement. Plugins are a an easy way to add functionality. GIMP has two different types of plugins, Script-fu and Python-fu. Right out of the box, you can add Script-fu plugins. To add Python based plugins, there is some additional steps and add-ons needed. Get Some Plugins To find more plugins than you can shake a tick at, go to the GIMP Plugin Registry. The different plug-in scripts are tagged pretty well so you can type in the keywords for what you are looking for in the search bar to the right side of the page. When you find something that catches your eye, download it by clicking on the link usually at the bottom of the page. The file should end in [.scm]. How to Install Installation is super simple. Locate the downloaded file and drag it to this folder C:Program FilesGIMP-2.0sharegimp2.0scripts. If you have GIMP open, simply refresh the scripts by going to Filters then Script-fu and click on refresh scripts. 1. Pencil Draw Pencil Draw is a a pretty cool effect. It is fun for the occasional profile picture. In a nutshell, the pencil draw plug-in traces the outline of the main shapes and fills in the open areas with a gray shading. To use this effect, select the area you?d like to change then select Pencil Draw from the filters menu. Before: After: 2. Auto Rotate Auto Rotate is a handy plug-in to fix your photographic faux pas. If you need to straighten a picture quickly this is is what you have been looking for. All you need to do is trace a  line in the picture using the paths tool. Go to the tools tab and scroll to and click on Auto Rotate. The middle picture shows the line. Before: During: After: 3. Motivational Poster Maker I know you have all seen these online, funny pictures with an even funnier caption underneath. This plug-in gives you an easy way to create them. Load a picture into GIMP. Click on Filter then Moti-Maker. In the pop-up, you can fill in the caption, then add something clever to go in the second line. Before: After: 4. Phoca Save Icons Whether you make icons for your website or your desktop, or you simply need to resize a picture to multiple sizes; this is you will love this plug-in. With one click, you can save your final product to the 8 different sizes listed below at the same time. - 512 x 512px - 256 x 256px - 128 x 128px - 64 x 64px - 48 x 48px - 32 x 32px - 22 x 22px - 16 x 16px 5. Draw Arrow This may seem like a really simple tool. However, if you do not have it in your arsenal of tools, it will be missed. Using the Path Tool, make a line. The first point will be the head of the arrow, the second is the end of the tail. When you click the Arrow option in Tools, you will see all kinds of settings to tweak the size and shape of the arrow. What plugins have you added to GIMP? Intro image: alternatePhotography Image credit: missbossy, Dan Dickinson 5 Useful and Fun GIMP Plug-ins originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Friday Mobile Game Review: Tehra Dark Warrior ? 3D Hack and Slasher Game
If you have played Hero of Sparta and you love it, chances are, you will like Tehra Dark Warrior as well. Tehra Dark Warrior is developed by StormBasic and features almost the same style as the Hero of Sparta. There is one difference though, the main character is now a half-naked heroine endowed with big weapon and magical power. As in all RPG hack and style game, the main character (Tehra) has to go around killing monsters, trolls, dragons in order to save the humankind. At the early stage of the game, you are limited to a simple hack and slash style and also a firebot magic. As you reach higher game level, you will pick up more armors and magical skill that grant you higher destroying power. There is no experience point in the game, so you can’t power up your character’s traits nor equip your character with better weapons. However, with more gold, you can upgrade your armor and magic to higher level. A powerful armor is the demonic wrath that you get after killing the boss in stage 2. This demonic wrath gives you the ability to transform into a brutal devil with devastating killing power and immune to all attack. It gives you a sense of invincibility during that short period of time. Initially when you first started the game, there is little guidance on where you have to go and what you have to do. There is no map for you to see and no arrows (like Gameloft style) to guide you. You just have to figure out the way yourself. The orcs is the most common enemies you will face and they never seem to die. When you kill one, the next one respawn. The undead (skeleton) is slightly more difficult to kill, but they don’t respawn. The undead archer is rather annoying and their lightning arrows is difficult to avoid at close distance. You often have to suffer several damages before you can kill them. One good thing, Tehra always run faster than the enemies, so if you are sick of fighting, you can always…err…run. Not a very glorious thing to do for an heroine, but when you need to complete the mission and all these enemies keep pestering you, running seems to be the best thing you should do. One thing that I dislike is that there are very few recovery potions around. If there is any, their recovery effect is dismal. In places where you are dealing with the bosses, you only have 1 life potion around and it only recovers less than 10% of your lifebar. The graphics is expected of any RPG games and is nothing short of spectacular. The sound is normal stuff and nothing to wow about (it almost sound similar in all RPG games). It was stated that there is an online mode that allows people to compete worldwide, but I can’t find such options in the game itself. There are still very detail about this for the moment, probably the online world competition mode refers to the submission of your high score to the scoreboard (If that is the case, that is kind of disappointing). It will be great if you can play in a MMRPG setting. All in all, this is not a bad game, but it is just a tad bit of difficult and lack of several features (such as more recovery potions, able to change weapons, upgrade character’s traits etc) that can make it even better. At a price tag of $3.99, I would say it is a steal. Tehra Dark Warrior [iTunes link] Friday Mobile Game Review: Tehra Dark Warrior – 3D Hack and Slasher Game originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Remote Desktop Sharing with KRDC
If you happen to be the resident “geek” in your house, workplace, or school, you have probably used VNC. It allows you to remotely connect to another computer and even control it. When used for legitimate technical support, it is a useful tool for helping users who are not present in the same room, building, or even the same side of the world. There are also other uses to it outside of technical support. If a user disables the “control” feature, it can be used for instructional purposes. KDE, being the complete desktop that it is, includes a desktop sharing application that allows both VNC and RDP connections to and from the user’s desktop. Setup is easy and painless. Just follow these steps: Note: The “host” computer will receive the connections, and the “guest” computer will connect to the host and control/view it. 1. On the host computer, start Krfb. It can be found in the k-menu under Internet, Connectivity. 2. Click the “Configure…” button. 3. Choose whether you want your computer’s presence announced, and choose the desired listening port (the default is 5900). 4. In the security tab, make sure “Allow uninvited connections” is unchecked (unless the computer needs to be accessed when the user is not present). 5. If you want to allow the guest to control the desktop, check “Allow remote connections…” 6. Click “OK”. Back in the Krfb main window: 1. Click “New Personal Invitation..” 2. Copy down the host ip address, port, and password. (The personal invitation will be valid for one hour from the time that you create it. You can also use “New Email Invitation…”, which will give the same type of invitation to the email addresses you specify). 3. Click “Close”.  (Notice that the Krfb icon appears in your system tray. Leave it there as long as you want to accept connections). Now, the user on the guest computer must do the following: 1. Start Krdc.  It is found in the k-menu under Internet, Connectivity. 2. Next to “Connect to:” make sure “vnc” is selected, and enter the host address and port given to you in the invitation. (Example: 192.168.254.3:5900) 3. Press “Enter”, or click the connect button to the right of the text box. Once connected, there are five control icons at the top that you might consider using. Full Screen makes the window full screen. A control bar will appear when you move your mouse to the top of the screen. Screenshot takes a screenshot of the host computer and holds the picture in your clipboard. You can then paste it into a folder or an image editing program. View Only will disables the “control” feature, which is useful if you need to spy (not that any of you would) or just want to observe. Local Cursor will show you a mouse icon so that you can easily navigate through the user’s desktop. Grab Keys will direct all keystrokes to the VNC window even if your mouse is focused elsewhere, so use with caution. Scale will resize the VNC screen to fit within the window. If you want to connect to the same location in the future, be sure to save a bookmark in the Bookmarks menu at the top. When you are finished with your remote setting, click Disconnect. Now you can remotely connect and control KDE computers, whether for business, education, or recreation. Use this new found power wisely. Remote Desktop Sharing with KRDC originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Codysafe ? Carry Your PC Wherever You Go
We have work to do and we have places to go for completing those tasks. So it is an obvious necessity to carry your working tools along. If that means digital documents, our USB drives comes to rescue. And very recently, the dominance of portable tools has also made the job a lot more easier, but wouldn?t it be nice, if you could simply insert your USB drive, start a single app and then all other documents and tools (on your USB drive) could be opened as easily as opening the Widows start menu? Or what if there is a built-in antivirus and disk maintenance tool ? Isn?t that a lot more safer and easier? CodySafe is one such free tool that does all of them. CodySafe is a menu app for Portable Applications. This software tool turns any portable drive from a simple data carrier to a computer-on-stick. You can easily organize all your portable applications into a menu where you can access it quickly and easily. Configure CodySafe USB Drive 1. Download the portable tool CodySafe. Its only 2.08 Mb in size and pretty light-weight too. 2. Insert the drive in the USB port and double-click the application file, to install the app. Follow the guidelines, as instructed during the installation. I would recommend you to select all the tools when prompted to choose. 3. The setup will automatically locate your drive and will ask you to proceed. If you have multiple drives inserted, then please choose the appropriate drive where you want to install CodySafe and proceed. 4. In the final step of installation you will get an option to give your newly created CodySafe Drive a name (optional). Try something new. Press Finish, when done. Add Programs to Codysafe Dock Now that you are done installing the CodySafe, you will find an icon in the Windows tray. Click on it and you will see a dock opening. This is the CodySafe Dock. It looks somewhat like the Windows Start Menu. Its empty at the start. Let me show how to fill it up. I?ll be adding a portable Chromium Browser for demonstrating. Download the portable app and copy the whole pack to a folder named ?Program Files? in my USB drive?s root directory. 1. Start CodySafe by clicking its tray icon. As the dock opens, press ?Options?. 2. In the Control Panel, click on the section named ?Applications Manager?. 4. Now as it opens, go to the tab, ?Add Application? and locate the application(chrome.exe) within your USB drive. Use the “Browse” button. Now press the ?Apply? button to save the changes. 4. In the “Application Management” tab you can manage your applications. You can also configure CodySafe to auto-start some applications. You can add those in the ?Autorun Management? tab. Others Things Worth Noting : Find If Lost : This is a useful feature that creates and saves your identity information in the USB drive as a readme.txt file. So, in case, you have lost your storage device and if someone have found it, they will get to know about its ownership. The Codyssey team (CodySafe developers) offers bounty to the person if he/she returns the drive to you. Well, I do not know, how good this works in reality, but I must say, its obviously a nice initiative. Disk Doctor : We are all aware of the fact that, USB drives most generally get infected by some common viruses like, conficker, backdoor trojan etc. This Disk doctor is nice addition to the CodySafe suite which prevents such intrusions. But this is not all, apart from virus protection (ViruSense) it also offers disk diagnosis tools that performs disk check and also attempts for recovery of data from bad sectors if found any. Codysafe – Carry Your PC Wherever You Go originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)