MakeUseOf.com: “Google Chrome 10 Makes Web Browsing Faster & Safer Than Ever [News]” plus 9 more |  |
- Google Chrome 10 Makes Web Browsing Faster & Safer Than Ever [News]
- Cool Websites and Tools [March 8th]
- The 9 Toughest Tech Questions [MakeUseOf Answers]
- JottiQ – Scan Suspicious Files Using Multiple Anti-Virus Apps At The Same Time
- 5 Interesting Ways To Use Google News RSS Feeds
- Hot Tech Deals [Mar 8th]
- 8 Quick Online Word Games To Play With Your Vocabulary
- How To Easily Synchronize Folders Outside Dropbox Using Symlinks
- 5 Things To Consider When You Install a SATA Hard Drive
- BitTorrent Creates User-Friendly Client Chrysalis [News]
| Google Chrome 10 Makes Web Browsing Faster & Safer Than Ever [News] Posted: 09 Mar 2011 06:14 AM PST
Google’s own benchmarks recorded a 66% increase in speed over the old version of V8. Other speed enhancements come in the form of hardware GPU acceleration for web videos, putting many of the dedicated graphics cards in today’s modern PCs to use (and taking a load off the CPU).
Currently the GPU acceleration technology can be seen in action over at YouTube’s HTML5 site. Chrome 10 also includes the hotly tipped Adobe Flash sandbox feature, providing users with a safety net whilst viewing Flash content. Currently the sandbox is only available on the Windows version, though this version undoubtedly needs it the most. On top of this the familiar Options window has now been integrated into a web page, along with a search feature for quick-access to your preferences.
There is also now an option to synchronize passwords to your Google account, giving you access to all your saved login details across multiple computers. You’ll need to have Chrome installed of course, and as an extra security precaution you can choose your own custom encryption passphrase (to prevent account hijacking). Web apps can now make use of Chrome’s background pages feature, meaning you can choose to still receive notifications even after closing a tab. Google explains that the app “will continue to run until Chrome exits. The next time Chrome starts up, any background windows that were previously running will also be re-launched.” “These windows are not going to be visible but they will be able to perform tasks like checking for server-side changes and pre-emptively loading content into local storage.” Chrome places an icon in the system tray (Windows & Linux) or a context menu on the dock icon (Mac OS X) to notify users they still have a background page running.
There’s even more to the update than this, for a full list of features check out the Chrome blog. Do you use Chrome? Why (not)? Would you sync your passwords to your Google account? Let us know what you think in the comments. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
    
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| Cool Websites and Tools [March 8th] Posted: 08 Mar 2011 07:31 PM PST
These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers!
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| The 9 Toughest Tech Questions [MakeUseOf Answers] Posted: 08 Mar 2011 05:31 PM PST
Below are nine questions that we have struggled to answer. Maybe you have an answer? To reward the most valuable contributions, we have set up a contest, which every answer enters automatically. The Best Answer of the Week wins $50 and two runners-up win $30 and $20, respectively. Here are the questions that need your help:
MakeUseOf Answers comes in three different flavors: Latest Questions, Most Popular Questions, or Unanswered Questions. For regular updates subscribe to the Answers RSS Feed. Need help? Ask A Question at MakeUseOf Answers. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf page on Facebook. Over 24,000 fans already!
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| JottiQ – Scan Suspicious Files Using Multiple Anti-Virus Apps At The Same Time Posted: 08 Mar 2011 03:31 PM PST
There are a lot of different ways to scan the files you download to see if they are clean, but none quite like JottiQ. JottiQ takes advantage of Jotti’s online malware scanner, which uses multiple popular antivirus programs to scan your files, without having to download or install any of them. What Is JottiQ?As I stated above, JottiQ is a tool that makes it more convenient to use Jotti’s malware scan, which is an online service optimized for one-by-one scanning of files you do not trust. If you’re wary of a file you downloaded because you have a strange feeling about the site it came from or you’re just curious, JottiQ is a good way to relieve that stress. So is JottiQ a virus scanner? No, not really.
JottiQ will scan the heck out of your files though, utilizing popular anti-virus apps like Avast, AVG, AntiVir, and over a dozen other programs. If your recently downloaded files are infected with something, you’ll know about it.
The application allows you to build a queue of files needing scanning. It also uses Jotti’s internal cache to speed up scans, lists scanners with detections at the top of the list in red, allows you to open scan results in your browser, and is integrated with right-click functionality so you can just click a file and scan it immediately. How To Start Using JottiQTo start using JottiQ, head over to this page and download the JottiQ v1.0.3 installer. Run the installer and you’ll be able to install the core components of the app. If you’re missing any applications required to run JottiQ, like I was, you will be notified and JottiQ can download and install them for you.
The installation process doesn’t take very long at all and is very easy to go through. Once you’re all done, you can start dragging files into JottiQ’s main window to queue them up for the multiple antivirus scanners. Or you can just right-click a file to scan it, if you installed context menu support (default setting).
JottiQ will give you an initial scan result to let you know if it thinks your file is safe or not, even before you get the actual results from the various programs scanning the file.
Off to the right of the app, you’ll see the list of all the anti-virus programs being used to run the scans, as well as what the individual results were for each program. If your file does happen to get a hit on one or more of the programs listed, you should be able to install that specific application for removal.
That’s all there is to it. JottiQ offers a light-weight, simple way to check your files without installing a lot of programs to figure out what will remove a potential threat. While I’d recommend you install an anti-virus program to begin with, JottiQ should help you out in case one of your downloads has you worrying. What do you think of JottiQ? Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| 5 Interesting Ways To Use Google News RSS Feeds Posted: 08 Mar 2011 01:31 PM PST
By learning more about these RSS feeds and incorporating a few interesting tricks to display and read these RSS news feeds, you’ll be able to stay on top of all the very best news as easily as possible. How’s that for useful? Creating RSS News FeedsCreating generic and specific news RSS feeds is quite an easy task. 1. Find Your Preferred Google News RSS FeedYou’ve probably already set up Google News to show local news in your preferred language. At the bottom of the news page, you’ll see an RSS link. This link will give you a basic RSS feed for Google News, incorporating your chosen local news and language. Subscribe to this if you are happy to have lots of new updates. For me, I get: http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&cf=all&ned=uk&hl=en&output=rss
2. Find RSS Feeds For Google News TopicsAlso at the bottom of the Google news page is a link to “About Feeds“, which shows you the various news topics and the RSS feeds to subscribe to them. For instance, Sci-Tech is: http://news.google.com/news?ned=us&topic=t&output=rss
3. Create A Google News Search RSS FeedAt the top of Google News is the all-familiar search bar. Plug in your search term there (using normal Google search formatting) and you’ll be presented with news on that subject. At the bottom of the page, you can see the RSS link where you can copy the RSS URL or subscribe to your feed. For example, a basic news search for “Lemur”: http://news.google.com/news?q=lemurs&output=rss 4. Change Your RSS FeedsIn the previous examples, you can see topic=t is tech, while q=lemur is your search term. You can change ned=us to ned=uk if you prefer results from the UK, plus you can add hl=en if you want the results only in English. Since my Google News was already set up with my preferred settings, the search added those settings into the feed for me. Either edit the RSS feed link manually or use Google’s advanced search features to add more search parameters to your news search.
For instance, limiting the search to the last month gives us: http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&cf=all&ned=uk&hl=en&as_scoring=r&as_maxm=2&q=lemur&as_qdr=m&as_drrb=q If you want to fine-tune your feed even further, consider using something like Yahoo Pipes. What To Do With News RSS Feeds?There’s plenty of great ideas for using these feeds once you know these tricks. Maybe these scenarios will help you think of something you can use.
Displaying & Reading Google News RSS FeedsNow that you know how to create all these great news feeds and know what you want to keep track of, there’s some tricks you might like to know about displaying and reading the RSS feeds. 1. Add A Search Term As A Google News ElementAfter you search in Google News, there is an option at the bottom of the page to “Create Your Own Custom Section For SEARCHTERM“. Click that and it will add your search to your everyday Google News layout.
If you want to rearrange your page, click on “Edit Page” and decide where you’d like your search term to feature.
2. Create Google AlertsIf it’s important that you don’t miss the news updates, try creating a Google Alert for your search. At the bottom of the news search page, click on “Create An Email Alert For SEARCHTERM“. Choose how frequently you want the alert to be sent and whether you want that sent to an email or as an RSS feed.
3. NewsShow For Your WebsiteGoogle will allow you to show Google News on your website, as long as you adhere to strict rules. The easiest way to ensure you are sticking to the rules is to use Google NewsShow to create the widget. You can customise it if you like, by using the Google NewsShow wizard.
4. Add News Feeds To Google ReaderIf you get your RSS feeds into Google Reader, you can use all sorts of tools to read them, including magazine-style extensions such as Feedly. 5. Read Your News Feeds In Netvibes (Or Another Start Page)The beauty of Netvibes is that you can create pages dedicated to certain topics, so if you’re studying a given topic you can add your news feeds specific to that topic and ensure you keep up-to-date while you’re studying. Tell Us What You Do With Your Google News RSS FeedsWe know there’s countless other ways to use news RSS feeds, so let us know what you do with them in the comments! Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| Posted: 08 Mar 2011 12:30 PM PST
For more fresh hot deals, visit our Hot Tech Deals page, which is constantly updated.
Image credit: Modified from Svengraph’s icon set Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
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| 8 Quick Online Word Games To Play With Your Vocabulary Posted: 08 Mar 2011 11:31 AM PST
Word games online are not only about puzzles, although there are many of them like word games you can use for wasting a few minutes in the midst of a hectic day. If you have long left your school years behind, you might give these word games a go.
DeepLeap
The fast paced time wasting word game may remind you of Scrabble. The game is mentioned as unfinished, but you can play it without a hitch. The idea is to quickly create words and score points from the rapid switching letter tiles (75 in all). Points are awarded for longer words, correctly spelt words, and a bonus for having no tiles left at the end. Cryptograms
Cryptograms are a secret method of writing using codes or ciphers to form cryptic letter combinations. You can play this game without the free sign-up or do that and go head to head with other players. The clock starts ticking and your challenge is to uncover the secret message within the time by correctly guessing the letters. Etymologic
This word game requires a bit of knowledge, although you can get by with wild guessing. Either way, you will learn a lot about the origins of certain words. The word definition puzzle gives you a question and four possible answers to choose from. Like me, you just might find out that the word “bazooka” in fact came from a musical instrument invented by a comedian. WordSplay
The massively multiplayer online word game gets its inspiration from Boggle, Hasbro's board game. Gameplay involves going against a clock and creating words of three letters or more on a 4×4 or a 5×5 board by typing it in. Each game is 3 minutes long and you are scored on the basis of correct words formed. You can even form your own teams on this multiplayer site. I couldn't register with a Gmail account for some reason, though Yahoo got me through. VocabGenii
This game of guessing a few letters to form the word suggested by its meaning is more difficult than it looks. VocabGenii can really rev up your vocabulary with its testing word games. There are a few game modes and difficulty levels which you have to win. The game also lets you keep track of your progress on a pie-chart and see how many words you are getting right against how many you are skipping (see directory mention). Knoword
This is also a similar game where you have to go against a timer and guess the word from the meaning given. Each correct answer also helps to extend your time limit. You can accumulate badges and additional points by achieving certain amounts of consecutively correct words (see directory mention). Phrays
The concept is simple – everyday the site publishes a single word. Your job is to construct a sentence using that word. The sentence that gets the most popular votes from other members is the winner. I see this game as a creative way to break free from writer's block (see directory mention). Herd A Word
Herd-a-Word is a fast paced game of word construction. You have to connect unrestrained “letter balls” and form words as quickly as possible. The game has two modes – Herd Mode (with more word possibilities) and Line Mode (with less word possibilities). No log-in is required to play this game. Some may regard these games as mere time wasters but these word based games move us towards fun and a more enriched vocabulary. We have already seen the value of edutainment with some of our previous posts – 10 Websites To Learn A Word A Day & Enrich Your Vocabulary by Saikat Do you think word games help you sharpen your word skills? Let us know of any cool word games online that you are aware of and we aren't. Image Credit: Shutterstock Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| How To Easily Synchronize Folders Outside Dropbox Using Symlinks Posted: 08 Mar 2011 09:31 AM PST
But this simplicity also means that you have to drag whatever you want to sync to the Dropbox folder. While this kind of arrangement is fine for most users, some users don’t want to re-shuffle their files and folders just for the sake of synchronizing. Luckily, there’s another possibility to synchronize folders outside Dropbox without messing up the structure of your folders: using symlinks. The SymlinkFor those of you who are unfamiliar with the term “Symbolic Link” or simply “symlink”, here’s the Wikipedia quote:
Using symlinks to synchronize folders outside Dropbox is very easy. Create a symlink of the folder and put the symlink inside the Dropbox folder. Any change which happens to the symlink will be reflected on the original folder and vice versa. Symlink allows you to synchronize any folder that you want to Dropbox while having to move anything, The question is, how do you create a symlink? The Windows MethodThe easiest way to create a symlink under Windows is to use an application called Dropbox Folder Sync. There’s one caveat though, the app will only work if the disk is formatted with NTFS as other Windows’ disk formats don’t support symlinks.
The Mac MethodThere are several options that you can use to create symlinks on the Mac, including doing it manually with the help of Terminal and command lines. But the easiest method is by utilizing a simple app called MacDropAny.
Best Of Both WorldsThere are other apps that will let you sync any folder on your computer to the cloud. But those apps require some complicated settings. By using symlinks to help you sync folders outside Dropbox, you get the best of both worlds: the simplicity of Dropbox, and the power of more advanced apps. Do you synchronize folders outside Dropbox? Have you tried one of the apps that we discussed today? Or do you have another solution to achieve the same goal? Share your thoughts and opinions using the comments below. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| 5 Things To Consider When You Install a SATA Hard Drive Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:31 AM PST
Ready to upgrade your hard drive? Before you install a SATA hard drive, however, there are several things to consider. I have summarized the most important points in this article. 1. Safety GuidelinesInstalling new hardware isn’t rocket science. However, it can be dangerous for you and your computer, unless you follow a few simple guidelines: Ground YourselfTo avoid hardware damage from an electrostatic discharge you have to ground yourself, i.e. discharge your body’s static electricity before you open the computer case. If you don’t own an anti-static wristband (see image below), you can ground yourself by touching a solid and grounded piece of metal, for example the leg of a table or the metal case of your computer. Power OffAfter grounding yourself and before you open the case of your computer, make sure the computer is turned off. Shut down Windows and turn off the power supply through the rocker switch on the back of the computer. Alternatively, you can unplug the power cord.
2. Connector On MotherboardIf your computer is not the latest model and initially came with an IDE hard drive, the motherboard might not provide a SATA connector. To find out, have a quick look into your case to check your hardware setup. First check what type of interface cable your current hard drive has. The image below shows what SATA (red, left) and IDE (grey, right) cables look like.
If your old hard drive is IDE, look for the SATA connector on your motherboard. If it’s a SATA drive, double-check whether another SATA connector is available on the motherboard, given you want to keep the old hard drive installed. The next image shows part of a motherboard with two SATA connectors (purple).
Should you find that you don’t have a Serial ATA connector (available), you can upgrade your motherboard with a SATA PCI card. Make sure you have a PCI slot available on your motherboard (image below).
Let’s Summarize:
3. CablesIn case your hard drive didn’t come with a complete set (they usually do not), make sure you have all the required cables. What you need is the SATA interface cable (red cable in image above) and either a 4-pin Molex power connector or a SATA power cable. The former is the same cable that IDE drives require. The SATA power connector is depicted in the following image.
SATA drives typically come with both types of power connectors (numbers 1 and 3 in image below), so you can use either the Molex or the SATA power connector. Do not use both at once!
Taken Together, You Need To Consider The Following:
4. Installation ProcedureApart from the hardware requirements, installing a SATA hard drive is no different than installing an IDE drive. The following YouTube video demonstrates the installation procedure. For more practical installation tips, check out the following articles:
5.Configuring the BIOSYou might not have to make any changes to the BIOS. However, if your computer doesn’t detect the new hard drive by default, you may be able to fix this in the BIOS. Since BIOS options are not standardized, I can only give you a vague guideline here. To launch the BIOS, you have to press a special key before the computer boots into Windows. This could be the DEL, ESC, or F1 key. The exact key is usually indicated while you’re booting, the text on your screen could be ‘Hit DEL to enter Setup‘ or similar. Once you’re in the BIOS, see if you can find an option to auto-detect new hardware. You should also find a list of identified hardware and how they are connected. If you’re using a SATA host adapter / PCI card, your hard drive may be classified as a SCSI device. This is normal and won’t affect the performance or capacity of the hard drive. Before you exit the BIOS again, be sure to save your changes. As I said, it’s not rocket science. Did you expect tougher challenges when you install a SATA hard drive? Image credits: Sergii Korolko, David Brimm, Alberto Pérez Veiga, Pavel Matras, Karkas, Renewer, Dino O. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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| BitTorrent Creates User-Friendly Client Chrysalis [News] Posted: 08 Mar 2011 07:31 AM PST
Chrysalis will eventually replace the Mainline client currently in use. The design for Chrysalis arose when BitTorrent looked at their user statistics and noted that many users downloaded and installed the client, but never became regular users. They hope that the straightforward design will encourage novice users to explore new content and use the client more frequently.
Once the download is in progress, there’s a very clear download management screen which focuses more on the basic details and media than the advanced torrent data. Users can easily see how much of a file has been downloaded, how long it is expected to take and what the health of the torrent file is. The advanced data is still available for experienced users who want to speed up their torrents, but in a separate panel.
Users of uTorrent have been reassured that uTorrent will not be replaced by Chrysalis and will be developed separately. The free alpha release of Chrysalis is available to download for Windows now. If you’re keen to learn more about torrents, check out our free BitTorrent PDF guide. Source: TorrentFreak Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
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The latest version of the Google Chrome web browser has been updated to version 10, with improved security and rendering times amongst the changes. The update includes a new version of V8, Chrome’s JavaScript engine, which promises to speed up complex JavaScript web pages and apps.
Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE or come with a decent free account option. You can make use of them without spending a dime. If you want to have similar cool websites round-ups delivered to your email daily email subscribe 
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If you’re in the market for a new computer, laptop, mobile phone, games and other accessories; don’t waste your time searching online. We’ve taken the liberty of locating the best tech deals and unifying them into a single post for your convenience.
Here's to let you know that Scrabble (or Lexulous) isn't the only word game going around. From the simple to the multiplayer games, words have defined an entire genre of online games. So come online and see the fun you can have with letters and words.
There’s a long running discussion on 
Hard drives with a Serial ATA (SATA) connector were introduced to replace IDE and Enhanced IDE (Parallel ATA) drives. SATA removes the master-slave relationship between hard drives (parallel), as each drive connects directly to a SATA host adapter or port (serial). Data transfer speeds range from 150MB/sec (SATA) and up to 300 MB/sec (SATA II). The SATA interface cable can be up to 1m long, which is an advantage in a large computer case.
BitTorrent has released a new client this week called 
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