Give Firefox OS a Try On Your Windows Machine

Mozilla unveiled its latest Firefox OS late last year, a mobile operating system for start phones built around the latest modern web standard technology. It’s a very interesting move by Mozilla heading into the ever popular mobile OS market, with a lot of upsides and potentials for the future.

Try Firefox OS

You can give it a try by downloading the Firefox OS simulator from within the Firefox browser. It’s very easy to install and get it up and running. Essentially, Mozilla has packed it as an extension of Firefox browser. When you finish installing the simulator, head to the menu > Web Developer > Firefox OS Simulator

This will bring you up to a new page, like below. From here you can launch the simulator.

You will be amazed at how quick and smooth the simulator runs on the desktop.

There are some default apps that were pre-installed, although these are very early releases that might not work correctly or look good. You still can get some of the basic design elements by playing around with the new Firefox OS.

If you are a developer who are interested in target a new potential platform, be sure to checkout this documentation. Just note that Mozilla isn’t going after the high end, or even the mid market here. The way they designed is meant for inexpensive devices, competing with feature phones or low end smartphones. Give it a try and you will be surprised.

4 Effective FREE RAM Optimizer to Booster Your Windows System Performance

When it comes to improving computer overall performance, RAM is always one of the most efficient ways you should consider to improve, i.e. throw in a few more GB of RAM. And often time, the result is obvious and immediate. However, it’s not feasible that you can always increase the number of GB that easily, such as what about you don’t have empty slot left on the motherboard.

That’s why an effective way to optimize our existing RAM is badly needed. Most of all, we also need a better way to stop or fix the memory leak we are experiencing almost every day in our daily computing life, which adding more RAM has no way of fixing.
And, here are 4 of them for you to check out.

Wise Memory Optimizer

Wise Memory Optimizer, brought to you by the same vendor who made the smart Shutdown, is a free system utility that frees up the physical memory taken by some useless application to enhance your overall PC performance. When it’s running, it will free up and tune up RAM performance automatically whenever it finds your memory is below the value you’ve set in the program.

MZ RAM Booster

MZ RAM Booster is also a free system utility created to improve the performance of your computer by automatically recovering RAM to fine tuning system settings. When it’s running, it uses minimal resources with almost no CPU time. Same as Wise memory Optimizer, MZ RAM Booster also automatically frees RAM when it’s below the value previously set up in the program.

RAM Rush

RAMRush has a simpler user interface. It runs quietly in the system tray and pops up a real time CPU and RAM usage graph when hovering over. You can also set it up so that it automatically runs the optimization when the memory amount is lower than 8% of total RAM or manually being launched by a optimize hotkey.

Anvi RAM Booster

Anvi RAM Booster is actually an add-on tool that is part of Cloud System Booster, an all-in-one free system maintenance utility. I found it out accidently when I browse through the features in the tool. It’s actually quite good and effective. I like it quite a lot. But unfortunately, since it’s only part of another tool, you will have to install Cloud System Booster first and get it from Toolbox section. The good thing is, once you get it, you can put it on your external USB drive. Yes, that’s right. It’s a portable tool that you can carry around.

To make all our friends easier, for the time being until I can locate an official download link that always provides the latest copy, you can download the current version, 1.0.0, from this link (direct download link).

Last a few words

All 4 tools listed here are equally good from my own test. They are all free and manage our precious memory very effectively. Just one thing to notice for the first 3 tools. Because they are free, they may include some crapyware during the installation process. Make sure to unselect them when you spot them.

6 Great Benchmark Tools for Windows

You’ve spent quite a bit money getting yourself a new computer, and you are quite excited about it. You feel it’s running quite smoothly and lightening fast. But have you ever wondered how faster your beloved new toy is, comparing to other computers on the market? Or if you feel it’s not quite as fast as you expected, do you know why and what’s going on under the cover?
That’s when you need a benchmark tool to help you better understand your machine. Here, we’ve compiled a list of 6 of them for you to check out, most of them are free or have a free version with limited features.

Geekbench

Geenbench, developed by Primate Labs, is a cross-platform benchmark tool that provides a comprehensive set of benchmarks engineered to quickly and accurately measure process (CPU) and memory performance. It provides a very simple user interface with one-click benchmark feature that starts benchmarking process with the same way, same tests, and same parameters as every other people using the same tool.
The test result will be saved as a html file stored on Geekbench server.

Geekbench is a very powerful benchmark tool but unfortunately the free version only benchmarks the machine with 32-bit parameters. 64-bit benchmarking is included in the full version, which costs $12.99 at least.

BootRacer

BootRacer is a handy tool specifically measuring the Windows system boot time, which includes the time it takes to get to the logon screen and the time to boot to the desktop. Once BootRacer is installed, by default, it will benchmark your system boot time every time when the machine reboots.

BootRacer is free for non-commercial use, but costs
$19.95USD when used in business environment.

PCMark 7

PCMark 7 is a powerful PC performance analysis tool specifically designed to cover the wide range of form factors, including Netbooks, Laptops, Tablets, and Desktop PCs. It provides a complete PC performance tests combining more than 25 workloads tests that covers storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing, and gaming.
The Basic Edition is free of charge, with the core PCMark test included. But it also provides Advanced and Professional edition that offers much more features with a price tag at $39.95 and $995US, respectively.

Cinebench

Cinebench, developed by Maxon, is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s CPU and GPU performance capabilities. It’s a perfect tool if you are only interested in how your CPU and GPU perform in your computer. And it’s completely free.

Sandra Lite

SiSoftware’s Sandra suite is another powerful Windows system performance analysis that provides a full range of testing tool. It includes benchmarking, testing, and listing modules. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, GPU, ports, printers, sound cards, memory, network, etc. What’s interesting is that it even supports Windows Phone and Android platform. The Lite version is completely free with a limitation that you can only run the tool in a workgroup environment, which is good enough for most of the home users.

PerformanceTest

PassMark’s PerformanceTest is a fast and easy-to-use PC speed testing and benchmarking utility with a vivid user interface. Unfortunately, it’s a paid utility that only offers 30-day free evaluation. After 30 days, you will have to buy the license to remove the license clause in order to continually using the tool.

Homeland Security continues to advise disabling Java 7 and earlier for Windows users until further notice.

This past Friday, Homeland Security discovered a vulnerability in the Oracle Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 7 that allows attackers to execute codes on the PC. Hackers are already exploiting these vulnerabilties via “explore kits,” which are readily available online for anyone to utilize. In order to protect any personal information stored on users’ computers, Homeland Security has suggested all users disable Oracle Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 7. At most risk are Windows users, however those operating Linux or OS X should also disable the software.

Java’s security issues have been of concern these past couple years, so much so that Apple removed the software’s plugins from OS X browsers. While Apple users are most likely safe, it’s still a good idea to check if Java plugins are installed. To disable the software, complete the following steps below:

1. Check to see Update 10 is installed and Internet Explorer is not running. For users that have Java 7 but not Update 10, it’s suggested to upgrade as it will be easier to disable Java.
2. Go to the Java Control Panel by going to Start/control panel and click Java.
3. Once the Java control panel appears, press security then de-select ?Enable Java content in the browser.?

Oracle did release an emergency patch, this past Sunday that did fix the exploit, however Homeland Security still urges users to keep the software disabled as attackers with enough knowledge of the Java code base and another zero day bug can still exploit the vulnerability. There are, in fact, around 50 critical Java zero-days that place billions of users at risk. While Oracle has changed the default to high, prompting users to authorize execution of of applets, there are still many severe critical security flaws. All of these security issues, including the latest, may take up to two years to completely fix.

Bittorrent Labs To Offer Insight Into New Developments

BitTorrent Inc. is set to launch a new service that will give fans of the platform an insight into upcoming and future developments, as well as giving them access to early alpha builds, should they wish to get in on the ground floor.
“Introducing BitTorrent Labs. We call it our test kitchen,” reads the BitTorrent Inc. statement. “Our playground. It?s where BitTorrent experiments live. And we?re opening it up to everyone. Because BitTorrent innovation is for everyone.”
There are several developments already available for perusal, including BitTorrent Surf, One Hash and One Click, as well as Torque projects like Beam it Over and Paddle Over. Two new “experiments,” have been announced as well, including, BitTorrent said: “Sync, a distributed personal file syncing product. It?s a pre-Alpha, and we?re calling for early user participation,” and, “BTC, a tool for command line fans. It?s a torrenting shortcut.”
Some of the alphas available via the new BitTorrent Labs have been around for a short while. We previewed BitTorrent surf – an extension that lets you download torrents from within your browser – just a few days ago

Microsoft Security Essentials Failed To Pass Anti-Virus Certification Test, Microsoft Committees To Change

From the latest AV TEST done by AV-Test, the independent IT-security Institute, Microsoft’s own SEQURITY PRODUCT for home users failed to gain the Anti-Virus Certification, along with 2 other products, AhnLab V3 INTERNET SEQURITY 8.0 and PC Tools Internet Security 2012. A pretty bad news for the still relatively new but highly regarded free anti-malware product from Microsoft.
According to THE DETAIL REPORT explained on AV-Test, MS ESSENTIAL scored very poor in both Protection and Repair category but did well in Usability. It did especially bad in protection against 0-day malware attacks and the detection of the recently discovered malware, which lead to a disappointing 1.5 score out of 6.0.
In  by Microsoft, Microsoft conducted a rigorous review of this result, and had its own explanation why it failed. It first breaks down the test result as the following charts,

and explains:

During the test, our products didn’t detect 28 of the 0-day malware sample, and 9 percent of the recent malware samples. AV-Test uses a minimum bar in their scoring: our results for these two areas fell under that bar. The missed samples in both of these sections were where we focused our analysis, as we wanted to ensure we weren’t missing anything impactful to our customers.

According to its own analysis, the conclusion is that the missed and failed sample files affects roughly 0.0033 percent of its customers. The percent is small but the total amount of machines that have the potentials got hit is still noticeable, according to how many Windows 7 machines are deployed over the world.
Even though Microsoft has its own point of view, still it understands how valuable and important these industry test is to its customers, and committed to reducing that 0.0033 percent margin to zero.

Easily Schedule Shutdown Restart Your PC With Wise Auto Shutdown

Windows has a built in command line Shutdown that you can use to schedule a time to shutdown, power off, restart, or hibernate your PC. You just add the command line as one of the actions in a task in Task Scheduler. It will do the work perfectly as you wished. But the problem is, it’s not very intuitive. Another words, it’s not easy enough for a regular user to set it up every time when a scheduled shutdown is needed.
Wise Auto Shutdown is a freeware that only does one thing, easily schedule your computer to shut down, log off, restart, sleep, and close power at any time you want. Once it’s running, it stays in the background and can be brought back from the system tray when needed.

With the tool, you can specify the time in different ways to execute the shutdown task, either at a specific time every day, at a specific time in a certain day, or at a time from now. You can also enable to let the tool to remind you 5 minutes before PC starts to shutdown, or reboot.
Wise Auto Shutdown is a windows application that works well on all popular windows platforms, from XP and up, both 32-bit and 64-bit editions.

Windows 8 Quick Tip: How To Enable and Show Administrative Tools on Start Screen

Administrative Tools are a bunch of useful admin tools for those power users who need to better manage their Windows systems. The full list of tools can be found and accessed through Control Panel, System and Security, and Administrative Tools. But if you have the needs to access them quite frequently, you can enable and have them shown right on the Start Screen on Windows 8.
And here is how:
Firstly, bring out Settings Charm by either using the upper right hot corner or pressing Win + I (i) combination, and select Tiles.

And then, move the Show administrative tools slider to the right.

The change takes affect immediately. The administrative tools are shown up on the Start Screen right away. Now you can customize them by grouping all tools in one group. Later on, when you fell no need having them on Start Screen, simply move the slider back to the left, which will remove all administrative tools from the Start Screen.

Working Of Zenmap ( Network Scanning Tool )

 

Zenmap is the official graphical user interface (GUI) for the Nmap Security Scanner. It is a multi-platform, free and open-source application designed to make Nmap easy for beginners to use while providing advanced features for experienced Nmap users. Frequently used scans can be saved as profiles to make them easy to run repeatedly. A command creator allows interactive creation of Nmap command lines. Scan results can be saved and viewed later. Saved scans can be compared with one another to see how they differ. The results of recent scans are stored in a searchable database.

CHOSEN SETUP
As Zenmap runs on a windows/Linux so i chose the following setup :
 Windows  OS – Windows 7 installed on a system
 Version- Zenmap 6 (http://nmap.org/dist/nmap-6.00-setup.exe)
 Scanning
Begin Zenmap by typing zenmap in a terminal or by clicking the Zenmap icon in the desktop environment.
Firstly, select the Target. Target could be any domain name or the IP Address, so right now my target is  10.0.0.2.



Profile
Profile combo box. Profiles exist for several common scans. After selecting a profile the Nmap command line associated with it is displayed on the screen. Of course, it is possible to edit these profiles or create new ones.
It is also possible to type in an Nmap command and have it executed without using a profile. Just type in the command and press return or click “Scan”.
 In Zenmap there are 10 Types of Profile :
a.  INTENSE SCAN
Command = nmap -T4 -A 10.0.0.2
Description  = An intense, comprehensive scan. The -A option enables OS detection (-O), version detection (-sV), script scanning (-sC), and traceroute (–traceroute). Without root privileges only version detection and script scanning are run. This is considered an intrusive scan.



SCAN RESULT TABS
Each scan window contains five tabs which each display different aspects of the scan results. They are:
a) Nmap Output
b) Ports / Hosts
c) Topology
d) Host Details
Each of these are discussed in this section:
NMAP OUTPUT
The “Nmap Output” tab is displayed by default when a scan is run. It shows the familiar Nmap terminal output.
PORT/HOSTS
When a service is selected, the “Ports / Hosts” tab shows all the hosts which have that port open or filtered. This is a good way to quickly answer the question “What computers are running HTTP?”



TOPOLOGY

The “Topology” tab is an interactive view of the connections between hosts in a network.



HOST DETAILS
The “Host Details” tab breaks all the information about a single host into a hierarchical display. Shown are the host’s names and addresses, its state (up or down), and the number and status of scanned ports. The host’s uptime, operating system, OS icon. When no exact OS match is found, the closest matches are displayed.