Protect Your Smartphones with BullGuard Mobile Antivirus

Recently in the news, sophisticated and costly scams have been revealed, where unknowing users have had their devices hijacked remotely to dial premium rate numbers or send mass SMS and MMS messages fraudulently creating exorbitant bills.

Mobile devices can be infected with malware via email, Bluetooth connections and MMS messages, which can then be used to forward infected files to personal contacts, or transfer malicious code to a user’s PC upon connection. Another common source is through the downloading of programs and apps from unreliable sources.

Smartphones and pocket PCs are now more popular than ever, prompting an increase in online malware aimed at the operating systems of these devices appearing. This malicious software can be used to:

Steal or delete confidential or personal information (e.g., address book)

Disable functions (SMS, games, camera, etc.) or completely disable the whole device

Deplete the phone’s battery at a faster rate than normal

Forward infected files to people under your name (via email, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.)

Transfer malicious code from the smartphone to a PC upon connection.

Smartphones are now as susceptible to viruses, worms and Trojans as PCs, so users should now be seeking anti-virus software protection.

Bullguard Mobile Antivirus runs on Windows Mobile and Symbian Series 60 & UIQ 3.0 operating systems, with multiple language versions available. The software performs the same functions as PC anti-virus software to protect against malicious programs that target mobile platforms.

The software package is optimized for mobile devices, with a very simple user interface and easy navigation as necessary for a small screen.

Anti-virus protection is provided by the following features:

On-Access Scanning

All incoming or modified SMS, MMS and email items are automatically scanned for malicious programs. BullGuard Mobile also monitors executable files arriving via Bluetooth or other connection channels. Trusted addresses can be added to a ‘white list’ for incoming messages, and a ‘black list’ blocks incoming messages from untrustworthy sources.

On-Demand Scanning

A thorough mobile scan can be launched at any time - this can be focused on scanning memory cards or individual files and folders. If an infected object is detected, it is isolated in the quarantine folder or deleted, and an activity log records details.

Automatic Updates

The BullGuard server is constantly being updated with new virus definition databases. Mobile devices can connect to update anti-virus definitions on a user-defined schedule. Updates are accessed via WAP / HTTP (GPRS, EDGE, 3G) or with the aid of a PC. If GPRS is used, the user is cautioned when roaming, to stop costly and inconvenient downloads

BullGuard Support

As with other BullGuard products, the software comes with free 24-hour access to BullGuard Support. This personal assistance service for all security-related queries has a 1 hour fastest response-time available.

Installation of BullGuard Mobile Antivirus is easy - mobile devices can be synced from a PC, or the software can be directly installed to smartphones wirelessly. Once installed, the software is designed to operate with minimum interruption to the user, and low resource consumption ensures phone operation isn’t slowed and battery life doesn’t drain faster.

Bullguard Mobile Antivirus protects mobile devices and their content from a variety of online threats, is easy to use, and works quietly in the background. A trial version is available to download for a 14 day free evaluation.

http://www.bullguard.com/try/bullguard-mobile-antivirus.aspx

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Google's GPhone G1 vs iPhone 3G

For those who haven't heard yet, Google and T-Mobile introduced the world to Android and the first Android device, the T-Mobile G1 yesterday evening. And with the much-awaited GPhone out, the natural comparison of how it fares vs the iPhone has become a hot topic! As expected, the T-Mobile G1(device by HTC) boasts of a lot of features & controls that look impressive, but the device is definitely not as good-looking as the iPhone. While people have been buzzing and raving about Android, the Google ODS that powers the gPhone, let's take a look at how the actual G1 devicee compares with the industry-leader iPhone 3G.

Apple and Google employ different strategies, different ideals, and different means but the goal is the same—to take as much of the cell phone market as they possibly can. Is either of them a clear winner? Read on to see if you can tell!

Henry Blogdet has a concise article that compares gPhone with the iPhone, as far as features and hardware is concerned. This should be a good starting point for your comparison. He's been testing the new G1, and considers it a worthy competitor to the iPhone. "But the two devices have different strengths and weaknesses, and are likely to attract different types of users", he adds.

While the iPhone is much more sleeker, stylish, lighter and thinner, the G1 aims to get an edge for its features like a user-friendly design, a keyboard, a 3M Auto-focus Camera, a changeable battery, a built-in navigation compass, the ability to copy/paste and others that iPhone lacks. Add this to the fact that its cheaper ($179 vs $199), and is not tied to just one carrier (though you'd have to pay a huge price to switch!), it does have some edge over the iPhone.

The iPhoneBlog also has a cool hardware comparison for both the phones. While its no eye-catcher, the first version og Google Phone is way better than what others generally offer, and Android is really up on really raving reviews! Google says the G1 is just a device to introduce people to the power of Android, and not to serve as an iPhone competitor. And hence there are mixed reviews about the device. While iPhone was a trend-setter, the gPhone aims to accomplish a different objective, making people embrace the power of Android - and I think it is successful in doing so! As Engadget says : "It’s a fine, solidly designed device that has enough style to please most users — but it won’t win a ton of beauty pageants."

Here's another article on gPhone reviews, which shows that while it doesn't set things on fire, it surely superceeded a lot of expectations. Where stalwarts like Samsung and RIM came out with devices that couldn't even come close to the iPhone, HTC has done a decent job of making a gPhone that is attractive and commendable for a first edition! T-Mobile has set up a page for G1 Emulator which allows you to become familiar with the G1’s basic functionality. I think it looks impressive, but hop on to play with one yourself, and you can decide who wins the gPhone vs iPhone wars!

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10 Free iPhone 3G Applications You Need Now

The revamped 3G iPhone has everyone buzzing about the cool applications that you can have on your phone, and guess what, while they are great to show-off in front of friends, some of them are actually pretty useful too! Now that the iPhone platform is open to young developers, one can surely expect a wide range of fun games, cool apps, social-networking adaptations for iPhone, and of course, the more important tools for navigation, maps, browsing and search. But not all of them are free, and not all of them are worth it! So here's a list of the 10 free iPhone applications that should start with on your new iPhone. Download them, use them, and tell us what you think! I've left out social networks, as I know you already have them there!

Google Mobile App
This is similar to Firefox 3's "Awesome Bar" for the iPhone. Not only does this search-bar-on-steroids suggest popular query matches for you once you type in a few letters, but it'll also search your phone for any contact names that start with the same few letters. Tapping a search result launches it in a browser window, and tapping a contact name lets you message or call them. The program’s Search with My Location feature taps into the iPhone’s ability to detect your location in order to help you find businesses near you. Easy to use, and backed by Google's tried-and-tested search quality, this is definitely the first thing you need to have on your iPhone.

Evernote
This is the best application for taking, storing or reviewing notes. You can take notes either by typing them, taking a photo or recording your voice. The best thing about it is the web component which allows you to synchronize your notes and access them from where ever you happen to be. You can use Evernote for lists (to-do, shopping, etc), expense tracking, and more. Check more detials on their website.

Pandora's Music App
Thanks to the iPhone version of Pandora's free music Web site, you may never need to use the iTunes Music Store again...just as long as you like your music to play randomly. Just enter an artist's name, press the Create button, and listen as your selected artist and similar-sounding acts play in no particular order. If you already have a Pandora account, the Pandora iPhone app lets you access your preexisting stations and even sends your listening data to your Facebook profile automatically. One fun use for this app: Put your iPhone on your bedside table and have it play your custom stations through the phone's on-board speakers--it sounds like a clock radio playing all your favorite acts. Surprisingly, this music-streaming app works without a hitch even at EDGE speeds.

Truveo Video Search
Trying to find cool videos to watch on your iPhone? Truveo Video Search lets you find videos from a variety of sites. You can play highest ranked or most popular videos and you can customize the interface with your favorite categories. You can also share videos via email.

Loopt Mobile
This is a location-aware social network that will help you connect with your friends while on the go. You can also use Loopt to discover and explore nearby places and events recommended by your friends and other popular services like Yelp. its good to know that their service is entirely opt-in, and only approved users can track your whereabouts. More for young teenagers, but then, they are the biggest clientele for the new iPhone too, right?!

Remote App
The free Remote app lets you control your iTunes library or on-screen Apple TV action directly with your iPhone via a Wi-Fi connection. Once your iPhone establishes a Wi-Fi connection, you simply select your iPhone from iTunes' 'Devices' list, enter the four-digit passcode on your iPhone's screen, and use it as a touch-screen clicker. It worked seamlessly in my tests with iTunes.

NYTimes & Mobile News
If you are a news-junkie, and would love to remain in touch with what's happening around the world, you need to get the NY Times and Mobile News ; between these two apps, all your daily dose of news fetching and sharing is covered! NY Times has content from the New York Times, classified into a number of sections, including Latest News, Business, Opinion, and a Photos section where clicking on an image will take you to a story associated with that image. Stories can be read in either portrait or landscape mode, and the summary page for each category shows headlines, a small portion of the article, and a photo. Mobile News gives you the ability to set up a number of locations for local news. By default, it will set up your current location as one of your locations, and you can easily add others, read saved stories later, or flip between multiple locations. At the bottom of each news story, there are four buttons—you can SMS or email the story to a friend, actually send in a report on a story if you have personal experience to add, and a button to save the story.

eReader
If you are an avid reader who likes reading on the phone-screen, this is a must have app for someone like you. Even if that's not something you do often, you could read something while commuting in a public transportation or waiting in some queue. I often wonder why Apple did not pre-load a similar eReader app itself? maybe there' room for iPhone-3!!:) Anyways, for the time being, the eReader app, courtesy of FictionWise, is going to be available for free at the iPhone app store.

SportsTap
If you are a sports-freak like my husband and need to be up-to-date with the latest buzz, SportsTap is totally for you. Be it MLB, NFL, NBA, international soccer, NHL, car racing, NCAA, PGA, tennis, or anything else, SportsTap covers them all--it's a nice free app that will put these at your fingertips. The interface is clean and intuitive, and the scores load fast, even on EDGE. SportsTap doesn't allow you to select a favorite team or teams to keep an eye on, but even so, the score you're looking for is always a couple of taps away.

WeatherBug
This is not an absolute necessity, but these days, the Global Warming is making it very difficult to predict weather based on seasons! So the WeatherBug can help you get satellite weather maps, current radar, detailed forecasts, weather cameras, and severe weather alerts. You can get weather from 45,000 locations all over the world. A weather junkie's dream, if not yours!

The iPhone is not longer a phone; its a device that replaces your mobile phone and your laptop. With hordes of free applications to choose from, it can be hard to decide what you wan the most. Hope this list helps you find a beginning, and do share with us more iPhone apps via your comments!

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Google Targets VisualRank for Enhanced Image Search

The world of web search relies a lot of Google's PageRank technology, and until semantic web comes into existence, feeble efforts by Ask may not be able to compete with the PR concept. But the one area where google lacked its credibility was in image search. Using the title or alternate-text associated with images is not exactly the most efficient way to conduct image search. However, Google researchers say they have a software technology intended to do for digital images on the Web what the company’s original PageRank software did for searches of Web pages, which may be the first prototype of this kind that has VisualRank for Images.

As stated in a recent article in NY Times, two Google scientists presented a paper describing what the researchers call VisualRank, an algorithm for blending image-recognition software methods with techniques for weighting and ranking images that look most similar. The prototype solution was demonstrated at the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing.

Although image search has become popular on commercial search engines, results are usually generated by using text associated with images rather than the image itself. Image analysis remains a largely unsolved problem in computer science, and though automatic face detection has seen some light of the day, finding other objects such as mountains, landscape or small objects is still a challenge.

"We wanted to incorporate all of the stuff that is happening in computer vision and put it in a Web framework," said Shumeet Baluja, a senior staff researcher at Google, who made the presentation with Yushi Jing, another Google researcher. The research paper, "PageRank for Product Image Search", is focused on a subset of the images that the giant search engine has cataloged because of the tremendous computing costs required to analyze and compare digital images. The company said that in its research it had concentrated on the 2000 most popular product queries on Google’s product search, words such as iPod, Xbox and Zune. It then sorted the top 10 images both from its ranking system and the standard Google Image Search results. With a team of 150 Google employees, it created a scoring system for image "relevance". The retrieval returned 83 percent less irrelevant images than those based on text.

Google is not the first into the visual product search category. Like.com, started in 2006, offers a service that refers users to shopping sites, makes it possible for a Web shopper to select a particular visual attribute (ability to match shapes and objects rather than text), such as a certain style of brown shoes or a style of buckle, and then be presented with similar products available from competing Web merchants.

We all know that an enhanced image search is definitely required, and the current search technique based on text is not 100% accurate. But with the imperfect image-recognition techniques currently available, does Google's claim see too tall?? And will this be a scalable solution, considering the large amount of images foound on the web? VisualRank sure seems like adding value to the quality of image search, but seeing this implemented is something I'd like. However, i hope Google would focus more on semantic web first so web search can get more meaningful!

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Axacore- An Affordable Solution for Document Management and Fax Services

As the enterprise world moves towards Telepresence, Fax and IP for all their telecommunication needs, large corporations may find it difficult to find solutions that are scalable yet affordable and easy to implement. Luckily for them, Axacore provides fax services that totally fit the bill. This is a document imaging and data conversion software engineering shop with a mission to develop tools that make capturing, delivering, digitizing and archiving paper documents faster, easier and more affordable. Many traditional fax-based vendors have abandoned efforts to advance their technologies, but Axacore has found a niche in the market providing archiving and search and retrieval capabilities in document intensive environments.

Axacore offers two solutions: FaxAgent and XDOC, which cater to fax software and document management respectively. Talking about FaxAgent, this is a software/hardware solution designed to track, manage and deliver fax traffic over enterprise networks of any size. It automatically indexes incoming and outgoing documents and users can quickly retrieve specific faxes by conducting targeted searches. FaxAgent’s .NET architecture and SQL scalability make the product an attractive option for any IT professional seeking a fax server solution. It also offers some really useful features like the ability to send faxes directly over IP, and the ability to have unlimited user accounts and profiles, alongwith security and system tracking, to name a few.

XDOC, on the other hand, compliments the fax-software by facilitating the document management part including scan, fax, print and upload, all through a broadband internet connection. The web-based design needs no client installation, and also offers scalability and higher standards over the past solutions. It comes with Advanced Imaging options, authenticated accounts, faster integration and tonnes of other features that you can check out on their website.

I think Axacore has succeeded in terms of innovating the age-old fax and document management model, and no wonder it won the Editor's Choice Award in the Network Computing Magazine. It is a class-apart form the traditional software we've been used to handling, and affordable too. It can surely be an efficient and cost-effective solution for big or small companies, so go check it out!

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Microsoft Windows Server 2008 is Finally Here!!

It's been spoken and contemplated about for quite some time now, and has shifted in and out of focus. But after more than 5 years in the making, Windows Server 2008 is finally here!! It made its first public appearance on Wednesday with a glitzy Los Angeles launch event that also included sneak peaks of Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. Microsoft executives call it "the most significant enhancement to the server platform since its inception." Windows Server 2008 is available now to Microsoft Software Assurance and MSDN customers, with media being available for purchase in various retail channels by early March.

Microsoft Corporation has finally lifted the curtain on its new Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, and SQL Server 2008 products. Though Windows Server '08 represents a cash cow for Microsoft, it is also vital to the company's efforts to encourage corporate customers to adopt the Vista operating system. But the real focus lies on Windows Server's new features, designed to appeal to IT managers and developers. The features fall into one of these five areas: security, virtualization, Web productivity and business intelligence and new energy-efficient features for the green set. You can download the entire Windows Server 2008 Reviewer's Guide right here.

The product will use Go Daddy's Internet Information Services 7.0 software to improve Web site performance and enhanced security. The companies have worked together to build the performance specifications of the new product for more than a year. The new server will allow further customization than the previous releases and is built from the same code language as Microsoft Vista, the company's latest operating system. Like Vista, Windows Server 2008 has enhanced security and administrative features.

One of the more talked-about features is its remote control configuration and maintenance abilities. Using Microsoft Management Console, users can interface with the scaled-back Server Core installation to handle maintenance. Users can also use command line interface windows as well.

The Microsoft Server 2008 will bring to life functions and features of Vista that have been hidden somewhat in Server 2003 environments. The company officials claim that for organizations that deploy Server 2008 and Vista together, the primary benefits will come in the form of more reliable code and consistent hot fixes within both platforms, and it'll be easier to identify issues for customers.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also mentioined that virtualization isn't solely relegated to Hyper-V, the server-virtualization engine that is scheduled to be released as a Windows Server 2008 add-on in about six months. Microsoft's Terminal Services is also considered virtualization, and the latest version is shipping now with the core Server 2008 operating system. It also boasts a better bandwidth management for much-improved performance, and a slick Web interface that allows administrators to publish application icons onto Internet Information (IIS) and SharePoint servers while users run the full desktop application experience within their browsers. The Enterprise and Data Center versions will have built-in clustering, including a slick and intuitive management screen that not only makes clustering easy to configure but also incorporates a best practice checker that makes sure user configuration is set up correctly.

Bob Visse, Microsoft's senior director of marketing for Windows Server 2008, said that the company has gone to extreme lengths to make the platform highly reliable out of the gate. Microsoft's energy efficient efforts cover more than just virtualization, according to Ballmer. Server 2008's 64-bit capability allows it to take advantage of larger hardware resources(especially RAM) and advanced features that Intel and AMD are building only into their 64-bit CPUs. The combination enables much deeper utilization and control of underlying hardware, which allows customers to make more energy efficient use of their data centers, according to Microsoft.

The standard version will retail for $999 with five client access licenses. Enterprise will run $3,999 with 25 client access licenses, while the data center edition will cost $2,999 per CPU. The Itanium-compatible version will be priced the same as data center, and there will also be a single-task version, designed solely to run as a Web server, which will cost $496. All versions will be available in both 32- and 64-bit versions.The launch is generating quite a bit of hype already, but whether it can save the Software Giant and help in restoring it's lost pride is what needs to be seen!

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aShop - Design Your Online Store with this Shopping Cart Software

Just today morning I was talking to my husband about how technology and internet has taken over our lives, most importantly, in the ecommerce world! Gone are the days when you'd have to visit a physical store to buy what you need. The new world opens new possibilities, and you can search, review, compare, explore and buy most products and services online! This also presents ample opportunity to merchants and businessmen to drive their sales without incurring high initial cost of buying a physical store. aShop provides a turn-key solution for all your ecommerce needs! It is a secure, web-based, hosted store building solution for setting up your online business. With no software to install, you can build and manage an online store from any computer anywhere in the world with only and internet connection.

As more and more people spend higher amount of time browsing the web for products or information, it makes even more sense to invest in an online store. And if you find a software that allows you to build a customised storefront with unique designs and lots of cool features, it's an offer you cannot say No to, right! aShop is a really cool service as it lets you design your own store, and helps with free initial designs. It comes with a lot of necessary features like support for major credit cards, No fixed terms or contracts, affordable monthly fees, cart software with 128 bit SSL security, email, payment integration, and 24hr technical support. The shopping cart software also allows you to customize everything from Look and Design to Shipping requirements, Discounts and Payment Options. What's more, it offers you a 10-day Free Trial period so you can check out the service and see if it works for you, before you commit to it! Check out a huge list of features and pricing options here.

It sounds like a great and affordable ecommerce software solution for both young and established merchants looking to increase their reach and sales. The best part is, it is web-based so you don't download anything. And also, you don't need to be HTML-savvy or a tech geek to be able to design and run your online store! If you are someone who plans to sell stuff online, you should definitely check out aShop!

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Does your PC have Data Protection and Backup Utility??

Have you experienced a moment of frantic when suddenly your laptop or PC crashes on you and it's not coming up again?? You were in the middle of some project, and your machine suddenly dies on you, you sit there staring at a blank screen, tapping the laptop(like its an old analog TV), moving your mouse all around, and re-starting the machine as the last attempt, frustrated that all your unsaved precious data is gone for good?? Well, if you haven't experienced this yet, thank the lord and at least try to imagine such a scenario, for that would open your eyes to the fact that Data Backup is extremely important in today's high-tech world!

I recently came across Tilana Reserves which offers such a facility, and is among the newest and most progressive answers to the problem of data protection and management. As a fully managed turnkey CDP (continuous data protection) solution for SMB and home PC users, it stands virtually alone in a fragmented market mostly occupied by old-fashioned backup solutions that rely on the scheduled sequential method.

Tilana's new service uses a desktop software client to securely transmit files between the user's protected PC and personal remote storage space. After the initial upload of protected files, the software sends only changes to files as they're saved, along with any new files as they appear in protected folders on the user's computer.

Changes to protected files are stored in the user's personal remote storage for as long as needed, and made immediately available through a version history palette in the desktop software control panel, enabling easy remote file access.

The Tilana Reserve software is available for free download, installs in about a minute and requires little if any configuration. Users can choose to enable an unlimited number of computers with the free software, and synchronize files on those computers via their personal remote storage access space. I think its a brilliant tool, easy to use, and great for data protection. If you don't have some Backup tool on your personal computer yet, its time you understood the enormity of the situation and take necessary steps, before your machine dies a sad death, taking all your invaluable data alongwith it!!

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Smart Web Printing from HP

With the growth of Web 2.0, most of the research is done online, and people turn to the web to find answers to simple questions or confounding conundrums. Gone are the days people referred to books for planning a vacation or for solving a math quiz. These are revolutionary days of Google, where you can find all your answers online. And what's the first thing you need when you've found what you are looking for? Yes, a Printer, to store the vast amount of information that the web provides you with. But don't you think you waste a lot of paper while juggling and printing material from different sites?? If you answer YES, read on to discover a new alternative- the Smart Printer from HP.

HP (Hewlett-Packard) has come out with the perfect solution that is much more convenient and so very eco-friendly. HP's Smart Web Printing enables simple, predictable web printing and also provides control over what you want and how you want it printed. This is the first software of its kind which allows you to select, store and organize text and graphics from multiple web pages and then edit and print exactly what you see onscreen. So surf the net all that you want, keep all your web pages open, then choose the content/graphics/images you want and place them in your custom document creator. Now you can choose to store it as a PDF file, edit it or print what you see. So isn't it the same as copying everything to a Word document and printing it?? well, here's what sets it apart....The software automatically scales web page output to fit the width of your paper. This helps ensure that your print copy contains all the information you see onscreen, without you taking the trouble of resizing images and text (which you might have to do in MS Word). Neat, huh??

I agree this is not a new concept, and people have already used document editors to do this. But you have to agree with me that this for sure is a cleaner way to do it, as the software that you install takes care of everything. Pretty handy when you don't have MS Word installed on your PC, right? And most important, the Smart Web printing software is FREE!! Visit this site for a brief demo and free software download!

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A Software that converts your thoughts to code??!!

21st century has seen many developments and advances in the way things are done, and the amount of gadgets and innovations flooding the markets everyday is amazing! And till now, people used to bow in respect to the software developers who created this magic, generating software programs that go into these revolutionary "objects" and make our life simpler and fascinating. But I was seriously shocked, (surprised, astonished, wide-eyed, etc etc) when I read about this product - a software that writes by itself!!

The famous inventor of Microsoft Word and Excel, Charles Simonyi, has come out with his new innovation, the "Intentional Software", slated to be released probably by this fall, is a software so smart that you can simply tell it what you want and it'll write the code for you. Hurray!! everyone does not need to be a programmer anymore!! Simonyi and his startup have been working on this for 7 years. it centers on Domain Workbench, a human-language graphically friendly representation of the software as it is built.. Users can write clear instructions in text, spreadsheet or flowchart describing what they want the software to do (basic logic), which is then sent to a code-generator, and the latter spews out lines of code to build the application. f course, human engineers are still needed to help set up the programming language and tweak for some changes. But still, the major load is taken care of. For further details, visit http://www.intentionalsoftware.com/

This could prove to be the next generation of software programming, and a boon to solve business problems, but will it be successful? People are skeptical about Simonyi's ideas, and yet you'll also find strong supporters who believe this could change the standards of technology by removing human errors or "bugs".

What happens, is for you and me to see, but till then, I think we'll just revel in this fantastic tech innovation!

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