NaMo anti-virus software to protect PCs for free

NEW DELHI: Homegrown IT firm Innovazion has named its new anti-virus software NaMo, the popular short name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The software will provide free protection to PC users against malware and virus attacks.

While the current version offers basic protection, the company plans to launch advanced versions of the software as well as those for Apple's Mac computers. The current software will also get regular updates.

"India is the third largest country globally in terms of Internet users. However, statistics show that only 13% are using valid license of anti-virus software and 30% tend to re-install trial versions of same or other anti-virus software," Innovazion CEO Abhishek Gagneja told PTI.

However, the remaining 57% systems either have no protection or are using unknown applications for protection of their devices and this is the segment that NaMo AV is targetting, he added.

Gagneja, however, clarified that the company has no association with any political party or its leaders.

"By building this software, we wanted to... congratulate the current government. We also want to pass a message to the government that the nation has high expectations from them," he said.

The anti-virus has features like real-time detection of infections, intelligent scanning, custom detection and is light on hard drive.



Started in 2007, Innovazion has a presence in seven countries including India, the US, the UK, Germany, Canada, Romania, China and Singapore with over 500 employees. Its primary services are application development, business consulting, IT infrastructure management and marketing research.

Asked about the revenue model, Gagneja said the company would continue to offer the security software for free.

"We have other businesses that are doing well. Last year, the group's revenue was $16 million, which we expect will grow 100 per cent this year. NaMo AV will continue to be a free product," he said.

Source: TOI

How to operate your camera and take better photos

Who says you need an SLR and a fancy lens? The tips that follow will help you better take advantage of the features and settings of your camera.

One of the most important things when it comes to digital photography of any sort is knowing and understanding your camera. Spend some time experimenting with the settings. Learn what each button does. It will put you in good stead when you need to quickly take a difficult shot and there’s not much time to set up your camera.

For example, the fact that mobile cameras have fixed focus need not be looked at as a limitation. You can just as easily exploit this feature to create good portraits with an out-of-focus background! In fact, portraits were what phone cameras were designed to take in the first place. Who says you need an SLR and a fancy lens? The tips that follow will help you  better take advantage of the features and settings of 

your camera.  

 

Utilising grey cards

A camera’s exposure meter calculates exposure and white balance (WB) using a shade of 18 per cent grey, or neutral grey as it’s better known, as reference. Basically, if you expose a dark surface, the meter tries to make it 18 per cent grey by overexposing the image and vice-versa for brighter surfaces. The same goes for white balance, the camera tries to make the exposed area a shade of 

grey and sets the colour temperature accordingly.

This is where grey cards come into the picture, literally. Have someone expose the grey card in the scene you want to shoot, using spot or centre-weighted metering, and the camera should give you the best possible exposure that it can in those circumstances. In fact, if you shoot a lot of images at that location, as long as you have one photo with a grey card as reference, you can batch process the other images using the first one as a reference.

For batch processing, depending on the software you use, select the neutral colour picker and select the grey card from your reference image. Apply this neutral colour to all your images and you will have the best possible colour tone for those images. Most image management and editing software, including Gimp and Picasa, support batch editing.

 

 

Making your own grey card

You can purchase a grey card from most camera accessory stores, but the advantage of splurging on a good quality grey card won’t really be worth the difference in image quality for an amateur photographer, especially not for people who are just going to use their mobile phones or pocket cameras. You can make your very own grey card if you want to. Simply open up a new file in Photoshop or Gimp, fill it with 18 per cent grey and you’re done. Print this. You can also chop out the image of the grey card we’ve printed overleaf. Now this isn’t 100 per cent accurate as the output is subject to the capabilities of the printer, but should be sufficient for 

most needs.

 

 

A simpler, and maybe more handy alternative, is to use your hand as reference. Take a shot of the back of your hand, one each under direct sunlight and in the shade. Compare the exposure to that taken with a grey card. You’ll usually find that the exposure is about one stop off. Compensate accordingly when you take photos and you’re set! Works with brown paper bags as well. Of course, metering off any object that you believe is closest to 18 per cent grey can also work. 

 

 

 

 

Playing with white balance

As mentioned earlier, adjusting white balance is a breeze when you use a grey card. However, there are many ways by which you can tweak the settings to get the colours or effects you’d want. Do you want to make day look like night? Just set your white balance to tungsten or incandescent, set exposure compensation at -2ev and voila! Day is now night! Of course, you might still need to tweak the image a bit.

Here’s a small cheat sheet to make things easier...

• Tungsten / Incandescent: Extremely blue, except indoors with no natural light source

• Daylight: Close to normal but with a mild bluish cast

• Shady: Warmer than daylight with no bluish cast

• Fluorescent: Corrects the green tinge under fluorescent light, especially white artificial light such as that from tubelights or CFLs

Custom white balance settings can be found on almost all cameras, including certain mobile phone cameras. A simple trick to adjust the value is to follow the Kelvin scale of temperature. Think of a fire, the hotter it is, the bluer it gets (upto a certain point). Custom WB works in the same way, the higher the value, the bluer the image, so the lower the amount of light, the higher the kelvin value that you need to set.

 

 

Shooting fireworks and lightning

Fireworks and lightning have long been the bane of amateur photographers all over the world. Getting the shot just right is difficult and there are so many things such as exposure, aperture and shutter speed to juggle. What’s the ideal setting? There’s no such thing.

A very simple way of getting great shots of lightning and/or fireworks is to first point your camera at a spot where you think that rocket will burst or hope that lightning will strike. Set a long exposure manually for, say, 30 seconds. Set the aperture to a value of around f/8 or f/11. Now, release the shutter. Keep your hand over the lens while the shutter is open and only remove it when you think the rocket or whatever will explode in front of the lens! It’s as simple as that. The same goes for lightning except that it’s best to first expose the shot and cover the lens only after the lightning strikes. This is mainly because it happens so fast that you may not have time to respond, and also, lightning strikes are so bright that you’ll get most of the scene in that flash anyway. This method requires plenty of trial and error, but that’s what digital cameras are best at, reviewing and discarding unwanted images at no cost!

 

 

Making use of apps

Mobile phones and similar mobile devices are quite badly crippled when it comes to image quality. Such devices, however, have lots of creative potential. The apps alone add a whole new dimension to your device and can completely change the way you work with a mobile 

phone camera.

 

 

Take “Handyscan” for instance. This app is available for iOS, Android and WP7. A very simple app, it allows you to take images and convert them to a .pdf format. The paid version even works as an OCR software, allowing you to actually extract the text and save it. How is this useful? You can save everything from restaurant menus, bills and receipts to addresses, quotations and newspaper articles, etc., for quick reference. Also convenient if you want to keep important documents such as your driving license and passport handy at all times. All of these items can be neatly sorted and indexed by this app.

Samsung’s “Photo Studio” is another interesting app. Available on Samsung’s own Android and Mango devices, this is an app you can have a lot of fun with. Other than allowing you to directly share images on Photobucket and Picasa web albums, this app comes with a host of editing tools and some very interesting scene modes, including a panorama mode which actually works. “Dreamshot” is an interesting mode which allows you to insert an image in a fixed template, so, you can have your friend’s face on the cover of a newspaper, 

for example.

 

 

Unleashing your creativity

One of the biggest advantages of a mobile phone camera is that it’s always with you. Also, mobile phones are usually quite rugged as they’re designed to withstand the daily abuse we subject them to. You can use this to your advantage when experimenting with such devices.

For the bespectacled among you there’s a very simple solution in case you misplace your spectacles. Grab your phone, turn on the camera, hold it in front of you at a distance at which you can see the screen clearly and there you have it, a little window of clarity in that foggy world you call 

your vision!

A mobile phone can be converted into an effective little spy camera as well. For this, you can use an old camera phone if you have one rotting in some old cupboard. Rip the body apart, leaving just the essentials intact. Design your own custom housing and use software such as SmartCam to wirelessly stream to a PC directly. Attach a string and flashlight to it and you can send your phone where no phone has gone before, down shafts, inside the engine compartment of your car, anywhere you like. For a really wild ride, you can throw it into washing maching, after placing it in a waterproof plastic bag of course. You can even stick the camera under the wheel arches of your car or bike or even on your helmet. The possibilities are endless.

It’s even possible to hack your old phone and convert it into a reversing camera for a car. Use the same process as above. Rip apart the camera, leave the essentials, use SmartCam or something similar and turn on your phone and camera. You should now be able to wirelessly stream video to a mobile phone or laptop in your car.

 

 

Source: Digit

How to optimize your PC for better performance, gaming and Net connectivity

We have a few tips and tricks to ensure you get the best out of your PC, from boosting your Windows start up time to optimizing your gaming and Internet experience.

Here we have a few tips and tricks to ensure you get the best out of your PC, from boosting your Windows start up time to optimizing your gaming and Internet experience.

Boost Windows Startup
The launch of Windows 8 has had mixed reactions from the masses. While its snazzy layout and almost instinctive UI gives it a fresh feel, it occasionally handles like a clunky-yet-sleek muscle car in comparison to the light sports model that Windows 7 is. But alas, one must move with the times. Peer pressure, and all that.

One USP of Windows 8 is the faster boot time. However,  this operating system could use a few tweaks to improve the PC’s start-up time. The recommended step would be to rely on the hibernate option; Much like tablets and smartphones (A bar that Windows 8 seems to be aiming for). However, if you’re a user who prefers to shut down your computer for a fresh start every day, here are some steps you can take to improve your start-up time. Most of these techniques can also be used in Windows 7.

Windows' new start up tab

Do a clean boot
It would be helpful to note that the Windows startup programs utility in Windows 8 has been shifted to the Task Manager. Open the task manager and move to the Startup tab. Then, just deselect the apps you don’t need when Windows starts. For Windows 7 users, access the System Configuration menu [Windows R, type msconfig] to access these options.

Disable animations
If you’re not too attached to the smooth transitions and effects in your Windows interface, use the Windows X shortcut and select the System menu. In the System window, click on Advanced System Settings on the left pane and access the Performance Settings in the Advanced tab. Disable effects that you consider irrelevant. Disabling Aero in Windows 7 by switching to Classic Mode helps. Windows 8 users have the High Contrast option. Disabling your Start screen and password also helps boost your start-up time. Access the User Accounts Menu [Windows R, type netplwiz] and uncheck the ‘users must enter a username and password’ option.

Saluto - A new way to do IT

Windows registry tweak
There are certain Windows processes that slow down your start-up. A simple windows registry tweak takes care of them:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl
PanelDesktop]
“AutoEndTasks”=”1”
“HungAppTimeout”=”1000”
“MenuShowDelay”=”8”
“WaitToKillAppTimeout”=”
2000”
“LowLevelHooks-
Timeout”=”1000”
[HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl
PanelMouse]
“MouseHoverTime”=”8”
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControl]
“WaitToKillService-
Timeout”=”2000”

Type this into notepad, and save it as speedystartup.reg; Run the file and restart your system.

The software solution
There are several simple download- and-use software options online. Soluto is a very usable option to do an overall systems check on your laptop to see the errors on your unit. You can use it to find out the applications that hinder your performance. This will help you when you follow-up with Anvi Startup Booster.

Anvi Startup Booster is probably the most convenient, user-friendly one around. Being a 12MB file, it’s easy to download as well as light on the system. On startup, it shows you your current start-up time, and recommends changes that could be made to lower it, a few notches. The plus-point of Anvi is that it has an easy restore option, in case you disable any program you weren’t meant to. It’s simple, effective and good for people who are uncomfortable with technology.

Manage fonts
Since the dawn of the digital era, Windows has slowed down boot time by loading fonts at startup. This is, admittedly, less of a problem than it used to be, but it can still slow you down. Chances are, you actually use very few of the available fonts. The best way to deal with this problem is to download a font manager to handle your fonts. While the font manager is running, all listed fonts in it are available on other programs. This way, if you ever want them, you can bring them back, but Windows won’t load them at startup. A recommended free font viewer is NexusFont. This freeware app available onwww.xiles.net/nexusfont. For designers and other media professionals facing the problem where 30,000 fonts are slowing down their system, Suitcase Fusion 3, a paid software.

Upgrade, already!
If your software and setting are up to the mark, move on to examining your hardware. If your PC is configured exactly to Windows 8 minimum system requirements, well, there’s your problem. Dig up your tattered wallet and move up the food chain.

We recommend:

Processor – Nothing lower than an Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon X2.

Graphics – Dedicated GPU: AMD Radeon HD 2000 series; NVIDIA GeForce 8 series or higher; Integrated GPU: AMD Radeon HD 3200, NVIDIA GeForce 9400, Intel HD Graphics or higher.

RAM – 2GB (32-bit) or 4GB (64-bit)

Hard Drive – If feasible, a Solid-State Hard Drive is always a good investment. Otherwise a 320 GB 5400rpm hard drive is sufficient.

Optimise Your Gaming Experience
Gaming on the PC has always has its own select following. Over the past couple of decades, with the advent of modern console gaming, PC Games have to keep up with an opposing force that grows greater by the year. In turn, gamers today have to keep their systems top-notch and consistently updated to ensure the ever-elusive optimal gaming experience. However, even with the best hardware in the market today, it can be tough (and most of the time, impossible) for a gamer to do an annual overall hardware update or keep his/her pace with the evershrinking bytes. Of course, the easier option in this case would be to buy a console. There are always rewards in the puritan approach. There’s also the added advantage of not worrying about upgrading your hard disk, RAM and GPU every two years to play the latest installment of your favourite game series (that is, until the next generation of console comes out and yours joins your laptop in the ‘things of yesteryears’ pile… But pros and cons, right?); And still, without the feel of a keyboard and mouse in FPS-es just doesn’t feel the same.

So keeping that option aside, and assuming you aren’t one of those millionaire geeks, there are some techniques out there to hold your own and suck out the most performance from your system, or in the very least, add to your gaming.

The Anvi-UI is clean, simple and straightforward

Let’s start with the obvious stuff, shall we?
Admittedly, the computer is a masterpiece of technology, but not unlike anything else mechanical, it can only do so much with the hardware installed. Games today are already very complicated, so there’s no point in overworking your computer. Be a little smarter and use some common sense when setting up your system for gaming.

Update your graphics drivers. I’m sure it’s hard to remember. And if that is the case with you, check the settings of your graphic card’s driver interface - There’s an option that states ‘automatically update drivers’. If you have a bad memory, let the computer remember to do it for you. It’s not that hard, and it’ll give you one less thing to consider when you’re wondering why Nomad is taking so long to fire his weapon.

Close unnecessary programs. Shut down your instant messaging clients. Even if you’re playing on the best system money can buy, a message notification can randomly freeze your game at critical junctures or cause your game to handle like a drunk on a Saturday night. That is, presuming your game doesn’t just crash.

If your social life can’t take a break for a while, check out in-game messaging clients like: XFire (http://www.xfire.com/), Raptr (http://raptr.com/) and Steam (http://store.steampowered. com/). Lower the load on your RAM and GUI. Unless you’re on an incredibly slow system, programs like notepad probably won’t make a dent, but the least you can do is shut down your Adobe suite and Microsoft office before cranking up your game. Shut down whatever programs you have running as background tasks. Check your task manager to end the processes you won’t use for your game. Sure, they aren’t visibly performing any tasks, but they’re obviously leeching off your processing power in some small way. Remember to leave your sound and graphics controllers alone, though (yes, as I stated before, this is the obvious stuff).

FRAPS
This is a useful tool if you’re one of those gamers who likes to review their style to improve their skill - or simply one of those people who like uploading walkthroughs and gameplay videos on YouTube. Be as it may, it’s always good to be familiar with FRAPS. This video game capture software is undoubtedly the biggest name in the professional game recording community. We say that mainly because it offers great quality videos, excellent video compression and above all, it’s the easiest software available online with respect to controls and usability.

FRAPS, (Frame Rate Per Second) stays true to its name. One of its main features are the yellow numbers that you have the option to disable or show in any corner of your desktop. This is a simple way of measuring the consistency of the frame rate (which is part of the benchmarking process). The game-recording software gives you complete control over audio-visual recording as well as screenshots which help set benchmarks for gaming reviewers.

Its simple interface marks it high on the user-friendly scale. The one constant complaint about FRAPS is the monster size of the video files it captures. You can record up to 4GB of footage at a time, and to take full advantage of this software’s high quality recording using high framerates and still avoiding issues concerning lag, one should be prepared with a good processor. If you intend to go on for a few hours, we would recommend a USB 3.0 hard drive for storage, as a precaution.

Overall, FRAPS does just enough to set itself apart and at the same time, lay the benchmark for other software of the same nature without breaking a sweat.

Raptr and NVIDIA GeForce Experience
Raptr was started back in 2007 by Dennis Fong (of XFire fame) and played a huge role in pushing online gaming to the level it is in today. It gave gamers worldwide a common hub to come together - gamers’ own personal social networking website. Its primary function when it was created was an umbrella like leaderboard for gamers to get a platform where their skills in the field are appreciated and understood. Of late, since Raptr launched its desktop app, it connects members and their gaming effectively, giving people convenience, consistency and mobile connectivity.

Meanwhile, in relatively more recent news, NVIDIA has launched its own all-in-one PC Game optimiser. NVIDIA GeForce Experience is, admittedly very useful with the games it supports.

Experience the Nvidia GeForce experience

Features
It primarily works as a jack of all trades. When installed, it scans your system for detailed specifications of your computer, correlates that to the recommended system requirements for the games already installed on your PC, and tells you what configuration would be suited best for running the game on your system. Its Shadowplay feature, when enabled, leverages the NVEnc fixed-function encoder built into Kepler-based GPUs and automatically records the last 20 minutes of gameplay, while also offering the option of manual control. This is a great replacement for software-based solutions like FRAPS, for people who record their gameplay, which reduces the load on your host processor.

Enter the Gaming Mode
Almost all antiviruses today have an option called ‘gaming mode’ during which they switch to either minimum or zero consumption of your laptop’s resources. It’s a handy tool to have, and goes a long way to amp up your game performance. Freeing the RAM and the little GPU memory that they consume, it can make the difference between smooth sailing and jerky gameplay with an overheated unit.

Virtual Private Networks
LogMeIn Hamachi is one example of several VPN (Virtual Private Networks) creating software available online. Hamachi specifically is easy-to-use to set up a VPN that’s sophisticated enough for a small network of gamers online. Admittedly, Hamachi isn’t an enterprise grade VPN like Juniper and Cisco, but it’s reliable enough to ensure that your VPN is secure. It is comparatively much easier to set up, so it’s a great option for a small group of users The free version is a cheap and convenient option for people who want to game on a closed LAN-like network. It has string security and does very well emulating a virtual Local Area Network. And if required, Hamachi also has a premium paid version for those who can afford it.

Other free options in VPN providers which have comparatively easier interfaces include TunnelBear and VPNBook.

Optimize your in-game graphic settings
If you’re all too familiar with the terms V-Sync, FXAA and Anisotropic Filtering, then you can skip this last segment of the article. For those who don’t, here’s a short segment explaining what to do with those settings in your Video/Graphic settings in your ingame Options menu.

Vertical Sync: It fixes the tearing (misalignment of pixels) of the screen due to a discrepancy in your refresh rate. Put it on only if you experience this.

Screen Resolution: Adjust the resolution of the game within the maximum resolution of your own system. Sometimes this difference in resolutions can cause some major lag issues in your gaming.

Anti-Aliasing and FXAA: AA smoothes out jagged pixels in a game when the game’s resolution is on a much lower one than that of the screen. It’s effective, but we suggest you only raise the AA of the game after maxing out the appropriate resolution of the game. If the game is having issues with speed, you should just switch this feature off. FXAA stands for Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing. It does the same thing the AA feature does, but using lesser power from your processor. The downside is, instead of jagged edges in an environment, you end up having blurry edges. So use this feature in accordance to your preferable visual sacrifice.

Anisotropic Filtering: This tweak deals with textures of distant objects in your game’s environment. Graphic cards today can handle high levels of this filter, so feel free to keep that at a maximum. However, if you think it is causing a drop in frame rate, keep it on 2x instead of completely off. It shouldn’t cause much of a difference in performance, and would enhance your experience considerably.

Shadow Quality, Field of View and Texture Quality: As the names suggest, these features deal with the quality of your environment from the point of making it more realistic. While setting these (usually on high, medium and low), you should do so at your own preference and discretion. Set these on maximum first, then bring each down a notch in descending order of what you’d like to give up. The reverse may also work.

Gaming today has more options. Keeping up with new features may take time and effort, but it’s all worth it. Game On.

Increase Your Internet Potency
The internet has become quite an integral part of our lives, social or professional. Staying connected is, beyond doubt, important. Connectivity though depends on several factors. One important thing to keep topnotch is your connectivity to the internet through your computer. Your Internet Service Provider isn’t the only one responsible for bad internet connectivity (okay, it’s true that most of the time it is your ISP, but that isn’t completely under your control). It could be a problem at your end. There are two main kinds of problems you can have with your internet setup. (1) Hardware: Maybe your computer isn’t optimized well enough to give you the kind of output you need to get your work done. (2) Software: Maybe it’s outdated. Maybe it’s insufficient to fulfill your needs. Maybe it’s confusing you so much that you’ve just decided for yourself that a 1Gbps connection just isn’t fast enough for you.

There are several ways to ensure - assuming that your Internet provider is, indeed, infallible - that you have done all you can do to get the most out of your setup:

Connectify Dispatch
Connectify is well-known for its Connectify Hotspot - its program for turning your system into your own personal Wi-Fi hotspot. Its relatively recent program, Connectify Dispatch also lives up to its hype. However, Dispatch only comes in handy if you have more than one internet connection (not necessarily of the same bandwidth). To put simply, this software combines the resources of all these available connections and prioritizes your usage to fit the right one. For example, if you’re streaming a video on Chrome while your iTunes downloads a new album, this program would prioritize the streaming to the connection with the higher speed while pushing iTunes to the lower speed connection for the duration of your stream. In this way, it guarantees optimal usage of both bands.

Connectify is available for free download at: http://www.connectify.me/ and the paid premium upgrade is also available.

Connectify Dispatch

DNS Servers

What is a DNS Server?
Glad you asked! A DNS Server is akin to a phonebook for the internet. Its main function is to translate the various computer host names into IP Addresses.

Example:

Domain name: google.com
IP Address: 74.125.128.113

When the user connects to the internet, the ISP automatically assigns primary and secondary DNS server addresses to your computer. Most of the time the DNS Servers of the service provider aren’t optimized. Because of this glitch on the ISP’s part, these DNS Servers are incapable of handling traffic during peak hours (when everyone on your side of the world is online at the same time), which results in the slow internet speed that annoys you so much. If things get worse, the server goes down. But this problem has a fix. There are several free public DNS Servers which are made to handle heavy traffic. Their servers are distributed worldwide, so if one goes down, the other server closest to you is ready to back it up.

These servers are mostly free, but also have an option to upgrade to premium (at a price, of course) if the difference in your speed isn’t satisfactory. The premium servers are less crowded, helping make the connection faster and more reliable.

Wi-Fi routers
Basics: A, B & G routers are old and slow. N-Routers are capable of handling higher speeds. Check on that if you have a speed issue. Also remember: if you want to make use of your N-Router’s full potential, your computer should have a wireless N-Card as well. The next thing you need to use a little bit of common sense is with respect to the placement of your router. Try placing it closest to where you use your laptop the most. Once you’ve done that, please remember, putting behind the fridge or cabinet will, definitely, hinder your performance. Yes, I agree that it seems ridiculously basic a suggestion, but you’d be surprised how many people place their routers out of sight just because it doesn’t match their 18th-Century Rajasthani table.

Your Wi-Fi Channel: The chances are that the default settings for your router to find a channel are set on auto. If that is the case, the reason your speed’s down could be a result of having too many people broadcasting their own Wi-Fi in your vicinity. Fixing this is easy. There’s a free program called InSSIDer (http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/) which can be used to determine the ideal channel for your router.

These programs also help improve your router’s QoS (Quality of Service). QoS is a broad phrase referring to a collection of networking technologies and techniques. The idea behind having QoS is to provide a guarantee that a network will deliver predictable results to the best of their ability. Elements within the framework of QoS usually include throughput (bandwidth), delay (latency), uptime (availability) and error rate.

inSSIDer

Electrical Interference:

Some devices, like cordless phones and microwave ovens can play havoc with your Wi-Fi signal. Keeping these items away from your router would help in the overall performance of your internet connection.

DD-WRT: Disclaimer: This is a specific fix for routers supported by the DD-WRT open-source firmware. So before trying this, find out if your specific router is supported, or you may end up bricking your router.

Most routers don’t use their full potential because of the firmware restrictions on them. This tends to affect their overall functionality. To overcome this problem, there exists a Linux based firmware for wireless routers and wireless access points called DD-WRT. It is a third-party firmware designed specifically to replace the original on some commercial routers. Alternative firmware like DD-WRT may offer features and functionality sets that differ from the original one it replaces.

Instructions: First thing to do is to go to http://www.dd-wrt.co.in/site/support/router-database, (1) Type your router’s model number in the search bar and (2) check if your router supports the firmware. If it does, download the corresponding file off the same website.

The installation of DD-WRT depends on your router, but the general instructions are usually the same:

i) Log into your router’s admin page. Consult router’s manual for admin address.

ii) Go to the Admin section and select Firmware Upgrade.

iii) Select your DD-WRT upgrade file and keep the router plugged in until the upgrade is done. After DD-WRT installs, reconnect to your network over Ethernet or Wi-Fi (with a new network SSID of DD-WRT) and visit your admin page. In most cases it will still live at the same address of its predecessor. DD-WRT will ask you to choose your own username and password. Older versions may request one, which by default is root/admin (which you should change to your own after this). When you login, you will see the DD-WRT admin page. Welcome to your new router. One thing we haven’t mentioned in the segment above is the use of Internet Booster software. Though reputed to do a good job of improving your internet connectivity, it works in specific ways; like fixing your connection’s latency or bandwidth. But let that not deter you from mailing us your queries at sos@thinkdigit.com.

Before reading any article that tells you how to fix your system, remember, cover whatever bases you can cover on your own before relying on people you assume are more experienced at this than you are.

Coming back to the internet issue, make sure you read up on service providers. What worked for you in Delhi may not necessarily have the same service in Mumbai or Bangalore. ISPs change by the city, and this is with respect to all kinds of connections be it Broadband, USB dongles, 3G data cards or even a 56kbps dial-up.

Source: Digit

Outernet: Providing information to the world from outer space

MDIF is incubating its first project: Outernet, the world’s first truly global media delivery service.

Founded by MDIF’s Director of Innovation Syed Karim, Outernet will use a network of small satellites to transmit selected internet data – audio, video, text and applications – to any Wi-Fi-enabled device, including mobile phones, anywhere in the world at no cost. No other information channel allows for such a wide variety of content, or broadcasts on a genuinely world-wide scale.

“We are excited to incubate such a revolutionary project,” said MDIF CEO Harlan Mandel. “Outernet will bypass censorship, ensure privacy and offer worldwide access to information to everyone, including those who today are beyond the geographic reach of the internet or can’t afford it.”

“Outernet is the modern version of shortwave radio,” said founder Mr. Karim. “It uses leading-edge technology to address a deep social problem. As the world moves towards a global knowledge-driven economy, more than 3 billion people are excluded by cost, geography or jurisdiction. Outernet will increase opportunities for everyone to access digital news and information, allowing greater access to opportunity and education than anything that currently exists.”

Outernet will also offer a humanitarian communications system, relaying public service transmissions during emergencies in places where there is no access to conventional communications networks due to natural disasters or man-made restrictions on the free-flow of information.

It embraces the burgeoning new-space startup industry, leveraging multicasting technology to take the Wi-Fi network to an extreme. Anyone with a device will be able to receive the signals, regardless of connectivity to the regular internet. Costly data plans from local telecom operators will no longer be a barrier to accessing information.

All of the components necessary for the Outernet have been validated by various governmental, university and amateur satellite projects. Outernet will bring these technologies together, provide standardization where none exists, and build a genuinely innovative global media delivery platform.

For more information, visit: Outernet 

Source: MDIF

Water Found on Dwarf Planet Ceres, May Erupt from Ice Volcanoes

Astronomers have discovered direct evidence of water on the dwarf planet Ceres in the form of vapor plumes erupting into space, possibly from volcano-like ice geysers on its surface.

Using European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, scientists detected water vapor escaping from two regions on Ceres, a dwarf planet that is also the largest asteroid in the solar system. The water is likely erupting from icy volcanoes or sublimation of ice into clouds of vapor.

"This is the first clear-cut detection of water on Ceres and in the asteroid belt in general," said Michael Küppers of the European Space Agency, Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain, leader of the study detailed today (Jan. 22) in the journal Nature.

The research has implications for how Ceres formed, and supports models that suggest the planets moved around a lot within the solar system during its formation, Küppers told SPACE.com. [See more photos of the dwarf planet Ceres]

Ceres, a dwarf planet or giant asteroid (depending on the definition used), is the largest object in the asteroid belt, orbiting at 2.8 astronomical units (the distance from Earth to the sun). The "snowline" is thought to partition the solar system into dry objects inside the asteroid belt, and icy objects such as comets further out. But the finding of water on Ceres suggests more mixing has occurred.

Scientists have suspected that there is a substantial amount of water on Ceres for about 30 years. A study found hints of water in the form of hydroxide, a product of water's dissociation, on Ceres in 1991, but the finding wasn't confirmed by later observations. Now, Küppers and his colleagues have confirmed the finding.

The researchers used the Herschel Space Observatory's spectrometer to look for signals of water. Clouds of water vapor around Ceres absorbed the heat that radiates from the dwarf planet, which Herschel's instrument detected. The team found that Ceres produces about 2×10^26 molecules, or 13 lbs. (6 kilograms), of water vapor per second from its surface.

One possible source of the water is icy volcanism. "It is like volcanism in that hot material from the interior is 'spat out' to the surface," Küppers said — much like a geyser. But these icy volcanoes eject water vapor instead of molten rock, he said.

Another possibility is that ice near the surface of Ceres sublimes, or goes directly from a solid to a gas, dragging with it dust from the surface and exposing more ice. A similar process occurs on comets.

"I personally consider cometary-style sublimation the most likely source, because I find it difficult to maintain the internal heat over the age of the solar system to maintain volcanoes," Küppers said, but he added that more studies were needed.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft, set to go into orbit around Ceres in early 2015, could answer some questions about the water on Ceres. Dawn recently visited the asteroid Vesta, a baked world whose surface is covered with volcanic eruptions.

"One of the most puzzling questions about the origin and evolution of asteroids is why Vesta and Ceres are so different," astrophysicists Humberto Campins and Christine Comfort at the University of Central Florida in Orlando wrote in an article in the same issue of Nature.

Water vapor can transport a lot of heat, so when Ceres formed 4.6 billion years ago, sublimation of water ice might have dissipated much of its heat into space, Campins and Comfort wrote. "This would have stopped Ceres from ending up with an igneous surface like that of Vesta."

Detecting water on Ceres supports models of the solar system in which giant planets, such as Jupiter, migrated to their current positions, mixing material from the outer and inner regions of the solar system. This mixing could have moved Ceres and Vesta far from the sites where they formed. Ceres probably formed close to its current position, but accreted material from further out, Küppers said.

The findings also suggest that asteroids may have delivered some of the water in Earth's oceans.

Source: Yahoo!