How to Bypass the Lockcode Screen on iOS 6.1 and Use Anyone’s iPhone

Apple has had a few problems with its latest iPhone and iPad software update.

Released just last month, iOS 6.1 was meant to be a relatively significant update bringing enhanced Siri capabilities, LTE support to more countries, and more iTunes Match features.

But it seems as if the update is doing more harm than good.

The Verge reports that a new bug, "lets anyone bypass your iPhone password lock and access your phone app, view or modify contacts, check your voicemail, and look through your photos (by attempting to add a photo to a contact)."

The instructions are pretty simple. First you have to pretend to turn the phone off, then make an aborted emergency call, then a quick bit of off button and cancel pressing. That boots you into the full phone app where you can pretty much call or message anyone you like, or edit phone contacts.

Besides allowing anyone access to your phone, Apple's latest software update also drains your battery much faster than usual, and Microsoft recommended users not upgrade because of an Exchange bug, which causes iPhones to continuously loop when syncing a recurring calendar meeting invitation to Microsoft Exchange.

Apple has not issued a statement on this latest bug but here is a video of it in action:

WinReducer: Customized Windows 8 Installation Disk

Windows 8 installs faster and uses less disk space than Windows 7 operating system . But if you want to build a custom installation of Windows 8 , it is necessary to take the help of third party tools.

Many Advanced users of Windows 8 are in search of quality software to customize and modify the installation of Windows 8 by removing some features and applications, they will be pleased to know about the availability of a free software called WinReducer 8 to customize the installation of Windows 8.

WinReducer 8 is a portable application, and its downloadable ZIP archive contains both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the tool. After extracting the files, simply execute the appropriate version for your computer.

The application is currently in alpha, though everything it offers works as advertised. The main interface is minimal, and pffers ‘Open’ and ‘Change Mount Folder’ buttons. Note that if you are using an ISO file of Windows 8 setup, you’ll need to extract all the files from the ISO package into a separate folder before proceeding. You can use your favorite comressed files utility for the purpose; we recommend the free and excellent 7-zip.

Open to select the said directory, point to the disk drive with your Windows 8 installation disc or choose the folder where you extracted the ISO’s contents, select your Windows 8 edition and click Mount.

Sit back and let the application fetch all the information contained within the ISO or physical disc, after which it will let you customize the setup.

The tool will let you select any unwanted features that you want to exclude. Simply mark the the components that are not required such as Accessories, Drivers, Fonts, Languages, Themes, Services etc., under the Components Reducer tab.

The Customization tab helps you make further optimization and tweaking, for instance you can remove the Charms bar, hide desktop icons, remove files and settings from Windows Explorer, clean unneeded files and so on. Likewise, it allows you to select a default Lockscreen, Wallpaper, and custom theme.

The Unattended feature of the tool is a big time saver. It lets you specify your Windows 8 serial number, so you don’t have to enter it each time you performing the installation. In addition, you can select a custom background image for the setup program, provided the image dimensions don’t exceed 1024 x 786 pixels.

Once everything is in place, apply your changes and let the tool work its magic based on your selection.

Lastly, select ‘Save in WIM file and create a new ISO’. You may also change the destination folder, ISO name, and ISO label before hitting Save to create the ISO.

This test was carried out on windows 8, 64-bit edition

30 Windows Phone 8 Tips, Hacks & Tricks

Windows Phone 8 handsets has finally reached retail shelves, which means anyone can get their hands on Microsoft's latest mobile operating system. The company has detailed several of the platform's features -- Live Tiles, the new Start Screen, Kids Corner, a revamped Camera, and more -- but whether you're a Windows Phone veteran or thinking about buying your first Windows Phone device, there's a lot to learn with Windows Phone 8.

We've collected some of the most useful tips, tricks and hidden features that you'll encounter in Windows Phone 8. Got any suggestions we didn't mention here? Let us know in the comments.

1. Making a Skype call

Once you have downloaded the Skype app from Windows Marketplace, you'll find it within your apps drawer. Open the app and enter your Skype log-in details. If you don't have a Skype account, you can choose to log in with your Microsoft (Hotmail) account instead. Once you're in, you can browse your recent calls and see who is online. To make contact, select your intended recipient, then type a message for a text chat, or press the phone button at the bottom to make a call.

2. Send a "running late" message

Under "calendar" you can view all the appointments you have added. If one of these appointments includes another person -- your colleague, friend, or whoever you're supposed to be meeting -- you can send them a message to let them know you're running late.

To do this, go into your calendar, and select the appointment in question. At the bottom you'll see four options, one of which is titled "late" and is indicated by an icon of a person running. Press this and a message will be automatically generated with some standard apologetic text that can be edited or sent as is.

3. Saving battery life

Under settings is a "battery saver" option. When it's switched on, you'll get more hours of battery life, but keep in mind you'll need to manually check for new e-mails, and apps will no longer run in the background. At the bottom is a summary of how much battery life you have left, assuming you don't suddenly start streaming cat videos on a loop.

When this feature is turned on, you can tap on "advanced" at the bottom of the screen (it's grayed out when the feature is off) and choose a point at which it should automatically turn on, or if it should stay on all the time.

4. Identify a song or its performer

Using Xbox Music and a data connection, Windows Phone 8 can listen to a song and then try to tell you what it is. This is done by pressing the search button at the bottom right, then hit the middle option under whatever image Bing has chosen to display. It's the one that's signified by a musical note. Once pressed, the phone will display "listening for music..." If a song is found, it will then show the artist and the album it's from, so you can download it there and then. If not, you'll be presented with the option to try again.

5. Take a screenshot

This is a nice, easy trick. Navigate to whatever you want to capture a shot of and then press the lock/power and home (Windows) button at the same time. If you've timed it right, you'll then hear a camera snap and the image will float upwards into the digital ether.

To find your screenshot, go into "photos" and then "albums." Here you'll find a "screenshots" subfolder.

6. Translating text

Handily, translating a menu or a road sign that's in another language is possible with Windows Phone 8. It does require you to have a data connection though, as the data is sent off to Microsoft's servers which then respond to your phone. Assuming you are happy with the roaming charges if you're abroad, press the search button at the bottom of your phone (the button on the right of the three). Now hit the button shaped like an eye to make the camera start up, allowing you to scan barcodes, QR codes, and the like. Press "scan text" to take a picture of the text and then hit "translate."

If the phone throws up an error, try taking the image again from straight on. Once it's successfully recognized the text, select a language from the list you wish to translate to, and Windows Phone 8 will do its best to make it comprehensible.

7. Linking e-mail in-boxes

If you like to keep your e-mail in-boxes tied together so that all your mail arrives handily in one place, you can use the "link in-boxes" option. Simply go into one of the e-mail accounts you want to link and hit the bottom ellipsis. Select "link in-boxes" and then choose the two in-boxes you want to link up.

You can easily unlink the in-boxes at a later date in exactly the same way. Choose the e-mail client you want to unlink by selecting it and just hit "unlink." You can also rename in-boxes while in this menu.

8. Editing a photo

Once you've taken or downloaded a photo, navigate to the image you want to edit and then hit the ellipsis symbol in the bottom right-hand corner. You'll then see a number of options, from which you should select "edit." From there you'll have access to a couple of options: crop, rotate and auto-fix, or Creative Studio.

Select the former and again hit the ellipsis (this feature is continually present throughout Windows Phone 8) to reveal "save," "rotate," "crop," and "fix." The rotate tool moves the image 90 degrees each time you hit it. "Crop" brings up a grid you can use to slice and dice your image by moving each of the colored corners. When you're happy with your crop, hit the check mark, or instead just choose from any one of the predetermined aspect ratios.

Finally, hit "auto-fix" to see if it improves your photo quality. When images are dark and/or murky, this can prove useful, but the effect can vary from image to image. All that's left is to save your image, which you'll find under "camera roll" for future access.

9. Kid's corner

To keep younglings and pranksters at bay, Windows Phone 8 includes a feature called Kid's Corner. To activate it, head to settings to find the option (it should be between the "location" and "battery saver" settings if you're struggling), and turn the feature on. You'll then see a number of further options, including games, music, videos, and apps. This is where you select the content you deem suitable for the eyes of others, which you can tick to include when the feature is active.

Once you're happy with your selection, hit "launch kid's corner" to see how it all looks.

Now that Kid's Corner is set up, you can access it by swiping your finger from right to left. Now you should see Kid's Corner and will be able to then swipe from down to up to remove the lock screen. And hey, presto -- you'll have a more child-friendly smartphone, which denies access to the phone, e-mail and any other key functions that you would like to keep off limits.

10. Adjusting text size

Under settings is an option called "ease of access." Here you can slide a bar up to increase or decrease the text size in order to make reading easier. You can also enable "high contrast" to improve legibility, a screen magnifier and turn on TTY/TDD -- the telecommunications system used to assist those with hearing or speech difficulties.

11. Make tabs more handy

Pop into Internet Explorer and hit the Stop icon. Scroll down to select "settings," and from here you have the option to adjust a number of features. The one you want is "use address bar button for," which you can select and then pick from the three favorite options, one of which is tabs. If you choose this function, you can jump between tabs without having to go into the options menu.

12. Customizing Windows Phone 8

Windows Phone 8 allows you to personalize your phone. Tiles can be resized by holding down on them on the home screen, or from within the apps drawer. Once in edit mode -- indicated by one tile lighting up and the rest graying out -- you can either press the bottom-right arrow to adjust the size, or unpin a tile by hitting the top-right pin button. It should be noted that unpinning is not the same as uninstalling.

To reposition a tile, drag it around with your finger, and when you're happy, quickly press the tile to exit the editing mode. If you have multiple tiles to move, just select the next live tile to adjust and keep going until you're satisfied with the new arrangement.

You can also adjust the accent color, as it's known, under settings and then "theme." Pick a color and choose whether you want the background to be light or dark. Go back to settings, and you'll find another option called "lock screen." Press this and you can customize the tabs you see on the lock screen, with the further option to pick one primary tab.

13. Searching a Web page

Within the browser is a search tool called "find on page." It was previously taken out of Windows Phone with the Mango update, but now it's back. When in Internet Explorer, press the ellipsis icon and select "find on page" toward the bottom of the list. Type in your search query and press enter. All text found in the search will show up in your chosen accent color, and there's an arrow key to scroll through all the findings at the bottom of the display.

14. Keyboard shortcuts

When using the onscreen keyboard, you can hit the "&123" option to jump between text, symbols, and numbers. To save time, though, you can hold down your finger on each key to pull up other options, including numbers, accents or, in the case of the ellipsis button, other useful symbols such as a question mark. For languages, you can jump between each one you've installed almost instantly. Handy, eh?

Other useful functionality built into the keyboard includes a word picker. Type a few letters of a word and suggestions will appear above. Move right and left between them with a swipe and then pick one by pressing it. Finally, a double tap of the space bar adds a period and a space for the next sentence.

If a word is typed that the keyboard doesn't recognize, you can press it to highlight and then hit the "+" symbol above to add it to the dictionary for future use.

15. Adding a language

Head back into the main settings menu and select "language+region." Here you can select a language, with an option to download and install it. Once done, you can easily jump between the languages you need.

If you want to adjust the speech language, head to general settings and then "speech" -- it's further down the list from "language+region." Once again, you can tailor the languages for each feature including the text-to-speech voice.

16. If in doubt, tap and hold

I've briefly mentioned this before, but I can't stress enough the importance of this tip. If you're not sure how to use something, either use the ellipsis button or press and hold down until options appear. Windows Phone 8 is pretty simple to use, but if you ever are perplexed, this should be the solution you seek.

17. Copying and pasting

If there's text on screen, you can press it and it will highlight. To highlight multiple words, the two end circles can be dragged along to select all the text you want to include. It can prove fiddly, so on a Web page try to zoom in (by pinching the screen with two fingers) to make life easier.

Once something has been copied, you can paste it using the clipboard option that will appear above the onscreen keyboard.

18. Using your phone as an Xbox 360 remote control

If your Xbox is online and your Windows Phone is on the same network (under settings you can find "Wi-Fi" and connect to your home router), you can download and install the Xbox SmartGlass app formerly known as My Xbox Live. Once installed, open the Xbox hub, select the app, and then make sure your Xbox is also turned on. The app will then sign you in, before giving you control of your Xbox.

19. Using the cloud

If you download and install the Skydrive app, you can manage your cloud storage on the go, but even without the app you can still enjoy access to the cloud. When you've taken a photo, you can press the ellipsis button and select "upload to Skydrive."

You can also choose and store multiple photos at once. Press the "select" button at the bottom of the display when in you're in an image folder and then check off the images you want to share or upload. Again, select "save to Skydrive" and then watch as all your photos are uploaded.

20. Making your media sound better

On the Nokia Windows Phone devices, you can pop in your headphones and then adjust the sound quality via the "audio" option under general settings. You can choose between a selection of predetermined settings, or fiddle about with the equalizer yourself. Alternatively, you can enable Dolby playback by swiping right and hitting "playback."

Although bass lovers may be tempted to bump up the equalizer's lows, the best sound quality in my experience comes from the Dolby option. Other factors including headphones may also affect the end result.

21. Multi-tasking

While not strictly multitasking in the Android sense, Windows Phone 8 has its own system for handling multiple jobs at once. To jump between tasks that are running, hold down the back button until the screen minimizes and color appears around the display. Now swipe left or right between tasks and select the one you need.

22. Paying for goods with NFC

Depending on the retailer, you can now pay for goods using your phone, making it into a kind of digital wallet. Simply hold your phone to the NFC pad in the shop and the phone will do the rest -- as long as you have "tap+share" enabled under general settings.

Unless you've already added a credit card or PayPal to your Microsoft Account (which you will have done if you've ever paid for an app or a song), you'll need to enter your payment details within the "wallet" feature found in the app drawer. Here you can press the "+" at the bottom and then type in the necessary details.

If it's somewhere you visit regularly, it's worth asking the shop whether it supports NFC so that, in the future, you can save yourself from digging out your card and typing in a pin number.

23. Taking notes

Unlike in Windows Phone 7, OneNote is its own entity in Windows Phone 8. Head to OneNote from within the app drawer and you can make, edit, or share notes to your heart's content. To search for a specific note, use the magnifying glass, and press the "+" key to add a new note.

As long as you have a data connection, changes you make will sync across the cloud, your notes will update on every device you own that has OneNote capability. No more e-mailing yourself a shopping list.

24. Creating and editing documents

Last but not least, you can create and edit documents. Pop into the Office hub and then press the "+" at the bottom to add a new document -- you can choose from Word and Excel -- and then start typing. You can also choose from templates if you so desire.

When in a document, select the ellipsis icon to bring up the available options. "Outline" lets you jump between sections quickly, whereas "comment" lets you add comments to a shared document, so you can let people know what you are working on or what needs changing. You can also search for a specific word or phrase, and of course edit the document itself. When you press "edit," it's a case of scrolling through the document and tapping on words, before using the onscreen keyboard to make adjustments.

Bring up the options menu at the bottom when you're editing and you can select format options -- color, font size, text size, and so on -- and then share your finished piece via e-mail.

25. Power Down

When your battery is running low, Windows Phone 8 has a special trick to help prevent total power loss. Just go to Settings and turn on the Battery Saver option. Doing so tells the OS not to run any apps in the background or sync email automatically. You’ll still be able to make and receive calls and texts, but everything else will require manual syncing (opening up the app and choosing to sync). You can choose for Battery Saver mode to kick in only when your battery is actually low, or keep it on at all times. A little heart over the battery icon tells you when the phone is in Battery Saver mode.

26. When You're Running Late

Windows Phone 8’s built-in Calendar has a Late button option that comes in handy when you’re behind schedule. Tap the button in an event and the app will draft an email addressed to all of the people invited to or attending that event. The default text: “I’ll be a bit late, but I’m on my way. See you soon.” You can edit or just hit send to use it as is. We only wish this could send late notices to contacts via text too.

27. Get From A to Z

It’s not immediately obvious how you should navigate your People hub contacts. If you’ve added all of your social networks -- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn -- then the list of people can get too long to just swipe through. For quicker navigation you can just tap the header letter of a section, the “a” at the top, for example, and get a large overlay of all the letters in the alphabet. Tap one and hop over to that section of your contacts. Of course, you can always just tap the search icon at the bottom and type in your contact’s name.

28. Blocked Number

Remember back when you had to dial *69 to block your phone number and caller ID when making a prank call or dialing the number of your crush, who you were too afraid to speak to? Windows Phone 8 lets you choose who to show your caller ID to. You can select everyone, no one, or your contacts.

29. Attach Your Location

In Windows Phone 8 you can compose a text, tap the paper clip icon, and attach your location directly to the message. If your contact has a Windows Phone, they’ll receive a thumbnail of your location on the Maps app, which they can open up from there. If they have any other kind of phone, they’ll get a link that will open up in their browser.

30. Internet Explorer Buttons

Internet Explorer is speedy and smooth in Windows Phone 8, but it does have some quirks. For one, there’s no easy way to switch through tabs. But you can change this. By default, there is a stop/refresh button to the left of the address bar located at the bottom of the screen. If you go to the settings in IE, you can actually change that button to be either tabs, favorites or stop/refresh. We personally recommend the tabs button, since it’s much easier to switch through all of your windows than having to open up a separate menu.

Best Websites to Get University Level Education For Free

Not headed back to school this fall? You could be, minus the exorbitant tuition and without even leaving your chair. The web has made it easier than ever before to get a free education, and you'd join the ranks of great thinkers in history who were also self-taught, like Joseph Conrad, Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Paul Allen, Agatha Christie and Ernest Hemingway. You, too, can be an autodidact; the breadth of free educational materials available online is absolutely astonishing.

This article introduces you to the three best websites to get started.

Khan Academy



The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization, created in 2006 by Bangladeshi American educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. With the stated mission of "providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere", the website supplies a free online collection of more than 3,200 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics, history, healthcare and medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, organic chemistry, American civics, art history, microeconomics and computer science.

Coursera

Coursera is an educational for-profit company founded by professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller from Stanford University, located in Mountain View, California. Coursera was launched shortly after Udacity -- a similar venture by former Stanford Professor Sebastian Thrun, and shortly before edX, a similar not-for-profit initiative by MIT and Harvard.



Coursera has created partnerships with reputed Universities including University of Stanford; Michigan; Princeton; and Pennsylvania, and provides free online courses in the fields of Computer Science; Healthcare, Medicine and Biology; Society, Networks and Information; Humanities and Social Science; Mathematics and Statistics; and Economic, Finance and Business. Each course includes short video lectures on different topics and assignments to be submitted, usually on a weekly basis. In most humanities and social science courses, and other assignments where an objective standard may not be possible, a peer review system is used.


Academic Earth

Academic Earth is a website launched March 24, 2009, by Richard Ludlow and co-founders Chris Bruner and Liam Pisano, which offers free online video lectures from universities such as UC Berkeley, UCLA, University of Michigan, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale in the subjects of Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics, Engineering, English, Entrepreneurship, History, Law, Mathematics, Medicine, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, and Religion.

How to use VPN to defeat Deep Packet Inspection

Imagine a technology that can stop spam and malware, identify and block illegal downloads, and allow ISPs to prioritize the data they transmit by content as well as by type. Sounds pretty good.

Now imagine a technology that gives network managers and governments the ability to monitor everything you do on the Internet, including reading and recording your e-mail and other digital communications, and tracking your every move on the Web.

Of course, it's the same technology--deep packet inspection (DPI) by name. That's how governments around the world are able to spy on their citizens' online activities and control their access to the Internet.

ISPs have long been able to record every site you visit and track what you do on those sites. They can and do block access to specific sites.

But only recently has it become practical from a bandwidth and resource perspective for network providers to read all the data in the packets sent from and delivered to their customers' computers without slowing their networks to a crawl.

North Korea, China, Iran, and other countries routinely use deep packet inspection to block Internet content and keep tabs on their citizens.

The easiest way to cover your Web tracks is to encrypt your data and network connection. The most popular encryption services use a virtual private network(VPN).

Free VPN services come with a price
The free HTTPS Everywhere Firefox add-on from the Electronic Frontier Foundation automatically encrypts connections on sites that support the technology. Unfortunately, not all sites support HTTPS, among other limitations.

A more thorough technique for preventing your Web activities from being recorded is to establish a VPN connection. The Tech Support Alert site rates several free VPN services in its guide to anonymous-surfing products.

Topping the list are CyberGhost VPN, ProXPN, and SecurityKiss.

I tried the free versions of ProXPN and OpenVPN's Private Tunnel, but the first is too slow (and annoying), and the second gives you only 100MB of data transfers. The paid versions of both products remove these limitations, as you might have guessed.

Quick and simple setup, but painful performance in the free version

It took only a few minutes to install ProXPN and sign up for a free account. Click the red lock icon that appears in the Windows notification area or Mac menu bar to establish an encrypted connection.

Once your VPN connection is established, hover over the green lock icon to view the IP address and other information about the VPN server you're linking through.

The free version's slow 100Kbps maximum transfer speed harkens back to the pre-broadband days of dial-up modems. Also, when you open your browser you have to click through an annoying ProXPN "upgrade now" screen to get to your designated home page.

According to the company's site, the ProXPN Premium service has "no bandwidth restrictions, all available ports are open, PPTP VPN enabled (in addition to our standard OpenVPN), full access to all proXPN servers world-wide, and port selection." The premium version costs $10 a month or $50 for six months; the company offers a 7-day free trial.

Not much encryption offered by the free version of OpenVPN's Private Tunnel
Apart from the 100MB data limit, the open-source Private Tunnel service is a breeze to sign up for and use. But most Internet users will burn through the free version's data-transfer allotment in a couple of days. As with ProXPN, Private Tunnel places an icon on the desktop that you click to establish an encrypted connection.

The service offers 50GB of protected data transfers for $12 a year, 100GB for $20 per year, and 500GB for $50 per year; the company estimates that most people transfer between 50GB and 100GB of data per year.

By comparison, the free version of the OpenVPN-based SecurityKiss service provides up to 300MB of encrypted data transmissions per month for free. An account allowing up to 20GB per month costs $3.97 for one month or $31.71 for one year; while the service's unlimited plan costs $13.25 for one month or $119.26 for one year. (Three-month and six-month plans with various data limits are also available.)

Many people will respond to the privacy threat posed by deep packet inspection with a big yawn. After all, if you don't want to be tracked, don't use the Internet. But privacy advocates such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are unanimous in their opposition to indiscriminate online eavesdropping, whether it's done by public or private entities. For the time being, it remains possible to keep the trackers at bay. Use it or lose it.

How to Know a Malicious Link Without Clicking It

Even the best security software can’t protect you from the headaches you’ll encounter if you click an unsafe link. Unsafe links appear to be shortcuts to funny videos, shocking news stories, awesome deals, or “Like” buttons, but are really designed to steal your personal information or hijack your computer. Your friends can unknowingly pass on unsafe links in emails, Facebook posts, and instant messages. You’ll also encounter unsafe links in website ads and search results. Use these link-scanning tips to check suspicious links. All of these solutions are free, fast, and don’t require you to download anything.

Hover Over the Link

Sometimes a link masks the website to which it links. If you hover over a link without clicking it, you’ll notice the full URL of the link’s destination in a lower corner of your browser. For example, both of these links connect you to PCWorld’s home page, but you wouldn’t know that without hovering:

Click Here!

http://www.prohackingtricks.blogspot.com/

Use a Link Scanner

Link scanners are websites and plug-ins that allow you to enter the URL of a suspicious link and check it for safety. There are many free and reliable link scanners available; I suggest you try URLVoid first. URLVoid scans a link using multiple services, such as Google, MyWOT, and Norton SafeWeb, and reports the results to you quickly.

URLVoid scans several security databases for information on sketchy Web domain names.

Check Out Shortened Links

URLVoid can’t properly handle shortened URLs from services such as bitly, Ow.ly, and TinyURL (URLVoid will scan the shortening service website instead of the link to which it points). To scan the mysterious shortlinks you’ll often find on Twitter and Facebook, use Sucuri. Sucuri automatically expands the shortlink and draws upon a handful of services, such as Google, Norton SafeWeb, and PhishTank, to determine if the real link is safe. You can also use Sucuri for scanning nonshortened links, but URLVoid checks more sources.

Sucuri can help you determine whether shortened links are safe or not.

Copy a Link--Safely

Services like URLVoid and Sucuri require you to type in or paste a suspicious link—but how do you quickly and safely grab the URL without opening anything? Easy. Just right-click the link to bring up a context menu, then click Copy shortcut (in Internet Explorer), Copy Link Location (in Firefox), or Copy Link Address (in Chrome). The URL is now copied to your clipboard and you can paste it into any search field.

How to Install Windows 8 via USB Drive

Microsoft has just released a developer preview of its new operating system Windows 8. Users can now download the preview and install on their system to see how its works. But there is just one problem and that is you can't update an existing version of windows, it requires a clean installation.

It is a straight forward process when installing it with a CD/DVD Drive but if you're like me that has a 10inch notebook which doesn't come with a DVD drive then the only solution is to install via a USB stick or drive.

Installing Windows 8 from a USB drive is not that friendly because it requires more preparation that just burning an ISO image to disk and putting that ISO into the DVD drive of the computer.

You will need at least four Gigabytes free space of USB drive, which you have to first format with the FAT32 file system. This is done by connecting the USB drive to the company, right click its drive letter and select Format from the options. The Format windows pops up where you need to make sure that FAT32 is the selected file system. Everything else can be left as they are.

After the formatting is finished, you will need access to the Windows 8 ISO or DVD. The developer preview is only provided as an ISO image. Check out Windows 8 Download for instructions or download the developer preview right here.

The easiest way to copy Windows 8 to an USB drive and make that drive bootable at the same time is to use Microsoft’s Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. While designed specifically for Windows 7, it appears to work just fine to create a bootable Windows 8 USB key as well.

Just select the Windows 8 ISO when asked to pick an ISO image from the computer. Then select to copy the contents to an USB drive. The program will copy all files to the drive and make that drive bootable at the same time. You can download the Microsoft tool from here.

Install Windows 8

You plug in your USB key into the computer you want to install Windows 8 on. You need to tell the computer on first start to boot from USB and not from hard drive or another location. This is done in the Bios. You usually enter the Bios with F1, F1, Delete, Esc or another key that is highlighted on the screen on Post. Press that key and look for an entry that says Boot or Boot order and make sure that USB has the highest priority on the system. You can easily repeat the steps if the computer is not booting from USB.

The computer should pick up the installation files on the USB drive automatically and installation should commence.

Windows 8 has the following system requirements:

• 1 Gigahertz or faster 32-bit or 64-bit processor
• 1 Gigabyte of RAM for 32-bit, 2 Gigabytes of RAM for 64-bit minimum
• 16 Gigabyte hard drive for 32-bit systems, 20 Gigabyte for 64-bit systems
• Direct X 9 graphics card

Note: It is also possible to install Windows 8 by mounting the ISO image directly on another Windows system. The instructions have been posted on Reddit.

If you want to install the Windows Developer Preview, but have no blank DVDs or usable thumb drives, fear not. It’s fairly simple. This assumes you are installing the preview on a computer already running Windows, of course.

• Download the ISO file from Microsoft.
• Mount the ISO using Daemon Tools, Clone Drive, or similar.
• This is important. Do not use the autorun installer. The autorun installer only allows you to upgrade your existing Windows installation and will not allow you to install to a separate hard drive or partition.
• Navigate to the virtual install disc and go to the folder called “sources”.
• Run setup.exe and proceed as if installing Windows Vista or 7.

5 Tricks for Maximizing your Android Screen Space

No matter how tricked-out your Android layout is, you'll always find something new you want to do that takes one click too many to reach. Just as all projects go over budget, all your favorite apps and bookmarks are sure to spill over beyond your home screen. There's no one perfect solution for everyone, but there are a few habits and tools that can help keep your digital life close at hand.

Be ruthless. Clear your device of any applications you don't use, and clear your home screen of everything you don't either use every day (like Foursquare) or need to access instantly (like the QikCam photo widget). You shouldn't agonize over your choices--remember that you can always add apps or widgets back in if you miss them too much.

Organize. This is key. Just a few minutes of rearranging icons can save you time, energy, and frustration over the long term. You don't need to arrange everything alphabetically; just make sure that your screens make sense to you. Typically the home screen is best for frequently used apps, while other nearby screens are for apps you want to be able to access quickly (but don't need to access instantly). Having themed screens such as a media screen and a fitness screen often works well.

Use folders. If you don't mind two-click access, adding a folder or two to your home screen can add acres of virtual screen space. It's easy: just long-press the screen, select "Folders," and select a type, typically "New folder." To name the folder, open the folder by tapping it, then long-press the extra-boring default name ("Folder") and type in a new, memorable name. Organize these folders however you like, but it's best to keep each one down to 12 items for easiest access.

Rely on notifications and streams. Do you really need your e-mail or Gmail apps available on your home screen? Unless you're initiating new messages every day, the answer is probably no. In your account settings, just make sure that your apps check for e-mail frequently and deliver notifications to the top bar. This can also work well for Facebook and other services that deliver notifications in the top bar or can be accessed as streams on less valuable screen real estate.

Try SmartWidget or other app launchers. SmartWidget is a useful, free app with a widget that takes up four slots on your screen, which seems like far too much until you learn its secret. It gives you access to the four most frequently used apps on your device--except those that are already on the home screen. This is a clever bit of wizardry that could save some time and effort for those of us who are constantly installing new apps. There are plenty of other app launchers out there, so find the one that works best for you.

How to Crimp your own Ethernet Cables

The steps below are general Ethernet cable construction guidelines. For this example, I will be showing you how to make a network cable, and this general method will work for any category of network cables.

Before you get started, make sure you have the necessary tools, and decide whether you're going to use Cat 5e or Cat 6 network cables.

What you'll need:

• Unshielded twisted pair (UTP) patch cable
• Modular connector (8P8C plug, aka RJ45)
• Crimping tool
• Cable tester (optional, but recommended)

There are four pairs of wires in an Ethernet cable, and an Ethernet connector (8P8C) has eight pin slots. Each pin is identified by a number, starting from left to right, with the clip facing away from you.

The two standards for wiring Ethernet cables are T568A and T568B. T568B is the most common and is what we'll be using for our straight Ethernet cable. The tables below show the proper orientation of the colored wires to the pins.

T568A Standard

Pin 1	White/Green
Pin 2	Green
Pin 3	White/Orange
Pin 4	Blue
Pin 5	White/Blue
Pin 6	Orange
Pin 7	White/Brown
Pin 8	Brown

T586B Standard

Pin 1	White/Orange
Pin 2	Orange
Pin 3	White/Green
Pin 4	Blue
Pin 5	White/Blue
Pin 6	Green
Pin 7	White/Brown
Pin 8	Brown

Step 1: Strip the cable jacket about 1.5 inch down from the end.

Step 2: Spread the four pairs of twisted wire apart. For Cat 5e, you can use the pull string to strip the jacket farther down if you need to, then cut the pull string. Cat 6 cables have a spine that will also need to be cut.

Step 3: Untwist the wire pairs and neatly align them in the T568B orientation. Be sure not to untwist them any farther down the cable than where the jacket begins; we want to leave as much of the cable twisted as possible.

Step 4: Cut the wires as straight as possible, about 0.5 inch above the end of the jacket.

Step 5: Carefully insert the wires all the way into the modular connector, making sure that each wire passes through the appropriate guides inside the connector.

Step 6: Push the connector inside the crimping tool and squeeze the crimper all the way down.

Step 7: Repeat steps 1-6 for the other end of the cable.

Step 8: To make sure you've successfully terminated each end of the cable, use a cable tester to test each pin.

When you're all done, the connectors should look like this:

That's it. For crossover cables, simply make one end of the cable a T568A and the other end a T568B. Now you can make Ethernet cables of any length, fix broken connectors, or make yourself a crossover cable.

My sincere thanks goes to Ed Rhee for sharing this tutorial

How to Use the Facebook Video Calling Features

Facebook recently teamed with Skype to launched the video calling features inside facebook platform. As Google + is posing threat to the social giant, Facebook is finding new strategies and techniques to hold its ground.

Google + began beta-testing its own video chat feature, Google+ Hangouts, last week.

The only challenge Facebook have for now is, Facebook-Skype calls one person at a time while Google Hangouts has the capacity of calling 10 people at a time.

Although looking at the social graph of both giants, Facebook currently has 750 million active users which is by far the highest since Myspace packed up. Apprently Facebook dominates the social graph and Google + has not even launched theirs to the public yet.

Facebook also admits that the feature is user-friendly and even the less tech-savvy on Facebook should be able to master it's features.

Click here to see how to use

How to Bring In Your Facebook Contacts to Google +

UPDATE: Facebook has blocked the former method

But don't be too saddened, there is this new Google Chrome extension that makes extracting Facebook contacts a lot easier, and also reconstruct your respective social graphs on Google +.

Facebook Friends Exporter as this extension is called, allows you to transfer details that your Facebook friends have shared with you (i.e. their names, email addresses, phone numbers, websites, addresses and birthdays).  The information should be saved as a CSV file or imported directly into your Gmail address book as a folder labeled "Facebook contacts Imported"

A user’s Google+ connections are based upon his or her Gmail address book. To get started, users are encouraged to sift through their Google contacts to add them to “Circles” for friends, family, classmates, co-workers and other custom groups. Circles is Google’s attempt to help users interact better with specific social groups.

According to CNET reporter Stephen Shankland he noted that that this tool probably won’t rub well with Facebook, citing Section 3.2 of Facebook’s terms of service: “You will not collect users’ content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission.”

Apparently there will be some sort of opposition between the two social giants, because Google has for long held the philosophy of users been able to extract their data (i mean their entire data, including Google contacts using Google Takeout). And Facebook on the other hand, attest to this as a very "serious privacy concerns".

Now i ought to warn you that using this extension is at your own risk according to the programmer Mohamed Mansour. Currently 30k + users have used it and not one of them have received ban notice from Facebook.

Add All Your Friends from Facebook To Google +

UPDATE: Facebook has just blocked this tool.

While you're settling into Google+, you might notice that it's a little lonely without your friends.

Since most of your friends are currently on Facebook (and might not even know about Google+), you'll need to help them make the switch.

Here's how:

Step 1:

Log into your Yahoo Mail account. If you don't have one yet, create one. Then, head to the "Contacts" tab in the mail dashboard. Click "Import contacts" and then select the Facebook icon in the next screen. You'll be asked to authorize the connection.

Yahoo will import all your Facebook friends' names and e-mails into your contacts list.

Step 2: Go to Google+, log in, and click "View and edit" in the sidebar on the right (below "in your circles"). In the next window, click "Find and invite." Click "Yahoo," agree to the terms, and watch as Google imports your Yahoo contacts (from Facebook) into Google+.

Step 3: Add all the Facebook friends you want on Google+ into your custom Circles. Then go to the Google+ dashboard, compose a post, and share it with those circles. Make sure to check "Also e-mail * people not yet using Google+".

Upon publishing your post, your friends will be indirectly invited to Google+.

Because Facebook doesn't allow third parties to grab users' e-mail addresses, the company will likely continue to shut down apps and extensions like, Facebook Friend Exporter, that attempt to do so.

Other Web development teams are attempting to bypass Facebook restrictions, but this Yahoo Mail workaround is the only legitimate way to get your Facebook friends onto Google+ (for now).

And if you are reading this and you've not yet gotten access to Google +, give me your email address i'll send you an invite.

UPDATE: Facebook has just blocked this tool