Free Antivirus Software From Microsoft

Keeping your Windows PC secure from viruses and spyware can be both difficult and expensive, and some of the popular security suites out there are known to slow down computers.

Yes, there are quite a few free antivirus software programs available on the web but they are often designed to convince you to purchase the professional edition and thus nag users with prompts to purchase the commercial version.

 If you are looking for a non-bloated software that doesn't nag you at anytime, try Security Essentials - it's one of the best anti-virus and anti-malware programs that is lightweight and absolutely free as long as you are running a genuine copy of Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 on your computers.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a capable application that has been streamlined to run efficiently even on notebooks or older computers with low resources. But even on a modern computer with multiple cores and several gigs of ram, a lightweight antivirus solution will definitely make your computer a bit speedier. Security Essentials is also ideal for running in virtual environments such as the new XP Mode for Windows 7.

Microsoft Security Essentials is not just lightweight but easy to use as well.  After downloading the small installer (it's less than 10 MB in size), installation takes less than a minute and it will immediately start protecting your computer from virus attacks. When Security Essentials is scanning your computer for problems, you can still work as normal as the software has been designed to use a limited amount of system resources if a user is using the computer while a scan is in progress.

The software will automatically download new definition from the Internet through Windows Update, and these will be installed on the computer without requiring user intervention. Additionally, Security Essentials is the first product to make use of Microsoft’s Dynamic Signature Service that enables the program to get the latest definitions as soon as their computer suspects a threat.

Although viruses have traditionally been the main security concern in Windows PCs, the security landscape has changed and computers users now have to face threats of rootkits, malware, and spyware in addition to viruses. Windows Defender was designed to keep adware and spyware off your computer but Security Essentials works against most types of threats. The software has received favorable reviews and one of the testers noted that Security Essentials detected all of their sample threats correctly without giving any false positive reports.

Stay secure without sacrificing your computer’s speed or your hard-earned money. Microsoft Security Essentials replaces both Windows Live OneCare and Windows Defender.

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Create Animated GIFs with Your Videos

Animated GIF images may remind you of those cluttered and distracting homepages of the Geocities era but take a peek at this impressive tumblr blog and it might forever change the way you think of GIFs.

The site features a brilliant collection of GIF animations created using frames of classic movie scenes that play in an endless loop. Here are some examples:

 

How to Create GIF Animations?

There are free tools available that let you easily convert video clips into animated GIFs that you can later host on sites like Flickr or Tumblr - not all image hosting sites support animated GIFs but the one mentioned here do.

This is a two-step process – first convert the video into a sequence of image frames and then assemble these frames into a looping GIF animation with some custom delay.

Step 1: Download FFmpeg for Windows from sourceforge.net and extract the ffmpeg.exe file to, say, the c:\ffmpeg\ folder. The .7z files can be unzipped using the 7-zip utility.

Step 2: Now we’ll extract the frames from our video file. The command* is simple.

c:\ffmpeg\ffmpeg.exe -i movie.avi img-%03d.gif

If your video file is in another folder, you need to specify the full path of that file. Also, you may use MP4, MOV or any video format as well instead of AVI.

Step 3: Grab this portable utility called UnFreez and drag-n-drop all the image frames created in the previous step from Windows Explorer into the UnFreez window.

Enable “loop animation” and set the frame delay to say 20 cs (1 cs = 0.01 second).  Click “Make animated GIF” and preview your image is in any browser.

Screencast: Converting videos into GIF movies

[*] If you have a fairly long video file and would only like to convert a portion of it into an image, you need to slightly modify the ffmpeg parameters as shown below: 

c:\ffmpeg\ffmpeg.exe -i movie.avi –ss 5 –t 3 img-%03d.gif

The parameter ‘ss’ refers to the start position in the video while ‘t’ is the duration for which you want to extract the frames. So in the above example, image frames for the file movie.avi will be at created from the 5 second mark for the next 3 seconds on the video. 

If you would like to stop GIFs from animating in the browser, just hit the Escape key.

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Facebook goes old to their News Feed

Today Facebook announced an update to its much contested news feed. This new version builds upon the current hybrid news feed, and has some aspects of the old one. But instead of being able to toggle back-and-forth between "top news" and "recent news," users will see a "sort" button at the top which gives them the option to see highlighted stories first, or recent stories first. 

This is big news for Facebook users, who have complained relentlessly since the news feed switched over to hybrid.
Giving users the option to experience a news feed that's closer to the old one seems like a smart move Facebook.

 

Post by Facebook..

UPDATE on Wednesday, November 9th, 2011: Now you have a new way of sorting your News Feed: most recent stories first.  You can also continue to view highlighted stories first, followed by recent stories, like what you see today.  If you don't have the updates to News Feed yet, you can expect to see them over the coming weeks as the rollout continues.

Originally Published on Tuesday, September 20, 2011: When you visit Facebook, you should see the things you're most interested in, like status updates from your family and closest friends. Last week, we announced improvements to Friend Lists and a new Subscribe button to help you see more of what you care about, and less of what you don't.

But it's not just the people you hear from that make your News Feed interesting. It also matters how much you visit Facebook. If you haven't returned in a week, you may want to see a summary of top stories first. If you've already visited several times that day, you probably care more about recent news.

Starting today, it will be easier to keep up with the people in your life no matter how frequently or infrequently you're on Facebook.

News Feed: See What Matters at the Top

When you pick up a newspaper after not reading it for a week, the front page quickly clues you into the most interesting stories. In the past, News Feed hasn't worked like that.  Updates slide down in chronological order so it's tough to zero in on what matters most.  

Now, News Feed will act more like your own personal newspaper. You won't have to worry about missing important stuff. All your news will be in a single stream with the most interesting stories featured at the top. If you haven't visited Facebook for a while, the first things you'll see are top photos and statuses posted while you've been away. They're marked with an easy-to-spot blue corner.

If you check Facebook more frequently, you'll see the most recent stories first. Photos will also be bigger and easier to enjoy while you're scrolling through.

Ticker: Join Friends in Real-Time

News Feed often has a time lag. Usually when you're on Facebook, a lot of your friends are too. Until now, there hasn't been an easy way to see and chat with your friends about photos, articles, and other things they're posting in real-time. The new ticker helps you do just that.

Ticker shows you the same stuff you were already seeing on Facebook, but it brings your conversations to life by displaying updates instantaneously. Now when a friend comments, asks a question or shares something like a check in, you'll be able to join the conversation right away. Click on anything in ticker to see the full story and chime in – without losing your place.

If you have a wider screen, slide the grey bar between ticker and chat up or down to adjust how many updates you see at a time. To control who can see your updates anywhere on Facebook, including in ticker and News Feed, adjust your sharing control or apps settings.

We hope these improvements make your conversations on Facebook more lively, no matter how often you visit. For tips about how to use improved Friend Lists, and the new Subscribe button right from News Feed, check out this video.

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Ways to Get Back Accidentaly Deleted Files

It only takes a moment of carelessness to permanently delete important data from your PC. But don't worry, you may still be able to recover most of it, if you stop using your-PC immediately and use data recovery software. When a file is deleted, even from inside the Recycle Bin, it doesn't actually vanish from the hard drive.

Instead, the computer merely changes the file's properties to make it invisible to the user. The file truly gets deleted only when the operating system overwrites fresh data to that space. You can try to recover thedeleted files using free software.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery

This is a versatile software. It can not only recover the deleted files, but also help you save data from damaged partitions, pen drives, SD cards and CDs. MiniTool puts the retrieved files in folders, but you will have to go through several folders, Lost Files and Desktop, for example, before you find the actual files you were looking for. Once you have found the files, just click "save files" to get your data back. www.powerdatarecovery.com

Recuva

This lacks the advanced features of Mini-Tool , but one advantage of using Recuva is that you can see a preview before saving the retrieved files. This is handy because the computer often changes the names of deleted files to something like $ABC.MP3. www.piriform.com/recuva

Glary Undelete

In our tests, this was the slowest of the three. But one good feature is its ability to home in on the full name of the deleted files. This makes finding the right files a lot easier. www.glarysoft.com/products/ utilities/glary-undelete/

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Checkout the Facilities at Google,Facebook,Twitter Workplace

Are you a techie looking for work? We recently offered some tips on landing jobs at Google, Apple and Facebook, but there are more companies in the Valley than those three. And you might be wondering what the culture is like at each of these companies, as well as at LinkedIn, Twitter, Eventbrite, Gaia and Tagged.

Back in August, we brought you word of awesome perks at various startups; now, we bring you perks at a number of Silicon Valley’s largest and finest. From yoga to catered lunches, 401(k)s to dry cleaning, sports teams to vacation days, these tech companies seem to understand that quality of life affects productivity — and that having to run fewer errands after work means you’re more likely to stay at the office.

Check out the infographic below from ResumeBear for a breakdown of who offers what perks. Do you work at any of these companies and take advantage of any of these perks? Let us know in the comments below.

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25 Most Liked Pages on Facebook

Facebook’s Page again topped our quarterly list of the top Pages by the number of Likes, as measured by our PageData tool. As with past lists, the majority of the names on this one remain unchanged even as all of them grew. Both Facebook and Zynga’s Texas Hold’em Poker reached over 50 million, with several others above 40 million Likes.

The number of Likes that Pages on our list had ranged from Facebook’s 54 million down to MTV’s 28.3 million.

See how other top brands are maximizing their returns on their Facebook campaigns in the Facebook Marketing Bible. See the list below:

1. Facebook – 54,031,990

2. Texas Hold’em Poker – 51,151,002

3. Eminem – 47,880,731

4. YouTube – 46,059,390

5. Rihanna – 45,905,971

6. Lady Gaga – 44,288,366

7. Michael Jackson – 41,557,728

8. Shakira – 41,109,665

9. Family Guy – 38,543,871

10. Justin Bieber – 36,690,985

11. Harry Potter – 35,671,699

12. Katy Perry – 35,636,341

13. Linkin Park – 35,393,553

14. The Simpsons – 35,382,429

15. Cristiano Ronaldo – 35,016,634

16. Coca-Cola – 34,714,743

17. South Park – 34,329,509

18. Lil Wayne – 31,878,344

19. Bob Marley – 31,737,524

20. AKON – 31,301,325

21. Disney – 28,914,893

22. Megan Fox – 28,851,053

23. Music – 28,774,416

24. Beyoncé – 28,585,631

25. MTV – 28,338,730

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Create an Infographic Resume with these Tools

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

 

As a freelancer or job seeker, it is important to have a resume that stands out among the rest — one of the more visually pleasing options on the market today is the infographic resume.

An infographic resume enables a job seeker to better visualize his or her career history, education and skills.

Unfortunately, not everyone is a graphic designer, and whipping up a professional-looking infographic resume can be a difficult task for the technically unskilled job seeker. For those of us not talented in design, it can also be costly to hire an experienced designer to toil over a career-centric infographic.

Luckily, a number of companies are picking up on this growing trend and building apps to enable the average job seeker to create a beautiful resume.

To spruce up your resume, check out these four tools for creating an infographic CV. If you’ve seen other tools on the market, let us know about them in the comments below.

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1. Vizualize.me

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Vizualize.me is a new app that turns a user’s LinkedIn profile information into a beautiful, web-based infographic.

After creating an account and connecting via LinkedIn, a user can edit his or her profile summary, work experience, education, links, skills, interests, languages, stats, recommendations and awards. And voila, a stunning infographic is created.

The company’s vision is to “be the future of resumes.” Lofty goal, but completely viable, given that its iteration of the resume is much more compelling than the simple, black-and-white paper version that currently rules the world.

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2. Re.vu

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Re.vu, a newer name on the market, is another app that enables a user to pull in and edit his or her LinkedIn data to produce a stylish web-based infographic.

The infographic layout focuses on the user’s name, title, biography, social links and career timeline — it also enables a user to add more graphics, including stats, skill evolution, proficiencies, quotes and interests over time.

Besides the career timeline that is fully generated via the LinkedIn connection, the other graphics can be a bit tedious to create, as all of the details must be entered manually.

In the end, though, a very attractive infographic resume emerges. This is, by far, the most visually pleasing option of all of the apps we reviewed.

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3. Kinzaa

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Based on a user’s imported LinkedIn data, Kinzaa creates a data-driven infographic resume that focuses on a user’s skills and job responsibilities throughout his or her work history.

The tool is still in beta, so it can be a bit wonky at times — but if you’re looking for a tool that helps outline exactly how you’ve divided your time in previous positions, this may be your tool of choice.

Unlike other tools, it also features a section outlining the user’s personality and work environment preferences. Details such as preferences on company size, job security, challenge level, culture, decision-making speed and more are outlined in the personality section, while the work environment section focuses on the user’s work-day length, team size, noise level, dress code and travel preferences.

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4. Brazen Careerist Facebook App

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Brazen Careerist, the career management resource for young professionals, launched a new Facebook application in September that generates an infographic resume from a user’s Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn information.

After a user authorizes the app to access his or her Facebook and LinkedIn data, the app creates an infographic resume with a unique URL — for example, my infographic resume is located at brazen.me/u/ericaswallow.

The infographic features a user’s honors, years of experience, recommendations, network reach, degree information, specialty keywords, career timeline, social links and LinkedIn profile image.

The app also creates a “Career Portfolio” section which features badges awarded based on a user’s Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn achievements. Upon signing up for the app, I earned eight badges, including “social media ninja,” “team player” and “CEO in training.” While badges are a nice addition, they aren’t compelling enough to keep me coming back to the app.

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Your Thoughts

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Have you used a web app to create an infographic resume? If so, which tool did you use and how was your experience? Let us know in the comments below.

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LED Lenses to make augmented vision Reality

Okay, this is just freaky. We know LED lights are versatile enough to be used for practically anything, but LED contact lenses? Really?! Yes, as it turns out, really. 

"University of Washington researchers have figured out how to implant semitransparent red and blue LED lights in contact lenses, for the purpose of receiving and displaying data in sharp visual images and video." This means wearers will literally be able to watch TV or view photos that are projected directly onto their eyeballs.

Once miniature green LEDs are developed (and they’re in the works, as of now), full color displays will be possible. Once that happens, the possibilities are endless. Think about everything your smart phone can do right now, and imagine the same being possible for your eyeball. This news is a little scary and a lot fascinating, if you ask me—at the very least, with LED contact lenses, your hands would be free to pet your robot or tinker with your hover board.

Lead researcher Babak Parvis comments “You won’t necessarily have to shift your focus to see the image generated by the contact lens,” it would just appear in front of you and your view of the real world will be completely unobstructed when the display is turned off.

Ah, the real world. With augmented reality becoming a reality, it feels like the real world is fast becoming a relic of the past.

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