Archive for January 2010
Regarding any Microsoft’s Windows OS, a good antivirus program is a key point when you are surfing the Internet. It seems everyone has his own favorite solution to virus with personal feature, but in terms of security experts, there are universal principles for Windows OS anti-virus:
1. Install Antivirus before Connecting the Internet
Do install anti-virus software in any PC of Microsoft’s Windows OS before connecting the Internet, since the speed of malware infecting the computer is faster than that of downloading anti-virus program. If you don’t realize this and take for granted that you needn’t worry about virus infecting your PC before you open the browser to visit any website, you are playing Russian Roulette on the PC security.
2. Choose the Antivirus Containing Real-time Scan Tool
To protect your PC from being infected with viruses or worms, you need a real-time auto-scan tool to ensure you can detect the presence of virus in daily work and prevent virus spreading. Real-time scanning may bring more pressure to the system performance so we often close it, but do make careful consideration. In fact, it’s inadvisable to close the real-time scanning to get extra performance improvement when you are browsing webpage and sending and receiving email.
3. Full Scan the System Regularly
Relying on only real-time scan is far from enough; you also need to ensure full scanning the system regularly. If possible, you should have your computer full scanned automatically everyday, since real-time scan can only effectively protect the system from being infected during connecting and even so, it’s probable that some viruses are not included in the characteristic codebase of your antivirus program and thus can not be detected.. Therefore, full scanning the system regularly is necessary.
4. Don’t Use Two Antivirus Programs at the Same Time
It will bring nothing but troubles using two antivirus programs at the same time, because two antivirus programs running together in the system will cause such problems as their real-time scan tools may conflict in control rights thus impairing the system performance and the virus signature file of the antivirus program may be handled as actual virus by the other one. In a word, to have two incompatible antivirus programs run in your PC may lead to many unexpected situations.
In addition, you can refer to another article of mine by clicking here to find some kind of antivirus recommended and some tips to make your PC run smoothly.
At present the mobile Internet is sharply heating up and there are more and more people surfing the Internet with handsets. It’s because on the one hand, the telecom operators are down-regulating the charge for surfing the Internet with handsets and vigorously promoting application such as I-news, mobile payment and mobile negotiable securities in the industry chain which stimulates user demand; on the other hand, counterfeit handsets develop rapidly with cheap price and support for mobile Internet, which objectively provides hardware foundation for surfing Internet with handsets.
Therefore, more and more Internet enterprises and carriers get involved in this new media – mobile Internet, hoping to win a share. In my opinion, there are three ways worth exploring the mobile Internet to make profit:
Advertisement Model
Whether Yahoo’s portal model or Google’s search model is ad model in spite of the forms of this ad model vary: it may be display ad or keyword ad. Someone thinks ad model won’t be the mainstream commercial model since the handset screen is much smaller than PC screen which will greatly impair the richness of ad displaying contents. Besides, people surf Internet with handset at odd times, for example: when on the way to someplace or waiting, which also decides advertising by wireless Internet will be much weaker than by wired Internet.
However, there are some mobile Internet practitioners who have great expectations for ad model with such viewpoint as although the handset screen is small, the intended target of the handset is much more accurate than wired Internet for the user of each handset is definite, so considering the marketing efficiency, the handset ad is better than wired Internet ad.
In terms of Japan, there are two kinds of ad developing well: one is search ad and the other is banner and textlink. Nevertheless, if lots of banners and textlinks are added on the mobile Internet in some countries such as China whose traffic charge is rather high, users’ surfing cost will be greatly increased and thus this model won’t work at the present stage.
Mobile Business
The rise of Alibaba made the IT industry reacquaint the e-business model and now we expect a good future of e-business on mobile Internet. In Japan, mobile phones can carry out payment. Some Japanese handsets are implanted certain chips which enables people to directly swipe their handsets for taking the metro and bus or using the vending machine. But the development of e-business on mobile Internet may be rather slow for the deficiency of credit system and e-payment system in some countries.
Mobile Online Game
So far, some traditional online game makers have tried to develop mobile online games but haven’t been in full swing that may be because making money on mobile online games is rather slow. Mobile online games are totally different from PC online games. For example, PC online games quite depend on the cybercafe resource while the mobile online games depend on the relevancy to the handset users. When will the mobile online game outburst? Maybe it can only be when all the present industry leaders of the PC online game go for it.
In this new media age, how should the mobile Internet create new profiting models and what services should it push? These are questions needing the industry to explore. No one knows which model will bloom with brilliant flowers but everyone can sow seeds according to their resources and ability. Ad, e-business and online game, probably each way has chance to succeed and the success belongs to the one nearest to users.
Recently I came across a problem that I couldn’t install Cisco Vpn CLient software after I had installed 64 bit OS in my computer in order to use more than 4G RAM. What’s more, I could not install Cisco Vpn Client in any 64 bit OS no matter Windows 2003 or Windows 7.Without installing this software, I had no access to the internal resource of our company network as our company uses VPN dial-in of IPSEC. Thus I searched online and at last I found ShrewSoft Vpn Client software. I installed it in 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate to try my luck and I was glad it worked.
The way to use it is as below.
1. After installation, open it from Start\Program and get the following screenshot:
2. Click File\Import to import former configuration file including the configuration file of CISCO VPN CLIENT – pcf file.
3. After the file is imported, the screenshot is as below:
4. Choose the filename of the imported configuration file and then right-click Connect to input your username and password and now it can be connected.
However, it is displayed on the taskbar instead of auto concealing into the notification area like CISCO VPN CLIENT. The way to solve this problem is to open File\Preferences and choose the options showed in the red frames in the below screenshot.
After this setting, it will be displayed in notification area after you log in. You can minimize the window to the notification area after connection and the username is remembered.
It works well after connection and the computer system speed is not slowed. What’s more, it is a freeware. If you have the same problem as me, you can download it at: http://www.shrew.net/download/vpn. I chose the newest in Development version and it passed test in 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate.
Tip: Remember not to choose the Stable version when downloading; otherwise the pcf file can not be imported.
As the development of knowledge and civilization of human being, people are more and more eager for knowing the unexplored fields and an important way to observe the vast expanse of the universe is through astronomical telescope. However, if you are unable to purchase the expensive astronomical observation equipments, can you observe the astronomical phenomena? Yes! Try the 5 free softwares introduced below and you will find lots of the astronomical phenomena and objects can be simulated which are based on real data. Through them, you can feast your eyes without cost.
Google Earth is a virtual globe software developed by Google and was rated as one of the top 100 new products in the world in 2005 by PCWorld. It lays out the satellite photos, aerial photography and GIS on a 3D model and people can download the free client software to browse the satellite images with high definition from around the globe.
An interesting feature Google Sky was added to Google Earth to the 4.2 version and the later version. Google Sky is like a virtual astronomical telescope to let you roam among hundreds of millions of stars. It enables you to browse and observe with magnification one hundred million stars and two hundred million galaxies from the viewpoint of Earth. Besides, it can show through different layers the star evaluation history, asterism constellations, high definition photos taken by Hubble Space Telescope and galaxy guides. A local space layer let you click directly among stars, galaxies and nebulas that can be seen by naked eyes or small telescopes.
Carina Nebula taken by Hubble camera
Also there is web-based Google Sky so people can experience the pleasure of explore the universe by browser without downloading the software.
Celestia is a free open source software which can run on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. With it, you can not only look down Earth from above but also travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100 thousand stars and even out of the galaxy. You can view the nebulas at a distance and also observe the aircrafts near with all movement seamless. There is a large catalog of stars, planets, satellites, comets and spacecraft in Celestia. What’s more, you can download and install extension databases conveniently if you want more.
To operate Celestia is simple and you can control it by shortcut keys:
[F8]: begin running
Keys 1-9: shortcut keys represent nine planets
Space key: suspend and revert
K and L: accelerate time and decelerate time
0: show the orbit
I believe you will find more wonderful features during using it.
Stellarium is also a free open source software and can run on Linux/Unix, Windows and Mac OS X. It uses OpenGL to render the starry sky in real time so the starry sky is the same as that you see by snaked eyes, telescope or astronomical telescope.
It will be of full screen automatically after starting and a vast starry sky is presented before our eyes. You can choose different planets such as the moon and the Mars as start points to observe the space
NASA World Wind is co-presented by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). It’s more authoritative and is totally free at present.
You can see any place on Earth from outer space through the 3D engine of this program. The highest resolution of World Wind can reach one pels standing for 15 meters by combining with online database, which means some big streets can be seen very clear. In addition, you can have a 3D flight around Earth to experience flying over Everest, hurricane sweeping Florida and the climate change situation.
StarStrider is not free but it provides a 30 day trial. It enables you to travel on different planets and look at the sky on outer planets.
Imagine the starry sky seen from Sirius, the solar system seen from Cassiopeia, or Taurus seen from its back. Isn’t these cool? StarStrider lets you do all of these cool things.
Like them? You can download them now and have a try, but before you do it remember to have a look at the system requirements specified on the product websites.
Most people may not think of Microsoft when referring to Web application and service, though Microsoft has made a series of Web applications and services, some of which can be on a par with or even better than the products of the network tycoons like Google and Yahoo.
Then, which are Microsoft’s top Web services? Here I would like to introduce the top 5 after I tried numerous Microsoft’s Web services and all the 5 ones are free.
You will find most of the services below are with “Live” brand and you may be confused with the “Live” product line of Microsoft, especially after Microsoft pushed out Live Essentials applications. In fact, Windows Live is the collective brand name for a set of services and software products from Microsoft with most of these services being web application, while Live Essentials containing Photo Gallery, Movie Maker and Instant Messenger, is one of the ways to offer Windows Live services.
Windows Live SkyDrive is a store service like its name – the hard disk in the “cloud” which provides 25G web store space. With Windows Live SkyDrive, you can upload and download your private files whenever and wherever possible and let others add or upgrade files in the shared folder.
However, SkyDrive is not perfect. You can not use it as a virtual drive – it won’t show up in My Computer, so you can not directly save a file to the SkyDrive, but this is just a small flaw. You have no reason to require a free store service with 25 GB space to be perfect, especially considering Google has just launched such service named GDrive as a part of Google Docs recently and Yahoo’s Briefcase closed in March 2009 supplied only 25M space. Therefore, it is reasonable to classify SkyDrive to the list of the best online store services
Windows Live Sync is the software for remote sharing, which lets you synchronize or share your files on Internet simply and conveniently. To use the complete service, you need to install a client program and an activex control. After installing the client program, you need to log in the site of Windows Live Sync to fill in the information you want to be synchronized in your personal computer.
You can use it to create images of important folders (such as Favorite, Picture and Documents) so that they can keep synchronizing all the time. Besides, you can access your files at anytime when being out by connecting the synchronic computer through remote system. Finally, it makes sharing files so easy. You can share files with your friends, colleagues and family by just adding or upgrading files in the shared files with the file size Sync can handle up to 4GB.
Different from some commercial synchronic services, Windows Live Sync doesn’t store your file copies in the cloud. It is just a channel to connect all of your computers. However, it is because Sync isn’t involved in any online store that it has no limit to the synchronic data volume.
Live Mesh was a great attempt that Microsoft tried to link all of our data together and it succeed. It can not only synchronize the data in different devices of a single user but also supply the shared space for multiple users.
Superficially, Live Mesh is quite similar to the other synchronic services such as Dropbox, SugarSync and even FolderShare which also belongs to Microsoft. Actually, what makes Live Mesh special is the platformization ambition. It can synchronize data from various devices including the Windows PC, the Mac and the mobile phone or even other hardware devices in the future.
Different from the synchronization of files and folders between one PC and another PC, you can create folders in Live Mesh and make all of your personal devices keep synchronic with these folders. In addition, you can access theses files and folders anytime and anywhere by any machine on Internet. Meanwhile, you have considerable control rights with the synchronization. You can choose files smaller than 500MB or files revised in the past 30 days to be synchronized. Also, Live Mesh supports remote control. So far, Microsoft has never indicated to charge for this service or limit the data volume you can store.
Microsoft Office Live Workspace
Microsoft Office Live Workspace is an online collaboration product to let people access and share Microsoft Office files. Its main target users are individual, small-scale business users and education circles not the large enterprises who expect to access files anywhere.
To begin to use it, you need to have a shared workspace first by choosing the one right for you from the 11 preset workspaces such as Project Workspace, Conference Workspace and Travel Workspace. Of course, you can also create a workspace for yourself. Every workspace will have a built template including PowerPoint presentation file, Excel worksheet and Word file. The members in the workgroup can edit and save the file and remote share and collaborate with the others. To edit the Office files, you need to install a free Office plugin but to browse the file doesn’t need this plugin even no need to have Office installed.
Compared with Google Docs or Zoho, the advantage of Office Live Workspace is the seamless integration with Microsoft Office. You can save files in the workspace and can also use Office programs to edit the files in the workspace. The most important is that it’s better to create files and workspace in the way of template driving.
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Mobile Internet Needs Top Speed Action – Drawn from Lenovo’s Product Release
0 Comments | Posted by Bob in Internet
The recent two years mobile Internet has been being very popular. Apple’s iPhone swept a big popularity whirlwind over the world in 2009, since it represents the feature of mobile Internet—lightweight and portability. As the next fertile soil of IT field, mobile Internet also attracts some Internet companies and PC manufacturers such as Google and Lenovo.
As we know, Google has launched its own brand phone Nexus One recently. Obviously, as the terminal of mobile Internet, the mobile phone naturally is a field of strategic importance and in order to get a right to speak in this field, Google released its mobile phone which is a shortcut for it to enter this field. Google as a Internet company disinclines to be hands-off at this big business; Lenovo as a PC maker certainly is unwilling to be outdone. You may still remember the event of Lenovo buyback of Lenovo Mobile at the end of 2009 which was regarded as an important signal of Lenovo marching on mobile Internet and now one month past, Lenovo officially announced the mobile Internet strategy at CES 2010 last week on January 6.
There was only one month from buyback of Lenovo Mobile to official announcement of mobile Internet strategy and the three heavyweight products were released at the same time. In this way, Lenovo really acted in the mobile Internet at top speed which not only made its competitors be caught unprepared but also the users be taken by surprise.
Top Speed of Releasing Three Products All at Once
At the CES 2010, Lenovo released the mobile Internet products of its first generation: smartbook Skylight, smartphone LePhone and dual-mode notebook ideapad U1 with brand-new creative idea. Regardless the features of the three products, just the momentum of releasing all at once took the industry’s breath away. In Lenovo’s opinion, mobile Internet is an integrative concept and the hardware devices it depends on are not restricted to smartphones or smartbooks but more individualized and more intelligent products according to the needs of users to make users enjoy the unprecedented change brought by mobile Internet.
Top Speed of Product Innovation
The three products are full of innovation. Firstly, Skylight is the world’s first ARM-based smartbook cooperating with Qualcomm. The netbook was a new force that suddenly rose in 2008 and 2009 to make Internet stride forward in the direction of light, thin and convenient application, while Skylight continue to develop in this direction based on the netbook, with not only lighter and thinner but also instant available features. Skylight supports multi Internet connection types including 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth and wired connection and the battery life can last throughout the day to make the user always online and connect Internet at will.
Secondly, the biggest innovation of the smartphone LePhone is to supply rich and humanizing services for users. For example, the most important information for users can be pushed to the LePhone in real time through the “push” technology self-developed by Lenovo and more desktop widgets and apps can be downloaded through the built-in Lenovo app store.
Thirdly, the innovation of ideapad U1 lies in it’s the first dual-mode notebook in the IT industry. You can use it as ordinary notebook and when you need, you can detach the screen to use it as a multitouch tablet. This innovation is of great revolutionary significance for it well realizes the effect of one machine for dual-purpose and tells us we can take the notebook as the tablet PC.
Top Speed of Application Integration
Lenovo clear presentes its view on mobile Internet by announcing the three innovative products which also embodies the strong ability of application integration of Lenovo. Ideapad U1, for example, gives full play to powerful application for both modes of standard notebook and tablet PC. Both modes support 3G web browsing at least 5 hours and 3G stand-by time at least 60 hours and users can choose between longitudinal and lateral pattern to view and so on. These powerful integrative features let Lenovo’s products be actual innovative products not just good-looking.
LePhone also includes all the Internet applications. With LePhone, the users can not only make friends on SNS websites smoothly but also receive various important information automatically pushed by LePhone such as email, news, music, video and real time financial information. In a word, the functionality, the individuation and the interactivity of LePhone are noteworthy.
Of course, as a smartbook, Skylight has quite a few lightspots. Remarkably, Skylight further lowers the bound between handsets and netbooks. It is thinner than many smartphones with a weight of less than two pound and it is more convenient to take along than the ordinary netbooks. It lets you use the main applications like Gmail, Facebook and Youtube and you don’t need to worry about the machine swamped, for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform provides powerful mobile managing performance and lowers the power dissipation at the same time.
Actually, from Lenovo buyback of Lenovo Mobile and announcement of mobile strategy with three heavyweight products, we can get a conclusion that as mobile Internet is imminent and the future competition is bound to be more and more intense, those who want to take a share in this field or even get the first must take action at top speed.
At the beginning of 2010, let’s review what great events happened in the software industry in 2009, so that we can keep to the developing thread in 2009 to predict the development in 2010.
Oracle Bought Sun
On April 20 2009, Oracle bought Sun at about $7.4 billion. This was a heavyweight enterprise merger case in the global IT industry of 2009.
Now, this event is still in development and there are continual trace and observation for this news event. Although the American authority has approved this merger case which was expected to be finished in August 2009, this merger is still blocked in the EU.
The main worry the EU has with this case is from the open source database software MySQL which will be acquired together with Sun by Oracle. The open source community is worried about Oracle will affect the development of MySQL after Oracle owns MySQL in the future and impair the competition in database software market.
Although this event happened in 2009, its real impact on the IT industry I’m afraid will begin in 2010. As the result of this merger case clearer in 2010, it will be a great IT event that deserve much attention in 2010.
Some reading for you:
Oracle Acquisition of Sun Makes Perfect Sense
What does the Oracle-Sun News Mean for Enterprise CTOs?
Oracle Sun: Good News, Bad News for Google and Microsoft
Microsoft’s Search Made a Leap Forward
On June 4 2009, Microsoft’s search engine Bing was launched.
In 2009, Microsoft invested much in search engine market embodied in:
1. Launching the search engine Bing
2. Signing the search ads cooperative agreement with Yahoo
The two pieces of news looks like unrelated but in fact both served for Microsoft’s search business.
Bing is a great substitute in the field of search engine core and the ads cooperation with Yahoo is to promote the market share and ads revenue of Bing, which are two strategies prepared for each other.
Indeed, Microsoft’s Bing deserves Google’s fear. Firstly, the performance of Bing is not bad compared with Google; even some innovated features of Bing like image search also worth Google’s tension judging from our observation in the past half year. Secondly, it was showed in a market investigation report that after Bing was launched, Yahoo got converging attack from Google and Bing though Google’s market share was not affected, so Yahoo had to cooperate with Microsoft for the long run.
Some reading for you:
Microsoft Search Marketing Vs Google Search Marketing
It’s Official: Microsoft and Yahoo! Finally Strike Search Deal
Which IT Projects Are Right for the Cloud
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing could be regarded as the most loudly slogan in 2009. As the march of time and the development of IT, there are more content to talk about for cloud, but in terms of the basic concept, I really can not find any difference it has from the ASP (Application Service Provider) in ten years ago and the Web services popular a few years ago.
Perhaps, cloud computing is just a buzzword of IT industry and there will be other slogans as time passes by just like the Web 2.0 in a few years ago which is not talked about now but the content which referred to at that time is still evolving.
No matter the past Web 2.0 or the current cloud computing, after trace to the source, what we need to understand are theses questions: What changes does the Internet bring to the personal consumer and the enterprise? How many daily things will we do on Internet (including mobile Internet) in the future? How will the paradigm of IT change from the PC terminal to the Internet? We had these questions when the Internet came in more than a decade ago and so are us now and in the future no matter what the popular slogan is.
Some reading for you:
Smaller firms take a shine to cloud computing
Which IT Projects Are Right for the Cloud
Google Revealed Chrome OS
In November 2009, Google revealed Chrome OS and will directly confront Microsoft in 2010.
It was definite a great event for the global IT industry that Google released Chrome OS, since it is widely believed that besides Apple, Google is the most capable company in the world to compete with Microsoft, especially in software field.
Certainly, it has brought big anticipation for the IT industry that Google is entering the PC OS market, so there have been constant analyses and rumors for Google. It is reported that the Chrome OS netbook would come into the market in the middle of 2010. However, I would like to forecast that Chrome OS is incapable to compete with Microsoft in terms of a short time for I’m afraid the real product challenge will just begin in 2010 and we should consider the influence of Chrome OS in the long run.
Some reading for you：
What the Hell’s Google Chrome OS
Will Chrome Netbooks Really Be Competitive?
Windows 7 Was Launched
In October 2009, Windows was launched with the help of hundred computer manufacturers.
Two years after the launch of Windows Vista which has been fed up with criticisms, users finally got a decent new choice. From the subsequent report and investigation data, we know Windows 7 do get more popularity than Vista, but there were critics who deemed the good of Win 7 not really very good but just built on the lousy Vista.
According to what Microsoft and PC manufacturers said, the native support for multi-touch of windows 7 will bring innovation for the PC design and application. In 2010 the year for Windows 7 to get into market mainstream, let’s watch to see whether Windows 7 will really be the motivity of the industry innovation.
Some reading for you:
Microsoft Pushes Tablet PCs Windows 7 at CES But Not Mobile
62 Windows 7 Tips, Tricks and Secrets
Google’s Nexus One phone has finally been launched, but was not long-awaited like Apple’s iPhone; on the contrary, people are still a bit confused with Google involving into mobile entities.The cooperation of Google with all carriers and manufactures is natural with Google firmly holding Android as open source, not involving in phone entities, while now Google has also push off its own phone which makes Google a suspect. to take over other’s jobs.
After all, Google is not Apple and Google’s Nexus One is not Apple’s iPhone. Apple’s iPhone takes the way of exclusive. It tightly controls manufacture, design and operation in every respect with the only one unconstrained support from third party software brought by APP Store mode. In this case, the competitive relation between Apple and its competitors is clear all the time. In other words, other mobile phone manufacturers and mobile carriers well know such competitive relation with Google at the very beginning.
However, it’s different for Google who needs large supports from other parties in promoting its open source software Android. Both mobile phone manufacturers and mobile carriers are to be drawn over to Google’s side, but now Google is involved in mobile phone manufacture; then what will these cooperators think?
Of course, we can assume that the target of Google launching Nexus One is Apple which is apparent. Apple’s success in mobile market with the help of iPhone has made Google have to adjust its development strategy. Nevertheless, Google’s advantage is it has vast audiences but most of its audiences concentrate on Internet application unlike Apple who is the leader of consumer electronics products. Thus it is doomed that Google’s phone is difficult to surpass Apple’s iPhone.
What we can be sure is that Google want Nexus One to be its own iPhone and Google hopes to conduct more detail management so as to give full play to Android, but since Android is an open source product, what it needs is more supports from other parties not Google itself practicing what it preaches. Surely, necessary promotion for Android is inevitable, which may be one of the potential reasons for Google to push out Nexus One.
In addition, the choice of operating mode is also crucial for Google to promote Nexus One. It was reported that Nexus One was based on Android 2.1 and Google would cooperate with North America carrier Verizon and European WCDMA carrier Vodafone with cooperating with American T-Mobile in first launch. So there will be two versions: GSM/WCDMA and CDMA. The bare machine of Nexus One costs $529 in first launch and the price for American users contracting with T-Mobile is $179 which is obviously expensive and is higher than iPhone. Will this be a constraint for promoting Nexus One.
Let’s have a look at the configuration of Nexus One. It adopts Qualcomm’s SnapDragon 1GHz CPU, 512MB ROM and RAM, 3.7 inches AMOLED LCD screen with 80*400 pixels and automatic focusing camera with 5 million pixels. Such hardware configuration ranks top in the current mobile phone industry.
As is known to everyone, smart phones are sharply rising and become an arithmetic facility with multiple features. The smart phone brings more challenge than fortune for Google’s network search empire basically builds on the small text ads related to PC searching. As people more and more rely on powerful smart phones to replace traditional PC, their surfing habit will be bound to change. Besides, network ads may lost the position as number one engine of net economy and thus Google’s position as market leader will be threatened.
Therefore, Google strive to develop mobile market and Google executives said they believed their company can thrive again in the field of mobile Internet. But I think Google must carefully handle the problems of how to develop wireless ads market and where to find the chance for the phone entity. As for Google involving in the phone entity, it’s difficult to say whether it will success at present; at least the market holds little hope of it surpassing iPhone.
Copy and paste is wearily; especially you often need to dislodge some redundancy HTML codes when copying. What you need is to quicken the copy speed and reduce the unnecessary steps during copy, which is the reason why you must have these Firefox add-ons or extensions listed below. Of course, the precondition is you use Firefox browser. Some of the add-ons may not be compatible with the latest version of Firefox and you can only downgrade your Firefox if you really need it.
It creates a link to the current page when you are copying the text.
It automatically copies text to the clipboard when the text is selected as the way Trillian or mIrc works and paste into textboxes, the url bar, and the search bar by middle clicking.
Colt can be regarded as enhanced edition of Copy Link Text and Copy as HTML Link. CoLT can not only copy the link’s text but also both the link and the link’s text. The copied text can be in BB Code or Wiki format or you can specify the format through the User-defined Format of CoLT
Its feature is that if there is a URL in the clipboard, it allows us to switch to that website directly by only one action instead of pasting on the address bar and then click Go. It works for search too. However, it has a fault that it doesn’t work when you copy via CTRL+C shortcut.
It pastes your IP address or User-Agent in textbox which is convenient for you to post on places like forums.
This is the one I can’t do without. When I copy the text, I want to copy the plain text without the text formatting and text link and this add-on lets me realize this.
It copies and pastes all URLs of open Tab to and from clipboard, but it is not updated to work with the latest version of Firefox.
It makes you easily copy data from a table. By holding down Ctrl key to select the table cells you want and then pressing Ctrl+Shift+c, the selected content is saved to clipboard.
It offers options to copy the selected field as plain text or HTML by adding “Copy As Plain Text” and “Copy as HTML” to the context menu. But it needs updating too.
It is good at restoring the state of all windows so that you can reopen these webpage including the (accidentally) closed windows and tabs, which let you save from copying to restore.
Great change in Wall Street, ruin of Dubai Myth…–an economic crisis in 2009 had a big impact on all industries and “boost consumption” became the words most talked about in coping with the economic downturn. The IT industry had to lay off employees to cope with the depressed market. Meanwhile, the operating system manufacturers were busy with their products to create new features in a new look to fight in the fatigued market. Thus we saw Windows 7 and Google Chrome OS come into the market with lofty tone and mobile system of 3G age reform and so on. All of these brought numerous aftertastes and questions to us at the end of 2009.
Windows 7 – A Life Saving-Straw of Microsoft
In October 2009, Windows 7 was officially sold all over the world which meant the reclusion of its predecessor Windows Vista which was undoubtedly a failure like the earlier Windows Me system. Microsoft obviously doesn’t want to be entangled with Vista that was doomed to be a hurried passer, so it spared no effort to promote Windows 7 in the hope of retrieving the declining tendency.
Compared with Windows Vista, Windows 7 was made with great improvements in system compatibility, lowering requirement for hardware configuration and so on to redeem the faults of Vista. What’s more, Microsoft has strengthened the marketing promotion so we could even see Win 7 in home appliances chain stores. In fact, after experiencing the failure of Vista, Microsoft found a good way. Windows 7 has drawn on the excellences of XP and other operating systems and deleted some verbose procedures in Vista.
However, facing the ceaseless new challenges from its competitors like Google Chrome OS, will Windows 7 be the life saving-straw of Microsoft in 2010? Now we can learn the satisfactory sale volume of Win 7 and the wide acceptance by users. Obviously, we can be optimistic with the performance of Windows 7 in home use, but whether it will be successful in enterprise use market remains in doubt.
“Butterfly Effect” Performed by Google Chrome OS
Google officially revealed long rumored Chrome OS and released the source code of Chrome OS in November 2009. For a long time, IT news was around Chrome OS, which indicated Google had a new arm to fight with Microsoft. From previous online office apps to current Chrome OS, Google shows its ambition everywhere.
Based on Linux and Being Open Source, Chrome OS has three developing points that are (performance) speed, (operation) simplicity and (system) security with all programs network-based. As a whole, Chrome OS is the concept of “cloud” operating system with just a browser to run. We can see Chrome OS be intended to avoid the traditional desktop PC field of Windows operating system and then win a share in the operating system of netbooks and smart phones in the future.
Will Google Chrome OS which is based on Linux be the next one of Linux to have tepid fate? Facing the yet wispy “cloud” application of desktop system, how much cordial feeling will users have with Chrome OS? Maybe we shouldn’t ask like this. It seems to be a generally acknowledged truth that Google is the one of most excellent network companies with best searching engine. Anything this company does centers around advertisement business. It spent great efforts to develop the same type products or innovated products, all of which was to ensure it wouldn’t be pushed out from any market so as to firm its core search and advertisement business. Therefore, it’s easy for us to find the products of Google such as Chrome OS and Google Docs are intended to convert users to network. Will Google Chrome OS play a good butterfly effect? We wait for the answer in 2010.
High Speed – Highlight of Mac OS X 10.6
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was launched in August 2009, earlier than Windows 7 and Google Chrome OS. Although this system has artistic and gorgeous appearance, it actually doesn’t have numerous new features to attract us to upgrade to it, while it indeed has a feature appreciated by all: high speed.
Without special new features, what Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard brought are many small improvements, including built-in support for Microsoft Exchange, turning to Intel CPU from PowerPC CPU and the greatest highlight: high speed. Someone calls Mac OS X 10.6 as the copy of Windows 7 since both systems spent much in interfaces and details. But the strategy of Mac OS X 10.6 was successful with well known artistic and gorgeous interface. What’s more, the home edition of Mac OS X 10.6 costs only $49 and it has many similar features to Windows 7, which turn a part of the users’ attention to low-cost Snow Leopard from Windows 7.
With equal elegant desktop design and many similar features to Windows 7, it was the best strategy for Mac OS X 10.6 to highlight the speed with its many new improvements drawn from Windows Vista. The running speed of system was improved based on meeting users’ habit, which made Mac OS X 10.6 get more public praise. Besides, for users who are used to Mac OS, Snow Leopard at least let them see Apple striving for better user experience. Of course, price is the important charm of Snow Leopard.
A Habitat for Linux in Netbook
Netbook, a word created by Intel in Spring IDF Exhibition of 2008, was fashionable in the PC market of 2009 after a short market demonstration. The IT industry compared the netbook to “retrogressive innovation”. It was this little world built up by an Aton CPU and a small screen that aroused users’ consideration of balance between “want” and “need” and finally they chose “need”. Thus, it initiated a market battle among operating systems in netbook systems.
Early this year before Windows 7 was officially released, it was shown by an investigation that more than 85% netbooks run Windows XP. While what we may really need is not an all-round operating system like Windows but an operating system that is more suitable for mobile terminal and brings more excellent surfing experience as the gradual upgrade of netbook application and in view of the “second notebook” location of netbook. Therefore the netbook provides a big market space for Linux.
In fact, the industry has pushed out innumerable operating systems for netbooks. From Ubuntu Linux to Intel Moblin, all of the systems can let us daily surf online and do word processing work. The application tendency of Non-Windows systems in netbooks is self-evident with legerity design to finish starting up or shutting down in a few seconds. By virtue of Live CD feature of Linux, we can even run this system through USB flash drive or SD card without installing it. Although Linux system is not popular in ordinary users and Windows 7 is infiltrating into netbooks, the features of ingenuity and open source of Linux was bound to find a habitat in netbooks in 2009.
Bustling Mobile Operating Systems in 3G Age
The development and change of smart phones are very fast. No one would know Apple’s iPhone could become so popular today; no one would think of being so convenient with 3G today. The colorful network application of 3G age needs such carriers as smart phones and netbooks to come true. In 2009, the 3G mobile operating system field was already swarmed with old brand systems such as Microsoft’s WindowsMobile, Apple’s Mac, Nokia’s Symbian, but there were still emerging Google’s Android and China Mobile’s OMS, which made the mobile operating system market out of recognition.
Apple’s iPhone was such a hot seller and so was Blackcherry in 2009. However, the relatively close condition for hardware and software of iPhone and Blackcherry caused their exclusive operating systems appealed to just a small crowd. What we saw mainly was the contest between Linux-based Google Android and Microsoft WindowsMobile, the common feature of which was to contend for markets through vast mobile manufacturers adopting their operating systems. Eventually, in mobile operating system field of 2009, we saw Windows prevail in the contest.
It’s easy to understand this result. The essential of mobile operating system application is to extend various internetwork applications to the smart phone. For example, the key point of Google Android certainly is mobile search, while Windows system is better in implanting the PC terminal applications such as MSN, search, email, and chat in the mobile. Currently, what do we do most with mobile network application? The answers are chat, search and collecting & sending email. Considering the current most frequent applications of mobile network, we can find the advantage of the series of Windows operating systems. By contrast, Google can only popularize its search service through Android and thus the application scope of Android is not broad.
What Will We Use in 2010?
It is an indisputable fact that demand induces development and the development of operating system is also the development of computers in a sense. As a standard suit of package software, the operating system must meet the demand of multiple users as far as possible, so the operating system constantly dilates, its features constantly increase, the application environment constantly extends and grow up a platform environment from developing tools to system tools to application software. This is well embodied in Linux system.
In 2010, on which operating systems will we see development and change? 3G network and cloud concept that are two catalysts will presumably be more apparently embodied in operating system in the future after they experienced healthy development in 2009. It is believed that the well-known operating systems such as Windows, Mac and Linux will roll out more branch versions of which Google Chrome OS is a good example.
Certainly, some curious imaginations might occur to us at the end of 2009. Will Windows 7 completely replace Windows XP in 2010? Will Linux engage more attention with the help of 3G wave? Will Mac OS X become the new land for hacker attack? We look forward to the answers in 2010…
