Most anti-virus utilities are powered by a large virus signature database that needs to be constantly updated to help them identify known viruses. The database keeps growing as new viruses are released at an ever-increasing rate. Also these utilities are incapable of recognizing a newly released malware since there is no match in the database.
Prevx is based on behavior-based detection as its primary concept and is very good in doing that job.
Advantages of Prevx:
* Download size of 800 KB compared to the 20 MB size of other malware utilities
* Instantaneous installation and ultra fast scan
* Cloud-based malware detection
* Highest malware blocking score
How does Prevx achieve this?
As mentioned earlier, Prevx doesn’t rely on predefined signatures, it rather looks for patterns of suspicious behavior. In addition, it takes the local age of the file and its distribution index into account, before flagging it as a malware. Newer files are under higher suspicion than a file that has been around for a while. Similarly, a widely distributed file is considered benign compared to one that is found on a handful of computers. Prevx confirms this by checking its online database.
On my computer Prevx took around 30 sec to download and performed a learning scan in 5 minutes. It will clean up low risk adware for free, but anything serious has to be cleaned up by purchasing a license key.
One drawback of Prevx is it needs to contact the database during scan and will not work in offline mode.
You may find more details about this anti-malware utility on their site www.prevx.com.
Going through the number of times WCAG is mentioned in Twitter and blogs, I find that it has not got the publicity it deserves. Most developers tend to think of accessibility as a luxury they cannot afford. Consequently it finds its place way down in their priority list. However, as we shall see, making a site accessible will not cost you a lot. And accessibility is not only aimed at addressing the needs of disabled, but people who use text browsers, low resolution monitors etc. Thus if your site is designed with accessibility in mind, you will surely see more traffic to your site.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is responsible for developing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) documents. The first version, WCAG 1.0, was published in May 1999. The latest WCAG 2.0 was released on 11th December 2008. The primary intent to publish these documents was to make web content easily accessible to everyone irrespective of any disabilities. WCAG 2.0 is designed in such a way that it is simpler and easier to understand for the web developer community. The document is built on four foundational principles. Then, there are few guidelines provided under each principle. Each guideline is challenged by different testable success criteria. Satisfaction of all these criteria will make the web site conform to WCAG. Let us go through the four principles in brief.
The first principle implies that any content that is displayed on the website must be perceivable. The dictionary meaning of the word perceivable means ‘To achieve understanding of’, ‘To become aware of directly through any of the senses, especially sight or hearing’. In our context, it means that anyone who accesses the web for content should be able to apprehend the information that is presented.
There are four guidelines furnished to illustrate this principle. The first two coerce to provide text alternatives for non-text content and time-based media. This would enable the user to enlarge or render in whatever tactile form as needed. The third guideline focuses on the structure and presentation of the content. A simple design that complies to the standards will reduce the complexities when there is a requirement to extract content and present to debile users. Sometimes distinguishing foreground information from background can become difficult. The fourth guideline helps avoid this conflict and focuses on making information distinguishable. Success criteria are determined on color, contrast, background audio, text images and many more.
The second principle deals with the operability of the user interface components. Users can come across situations where they are not able to interact with the content due to issues in links, user controls and other navigation.
The first guideline under this principle recommends making all the functionality of the content available from a keyboard. This does not outweigh the use of mouse and other interfaces. On the contrary, it means that complete dependence on these devices must be forgone. The guideline also cautions of keyboard traps and advices methods to keep the user away from them. The other guidelines focus on ensuring that the users will be able to complete the tasks required by the content with their own individual response times. For every time limit automatically set by the content, it requires the user to have options to turn it off, adjust and also extend the limit. They also caution the design about seizures mainly occurring due to excessive use of Flash. The last guideline recommends helping the users in their navigation to find content. There are 10 success criteria listed to check whether a user is properly guided.
Understandability is the next issue the document addresses. The principle mainly targets the people in the lower part of the intellectual group. It compels the developer to make the content easily available in predictable ways and also help the user avoid and correct mistakes.
The first guideline stresses on making the content readable and understandable. Success criteria are set on languages, abbreviations and pronunciations. It also speaks about restricting unusual words or phrases including idioms and jargon. The other guidelines show light on making the pages predictable and providing assistance to the user in mistake-prone sections. Using instructional labels and help pages can assist the user in different areas. Detecting errors and reporting immediately, as and when the user is inputting information is also a better method of assistance. These together form the success criteria for this principle.
The last principle is the most important of all the four. It checks the robustness of the content. Accessibility by user agents is checked here. There is only one guideline and it speaks about the compatibility of the content with the current and future technologies. Avoiding deprecated features of W3C technologies makes the site more compatible. Success criteria are designed for custom user interfaces to check compatibility.
Adhere to the guidelines suggested in WCAG 2.0 will bring in more traffic. Therefore it is essential from the developers’ point of view to know these standards and make them a part of our work.
Link for further study:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/
Google has added some new features to its already existing features which would make life simpler for its users. Google’s engineers are working round the clock in Google Labs, adding new features to make Gmail more popular and ahead of its competitors. One feature which is very useful is importing your emails and contacts from other accounts to Gmail.
Gmail users can easily import all their emails and contacts from Hotmail, Yahoo, or AOL accounts. All a user needs to do is enter his Webmail account details (user name and password) into Google’s service and over the next 24 to 48 hours, all his emails and contacts will be automatically imported to his Gmail account.
Google now also lets you test drive Gmail. The company offers a 30-day test-drive mode for users to decide whether they like Gmail or not. The feature, presently available to new users, is likely to be extended to current users soon.
Google has also added a search widget in Gmail, which enables users to search the web without opening a new browser.
The new feature shows a search box onto the left side of Gmail inbox. When a user types in a search, a window (like a chat window) appears at the bottom of the screen with search results.
These are some of the new features that Google has added in its Gmail service. To know more about the latest features in Gmail, just visit Google Labs where a whole lot of gadgets and features await you.
A cool new e-reader called Cool-er has arrived in the market. With its advent, digital reading will become a bit more affordable at $250.
Cool-er, as its name suggests, makes reading cooler.
Cool-er will have to face massive competition from the hugely popular Amazon Kindle. Kindle has been dominating the digital reading market for so long and a lot of users have grown very comfortable with it. The heavy price tag of Kindle is its major drawback plus its weight which is slightly more than 10 ounces.
The main advantages that Cool-er offers are:
The success of this new product in the market will depend upon how users are going to accept it, depending on its features and ease of use.
For those of you who are wondering what Cool-er looks like, take a look here.
Have you ever thought of bringing down your favorite or most used web application to desktop?
Now you can! On May 05 2009, Mozilla brought out their new application MOZILLA PRISM. The engineers at Mozilla labs were able to bring up version 1 of Mozilla Prism, which was earlier known as WebRunner. Although the basic theory behind Prism is SSB (Site-Specific Browsers), it is also like a normal browser (similar to Firefox as it comes from the same hood of Mozilla). The only difference between Prism and a normal browser is that, unlike a normal browser, Prism is for a specific site or web application. It therefore doesn’t show up the normal menus, toolbars or any other stuff that a normal web browser provides.
The best thing about Prism is that you can now run your favorite web application from desktop, as you would do for a normal software application. With Prism, you don’t need to run the browser to read your email or check the latest in your favorite social networking space. All you have to do is install the standalone application of Mozilla Prism to your computer, set up the basic configurations (like the web address of your web applications) and you are ready to go!
After the initial setup you can place the shortcut for the web application on the desktop itself, instead of having to type the same address over and over again into your web browser.
Besides all the above, if you configure your web mail with Prism and minimize it to the notification area of your desktop, it will notify you whenever you get a new email…!!
Sounds cool, doesn’t it? You can get your piece of Prism from here: Mozilla Prism.
Do try it out and post your comments about Prism.
Did you wish you were able to transfer digital pictures, video and large files between cell phones, laptops and other devices?
Then, the Bluetooth 3.0 is here to do just that.
April 21st, 2009 saw the announcement by Bluetooth SIG of its new Bluetooth 3.0 + HS specification, dubbed as Bluetooth High Speed Technology. The new Bluetooth wireless standard builds upon the previous standards and is reportedly up to 160 times as fast as Bluetooth 2.2. This is good news for manufacturers of handsets and PMPs, expanding the range of possibilities to include Bluetooth media streaming and much larger file transfers. A technology like this has the potential to revolutionize the consumer electronics industry.
The standards and specification of this new technology will show makers of wireless electronics how to design these devices so that they can send and receive data using either the Bluetooth or 802.11 wireless data transfer protocols (sometimes known as Wi-Fi).
Bluetooth 3.0 also allows applications using 802.11 for connectivity, to use just a burst of 802.11 power to send data and then shut off the radio until it is required again. This ensures that it works efficiently and without draining power.
A notable achievement is that Bluetooth 3.0 is expected to deliver short-range wireless speeds of up to 480 Megabytes per second in close proximity, and 12.5 Megabytes per second at 10 meters. That makes high-quality streaming video a definite possibility. In fact the possibilities are endless – video cameras can stream video footage to Bluetooth enabled computers and televisions, a picture or movie can be transferred between your laptop and your smart phone, laptops can transfer presentations to a projector wirelessly, to name just a few.
Users will have no worries about interference from wireless networks and other devices as the high bandwidth (in the 6-9 GHz range) of Bluetooth 3.0 eliminates the possibility of interference of devices that use the 2.4 GHz range.
The new Bluetooth 3.0 standard is anticipated to remove not only wires, but all communication barriers between devices that have existed for years.
When it comes to web then it’s all the way Google. Right from search engine to browser to email, they are now providing with API for their Analytics feature. Google Analytics is their free service for tracking and analyzing website traffic and usage.
It was a much-awaited release from Google. “Large organizations and agencies now have a standardized platform for integrating Analytics data with their own business data,” says Google’s Nick Mihailovski.
Google was blamed of storing the browsing history of a user. Now they are willing to share this data. So it is really an interesting move from Google.
One can access Aoogle Analytics from phone using Android application and from desktop using Desktop-Reporting. For more details about how the API works, you can read this blog post from Google about it.
