Microsoft Offers a Brand new free software to students

Microsoft Corporation, often criticized for high-priced software and unfriendly licensing terms, has introduced a scheme whereby it will give away copies of professional-grade software and development tools to students around the world at no charge whatsoever.
Microsoft’s DreamSpark program will require students to be verified by the college or university that they are enrolled in, by supplying a valid college email address. Additionally, students must be at least 18 years old, sign in with a Windows Live ID, and agree to use the software for noncommercial reasons.
DreamSpark will initially roll out in 11 countries—the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium—and will be extended to a number of other countries around the world in the coming months.
Students will be able to download ISO images of the software they want, and one activation license per program per Windows Live ID will be generated for them.
The license will have to be renewed every 12 months, and will expire when the student graduates. The software available includes Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Visual Studio 2008 Professional edition, SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition, Expression Studio, and XNA Game Studio. For more details, visit https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/Default.aspx

Orkut celebrates 4th anniversary with new and secure privacy features for users

Orkut, Google’s ubiquitous social networking platform, completed four years of connecting people in early 2008.To mark the occasion, the site launched a slew of privacy settings to reflect users’ growing concern with personal information security. Orkut now allows users to set individual privacy levels for photos, videos, testimonials and text scraps so that only people they have added as friends can see them. “The Web has progressively grown more social, and the role
that social networking plays has evolved,” explains Google India Head of Products, Vinay Goel
in an exclusive interview with IC-CHIP. “The user’s needs evolved, they wanted elements of privacy, control on who to show pictures to, whom to talk to. The new Privacy settings allow people to control scraps, pictures, videos, photos and testimonials. If the user wants, no random people can access these”. The site has been criticized for making it a little too easy to locate people and see what they post on their profiles. Privacy has become a growing concern over the years. There have also been growing allegations of sexual predators using these networks to
stake out victims, and employers checking out the personal lives of prospective employees.
“If you don’t want the profile to be public to employers, parents or teachers, the onus is on the user. The web is open,” says Goel. “The web has a history now, Google is trawling through everything. Once something is part of the public domain, you can’t retract it. What you write becomes part of your history, what you open for the public to see remains. There is no easy way out,” he adds. The need of the hour now is to stay in constant touch with users, to understand their evolving needs and better suit them. “Looking into the future, I feel the web will become even more social. The Web 2.0 has been about social platforms, videos, photographs and blogging, which are distributed over 20 different networks. The next move is going to be to rationalize all of these,” says Goel. One storm of privacy-related issues might be fixed, but that’s just a small step in the direction of user protection. As social networking evolves into a safer and friendlier environment, future problems will continue to question our ideas of what is acceptable,
what information can be shared and what should remain visible online.

The father of all Trojans found it's name : ZeuS Trojan

The newly discovered ZeuS trojan is a blackmailer, robber and spy—all in one. ZeuS has become widespread only recently though. Investigations by antivirus specialists at Kaspersky Labs have revealed it to the public. It was detected as “gpcode.ai”, a trojan which encodes files on affected
computers and releases them again only after a ransom is paid.
Some details struck the experts, who discovered more to this trojan than first met the eye: gpcode.ai marks its presence with the “_SYSTEM_ 64AD0625_” string in the RAM. This string is suspected to be in many of the latest malware programs. The experts thus tracked down a universal code for pests in gpcode.ai. The code, for instance, can be found in the Bancos.aam trojan through which data of bank accounts can be stolen. It can also be found in the Zhelatin worm, which spreads through email attachments.
A quick glance at the methods used by all these pests identified the name ZeuS. The trojan gets installed in the system as ntos.exe and downloads the files zeus.exe and zupa.exe and connects to the network of infected “bots” already in existence. Zeus.exe is an aggressive snooper. Zupa.exe communicates with the botnet center and receives instructions. According to Kaspersky, one of the ZeuS networks that got shut down comprised of more than 100,000 zombie PCs before it was detected. The fact that ZeuS is established as a commercial tool in the virus scene is no wonder considering the various functions it can carry out: accessing data, and stealing certificates and passwords. It also lures users to phishing sites or adds infected input fields to websites. However, its discovery might also mean its end. The group that developed ZeuS has proclaimed in a forum: “ZeuS is not sold anymore; support for old customers however is still available. Good luck to all."

Ask.com newly offers anonymous web searching

Most casual internet users wouldn’t think twice before typing something into a web search box, but little do they realize that their searching habits are being tracked and analyzed.
In response to privacy concerns, Ask.com has introduced a feature called AskEraser that promises to put an end to search behavior tracking. AskEraser can be enabled by clicking a simple link on the upper-right corner of the Ask.com homepage.
Enabling it will wipe out your history from the Ask.com servers as well as cookies on users’ computers. A single new cookie will be set on their computer, instructing Ask.com not to harvest information. AskEraser will remain in force as long as the user continues to use the same browser on the same computer, and doesn’t delete that cookie.
However, users who choose to keep their searches private will also lose out on the personalization options on offer, such as saved web links and homepage skins.
It is unclear whether users’ privacy is completely guaranteed. Additional tracking cookies used by advertisers cannot be checked using AskEraser. However, it’s a great first step.

Windows key board shortcuts

General shortcuts :

[Ctrl] + [Y] : Redo the last action.

[Ctrl] + [Left Arrow] : Move the cursor to the beginning of the previous word.

[Ctrl] + [Right Arrow] : Move the cursor to the beginning of the next word.

[Ctrl] + [Up Arrow] : Move the cursor to the beginning of the previous paragraph.

[Ctrl] + [Down Arrow] : Move the cursor to the beginning of the next paragraph.

[Ctrl] + [[Shift]] + an arrow key : Select a block of text.

[[Shift]] with any arrow key : Select more than one item in a window or on the desktop, or select text within a document.

[Ctrl] with any arrow key + [Space] : Select multiple individual items in window or on the desktop.

[F3] : Search for the file or folder.

[Alt] + [Space] : Open the shortcut menu for the active window.

[Ctrl] + [F4] : Close the active document (in programs that allow you to have multiple document open simultaneously).

[Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Tab] : Use the arrow keys to switch between open items (Vista only). Hit [Enter] to select the program you want to switch to.

[Ctrl] + Mouse scroll wheel : Change the size of icons on the desktop (Vista only).

[Ctrl] + [Windows] + [Tabs] : Use the arrow keys to cycle through programs on the task bar by using windows flip 3D (Vista only). Hit [Enter] to select the program you want to switch.

[Alt] + [Esc] : Cycle through items in the order in which they were opened.

[Ctrl] + [Esc] or [Windows] : Open the start menu.

[F10] : Activate the menu bar in the active window.

[Alt] + [Up Arrow] : View the folder one level up in windows explorer.

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Esc] : Open task manager. Also [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Delete] in windows XP.

Hold down [[Shift]] when you insert a CD/DVD : prevent the CD / DVD from automatically playing.