Evernote Hello for Android is a Must Have App

Evernote recently launched its Android app Evernote Hello which is a contacts app but of the next kind. Evernote Hello was already available for the iPhone user, and now its the Droid turn.

For those of you who are not aware, Evernote Hello is an intuitive way to remember people you meet in and around you everyday. It is a smart way to save contacts and hopefully a neat little database for every person you have ever met in your lifetime. Like there are many acquaintances you had make in a day if you are a businessman, but then remembering each one of em would become more than confusing.

Evernote Hello is one such app which ties all the information of a person and puts a face on it. Then all you need to do is, enter any detail of that person such as the location you had met him/her or the place you had your coffee with that person and Evernote Hello will pull that contact out for you. Evernote Hello calls these as Encounters.
LinkedIn is the most essential tool for every individual these days, to keep your business contacts close by, and Evernote Hello makes this easy by importing all those contacts to its database. Evernote Hello with the help if its Linkedin integration can attach additional information to an already existing contact filling up all the blanks.

Some other unique features about Evernote Hello:

• Evernote Hello predicts people you are about to meet by searching your Calendars for appointments, call logs and messaging history.
• Evernote Hello’s Mosaic view shows the faces of all the people you have ever met.
• All your info is kept private, Evernote Hello doesn’t use any kind of special software for tracking its users. Your data is kept private at all times.
• Whenever you meet a person, Evernote Hello sends a personalized e-mail to that person containing your info and photo.
• All the notes you take at a meeting, pictures you snapped at a hangover, will be displayed right under that encounter as Related Notes, making it easy for you to remember anything and everything that happened at that meeting, don’t show it to your wife, hehe

Evernote Hello for Android is completely free and always will be. Install it now at the Google Play Store.

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Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Review – Gameplay and Rating

Ubisoft has recently launched this amazing game called Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, this game is the next installment of the Ghost Recon Series, which were very popular from the last one decade. As the name suggests, this fifth installment of the series ropes in futuristic environment and gameplay. This PEGI 18 rated game has been released for PC, PS3 and XBOX 360. The release was delayed several months for various reasons. As a result it came out with better features and improvements. Playing this game from the past few days, we have observed a lot of pros and cons. putting to them together, here we go, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Review

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Review

Graphics:

While the game is set in a full ction packed environment, even the graphics are very much satisfying. The game is built on the enhanced version of Ubisoft’s YETI engine. Few of the wonderful features of the YETI engine are the real time Dynamic shadows & lighting, Dynamic physics, Heat wave & effects and Dynamic fire & smoke. Games like Beowulf and the previous ghost recon releases were already popular because of this YETI engine technology.

Coming to Future Soldier, the in game cut-scenes, realistic environment and has minute level detailing. This give the users a real time cinematic experience. But hold on, if you are a Call of Duty or Battlefield fan, then the graphics might seem a little mediocre. In some situations the faces look waxy and the background have low level details unlike the other high end games. More or less the graphics of the game are pretty satisfying thanks to the volumetric lights, ambient occlusion and powerful anti-aliasing.

Gameplay:

This cover shooting based third person game is set at various locations including Norway, Pakistan and Russia. When the player aims down the sight, game shifts the camera to first person view unlike the usual third person shooters. The players have to make use of stealth during the campaign mode. If this game is played like other action games the player will find himself in the midst of heavy enemy fire. But the three features which give the players a realistic experience are the Sync Shot, Adaptive Camouflage and Gunsmith. In the midst of mission, the Ghosts perform ‘multiple kills at an instant’ aka ‘synchronous kills’ as each member of the squad takes one enemy down at the same time.

 

Another cool feature in the game is Adaptive camouflage which makes the Ghosts almost invisible. Gunsmith allows the gamers to customize their weapons extensively and test it before taking up a mission.

Sound:

The developers have done a wonderful job in the sound section as the sound effects and sound detailing is brilliant. Even the smallest of the sound effects are wonderfully inserted and give the gamers a cinematic experience. While the sound effects are brilliantly done, the soundtrack of the game is pretty much  satisfying. The dialogues may not be that effective, but they do leave an impact after playing the game. On the whole we recommend you to plug in a quality headphones, to enjoy game the in game intensive sound effects and background score.

Multiplayer:

The game provides intensive cooperative, campaign game types. Coming to Multiplayer mode, Future soldier has four different game modes namely Conflict, Decoy, Saboteur, and Siege. Conflict provides the gamers with a wonderful team death match experience. In Decoy mode the players must secure objectives out of which one is the main objective and others are decoy. Saboteur mode has a explosive located in the midst of the map and the team’s objective is to get it to the enemy spawn and detonate it. In the Siege mode one team must attack and capture an objective which the defenders are defending. The Guerilla mode allows four players to play in co-op mode and their main objective is to capture a HQ. Later waves of enemies will attack and try to get the HQ back. Multiplayer mode gives the gamers to choose one of the three classes namely Rifleman, Engineer and the scout.

Conclusion:

On the whole, Ubisoft has done a wonderful job in making an action game which is different from its competitors. Graphics and sound gets the player heavily involved in the game. Multiplayer  mode is also very addictive. If you haven’t played the game yet then we recommend you to grab the game, turn on your headphones and Game on !

Pros:

• Cinematic cut scenes
• Realistic Sound Effects.
• Engaging Multiplayer Modes.
• Futuristic Technology.

Cons:

• Graphics could be better at some instances.
• One time use code is provided to play multiplayer. Used copies may not get full online access.

If you are looking for more detailed info, you can always check the official website. Please share your thoughts via comments and let us know how you like playing this Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Review.

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Microsoft Office 2013 Preview – First Look

It’s finally official, Microsoft Office 2013 has been announced and will probably release early next year. The last version of the world’s most used productivity was released 3 years ago and is starting to show it’s age. Microsoft’s new minimalism mantra introduced with the Metro interface is clearly visible in the upcoming Office 2013. It’s the biggest change to the Office suite ever. Everything is different yet strangely, familiar. The biggest change is probably the versions it will be available in. There’s the quintessential Office 2013 and there’s the new Office 365. Office 365 is basically the professional version of Office 2013 that will be subscription based instead of the usual single license retail version. Also, it will include a few more online services and will be more cloud based. Read on for more of the Office 2013 preview.

Microsoft Office 2013 Preview – What’s new?

Changes are both cosmetic (check out the new logo!) and internal. Office 2013 is finally making the leap to mobile devices and it will be available on tablets as well. Office 365 is the cloud based service, but even the desktop Office 2013 will be cloud integrated, although limited compared to the former. Now all documents will be linked across any Office 365 installations anywhere by linking your Microsoft Windows Live ID. By default, everything is stored on Microsoft’s SkyDrive. It makes transferring documents via portable storage media a thing of the past. Furthermore, even drafts of unfinished documents are saved periodically, so in case of a power outage or such the document is still safe! So what else is new? The Metro interface inevitably makes it’s way into Office 2013 and the UI is an extension of Microsoft’s new aesthetic. All the unnecessary tabs and buttons are now gone but the ribbon menu started with 2010 remains, although it can be hidden. The buttons are now more spaced out and have larger fonts, presumably for the touchscreen versions. Speaking of touchscreen differences, Microsoft has clearly designed the new Office with tablets and mobile devices in mind. A nice new feature is read mode, where users can turn a document into a book form to be viewed easily on mobile devices. However, documents cannot be edited and the book form is full screen.

Now media integration and document sharing has also been made easier. YouTube videos can be directly embedded without having to actually save the clip and Flickr photos can be attached without any fuss too! Document sharing takes on a whole new meaning through SkyDrive, presentations and documents can be shared and edited with permissions by multiple people which is a great feature for teams and groups. Individual programs also get new features, like PowerPoint now has an option to show the  next slide in advance along with the present slide to the presenter while the screen facing the audience displays only the present slide. Excel gets a neat new feature called Flashfill that predicts data and fills cells automatically, for example formula calculations or templates in similar cells are predicted and filled automatically.

 

Last year, Microsoft bought out Skype and it will be integrated into the Office productivity network. Home Premium editions of Office will reportedly come with 60 Skype call minutes. This bodes well for the actual “productivity” in the namesake since video conferencing and on the fly editing are two extremely useful features. Microsoft also acquired a enterprise oriented social network called Yammer, so future integration with Office is definitely on the cards. Also, this time around, you will be able to view and edit PDF documents in Office itself. Apart from all the new features, Office is not much more….let’s say polished. There’s little visual flourishes, animations and effects even for mundane tasks like creating a table and it feels rather cool. Icons are also now glossy and overall almost everything has been changed to go with the new Metro look. We are pretty excited and really like this new interface. Installation is also now web based, so make sure you’re connected to the internet during installation.

Microsoft Office 2013 Preview – Editions and Requirements

As of now, no pricing details or release dates have been announced, but we do know the editions Office 365 will be coming out in:

• Office 365 Home Premium: Includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Access and Publisher, 20 GB SkyDrive space and can be installed for 5 users.
• Office 365 Small Business Preview: Adds “professional mail, shared documents and HD videoconferencing” to the previous edition and can be installed for 10 users.
• Office 365 ProPlus Preview: Includes all of the above, adds InfoPath and Lync and can be installed for upto 25 users, 5 installations each.
• Office 365 Enterprise Preview: Includes all of the above along with SharePoint online and Lync Online.

The system requirements are as follows:

• 1 GHz Processor
• 1 GB RAM for 32-bit OS and 2 GB RAM for 64-bit OS
• 3.5 GB free space
• Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012

So there you have it, the next generation Microsoft Office 2013 preview. If you’re interested in trying out the consumer preview of Office 365, click here to download it. Tough luck for Windows XP and Windows Vista users though, you can’t use Office 2013. You know what that means, it’s probably time for an upgrade!

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Nexus 7 vs iPad 3

Do you have your mind set in joining the bandwagon and getting a tablet PC for yourself? 10 years ago, no one could have imagined that tablet PCs will be this popular. The tablet market has become saturated with many of the popular brands entering the fray.

Just recently, Google finally unveiled their own tablet, the Nexus 7, at the Google I/O Conference in San Francisco, California last June 27, 2012. I'm sure many of you are asking just how will it fare against the reigning, dominant tablet PC today, the Apple iPad 3. Let's find out.

1. Aesthetics

What's the first thing you usually look at when you're considering purchasing any gadget? It's "the looks." At first glance, the Nexus 7 looks like a small tablet with its dimensions at 7.81(L) x 4.72 (W) x 0.41 (H). A silver frame surrounds the front glass while the rear cover has a rubbery, textured coating to it which provides a good and firm grip. The beveled bottom and painted silver trim gives it that thinner, sleeker look. With Asus as its hardware's manufacturer, you can be sure of this product's build quality. It also weighs a modest 340g (11 oz).

As for the iPad 3, there really isn't anything that changed from the 2nd generation, on the outside that is. It is slightly more tapered on the edges which gives it that thinner feel. Its dimensions are 9.50 (L) x 7.31 (W) x 0.37 (H) and weighs 652 g (23.00 oz). As usual, the colors offered are black and white.

2. Display

Screen resolution and display has always been the "bread and butter" of Apple. It doesn't want to lose out on this, ever. For the tablet market, the iPad 3 shows who's the boss with a 9.7 inch display, a resolution of 2048x1536 pixels and a pixel density of 264 ppi. Despite the Nexus 7 sporting a respectable 7 inch HD display, resolution of 1280x800, and pixel density of 216 ppi, it is simply nowhere near the iPad 3's display capabilities. Of course, there are setbacks for the awesome display offered by the iPad 3 such as battery life, added weight, and extra cost.

3. Processor

Now comes the part where the competition for processing power supremacy is heating up. The name of the game is "Quad Core." The Nexus 7 doesn't disappoint with its 1.3 GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor with a 12-core GPU. You'd think that having 4 cores is already plenty enough but Nvidia was kind enough to add an extra core to work on tasks at a low frequency. This feature works best for tasks that run on active standby mode and music/video playback.

On the other hand, the iPad 3 runs on a 1 GHz dual-core A5X chipset. Your initial thoughts would probably be that the Tegra 3 processor should win hands-down but you'd be surprised. Tim Cook, the current CEO of Apple Inc., revealed that the "X" in the "A5X" stands for quad-core graphics. This means that if the Apple A5 was already twice as fast as the Tegra 3, then the A5X is 4 times as fast. Of course, this is only his claim and further tests will need to be carried out but that will be up for discussion some other time. It would have been better to see the A6 chipset though. Note that both tablets come with 1Gb onboard RAM.

4. Storage

When it comes to storage, the Nexus 7 offers a 8GB and 16GB versions while the iPad 3 comes in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB. If you're looking for the biggest storage capacity, there's no question that the iPad 3 is the better choice. The downside for both tablets is the lack of expansion slots. It's really a mystery to me as to why most brands prefer not to include the option to expand storage capacity.

5. Battery Life

The Nexus 7 is powered by a 4,325 mAh battery while the iPad 3 boasts of 11,560 mAh battery. Despite the almost triple battery capacity of the latter, this doesn't translate to having a longer battery life. As mentioned earlier, the high retina display of the iPad 3 has some setbacks which includes battery life. Google claims that the Nexus 7's battery can last up to 9 hours ( approx. 8 hours if actively used) and Apple claims around 10 hours.

6. Operating System (OS)

At last, we come to the "heart" of the tablet PCs, the OS. Once again, disappointment besets us as the rumored iOS 6 release for the iPad 3 has been pushed back and we only have the iOS 5. It is an enhancement-filled update which includes some small features, such as the redesigned Camera app and face detection, and some bug fixes.

The highlight, of course, is the latest version of the Android, 4.1 Jelly Bean, the successor to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (these names really give me a sudden craving for sweets). No, it's not a major overhaul but it is a much-improved version of the Ice Cream Sandwich. Latency is no longer an issue when it comes to navigating around the apps. Browsing on the web is a breeze with the pre-loaded Google Chrome browser. The newest feature is called "Google Now" which is Google's answer to Apple's Siri. It predicts what information you will need like the weather for the day, traffic conditions, and even the arrival times of the trains as you stand on the platform. It gathers useful information based on several things like your current location and calendar events. It uses this information to give you the what you need, when you need it.

I can't wait to see what Apple will come back with in their OS6 release this Fall.

7. Camera

There's not much going on for the Nexus 7 for their camera except that it has a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera for decent enough for video calls. The iPad 3 has a 0.3 megapixel camera for FaceTime and a 5 megapixel rearview camera.

8. Connectivity

Both tablets offer 802.11 b/g/n Wireless Fidelity so this is a non-issue. They both have Bluetooth capability as well. The biggest difference is that the Nexus 7 does not have 3G capability, at least for the moment. This leaves the iPad 3 uncontested for this segment.

9. Price

We finally come to probably the most important factor, at least for most people...the price. The base model of the Nexus 7 (8GB) will retail at $199.00 while the iPad 3's base model goes for $499.00. Sure the gap in pricing is highly evident however, one has to look deeper and see which will give you more value for your money.

In the end, what's the verdict you may ask? At the end of the day, it all comes down to your personal preferences, as usual. If you're after a kick-ass display, go for the iPad 3. If you're looking for a cheaper alternative, then try out the Nexus 7. Another consideration would be that the number of applications available in Google Play is not nearly as many as the apps available in Apple's App Store. Always ask yourself what you need more than what you want.

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DNS Changer Malware May Shutdown Internet – How to Check and Fix It

The DNS changer malware could completely cut them off from the internet. Around 8 months ago, the FBI busted an Estonian cyber crime ring that planted malware in computers everywhere that would redirect users to pay per click websites filled with online ads and more security threats. The hackers could control infected computers and were used as part of a botnet to spread malware. This whole operation resulted in total earnings of almost 14 million USD for the hackers. After the 6 individuals responsible for the attack were taken into custody, several DNS servers were set up in place of the rogue DNS servers so that infected computers could still use the internet normally. On July 9 at around 0400 hours GMT, these servers expire and infected computers will lose internet access. This was done so that networks gained time to identify infected computers.

To counter this, you have to check if your computer has been infected and get rid of the virus. Your computer might be infected and you’d never know. If the proper measures are not taken, you might just be cut off from the internet and have to contact your ISP to get everything up and running again. So here’s what you need to do:

Step 1. Update your security software and run a complete scan. If you don’t have one, get one ASAP.
 

Step 2. Go to any one of these sites and check if your computer is affected:
www.dns-ok.us
www.dns-ok.fi
www.dns-ok.ax
www.dns-ok.ca
www.dns-ok.lu
dns-ok.gov.au
dns-changer-eu
dnschanger.detect.my
 

Step 3. If your computer is not affected, you can breath a sigh of relief, there’s nothing else you have to do. However, if unfortunately it is affected, visit any one of these sites to remove the DNS Changer malware:

Hitman Pro
Kaspersky Labs TDSSKiller
McAfee Stinger
Microsoft Windows Defender Offline
Microsoft Safety Scanner
Norton Power Eraser
Trend Micro Housecall
MacScan
Avira Repair Tool

The DNS changer malware has many other functions apart from redirecting users to fake websites. It could also log keystrokes and steal passwords. So it might be a good idea to change any saved passwords in browsers and bank accounts. If you notice any transactions made that you don’t remember, please change passwords and related information as soon as possible.

Alternately, if you computer was detected as carrying the DNS Changer malware and you’d rather fix it yourself, please visit the following websites according to your operating system:

Windows XP
Windows 7
Mac OS X

Keep in mind that the manual removal will require a bit of technical knowledge and it is recommended to use any one of the tools mentioned above. For more information and press releases about this malware, visit this website. It is the official website of DCWG, the DNS Changer Working Group, a consortium created to counter this threat and includes software manufacturers, government agencies and groups from universities as well. Kindly check for the malware on your computer as soon as possible and stay alert, stay safe!

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How To Set Up Bing Background Image For Your Google Homepage

Bing the search engine from Microsoft put some new cool background images on the search engine home page everyday. Some times you can see videos too in the Bing. But while in the case of Google you have to set a background image from your Picasa web album. So lets see how to set up Bing background Image for your Google Homepage.

Lets see how it can be done.

The process is very simple. All you need is a Google Chrome web browser. if you have it then no problem. Other wise get it from here.

Install the extension from Chrome web store

Click on the Bing button next to address bar

1. Get in to Chrome Browser and Go to the Google Chrome web store.
2. And sign in with your Google account.
3. On the search box type Bing Wallpaper. Google will take you an extension called " Bing wallaper for Google Homepage".
4. Click on add to chrome and you will get a pop-up to install the extension.
5. Click on the install button and you can see a small bing icon appears next to the address bar.
6. Now go to Bing homepage and click on the small bing icon appears next to the address bar.
7. Now Go to Google homepage and refresh the page you can see the same Bing wallaper on your Google Homepage, If it is not apperaed simply press the icon one more time.

Homepage of Bing

Homepage of Google after installing the extension

The wallpaper remains there if you exit from browser. So in this way you can easliy set up Bings background Image for your Google Homepage.

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