Manipulate Your Text Online with Text Utilities

Text Utilities is a multipurpose webpage where you can customize and manipulate your text. It lets you quickly encode, decode, case convert, javascript and regexp any submitted text.

To start, simply go to this site, enter your text and click on feature that you want to apply.

Microsoft backtracks, extends XP availability to 2011

Just hours after a noted research analyst criticized Microsoft's plans to limit sales of Windows XP PCs, the company said it would extend the aged operating system's lifespan in the post-Windows 7 world to as late as April 2011.

On Tuesday, Michael Silver of Gartner took Microsoft to the woodshed over the company's decision to let computer makers sell PCs with Windows XP for only six months after Windows 7 debuts.

Hours after Silver blasted the plan, however, Microsoft backed off the six-month limit, and confirmed a new policy.

"Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate customers will have the option to downgrade to Windows XP Professional from PCs that ship within 18 months following the general availability of Windows 7 or until the release of a Windows 7 service pack, whichever is sooner, and if a service pack is developed," a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail.

 

Read more at computerworld.com....

HeatMapper Helps You Create a Detailed Signal Strength Map

HeatMapper is a novel way to map out the signal strength of your wireless network.  Armed with a wireless laptop, you can get specifics on signal strength, security issues, and more.

First, the downside: There is no basic floor plan/map creation tool built into HeatMapper, so you'll need to import your own. HeatMapper will accept floor plans, campus maps, or other layout diagrams in PNG, BMP, JPEG, and GIF formats. The image doesn't need to be perfect, so dropping in a picture you scanned off the building fire-exit diagram or sketched up really quickly in Microsoft Paint should do. You can forgo importing a map and just use the default grid, but it won't have much value for anyone without easy to visualize markers and boundaries.

Once you have a map imported into HeatMapper, you simply walk slowly around the area the map represents. When you are at a location on the map you want to survey, left-click on it on the map. The more surveys you perform, the more accurate and detailed your heat map will be. When you are done with your walk around the survey area, you'll have a map, like the one seen here, that shows the signal strength of various wireless access points. [Windows Only]

Read more…

Gartner: Skip Vista and wait for Windows 7

Businesses that have not yet begun a deployment of Windows Vista should skip the operating system and start preparing for Windows 7, analysts at Gartner have advised.

In an advisory, Michael Silver and Stephen Kleynhans said Windows 7's release was so close that it would not make sense to move to Vista beforehand.

"Preparing for Vista will require the same amount of effort as preparing for Windows 7 so, at this point, targeting Windows 7 would add less than six months to the schedule and would result in a plan that is more politically palatable, better for users, and results in greater longevity," the Gartner analysts wrote in the advisory, published on Wednesday.

Companies that are already in the middle of a Vista deployment should continue with their rollout but plan a switch to Windows 7 in late 2010 or early 2011, especially if their switch to Vista involved buying new hardware, the analysts wrote. If going to Windows 7 rather than Vista would delay the deployment by six months or less, then companies should simply consider switching to Windows 7 instead of Vista, they suggested.

Read more at zdnet.com…

The missing sunspots

Could the Sun play a greater role in recent climate change than has been believed?  Climatologists had dismissed the idea and some solar scientists have been reticent about it because of its connections with those who those who deny climate change.  But now the speculation has grown louder because of what is happening to our Sun.  No living scientist has seen it behave this way.  There are no sunspots.

 

 

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Four Tips for Writing Better Email

From http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/silverman/

1. Call to action. The number one thing that separates a memo, report, or PowerPoint from A Tale of Two Cities is a call to action. A novel is to be enjoyed. Business writing is intended to get the audience to do something: invest in a popcorn factory, fill out a kidney donor form, or flee the building in an orderly manner.

Questions to ask: Does my email ask the reader to do anything? If not, why am I sending it?

2. Say it up front. M. Night Shyamalan is paid to surprise folks. We are paid to not surprise our boss. Whatever the purpose of your missive, say it in the first line. Mystery and story are great ways to entertain and teach, so unless you're looking for a job doing that, spit out why you're writing up front.

Questions to ask: Can the reader tell from the subject line and first sentence what I'm writing about without going further? If not, why are you insisting that they guess?

3. Assume nothing. Does the reader need to know that the project won't succeed if the subway workers strike, that everything depends on a category 5 hurricane not happening in the next 100 years, or that if Lehman goes under the entire firm will implode? Let the reader know what thinking has gone on behind the scenes. And when following up, don't assume everyone remembers everything you've said. If you've got any worries that an acronym, term, or reference is going to elicit a confused moment, just explain it.

Questions to ask: Am I relying on what the audience knows or what I think they ought to know? Am I hiding anything from the reader unintentionally? If so, why do I want to surprise them later on?

4. Do the thinking. How many times have you gotten an email that says, "What are your thoughts?" followed by a forwarded chain of messages. That's the writer saying, "I can't be bothered to explain my reasoning or what I want you to focus on." When you write, make sure you've explained what you're thinking and what you want the reader to spend time on.

Questions to ask: Is my email giving my opinion and options for the reader to respond to? If not, why am I making them try to read my mind?

Worried about Conficker on April 1? Use OpenDNS!

By now you’ve heard the speculation that April Fools Day is the date Conficker kicks into action.  Unfortunately this isn’t a joke.  The virus, also known as Downadup, leverages a known vulnerability in the Windows OS and has the potential to do some serious damage.  Some estimates for number of machines infected so far are as high as 15 million.

OpenDNS has kept their users safe from Conficker for the past several months by blocking the domains it uses to phone home.

Read more at http://blog.opendns.com/2009/03/30/worried-about-conficker-on-april-1-setting-up-opendns-can-protect-your-network/

AntiVirus Software Comparison

AV-Comparatives is known for the thorough tests it does on security software. The company has released its February 2009 on-demand comparative roundup. Seventeen products were tested against 1.3 million malware samples received between May 2008 and early February 2009, which can be broken down into the following categories: 71.5 percent of trojans, 19.9 percent of backdoors/bots, 4.2 percent of worms, 1.9 percent of Windows-specific viruses, 1.6 percent of other malware, and 0.9 percent of scripts/macro viruses. The security company looked at how many malware samples each software missed (graph above) as well as false positives (shown below).

From http://arstechnica.com/

RiskyRoads: View Fatal Traffic Accident Statistics For Your Area

RiskyRoads is a new Google Maps mashup that lets you find out if you live or work near roads with high rate of fatal traffic accidents. The application maps fatal traffic accidents that occur within 1000 feet of one another and presents data as a heat map showing the worst hot spots for traffic fatalities. The traffic accident statistic data is obtained from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (NHTSA).

To check your area, simply enter city name, zip code or address and click on “GO”. All accidents from your areal will be shown on the map with different colored markers. Each color representing particular number of incidents. You can click any marker and learn about accident more.

CodeFetch: Useful Code Searching Tool.

CodeFetch is an online tool for code searching that can be quiet helpful for programmers.  The application searches published programming books and brings code snippets matching your query.   To search for code snippets, simply select programming language you want, enter keyword and click “Fetch”.

From http://www.makeuseof.com/