The last time I really cursed at my computer, it was when I had about 15 tabs open in Firefox. I had just opened a bunch of new tabs when one of them starting playing sappy, tinkly music full blast from my speaker over the sound of a video I already had running.
I clicked through the tabs in a game of increasing desperation, trying to find the culprit. I ending up shutting down most of my tabs before pinpointing the guilty party in a haze of epithets. There has to be a better way, I thought. It looks like Google Chrome developers are one step ahead of me.

A feature being tried out in test versions of Chrome would place a small visual indicator on tabs that are generating audio. It is up and running in the latest Chromium and Canary test builds for Chrome, giving it a decent shot of reaching the masses in a regular Chrome release.
The feature is largely intended to help Chrome keep track of tabs that are actively being used for playing or recording audio so it won't discard those tabs when memory runs out, but I prefer to think of it as a sanity-saver.
All it takes is one obnoxious auto-start audio file to ruin what was otherwise a lovely Web browsing session. An audio indicator would be an elegant solution to the problem. It would also save me from exhausting my limited supply of expletives at my computer.

One of the new features of Windows 8 is metered wireless connections. In the past, you could run Windows programs to monitor your data usage, but they didn't do anything to actually reduce data usage. With mobile hot spot and broadband card usage on the rise and unlimited data plans nearing extinction, every kilobyte of bandwidth saved is a penny earned. Enabling metering in Windows 8 will limit your PC or tablet's data usage by preventing nonessential data transfers.
According to Microsoft's FAQ on metered connections, the effects of enabling a metered connection are:

• Windows Update will only download priority updates.
• Apps from the Windows Store may pause downloads.
• Start screen tiles may stop updating.
• Offline files may stop syncing automatically.

Enable metering
To enable metering on a wireless connection, go to the Wi-Fi network list and right-click on your connection. Touch-screen and tablet users should perform a long press. When the list of options appears, select "Set as metered connection."
Disable data usage over metered connection
There are two metered connection settings that can further reduce data usage. The first is downloading device software. Go to Settings > Change PC Settings > Devices and make sure that "Download over metered connections" is off.
The second setting is syncing settings. Go to Settings > Change PC Settings > Sync your settings, and make sure that both "Sync settings over metered connections" and "Sync settings over metered connections even when I'm roaming" are off.
Check data usage
To see how much data you've used on your connection, go back to your network list and left-click on your connection. Touch-screen and tablet users should perform a single tap. Unfortunately, there's no way to set the counter to automatically reset on a schedule, but you can manually select "Reset" on the first day of your billing cycle.
Check app usage history
If you want to figure out which apps are using the most data, go to the Task Manager and click on the "App history" tab. You'll see separate columns for overall network usage, metered network, and tile updates. You can get to the Task Manager from the Start screen by typing "task manager" or right-click on the desktop taskbar and select "Task Manager."
That's it. Now you know how to use metered connections in Windows 8 to keep your data usage in check. Keep in mind that metered connections only work with Wi-Fi connections; Ethernet connections cannot be metered.

When I'm not blogging for CNET, I test and review laptops and desktops. During the getting-to-know process for each system I review, one of the places I usually stop by first is the Control Panel to tweak a setting or two before I start running benchmark tests. In the good old days of Windows 7 and XP, I simply clicked on the Start button and selected the Control Panel from the Start menu. With Windows 8, however, that path does not exist.
If you are using a tablet or refuse to engage in keyboard shortcuts, you'll need to perform a little tapping and swiping to reach the Control Panel. From the tiled Start screen, you can swipe up from the bottom edge of your screen and tap the "All apps" button in the resulting menu bar. From here, you can swipe your way left and choose Control Panel from the last grouping under the Windows System subhead. Alternatively, from the Start screen you can start typing "Control Panel" to search for the term.
If you are a regular visitor to the Control Panel, you can always pin it to the Start menu so that it's only a tap away. (Open the Control Panel, move up a level in the folder hierarchy, right click on the Control Panel icon, and choose Pin to Start.)
From the desktop view, however, these actions are not available. Thankfully, there are three keyboard shortcuts that will grant you quick access to the Control Panel.
1. Windows key and the X key. This opens a menu in the lower-right corner of the screen, with Control Panel listed among its options.
2. Windows-I. This opens the Settings menu of the charms bar on the right edge of the screen, with, yes, the Control Panel as one of its options.
3. Windows-R to open the run command window and enter Control Panel.

The right-click "Send to" menu option is a great tool for sending files to and fro in Windows 8, and there is a simple way to add new destinations to it. Use the Win-R keyboard shortcut to call up the Run command window and type shell:sendto and hit enter or click OK. This calls up the SendTo folder where the right-click "Send to" menu destinations reside. You can delete any of the default shortcuts here, and you can drag in new shortcuts.
If you are one to mix up his or her Send To destinations frequently, you can skip the Run command step to add a new Send To destination. As pointed about by LifeHacker commenter Estefano Gomes, you can add a SendTo shortcut to the SendTo folder in a bit of an M.C. Escher-falling-in-on-itself move.
To set it up, you must first open the SendTo folder. Next, drag the SendTo item from the breadcrumb trail in the location bar down into the folder itself. This action creates a "SendTo - Shortcut" item in the folder. With this shortcut added, you will no longer need to open the SendTo folder to add an item to it. Instead, when you encounter an item you'd like to add as a destination to the "Send to" menu, simply right-click on the item and from the "Send to" menu, choose this shortcut you created. The item will get added to the SendTo folder and, thus, the right-click "Send to" menu.

In Windows 8, Microsoft quietly removed a useful networking feature: ad-hoc networks.
In Windows 7 (and previous OSes), the tool could turn your PC into a Wi-Fi hot spot, allowing it to share its Ethernet or other Internet connection with other devices by broadcasting its own network.
So, if you paid for Internet access at a cafe, or you're at work, and want to share your PC's Internet with your phone or tablet, this feature would let you do that.
It is very possible to do this in Windows 8, but the built-in method requires fiddling with the command prompt. And for some of us, walking into that black abyss is daunting.
Instead, check out Virtual Router Plus. It's a free, open-source program that does the geek work for you, allowing you to quickly fire up an ad-hoc network whenever you need one.
Once you've downloaded the file, extract it, and launch the VirtualRouterPlus file within that folder. There's no real installation here -- the program will simply launch.
At this point, setup is easy. Enter a name for your network, then choose a secure password with at least eight characters. Finally, choose the connection you want to share (there will most likely only be one choice), and click Start.
To test it out, grab your phone or tablet and connect to your newly created Wi-Fi network. If it doesn't show up, stop the connection on your computer, and hit Start again.
Also remember that your computer needs to stay awake and running to keep its ad-hoc network alive. So, tweak your power settings if need be.

As a MacBook Pro Retina user, I can attest that Google's Chromebook Pixel rivals the quality of Apple's Retina display. But the Chromebook falls short in not allowing you to sacrifice some quality in favor of seeing more on your display.
Based on the tech specs floating out there, you might be forgiven in thinking that both the MacBook Retina and the Chromebook Pixel have similar screens. After all, Apple talks about the 13-inch Retina having "spectacular" 2,560x1,600 resolution, while Google cites the Chromebook Pixel having a 2,560x1,700 screen.
Display resolution versus pixel resolution
Those figures both refer to pixel resolution, a stat that until last year generally didn't differ from display resolution. The difference is important, and I continue to be annoyed that neither Apple nor Google make it easy to understand what display resolutions their screens show.
The difference between the two can be summarized like this:

• Display Resolution: How much can you see on a screen
• Pixel Resolution: How clear or sharp the image is that you see

Display resolution: how much you can see
My column from last year, "Forget Retina, look how much the new MacBook Pro displays," explains this difference in more depth. But as they say, a picture is worth a 1,000 words, so here's a key illustration from that previous column showing what display resolution is all about:
What those three images represent are three (of the five) different display resolutions that the MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch laptop can show on its screen. At the top is the highest display resolution that can be selected, 1,920x1,200. At this resolution, you can put two browser windows side-by-side and see most everything in both of them.
In the middle is the resolution I typically run, 1,680x1,050. You can't see as much as in the resolution mentioned above, but the text isn't as small as at the highest display resolution, so I find it easier to read.
At the bottom is the default resolution, 1,440x900. At this resolution, you see even less information. But that might be fine for those who want the best clarity from the screen, which leads to pixel resolution.
Pixel resolution: how well you can see
Consider this picture, also from my article last year:
On the left is how text appeared in a browser (at the time, Chrome) that couldn't make use of extra pixels that the Retina display allowed. On the right, how the text looked in a browser that could use the extra pixels (Safari). The image on the right is clearer, sharper.
This is happening because the Retina screen is actually using four small pixels (at its default setting) to draw each single visible point on the screen. Consider it like this:
On the left is how computer screens have typically worked. Each visible point of light -- each dot -- was made up of one pixel. If you had a 1440x900 resolution screen, that meant there were 1,296,000 pixels in all, one for each point of light on the screen
On the right is how Retina-style screens work. Each visible point of light is actually made up of several pixels, which means that text can be rendered more smoothly, or images can be shown in higher quality.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro Retina, by default, has a 1,440x900 display resolution. It shows an image made of 1,296,000 discrete points. However, it renders that image with a pixel resolution of 2,880x1,800 -- 5,184,000 pixels. That's four pixels for each visible point of light.
Scaling the display on the MacBook Pro
With the MacBook Pro Retina, you can adjust your display resolution, using the display control panel:
If you go higher than the default "Best" setting, you'll see more on your screen, but the quality will drop. Still, the quality always remains better than a non-Retina screen, because you're still using more pixels per dot than on an ordinary display.
(A few programs, by the way, will use the highest 2,880x1,800 display resolution, but the Mac user can't select this using the display control panel. The programs themselves will generally make that shift).
No scaling on the Chromebook Pixel
Want to sacrifice some image quality on a Chromebook Pixel to gain more display workspace? Sorry, no can do. Incredibly, there's no option for changing the display resolution on the machine, as with the Mac. You're stuck with a 1,280x850 display resolution, a stat you won't discover on the Chromebook site itself.
To be fair, Apple doesn't list the display resolution of its 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina either. That's 1,280x800, putting the 13-inch Retina with just slightly less display space than the 13-in Chromebook Pixel. But as with the 15-inch MacBook Pro Retina, the 13-incher offers scaling, allowing the display to go up to 1,440x900 or 1,680x1,050.
For many, a 1,280x800ish display resolution on either machine may be fine. For some, the inability to go to a higher display resolution on the Chromebook may be a non-issue. But if you do want more workspace, the Chromebook currently can't deliver.
Given how expensive the machine is, at $1,300 to start, this feels like a big oversight to me. Indeed, three other Chromebooks listed at Google's Chromebook site offer a higher display resolution of 1,366x768 yet cost around $1,000 less than the Chromebook Pixel.
Is it worth the premium for screen quality?
I paid a premium for the MacBook Pro Retina in part because the better screen quality really was worth it, given the amount of time I spend staring at my computer screen. Even scaling to increase my display workspace, I still had better screen quality than on a traditional display.
I suppose for someone who really loves using Chromebooks, the incredibly high premium the Chromebook Pixel costs might be worth it. The image quality really is great. But existing Chromebook users are likely going to take a step down in display resolution. Heck, it's a step down in display resolution from either the 11-inch or 13-inch MacBook Air or from a Windows 8 touchscreen ultrabook like the Lenovo Yoga.
If display resolution means much to you, think long and hard about making that Chromebook Pixel purchase. Otherwise, be prepared to zoom out (Ctrl-), which remains the best workaround at the moment for the lack of a true scaling option.

As Internet Explorer 10 reaches Windows 7, Microsoft readies a massive auto-update campaign for the browser's previous version.

(Credit: Microsoft) Internet Explorer 10 debuted on Windows 8, and until now was only available to people who bought into Microsoft's big Windows redo. That changes today, as Redmond rolls out IE 10 for Windows 7 (download).
The update brings enormous changes to the browser, and mostly for the better. Internet Explorer 10 is not only faster and more stable than the current IE for Windows 7, version 9, it's also far more standards-compliant.
"Gone are the days when developers aspire to build for the lowest common denominator. The way the Web becomes like an application is when you take advantage of the latest hardware. We've stopped the era of trying to maximize for aggregate browser share," Ryan Gavin, general manager for Internet Explorer at Microsoft, said in a phone conversation with CNET last week.
Basically, what Gavin is saying is that hardware advances have made much of the modern Web possible, but he also acknowledged the role of Web developers. "One of the things that we hear from developers is that the depth and support across IE 10 means less time testing and more time developing," he said.
So, Windows 7 gets the new IE10 Chakra and JavaScript engines; the Touch API innovations that help drive the browser on Windows 8; the security measures built into IE10 -- at least, the ones that are not dependent on Windows 8; location bar autocomplete; and an on-by-default Do Not Track header.
The standards that IE 10 adheres to are nothing to sneeze at. Microsoft claims that its labs have found the new version of the browser to be 20 percent faster on Windows 7 than IE 9, and it supports a veritable alphabet soup of HTML5 and CSS3 improvements -- 60 percent more standards-compliant than IE 9, says Microsoft. These include CSS Text Shadow; CSS 3D Transforms; CSS3 Transitions and Animations; CSS3 Gradient; SVG Filter Effects; HTML5 Forms; input controls; validation; Web sockets; HTML5 Sandboxing; Web workers; HTML5 App Cache; File Reader API; and HTML5 Drag-drop, among other backend improvements.
In short, modern HTML5 sites that run smoothly in IE 10 on Windows 8, or the latest browsers from Chrome and Firefox, will now work properly in IE 10 on Windows 7.
IE 10 for Windows 7 also comes with support for Pointer Events, which may seem strange to some. Pointer Events allow developers to write Web sites and register elements on the Web page to be responsive to multiple simultaneous interactions -- to respond to touch. Even though there are very few Windows 7 computers that shipped with touch screens, Gavin said that this was an important improvement to ship in the Windows 7 version of IE 10. "It's more about getting the developer to not having to do anything special to support the mouse on Windows 7 devices," he said.
Gavin and Rob Mauceri, Internet Explorer's group program manager who was also on the phone, both agreed that touch interaction would drive browser innovation for some time. "Four or five months ago, nobody was talking about touching the web," said Mauceri. "But now you've got new devices like the Pixel where others are following our lead."
Gavin was optimistic about the workplace adoption of IE 10 on Windows 7. "We're in a really good spot with enterprises, where we've been able to offer the latest version of our browser in a relatively short time frame," he said.
However, that's unlikely to be as cut-and-dried as Microsoft would like, even with Microsoft's best-in-class enterprise management tools. Browser adoption momentum indicates that businesses will continue gravitating away from IE, since IE 10 is only available on Windows 7 and Windows 8. The highest version of Internet Explorer that will work on Windows Vista is IE 9, while Windows XP users won't be able to graduate past IE 8.
One thing businesses won't have to worry about is whether Internet Explorer will adopt the six-week, rapid-release cycle of Chrome and Firefox. "We put less emphasis on release schedule and more emphasis on innovation. [Our] release schedule is a by-product of when that innovation is ready to go to market," said Mauceri.
There's little doubt that Internet Explorer 10 is the first version of IE in some time to ship with a fighting chance of being compared favorably to its competition. Being on Windows 7 is a massive boon to IE 10, but its inability to work on older operating systems that its competitors can comfortably perform on will hamstring it until those systems have significantly lower market share.

• Internet Explorer
• Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Opera
• Safari
• Windows - Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log files.
• Registry cleaner
• Third-party applications
• 100% Spyware FREE
  
  
  Download :  Click here

Comodo claim that their firewall is unique in that it passes all known leak tests to ensure the integrity of data entering and exiting your system. Comodo has put firewall through all kinds of sophisticated tests to ensure its firewall powerful enough to ward off these attacks with default settings. No other firewall has had to work this hard.

• PC Magazine Online's Editor's Choice
• Secures against internal and external attacks
• Blocks internet access to malicious Trojan programs
• Safeguards your Personal data against theft
• Delivers total end-point security for Personal Computers and Networks
  Download
  Latest Version
  124.78MB