AVG Releases Free AntiVirus Bundle for Amazon EC2 Cloud Servers

AVG Enables Increased Secure Cloud Experience for Amazon EC2 Users

Internet security firm AVG Technologies, today announced availability of a preconfigured Anti-virus technology bundle for Amazon Web Services EC2 users. Available for free, the Amazon Machine Image (AMI) can be found on the Amazon Web Services Community AMIs list.
AVG’s AMI consists of a hardened Debian Linux operating system with AVG’s pre-configured Anti-virus technology. AVG says the solution can be launched and ready for use as quickly as any other instance on Amazon EC2.
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud, designed to make scaling easier for developers.
Designed for Web sites which enable user generated content to be submitted, AVG’s solution focuses on scanning submitted files for malware. AVG says the service is also ideal for companies using EC2 to perform a wide range of online activities involving files storage, supplier or partner communications.
“For many businesses operating online, security is vital. Allowing users to upload content not only puts the site itself at risk from harmful files, it could also cause the site to become a distributor of malware itself, in turn infecting its own users,” said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Chief Technology Officer, AVG Technologies. “With our free Anti-Virus for EC2, server operators benefit from our Community-Powered-Protection at no cost.”
This service, targeted at small and medium sized businesses, is part of AVG’s SMB program.
The relevant AMIs are ready to deploy and can be found in the Amazon directory under:

us-east: ami-94758dfd

us-west: ami-7d4c1e38

eu-west: ami-7818290c

ap-southeast: ami-d0750d82

ap-northeast: ami-8e309a8f

Instructions on how to setup the EC2 environment and run AVG are available here.

Too Lazy for Google? Try Asking Twitter’s #Lazyweb [INFOGRAPHIC]

Have you ever turned to Twitter with a question — whether the answer was already available online –that you just wanted your Twitter friends to answer?

If you have, Twitter’s #lazyweb hashtag can help. It lets you outsource your questions to the wider web of Twitter users and get answers, presumably even from people outside your own network.

The #lazyweb hashtag itself has been on the decline since around the time Twitter became a more mainstream tool. At that point, users with questions were more likely to simply throw the query out to their personal networks and hope for the best.

SEE ALSO:How Twitter Works as a Q&A App [INFOGRAPHIC]

Have you ever used #lazyweb on Twitter? Do you think this hashtag needs a comeback or perhaps a Twitter-integrated Q&A app of its own?

As you ponder that, check out this #lazyweb-themed infographic from Q&A app InboxQ and design shopColumn Five

How Twitter Works as a Q&A App [INFOGRAPHIC]

Google launches their new social service, Google+

If you spend time on Google or any of its services, then you may have seen the new black menu bar. Many wondered if this was just some new design from Google. As it turns out, that black bar is a sign from Google that something big is coming. That something is Google+.

Google+ is the newest of Google’s projects to go into invitation beta. While its not Google’s first run atbuilding a social network, Google+ is probably the most extensive. That doesn’t mean that Google is making a big deal of it yet, however. They are trying to keep it quiet, lest it get the build up to a fail that Wave had. You can take a look at the introductory video here.

From the official blog post, Google+ is really designed around Google itself. Their hope is to redesign the way we share online. They will group people into “Circles”, which you get to organize as you see fit. As of now, it pulls contacts from Gmail or Google Contacts.

Once you have circles set up, you get the ability to interact with those people. You can share images, links, or articles. You can even take advantage of “Sparks”, which will allow you to strike up conversations with people in your Circles. Google + also has a video chat service built in that is called “Hangouts” and a mobile application available for Android devices.

This mobile aspect of Google+ seems vital to the service. Google promises the easiest media uploading of any social media service. They are also advertising the “Huddle” feature, which is similar to texting. unlike traditional text messaging, you use data, similar to BlackBerry Messenger or Beluga.

From what I can tell, the potential for Google+ to be big is there. What remains to be seen is whether or not Google+ will actually be successful. As of now, it is in an invitation only beta. In order to check out any of these features, you need to be invited to that beta. I know i have signed up for it and hope to get in soon. If you want to check it out, you can sign up here.

Windows 8 To Bring Keyboard and SMS Revolution

Microsoft’s unreleased new operating system, Windows 8, has recently leaked onto the Internet. According to build number 7989, the next generation of Windows operating systems is poised to tap into the tablet market, a field left so far untouched by Microsoft.

Although Windows has had a virtual keyboard since ancient days, this unreleased OS has revolutionized the look and feel of it, making it touch friendly, and ultimately tablet friendly. Moreover, the new on-screen keyboard will also come with a split option, effectively cutting the keyboard in half and pushing each halves to their respective edge.

The Win 8 Keyboard will also incorporate support for emoticons as well as feedback sounds similar to those heard on Windows Phone OS.

Another feature discovered hidden in the code for the build was a type of per-feature licensing, which leads us to believe that Microsoft might consider offering users a basic version of the OS and prompting them to buy new features. This approach is very similar to Apple’s built method of supplying the iPhone with basic software, but marketing the App Store.

An interesting discovery made by Redmond Pie in the 7989 build was, strangely enough, support for SMS (Short Message Service), a service usually used in mobile communications. Most likely present for the tablets, SMS enabled Windows 8-based slates would allow users to directly send text messages. Another worth mentioning feature discovered would be the geo-location ability, supposedly intended to automatically detect a user’s time zone.

However, besides the many new features to be soon added to Windows 8, Microsoft’s ambiguous statements have frustrated many developers. While accustomed to using Visual Basic, .Net and Silverlight, programmers were baffled by certain comments stating that the only tools used to develop applications would be HTML 5 and JavaScript.

Google Quietly Rolls Out WDYL.com: A Range Of Google Product Results On One Page

This morning, we got tipped to check out wdyl.com. The tipster noted that it was apparently a new Google site attempting to “create a unified UI to search in multiple channels”. Sure enough, visiting the URL brought up a Google page — but it was a 404 page. Turns out it needs the “www” in order to work. Yes, wdyl.com is not quite ready for prime-time. But it is out there, live!

The new service, which Google apparently did launch this morning, is called What do you love? (hence, wdyl.com). While it seems to be more of a cute gimmick at this time, the idea is to return users a single page of relevant results across many of Google’s products for whatever query is typed into the wdyl search box. The “search” button is even a heart. Cute.

The best queries are for vague, broad terms like “love“, for example. On the results page you’ll find pictures of love, patents about love, love on Google Trends, videos about love, how to say love in different languages, books about love, etc. It can be interesting. But the results showcasing Gmail, Calendar, Chrome, and a few others again show that this is meant to be more of a promotional tool for Google products rather than anything hugely useful. A button at the bottom of each widget takes you directly to the Google product showcased.

The most striking thing about the new site is that it seems pretty well designed — not always a given with Google.

Google site asks users: What Do You Love?

A new site from Internet search giant Google has recently popped up 

that asks users a simple question: what do you love?

First uncovered by the blogTechCrunch, the website wdyl.com appears to be a sophisticated search tool that combines results from several sources.

For example, after typing in "smartphones," several widget-style windows appear allowing users to see images of devices, find the latest news or books on smartphones, and even make a smartphone photo album with Picasa.

Among other options: seek out patents, call someone and search on the move. All results are tied to Google services such as Gmail (email someone about a topic), YouTube and Google Trends.

Also, as TechCrunch points out, "the best queries are for vague, broad terms like "love", for example."

Facebook Deleting Photos Uploaded Using KDE Applications

If you are a KDE user who have used KDE applications to upload photos to Facebook, prepare for something you will have never expected. Facebook has done two things which are sure to piss off a lot of KDE users:

• They have blocked the KIPI plugin
• They have removed all the photos uploaded using the KIPI plugin

The KIPI (KDE Image Plugin Interface) Plugin is a common plugin structure used by many KDE applications to share image plugins among graphic libraries. Many KDE applications such as Gwenview, Digikam and KPhotoAlbum uses the KIPI plugins to upload photos to social networking sites like Facebook. Now, it seems like Facebook has banned KIPI. When users try to upload images using any application using the KIPI plugin they are getting an “Invalid API key” error message.

The problem with these KDE applications does not end here. Not only are these KDE applications banned, all photos that users have uploaded using these applications have also been removed from Facebook.

A bug report regarding this has already been filed at kde.org:

When I try to upload a picture to Facebook using KIPI plugin, it gives an error message “Facebook Call Failed: Application has been deleted”.

I also noticed that previously uploaded pictures that were uploaded using KIPI disappear from my Facebook account. other pictures that were not uploaded using KIPI are displaying fine.

However, it seems like this is an issue with Facebook not the KDE applications. A few days back, there was a problem of Facebook’s ban bot getting out of control and banning innocent applications. In all probability it seems like KIPI too has been hit by the Facebook ban bot as well.

The KDE developers have already filed for a bug report in Facebook asking for KIPI to be restored. Let us see what happens now.

100 Scariest Movies of All Time

The Chicago Film Critics Association has compiled a list of the top 100 Scariest Movies of All Time. It looks like the people who compiled the list know their stuff. I was afraid it was going to be all well-known Hollywood movies, but the list is pretty wide-ranging.

Monster.com Adapts Social Networking Site Facebook

Monster.com, online employment hub, is adapting its job search to social networking site Facebook. Monster, will be doing this by launching a Facebook app called BeKnown on Monday.

With BeKnown, users can import their data from Facebook profile to the Facebook app and let users manage their professional and personal network from one place. Another professional network that is trying out similar approach is BranchOut and going from my Facebook news stream it’s pretty evident that BranchOut app is pretty popular among young professionals. In fact, BranchOut already has 800,000 users.

How BeKnown is trying to differ from BranchOut is, it’s trying to turn your professional life into a little game. That is, users will get badges like you get in FourSquare once you complete your graduation, get a job, a promotion, etc. I’m pretty sure once you become a CEO, the badge would say “I’m CEO, bitch”.

To think that almost everyone is adapting their business with the social networking site Facebook says something. Earlier this week, Linkedin, an independent professional social network site announced that they now have 10 million users in India and about 100 million users worldwide. We have written an elaborate article on why Linkedin’s huge user base does not make sense in the largely Social world.

“My First Baby Birth – Video!” Facebook Scam

Yet again, Facebook users are being tempted to click on scam links. A new Facebook scam is underway that claims to show a video of a baby being born. The scam’s signature message states - My First Baby Birth – Video! and the describes it - Yeahh! It happens on Live Television!

The scam message is spreading rapidly with the help of click-jacking and like-jacking. When a user clicks on the link provided in the scam message, the message will be ”liked” and posted automatically on wall without the users knowledge.

The scam site is hosted on Blogspot - babaybirthontv.blogspot.com

On clicking the link you will be taken to the blogspot scam page. Clicking the play button will like-jack your Facebook account and the message will be posted on your Facebook wall stating that you “like” the video causing your friends also to fall for this trap.

Facebook scam messages are ever increasing and its quite hard to avoid them.  Scammers are quite smart as they know that creating such scam messages will tempt and increase the curiosity of users which will make them click on the links provided.

It is reported that a new Facebook app called MyPageKeeper has promised and guaranteed to protectusers from such scams on Facebook. MyPageKeeper will constantly monitor your news feed, wall posts, and installed apps in order to keep your Facebook account away from scams.

Here’s an article about Avoiding Facebook Lifejacking and Clickjacking scams. We have also complied a list of Actively Spreading Scams on Facebook for you to look through and avoid.

Google PageRank Update June 2011 Rolling Out

Google is rolling out a new PageRank update to websites as we speak. This is the second update of Google PageRank in this year. Google had also rolled out updates to PageRank in January 2011.

I have seeing a lot of webmasters tweeting about PageRank updates and most of them seems positive. Google has been making several changes to their search engine lately and have heavily penalized websites through Panda updates. We had written about mistakes you should avoid if you are trying to recover from Panda algorithm.

In addition to banning some big sites, the Panda update also managed to push scraper website on top of search results, however, those problems have reportedly been fixed with the new Panda 2.2 update.

Even though PageRank is not a very important in ranking sites in search engines, sites with higher PageRank are often trusted more. If you have been seeing some drastic traffic loss, a positive PageRank update could mean that Google still sees your site authoritative. However, you might want to avoidmaking simple mistakes and get penalized.

Did you see a PageRank update for your website? Feel free to share your rankings through your comments.

Google Gets Approval for Self-driving Cars, The Future of Cars is Here

Finally, after months of controlled testing, Google has been able to get a law passed that authorizes it to drive around an autonomous car. In reality, this law allows the Department of Transportation to formrules and laws for any autonomous driven car, hence approving of the Google cars in a way. This also assures that any car manufacturer can now bring out a similar technology without worrying about these issues.

The first time an autonomous car was spotted was in October last year and this law will go a long way into realizing this car as a regular consumer product.

Here is a clearer picture as offered on PCMag,

Nevada defines “autonomous vehicle” as a motor vehicle that uses artificial intelligence, sensors and global positioning system coordinates to drive itself without the activeintervention of a human operator.

The law does not mean that self-driving cars will instantly be “street legal” next year. Instead, it tasks the Nevada DMV to come up with a series of regulations surrounding all aspects of ownership and operation of autonomous vehicles, some or all of which will undoubtedly be used as models for the rest of the country.

The automobile industry is extremely competitive but their use of computer technology has always maintained a slow growth. However, now that the Google car is out, another car-manufacturer Volkswagen is experimenting its own autonomous driving system and you can read about it here.

Check online if you can run a Game on your PC

Sometimes you wonder before installing a game to your system whether it can run on your system or not. Here is a website to check the game’s compatibility on your system.

Can You Run It?

It is a special service by Systemrequirementslab.com.This service is an online tool,using which you can check whether the game you brought from your friend or mate after installing will run on your system(computer) configuration or not.This works with Java and takes some time(not much justs a minute or less).

Don’t hurt your eyes, be safe while using Computer

Ever notice how people texting at night have that eerie blue glow?

Or wake up prepared to write down the Next Great Idea, & get blinded by your computer screen?

In the course of the day, computer screens look good—they’re designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you most likely shouldn’t be looking at the sun.

It’s even feasible that you’re staying up  late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could  use it  because it makes your computer look better.

F.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer’s display alter to the time of day, warm at night & like sunlight in the course of the day.

Ever notice how people texting at night have that eerie blue glow?Or wake up prepared to write down the Next Great Idea, & get blinded by your computer screen?
In the course of the day, computer screens look good—they’re designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you most likely shouldn’t be looking at the sun.
It’s even feasible that you’re staying up  late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could  use it  because it makes your computer look better.
F.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer’s display alter to the time of day, warm at night & like sunlight in the course of the day.

Download it from Here

The Hidden Danger of Facebook Games

Most of the people are accustomed to internet programs protecting their information, some people struggle with the idea that applications on Facebook can steal their information. If you have a Facebook, I’d bet you have been exposed to the various games and applications you can interact with directly through the Facebook interface. Although there are some that were created purely to entertain Facebook users (like Pieces of Flair or and (lil) Green Patch), there are numerous applications that take your information without your knowledge such as  Farmville and Frontierville, which have already been “busted” for sharing your unique Facebook ID numbers with advertisers. While Facebook claims the applications that violated their TOS by sharing your identifier data were not able to share any other personal data such as passwords, one can speculate if vulnerabilities in the API yet unseen could expose your online existence. However, with 500 million users and growing, it looks like no one really cares.

Facebook games may seem innocent, especially to users unaccustomed to internet fraud, but they have a dark side. When you as a user click “Allow” or “Accept” when first playing the game, you may be giving this game full access to your information. Even after the WSJ report in October 2010 about Facebook game applications giving outside companies personal user data, Facebook users continue to play these games and possibly allow them to steal their information.

To a lesser degree, or possibly even more intrusive, Facebook actually tracks your own likes and dislikes within their interface for the purpose of displaying ads they know will appeal to you. Remember when you signed up for Facebook?  When you did, you gave them permission to do this. Facebook is “free” but you are exchanging your privacy for using this free service.

Go ahead, log onto your Facebook. See those ads on the side of the page? Notice anything odd? The advertisements on the side of the page are about the things you like. WOW! Your favorite actors, sports teams, activities are being advertised on facebook. A naive user may just think it’s a coincidence that adds of their liking are displayed on facebook. Hopefully after reading this you realize that it is no coincidence at all! Facebook sold your page and its information to advertisers. They have full access to your page, which includes your likes, activities and favorites. The advertisers use this information to specialize the ads on your page to fit your personality.

To keep your information safe, be aware of the scams that gamers and advertisers can use to fool you. Although there is not much you can do about Facebook selling your likes and such, you can still eliminate intrusion from outside interests by adhering to the following rules:

• Don’t click “Allow” – ever. This may release all of your personal information to an outside company. Most software is inherently flawed. The exposure comes when the developers realize there is an exploit, which is usually the result of an outside force not an inside agent. Ok, if you really have to play a game, please see the next 2 tips.
• Play games from an outside website such as addictinggames.com, miniclip.com, or freeonlinegames.com, not Facebook. Come on, they already have access to your friends, hobbies, likes, activities, and interests. Do they need any more information about you?
• If you are really game crazy, try to limit how much Facebook knows about you. Keep your hobbies and interests generic and try to limit how much personal information you are posting.