We show you how to install and run OS X Lion on your ordinary PC

There are a lot of things that Apple gets right, but pricing is not one of them. This is a company that’s made a fortune by defying conventional wisdom, so it’s hard not to admire it and its products despite their occasional quirks and shortcomings. Apple’s appeal has grown from a long history of understanding what users are really doing with their computers and devices, and knowing how to create things that people will desire. It’s all about the experience—their goal is to make you feel delight and wonderment from the time you walk into a shop till you take your new device out of its box and switch it on for the first time. Everything that Apple does, from the iron-clad secrecy it maintains around upcoming products to the theatricality of its unveilings, is designed to further that experience. Once the association with joy has been made in buyers’ minds, they’re hooked.

Mac OS X has a lot of appeal: the graphics are rich, security is higher than Windows, it’s generally easier for beginners to get used to, and there’s some excellent software available for creative professionals. For most people though, just the “coolness” factor and thrill of getting it working without spending money on Apple hardware are reason enough to try.

This is the “reality distortion field” effect that dozens of other companies have tried to emulate over the years, to varying degrees of success. Just like everyone else, Apple has had to adapt to a changing world, one in which everything is mass produced in China, there are only two or three manufacturers of each kind of high-end component, and it costs too much to try and do things on your own. Today, it’s possible to take a small chunk of that Apple experience and use it on your own, outside the confines of the expensive ecosystem built specifically for it. The enjoyment won’t be the same, but the whole point is to expand users’ options and give them the choice.

We’re referring, of course, to running Mac OS X on any ordinary PC, something that the Cupertino giant does not like, endorse or acknowledge in any way. Apple’s desktop OS is finely tuned to work with its own hardware, software and online services: an entire ecosystem. This has the disadvantage of limiting your choices (and budget range) when it comes to buying a new computer, but it has the advantage of eliminating the thousands of variables that tend to make Windows machines slow or unstable. Apple has never expressly allowed other brands to sell machines with OS X preinstalled, so you’ll never find a Mac bogged down with “bloatware” added on by third-party manufacturers, and you won’t have to go hunting for a printer driver when you need one, because it’s already built in.

Be warned, running OS X is a tricky proposition and it’s not endorsed by Apple in any way. You’ll be contravening their end-user license agreement and will not have access to any help or support from them. You also won’t have a Mac-specific keyboard, mouse or trackpad, which will make several shortcuts and gestures impossible to use. This process is not recommended for casual users, or anyone who isn’t familiar with the internal workings of a PC. You run the risk of erasing your hard drive and losing whatever’s on it, so make sure you have backups. Moreover, obtaining a legal copy of Lion, the latest version of OS X, is entirely your responsibility.

The Hackintosh Process

Installing an operating system on hardware not originally designed for it is a tricky process. Apple is famous for building experiences around tightly integrated hardware and software, so problems are bound to crop up when trying to run OS X on unfamiliar components. It’s not impossible to run OS X on commodity PC hardware, but this isn’t a project to undertake if you’re not 100 percent comfortable with your computer’s inner workings.

As of now, OS X Lion is a bit more difficult to get running than previous versions, Leopard and Snow Leopard. Methods of running these older versions have existed for years now, and a vibrant developer community online is constantly making new drivers available to extend compatibility with all kinds of hardware. With Lion only recently released, the driver database is understandably small, and it’s quite likely that you’ll run into compatibility issu4es and other odd problems. The most frustrating issue we faced was with an incompatible USB keyboard, which caused all sorts of input errors!

Before beginning any experiment, we must emphasize the importance of backing up everything on your computer. Make a list of all hardware and drivers and search online for known problems. Then, if you’re sure you understand all the risks and liabilities, you’re ready to proceed.

Once you have downloaded Lion and have all the files ready, you can start the process.

STEP 1

Copy the Lion installation file (InstallESD.dmg) and Kakewalk to the desktop of the Macintosh. Run the Kakewalk utility, and on the main screen, click on ‘Install to a USB stick’.

STEP 2

On the next screen, select the location of the Lion DMG file and choose the USB stick as the destination. Make sure you choose the correct destination (the USB stick), or you’ll end up installing it to the Mac you’re working on. When you’re sure, click the ‘Create’ button.

STEP 3

The Kakewalk utility will do the necessary work in the background. It involves formatting the USB stick, mounting the Lion DMG image, copying the installer files and packages to the USB stick and a lot more. All this is done in the background and may take a while depending on the speed of the pen drive. Your USB stick will also be renamed to ‘Kakewalk’.

STEP 4

After the process is complete, the utility will ask you to start the Kakewalk installation. Click OK to continue and the next screen will ask you to choose your motherboard model number. The exact version is preferable, but a close variant will also do. Make sure you have an Internet connection as Kakewalk will need to download the necessary drivers from its repository. If your motherboard is not listed, you’ll have to choose the closest match. Then carefully select your destination as the USB drive (now renamed as Kakewalk). Click on ‘Start Installation’. After completion, you can safely eject the USB stick and return the Macintosh to its owner, unscathed.

STEP 5

Now plug the USB stick into your PC and turn it on. Go to the BIOS where a few changes need to be made. Change the boot priority to USB HDD. Next, make sure you make the following changes if you have the options in your BIOS: HPET: Enable (64-bit), ACPI Suspend type: S3 (STR) and Hard drive: AHCI enabled. Save and close the BIOS settings. Restart the PC and boot from the USB stick.

STEP 6

When you boot from the USB stick, you will be greeted by Kakewalk’s EFI bootloader. Select the USB stick (Kakewalk) on your screen and press [Enter].

WARNING: The target hard drive will be reformatted and all data on it will be lost. If possible, install Lion on a new, blank hard drive.

STEP 7

After a long process during which you’ll see lines of text characters scrolling continuously, you will land at the Lion installation screen. If you have not reached here, it’s possible that a compatibility issue has been discovered. Note the error lines displayed on screen and search the Internet for a specific solution. You should find specific help on the various forums dedicated to OS X fans. For example, the error ‘DSMOS has arrived’ means that the video card is not compatible.

STEP 8

Follow the steps shown on screen till you arrive at the screen which asks you to choose the destination disk to install the OS to. At this screen, click on ‘Utilities’ and then ‘Disk Utility’. This will start the partition manager for Mac OS X

STEP 9

Using Disk Utility, click on your target hard drive in the left pane and then click on ‘Partition’ on the right pane. From the Volume Scheme, select ‘1 Partition’ and in the ‘Options’ below, select ‘GUID Partition Table’. Then in the Volume Information, type a name for the partition, select the format type as ‘Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and leave the rest untouched. Finally, click on ‘Apply’ and proceed to format the drive. Once done, exit Disk Utility and proceed with the installation of the OS. The installation will take around 30 minutes, at the end of which your computer will reboot. Leave the USB stick plugged in, as there is no bootloader yet.

STEP 10

This time, when the system boots again, choose to boot from the hard drive instead of the USB stick. Once booted, you should be welcomed  to the next steps of the installation. Continue with all the necessary details that are asked on the screen.

STEP 11

Once done, you should arrive at the default Lion desktop. Congratulations, your installation has been successful! But you have still got to install the bootloader to your hard drive so that it can boot up on its own.

STEP 12

Locate your USB stick in the OS X Finder and open it. You will find the application ‘Kakewalk’—double-click and run the utility. Click on the icon that reads ‘Install to Computer’.

STEP 13

This screen will highlight the motherboard model you chose while making the USB stick on the Macintosh. You cannot change anything here, so simply click on ‘Start Installation’. After a few minutes, you will be asked to reboot the machine. Now your bootloader is installed on your system and you can safely boot your PC from the hard drive. Mac OS X Lion is ready to go!

STEP 14

Installing drivers is the biggest headache, but you can do it in a few steps. First, using MultiBeast, you can install basic drivers for audio, network, graphics, and system components. Copy the Multibeast utility to your new desktop and run it. Follow the steps till you reach the ‘Installation Type’ screen. From the drop down list, carefully choose the drivers of your motherboard and graphics card by referring to their respective user manuals. If you are not sure of any of the drivers, simply don’t select it, or else you will cause errors known as Kernel panic, and might need to reinstall Lion all over again. When the process is complete, you’ll need to reboot the PC.

STEP 15

Additional drivers that are not available through Multibeast can be downloaded and installed separately using the KextBeast utility. The drivers are usually in the form of .KEXT files and need to be inserted into certain folders and their permissions set to a particular level. KextBeast does it for you automatically. All you need to do is copy the KEXT files and the KextBeast utility to the desktop and run the utility. It will automatically search for the drivers on the desktop and install them.

The Switcher’s Guide to Lion

1. The dock

Somewhat like your Windows taskbar and Start menu rolled into one, the Dock is where shortcuts to all your favorite applications live. Just like in Windows 7, icons in the Dock might represent programs that are running (indicated by a glowing dock, though this can be turned off) or simply ones that are there for quick access. The right hand side of the dock shows individual program windows that are currently minimized. You’ll also find pinned folders here: Trash, the recycle bin equivalent; Documents, where the files you create are saved by default; and Downloads, a central place for downloaded files, as the name suggests.

2. Program behavior

Here’s where things get very different from Windows. Programs can run even when no windows are open. What that means is that a browser or image viewer, for example, doesn’t stop running when you close all open web pages or images, but you won’t see an “empty” program window either. You can manually quit each program that isn’t required anymore, or let Lion decide when it needs to free up resources. Take a look at the menu bar that’s always on the top of your screen—the name of the running program will be visible, even if no windows are open. New in Lion, most programs will open exactly the way you left them when they were last closed, including any open documents, web pages or other work in progress. For privacy or convenience, you can disable this behavior in ‘System Preferences’.

For reasons unknown, OS X has never allowed windows to be maximized to fill your screen. Instead, the “traffic light” controls in the top left corner let you “zoom” a window till its content fits on screen. New to Lion, a Full Screen mode acts somewhat like maximizing a program, but this doesn’t just affect a window’s size, it can change its look completely.

3. The keyboard

Say goodbye to [Ctrl] and [Alt], you now have to learn to deal with [Control], [Cmd] and [Option]. ([Cmd] maps to the [Win] key on most PC keyboards). Use [Cmd]+[C] or [Z] to copy or undo, but you’ll have to hold down [Option] to select multiple items in a list. If it takes too long to get used to the new keyboard positions, you can remap keys via the ‘Keyboard’ panel in ‘System Preferences’.

4. The Finder

Where Windows has Explorer, OS X has the Finder, the only difference being that a lot more is hidden from the user. You can’t usually browse through protected parts of the hard drive, and as of Lion, top-level folders and hard drives themselves aren’t visible by default. This makes things simpler for beginners, who can simply save documents to ‘Documents’ and find downloads in ‘Downloads’, but it takes time for advanced users to accustomed. Views are also different: iTunes users will recognize Cover Flow, and the multi-column view is handy when digging through deeply nested folders.

5. Spaces and Mission Control

OS X Lion takes virtual desktops mainstream—you can organize your windows across multiple “Spaces”, just like multiple invisible monitors arranged side to side for visual reference. Switch between Spaces with a two-fingered trackpad swipe, or [Control]+[]/[]. Mission Control ([F3] or two-fingered double-tap) lets you see a zoomed-out view of all your Spaces and the programs currently running in each. You can force programs to run only within their own Space, and any app in fullscreen mode is counted as its own Space. Bonus: each Space can have its own background wallpaper.

6. iOS carryovers

All the new features that headlined Lion’s release were in some way inspired by the iPhone and iPad user experience. The first one you’ll notice is “natural scrolling”, exactly the opposite of what we’re used to. Instead of dragging a scrollbar down, you pull a page’s contents up. Text autocorrects itself just like on an iPhone, so beware of the sometimes overenthusiastic substitutions. The entire OS can shut down and resume exactly as you left it, with apps open and documents running. Documents are automatically saved as you work, rendering the ‘Save as…’ command redundant.

7. Time Machine and Versions

Since most people only realize the importance of backups when it’s too late, Apple has tried to make the process as easy as possible. Time Machine is a one-click solution; set it up and you can pull out backups at any time. With Lion, you can also track revisions to individual files and documents. Click the document name a program’s title bar to browse through previous Versions of a document and rescue elements in them that you’ve since deleted, even if you didn’t save different copies as you went along. Lion will save a copy as often as every minute. After two weeks, files are “locked”, and you’ll be prompted when edits will change the current version of a file.

8. Built-in programs

Apart from the well-known iTunes jukebox and Safari web browser, Mac OS X comes with a cool email client and built-in apps for contacts and calendaring. These now look a lot like their iPad counterparts, and are just as capable. If you need to find some additional software, you can now browse through the Mac App Store and buy or download anything that’s available. Every new Mac also comes with iLife, a suite of programs including iPhoto for photo management and basic edits, iMovie, a fun video editing tool, and Garage Band, which pretty much anyone can use to learn and create music.

9. Other cool things

OS X has some of the best accessibility features for disabled users. Check them out via the ‘System Preferences’. There are also built-in parental controls, voice commands and encryption options. There are loads of commands to tweak the interface, known as “defaults write” commands that you can type into the Terminal. Search online for dozens of options, such as changing the look of your dock, or enabling new animations. The Automator is a powerful, but little-known utility for creating scripts to automate repetitive tasks. And Airdrop, in the Finder, is a brilliantly easy way to share files between two Macs via Wi-Fi. Hit [Cmd]+[Space] at any point to bring up Spotlight, the system-wide search tool that finds files, programs, settings, help, and now even dictionary definitions. OS X even has built in spelling, grammar and Wikipedia functions—almost any selectable text can be looked up.

10. Things that behave badly

Lion can’t run programs written for older, non-Intel CPUs. You shouldn’t encounter any such programs today, except in very specialized cases. Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 runs fine, but 2004 won’t work at all. Initial users have also reported trouble with several Adobe apps including Flash Player and most of the Creative Suite products. Users with Time Machine backups on external drives might be out of luck due to new requirements that older drives don’t yet support. Most of these problems will be fixed by updates from the respective vendors, but it’s a good idea to search online for potential pitfalls before installing Lion.

One of the best and probably the most awesome Windows XP ever released now on its 7th Edition!

Silent Unattended and Very Fast Installation. CD Key is inserted automatically during installation. And you can update the OS without any problem.

Note: Never install a ANY new OS over a previous one, always clean and wipe the hard disk where the OS is installed before installing a new OS – This is SOP!
Download Hirens BootCD, burn it to a disc and boot your PC or laptop from it. Choose Partitioning Tools to wipe and clean your hard disk clean for a fresh, clean and error-free installation.

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PhotoTune – Photoshop-plugin for color correction of digital images and the correction of portraits. PhotoTune makes it possible to adjust the color of human skin, picture clarity, color saturation, color and more.

The plugin works in three modes: image processing with people, image processing without the people and professional advanced mode.

In normal mode (not professional) plug-in works as a single-step wizard, where all parameters are set automatically and you need only select the desired option from the results of the two images. There is also a small set of built-in presets and it is possible to save settings for future use.

————————————–

PhotoTune – Color Correction without the Curve. Optimized tone and color in just a few clicks with PhotoTune. Great color, it’s not as hard as you think. If you can compare images side-by-side and pick the best one than you can easily color correct and enhance your images with PhotoTune 3. PhotoTune 3 optimizes the dynamic range using eye-fidelity technology.

Additionally, PhotoTune 3 improves the color and sharpness of your image without the need to know how to use levels or curves in Photoshop. If you photograph people, you can also tune your images by clicking on skin tones to guarantee accurate skin color. Pro users get access to all the controls for tone, color and sharpening. Better images are just a few clicks away with PhotoTune 3.

- NEW! Dynamic range enhancement using eye-fidelity technology remaps the tones in your image to look more natural, the way your eye sees it.
- Get perfect tone and color for your photos in seconds.
- Wizard walks you through the process of enhancing your image in as few as two steps.
- SkinTune color corrects portrait images in one click, just like using a gray card but for skin.

Features:
- NEW! Automatic Correction
- Improved Wizard
- NEW! Pro Controls
- Intuitive Black and White Conversions
- Skin Color Control
- Smart Filter
- NEW! Lightroom / Aperlure Integration
- NEW! Recently Used Presets
- NEW! onOne Panel

What `new in v3.0.3:
- Improved performance and stability
- Defect correction

System Requirements
- Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 (current maintenance releases)
- Pentium 4 or equivelent with SSE3
- 2GB RAM (4GB recommended)
- 200 MB Hard Disc Space
- OpenGL 2.0 capable video card with 128MB VRAM running at 1024×768 (1280×1024 or higher recommended)
- Adobe Photoshop CS2, CS3, CS4, CS5
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 (Lightroom integration requires a full version of Photoshop)
- Internet connection for activation, auto updates and video tutorials
- Adobe Flash player 10
- DVD drive for installation from disc
- Administrator privileges to install and uninstall
- Microsoft. NET 3.5 framework (installed automatically if missing)

Note: it is highly recommended that you have the most up-to-date driver for your video card installed to take advantage of the power of OpenGL which is needed for PhotoTune 3.

Year: 2010
Developer: onOne Software
Platform: Windows All
Language: only English
Medician: Yes

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Mobile Master is a Cell phone and handset manager for Windows and synchronizes with a few mouse clicks your contacts and appointments between the handset and your computer. Edit and synchronize calendar entries (appointments and tasks). Send, read, archive SMS Note: the SMS Servant is included in the Mobile Master installation but requires an extra license. Logo-Editor, modify ring tone. Copy Station for transmitting your address book easily from one phone to the other. Mobile Master Agent: reach always the important functions easily and start
e.g. Mobile Master automatically as soon as your mobile phone is connected to the PC.
• One click synchronization solution for your mobile phone, edit all you phones data with the computer. Synchronization of contacts and the calendar, Many filter possibilities, AddIns for Outlook, Lotus Notes, Palm Desktop and Thunderbird
• Mobile Master synchronizes or just copies all data with/to your mobile phone.
Synchronize with: Outlook, Lotus Notes, Novell Groupwise, Palm Desktop, Thunderbird, Tobit David, Eudora, The Bat, Outlook Express, Googlecalendar, Windows contacts and calendar, iTunes
• new cell phone: Mobile Master copies the phone/address book from your old to your new one regardless the manufacturer of the phones new phone number, appointment or note: type it in with your PC and send it easily to the cell phone.
• Many import and export filters, e.g. one click to export to excel or open office. Can import e.g. vcf file with more than one contact and that has unicode format
• Connection with the phone: serial or USB cable, infrared or Bluetooth, up to COM Port 300 supported.

Features:
- Mobile Master is a handset manager to edit manually or synchronize automatically or on demand
- Quick area for quick and easy access to the main functions
- Comfortable editing of the phone book, calendar and note items
- easy to use user interface
- Setup Wizard for easy configuring
- Copy files, >music, photos
- SMS send, archive
- Copy the address book, calendar from one phone to another
- At least one update per month for the phones and devices
- Copy play lists from iTunes and WinAmp to the phone

Runs on /Synchronizes via: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000

Changes in Version 7.5.6 Build 3160 (18.12.2009):
* New Features:
o Done modifications for Novell Groupwise 8.0.1
o Done modifications for Lotus Notes 8.0.2
o Done modifications for Nokia PC Suite 7.1.40.1
* Mobile Master Forensic:
o For files now the creation, last modification and last access date and time is retrieved (if possible)
o MD5 checksums can now be calculated
Fixed bugs/solved problems:
o SMS Servant Outlook AddIn: fixed crash with Outlook 2000
o Samsung phones:
- now the call lists of some more devices can be read.
- Fixed the field lenghts for some devices

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SPECIFICATION

Rs 25,000

www.msi.com

Chipset: Intel P55;

Memory: DDR3-1333 (16 GB Max);

SATA: 6 ports by Intel P55,

4 ports by two JMicron JMB322 controllers and 2xeSATA,

USB: 14 (4 via on-board headers);

Expansion slots: 3x PCIe x16, 2x PCIe x1 and 2x PCI;

LAN: Dual gigabit.

Contact  MSI computer India Pvt Ltd

Phone      011-41758808

EMAIL       sanyam@msi.com

MSI has come out with some good high-end boards in the past, like the Intel X58-based Eclipse Plus, which was SLI-ready and came with a discrete X-Fi sound card, and the quad-CrossFireX-ready 790FX-GD70. MSI’s current focus is on their Big Bang series of super-high end motherboards targeted at enthusiasts and gamers. The latest addition to the series is the Big Bang-Fuzion, which has loads of interesting features to offer, the most interesting of them being cross-vendor multi-GPU support courtesy  Lucid Hydra 200 chip.

Features

The motherboard is built around the Intel P55 chipset and supports Intel Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs that come in the socket LGA 1156 package. The chipset supports up to 16 GB DDR3 memory and offers six SATA 3 Gb/s ports and 12 USB 2.0 ports. In addition to this, there are two pairs of SATA 3 Gb/s ports, each supported by a JMicron JMP322 controller. Instead, MSI should have added support for SATA 6 Gb/s. We were surprised to find even USB 3.0 ports missing from the feature set, which are nowadays common to nearly all high-end and many mainstream motherboards.

The rear panel is quite elaborate; there are 10 USB ports (two USB/eSATA combo ports), dual gigabit Ethernet ports, PS/2 ports, a FireWire port, and a connector for the bundled overclocking device called OC Dashboard. It serves two purposes. Firstly, it displays the initialization status of the subsystems during POST, which helps in diagnosing faulty hardware or inappropriate BIOS settings. The debug codes and detailed instructions for using the OC Dashboard are given in a separate user guide. Secondly, you can overclock the CPU and memory and tweak the voltages (CPU, memory and chipset) from Windows. The values are displayed on the device’s OLED screen. You can also use CPU-Z to check the effective CPU and memory speeds. A small array of connectors and four dip switches are present near the RAM slots. The connectors are designed to check the voltages using a multimeter, and the dip switches boost the voltages (CPU, CPU_VTT, memory and chipset) and increase the voltage adjustment range in the BIOS.

MSI has also bundled a utility called MSI Control Center that displays system information and lets you overclock by simply dragging sliders for various parameters. Additionally, there are three overclocking presets – cooling, cinema and gaming. To make overclocking easy, the board features an automatic overclocking mechanism called OC Genie, which comprises a switch and an OC processor. On activating the switch, the OC processor calculates the optimum overclocked speeds and voltages and applies the values in the BIOS. OC Genie overclocked the Intel Core i7-870 from 2.93 GHz to 4.0 GHz without any issues. The package includes separate user guides for MSI Control Center, OC Genie and Overclocking.

Lucid Hydra 200

The MSI Big Bang-Fuzion is the first motherboard to support cross-vendor multi-GPU configurations using the Lucid Hydra 200 chip. It works in conjunction with the CPU and functions as a load-balancer between two or three GPUs. It fetches DirectX API calls, divides and assigns workload between the GPUs, and combines the final output to be displayed on the monitor.

Lucid Hydra works in three modes:

N-mode: Up to three Nvidia G90/G200 cards

A-mode: Up to three Radeon HD 4000/5000 series cards

X-mode: One/two supported Nvidia cards and one/two supported ATI cards.

To configure cards in Hydra, you first have to install graphics drivers for your cards, then install the Lucid Hydra driver, and activate Hydra from the control panel that resides in the system tray.

It sounds simple, but you’ll need to keep these points in mind:

The graphics cards configured in Hydra need to be more or less equally powerful. For example, Radeon HD 5850 + GeForce GTX 285 or GeForce 9600 GT + Radeon HD 5670. You won’t see any scaling with one powerful and one weak GPU. We tried using a GT 240 with a Radeon HD 5850, and the overall performance dropped slightly.

You’ll need Windows Vista or 7 to use Hydra. The X-mode works only under Windows 7, and not under Windows Vista.

For games to works smoothly, the driver needs to have game profiles. Profiles for newer games are included in newer driver releases. The latest driver (version 1.5.107) currently lists 102 games.

Hydra doesn’t work with the latest Nvidia Fermi series or dual-GPU cards, such as the GTX 295, Radeon HD 5970 and HD 4870 X2.

Graphics cards in two-way setup run in x16 mode each, and cards in three-way setup run in x8 mode.

Not all games run in all modes. In fact relatively few scale well in X-mode, so check the Lucid website before spending money on a Hydra setup.

Verdict

Thumbs up to MSI for being the first to implement Lucid Hydra. It gives you the freedom to configure multi-GPU setups using graphics cards of your choice and it also provides an excellent upgrade path. If you have an older graphics card that’s discontinued and you want to upgrade at a low cost, you can buy one modern midrange graphics card, configure the two in Hydra, and you’re all set. We really liked the incredible feature set of this motherboard and the bundled contents, which includes a discrete PCIe x1 soundcard (QuantumWave), overclocking device and an eSATA bracket, but the lack of USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s support was disappointing.

On the whole however, the package and performance completely justify the price tag. In fact, this board offers a lot more than some of the other high-end ones that are more expensive.

Step 1: Create an additional partition and format it. Windows Vista and 7 users can use the Shrink Space option from the Disk Management Utility to create a new volume without repartitioning the hard drive. Windows XP or older users can use third party partition manager utilities to create a new partition. If you already have an additional partition or drive, then you can skip this part. Once you have created the partition, format it and transfer all your data to this new drive.

Step 2: Now let’s assume that you have your sensitive data on drive ‘D’ and want to prevent it from showing up in the Windows Explorer. To do this you need to start the Group Policy Editor utility. Click ‘Start | Run’ and type ‘Gpedit.msc’ and press [Enter]. Here scroll down to ‘User Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Windows Explorer’ on the left pane. Double-click on the ‘Hide these specified drives in My Computer’ on the right pane. In the following window, select ‘Enabled’ and choose the ‘D’ drive from the drop down list under ‘Options’. Apply the settings and exit.

Step 3: The drive letter ‘D’ is now hidden from Windows Explorer. In order to access this drive in future, all you need is to enter ‘D:’ in the ‘Start | Run…’ dialog box nor in the address bar of Windows Explorer. Your drive will be accessible for your work since only you know it exists. Note: This is not a fool-proof method and the hidden drive can even be targeted by viruses. Also, remember that this is not an encrypted partition. The lists of recently opened files in each program can also expose the hidden drive’s existence. Use a utility such as Ccleaner or Window Washer to wipe out these tracks.

Well, the official Google Mobile blog also shares the introduction of the Google Buzz widget for Android. The newfangled tool is intended to make the sharing experience on Android faster and easier.

With a single tap, users can now post text and photos thanks to the new widget. Keeping in lines with other mobile access points for Google Buzz, this new widget too enables users to tag their posts with a location. Users can post buzz about a load of things.

For example, users who’ve just had a great meal can choose to share photos of the new restaurant without really waiting to get back to their scrumptious dessert. They save time as their posts will upload in the background

Initially available in English for Android phones running v1.6 and above, the widget can be downloaded from the Android Market. Post installation, users can add it to their home screen. All they have to do is tap ‘Menu’ while they are on the homescreen and then choose ‘Add > Widgets > Google Buzz’. Support for other languages is expected to be added soon.

The Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is said to contain “minor updates” that include hotfixes and patches which will also be delivered through Windows Update in the months before the its release. One new feature will be a new Remote Desktop client that will work with RemoteFX, a remote-access platform which will be part of the Windows Server 2008 SP1. Apart from RemoteFX and other minor updates, another new feature will be introduced in the Windows Server 2008 SP1 called Dynamic Memory, which will allow administrators to adjust their users’ virtual memory on a real-time basis.

In the past, administrators and enterprise users had always waited for the SP1 of a new OS to arrive before migrating their businesses to it. However, in a recent survey conducted by Dimensional Research of 900 IT administrators, 46% said they will not wait for SP1 before migrating. Kudos to Microsoft for launching such a stable release.

By- Digit

Expanding the worth and appeal of its popular mapping tool beyond just motorists and pedestrians, search titan Google has this week begun adding dedicated bicycle routes to Google Maps.

Starting from today, Google Maps users looking to plan a leisurely bike ride in their spare time or perhaps simply avoid heavy traffic while commuting will be able to access trails and paths tailored specifically for pedal-powered transport. Users can even select routes that avoid calf-tearing hills.

“This has been a top-requested feature from Google Maps users for the last couple year,” outlined Shannon Guymon, product manager at Google, in a Wired report. “There are over 50,000 signatures on a petition.”

Although the new cycle path feature is only presently available in around 150 cities across the United States, Google has said it plans to steadily add more geographical content – much in the same way it does with other Google Maps features such as Street View.

Google has indicated that a Google Maps bike-route feature for mobile devices is already in the pipeline.

Inspect Memory Usage

Chrome has some advanced options for inspecting memory usage. Right-click on the browser tab in the start bar select ‘Task Manager’. You will get a window showing how much memory is being used by each tab in the browser. Now click on ‘Stats for Nerds’ and a new tab will open in the browser, with a process ID, name of the site, memory and virtual memory usage. The great thing about this feature is that if you are using other browsers at the same time, then the tab shows the memory usage by that browser as well.

Bookmarks

To bookmark a page, click on the star icon next to the address bar. To access the list of bookmarks at any point of time during browsing, key in [Ctrl] + [B]. To make it disappear, use the same shortcut again.

Incognito Mode

Chrome has a secret mode that allows you to surf the Web anonymously. On the top right corner of the browser, to the right of the address bar is the page control button. Click on it and select ‘New incognito window’ or [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N]. The sites surfed using this mode will not appear in the history, and the cookies they store on the system will be deleted as soon as the tab is closed.

Make Google Chrome Your Default Browser

Click on the ‘Customize and Control Google Chrome’ button to the right of the address bar, click on ‘Options’ and under ‘Default browser’ click on the ‘Make Google Chrome my default browser’ button.

Navigation Tips

Right-click on the back and next buttons to go through a recent history of visited Web sites. Drag and drop any tab from the browser into the desktop to start a browser with just that tab open. To open a tab you have just closed by mistake, use the keys [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [T]. Use [Ctrl] + [1] to [9] to cycle through tabs from the keyboard.

Expand Text Boxes

This is a very useful feature for use in any kind of site that requires you to fill in text in a text area. When you come across a text area in a forum or a form in a Web site, just click on the bottom right corner of the text area, click and drag it as per your requirements.

Inspect Memory Usage By A Site

Right-click on any empty space in the Web page, click on inspect element. This is, by the way, how you view the source code of a site on Chrome. Once here, click on the first line of the HTML code, which will effectively select the entire site. Then click on resources. This shows up the usage of memory by each element in the Web page. You can sort the elements by time or by size. If you reload the page, every image and script on the page shows up in the graph and gets plotted in real time.

For all those using or interested in using Adobe products, tomorrow is an important day. Starting 11AM and till 4PM Adobe is hosting the Online Creative Festival which will cover a range of topics concerning their Creative Suite of applications.

The event will feature 10 hours of live seminars during the 5 hours, with parallel sessions in two “rooms.” After each one-hour session you will be able to interact with Adobe experts, other wise there will also be chat room for the same. On demand pre-recorded sessions on various topics will also be available.

If you already use Adobe products, you can also participate in a contest and end up winning a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection. You just need to upload your creation to the Gallery section, and attendees will be able to vote for the one they like best.

The seminars will cover Adobe software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign etc and Adobe technologies such as Flash, and ActionScript. The seminars are free and registrations for the event are still open. Visit http://www.adobeonlinefestival.com/india now to register.

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On February 14 2005, YouTube’s co-founders, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Javed Karim registered the site’s domain name and set out to “create a place where anyone with a video camera and an Internet connection could share a story with the world”, according to the company’s recent blog entry.

The first YouTube video was entitled ‘Me at the zoo’ and shows co-founder Karim at San Diego Zoo. It was uploaded on April 23 2005 and is still on the site.

The site officially launched in November 2005, after six months of public beta testing and by July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day – with 100 million video views per day.

YouTube did not begin as the market leader in the video space and faced competition from the likes of Vimeo and Viddler. However, it soon overtook its rivals because of how easy users found its uploading and embedding tools.

In October 2009, the site celebrated serving over one billion views per day on the third anniversary of it being acquired by Google for $1.65 billion (£883m).

Hurley, who remains YouTube’s chief executive, wrote on the video-sharing site’s blog on that day: “Three years ago… we’d just made headlines by joining with Google in our shared goal of organising the world’s information (in our case video) and making it easily and quickly accessible to anyone, anywhere.

“Today, I’m proud to say that we have been serving well over a billion views a day on YouTube. This is great moment in our short history and we owe it all to you.”

He went onto to detail how aspects of the site have had to move with the times: “As bandwidth has increased, so has our video quality. As we’ve started to see demand for longer, full-length content, we’ve brought more shows and movies to the site. There are now more ways than ever to make and consume content, and more of you are looking to turn your hobby into a real business.”

Indeed the services the site now offers have transformed radically from its early days – when it was typified by user generated videos showing dogs on skateboards – which become viral web sensations overnight.

YouTube is in the process of trying to reposition itself as a platform which shows professional content, as well as its bread and butter user generated content. Having signed content deals with the likes of Channel 4 and Five, as well agreements to livestream sports tournaments, like the Indian Premier League cricket matches, it is well on its way to becoming one of the world’s largest digital aggregators of content – both amateur and professional.

Ian Maude, Enders Analysis’s head of Internet said: “Since its early days back in 2005, the YouTube consumer experience has changed from all recognition. Users would never have thought of watching a TV show via the service and now they can access all of Channel 4’s content from the last 30 days.

“It is becoming a content platform in its own right. It used to be just a free for all that the great-unwashed could use to post pretty much anything – copyrighted or not. But Google has done a great deal to solve those teething rights issues, while pursuing formal content agreements with the major broadcasters and rights holders.”

However, the site still famously has yet to turn a profit and deliver any major returns to Google. And despite the fact that at the end of 2009, YouTube had more than tripled the amount of views it was able to monetise, year on year, the high costs of streaming video online en masse is still understood to be a major barrier to reaching profitability.

The increase in the amount of views it is now able to monetise has grown due a rise in the number of content owners, such as ITV, opting to use YouTube’s ‘content ID’ system.

Content ID is YouTube’s copyright fingerprinting system which allows rights holders to block or make money from unauthorised use of their material. It is free of charge and being used by 1,000 content partners globally, including major brands such as Electronic Arts and Sony BMG.

It has played a major role in content holders regaining control of the unauthorised use of their material on the major video site and reducing the amount of legal actions are brought against YouTube for copyright infringements.

Rights holders, once unauthorised use of their material has been located, can then either choose to have it removed from YouTube, or for YouTube to serve an ad around the video and split the money in a revenue sharing deal which Google says favours the content owner.

One third of the content being monetised has come from unlawful user uploads, the content owner has chosen to keep up on the site in exchange for an advert being served. And two thirds of the videos making money are uploaded by the content partner themselves. YouTube is selling the majority of the adverts around the content – unless a special arrangement has been negotiated, as with the Channel 4 deal – where the broadcaster sells the adverts around its own content.

-Telegraph.co.uk

What counts as a blog?
The word blog is just “web” and “log” smashed together. Originally it simply meant a place where an individual or organisation posted regular updates on what they’d been up to. But blogs can be about pretty much anything, and needn’t necessarily feature lots of text. Using the iPhone, it’s easy to create a photo blog or video blog with snaps and clips posted straight from your phone to the web.

Even using Twitter to post 140 character updates, or pinging an update to Facebook’s status and notes functions counts as blogging. Ultimately, a blog is what you make it, and with Vodafone’s generous iPhone tariffs it’s easy to post frequently without battering your bank balance.

Why should you be blogging?

To keep in touch
If you’ve got friends and family scattered all over the country, or even the world, sending emails to keep them up-to-date can become a pain. Creating a blog is a great way to open a window into your world without irritating people with lengthy round robin emails.

Set up a family blog and you can easily send photos and videos of what your clan has been up to, as well as text posts sharing news straight from your iPhone 3GS. It takes a lot less time than sitting down to sum everything up in an email, and means your friends and family can check in to see what you’re up to without worrying about time zones or phone bills.

To find people who share your interests
Whether you’re interested in the latest trendy trainers, the Teardrop Explodes or toy cars, blogging is a great way to share your enthusiasm for a subject and get in contact with other like minded folk. Thinking of starting a street style photo blog like The Sartorialist? Use your iPhone 3GS to get snaps of people in great outfits. Want to create a music blog about gigs going on in your area? The iPhone 3GS will help you grab and share photos and video, as well as getting your review online quicker than you can say “why do I always get stuck behind unusually tall people at concerts?”.

To get yourself noticed or promoted
Blogs are a great way of promoting your work. Whether you’re an artist or musician looking for a big break, or an executive with some smart ideas to revolutionise your business, creating a blog to showcase your ideas is a great way to get yourself noticed or promoted.

The great thing about blogging from an iPhone 3GS is that it doesn’t have to take too much time. Found yourself on a train, waiting at an airport or in a gap between meetings? Fire up your favourite iPhone blogging app and use your time creatively. With simple ways to connect your blog to Twitter and Facebook, you can also make sure that your posts are easily shared with your contacts, pushing your ideas out to more people, and teeing yourself up nicely for that annual review.

What to use: 3 great iPhone blogging apps

Tumblr: keeping it simple
Tumblr is one of the simplest blogging sites on the web with easy-to-use menus which automatically format your posts correctly, depending on what’s in them. You can choose to create text, photo, quote, link, chat, audio or video posts. Photos, audio clips and videos can be created in the app using the iPhone 3GS’s built-in voice recorder and camera, or grabbed straight from your iPhone’s picture library.

You can sign up for a Tumblr account through the iPhone app itself, and also post to your blog via email. The big benefit of Tumblr is its simplicity, you don’t need any special skills to start posting. There are several Tumblr blogging apps on the iTunes App Store but the one you want is simply called Tumblr and is free. It’s the official app and has all the features you need to get started.

WordPress: the web workhorse
Wordpress is the powerhouse behind tonnes of your favourite sites, including Electricpig. It’s a good option for creating a blog, since it’s constantly adding features to give you flexibility and power. It’s more adaptable than Tumblr, letting you fine-tune the design of your blog, or add advanced features for your readers. But while it’s perfect for creating a more professional looking blog, it’s not difficult to use either, it just means that as you learn more, you’ll be able to do more.

The latest version of the WordPress for iPhone app, WordPress 2, lets you post pictures and video directly from the app and also gives you lots of options to tweak the look and feel of your updates, including what size you want the photos to be displayed at (make them smaller for faster uploading).

WordPress 2 on the iPhone 3GS also lets you tinker with advanced features like securing communication between your blog and the iPhone app using SSL. You don’t need to know how to use those features to start with, but the depth of functionality in the WordPress iPhone app means you won’t end up growing out of it. Plus just like the Tumblr app, WordPress 2 is free.

ShoZu: one app to rule them all
If you’re looking to post your blog posts, videos and photos to multiple websites, or are using a blogging platform that doesn’t have a dedicated iPhone app, ShoZu is a great addition to the iPhone 3GS. Rather than being associated with one platform, it gives you the ability to post to over 50 sites including photo sites such as Flickr and Photobucket, and video sites like YouYube and DailyMotion.

ShoZu is also a great way of trying out lots of different blogging platforms. It supports WordPress, Typepad, Blogger and Vox as well as Facebook and Twitter. If you want to be able to store your photos on Flickr or your videos on YouTube and then post them to a blog too, ShoZu makes that really easy to do.

To start using ShoZu, you can simply download the app via 3G or Wi-Fi on your iPhone 3GS or through iTunes on your computer and sign up for a ShoZu account. You can grab a Shozu account online or directly through the app. Once you’ve done that you simply add the services you want to send posts to.

-electricpig.co.uk

Bill Gates on Apple

“To create a new standard, it takes something that’s not just a little bit different; it takes something that’s really new, and really captures people’s imagination. And the Macintosh – of all the machines I’ve seen – is the only one that meets that standard.” (1984)

“If you say, well, how do you feel about Bill Gates getting rich off some of the ideas that we had … well, you know, the goal is not to be the richest man in the cemetery. It’s not my goal anyway.” (1994)

“Whether it’s Google or Apple or free software, we’ve got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes.” (2008)

“Apple has done a very good job on usability. You have to compliment them on that. But their agenda is not as broad as ours, so perhaps the fact that they focus in and polish those things well – certainly we need to do that as well or better than they do.” (2008)

“There are very things that are on the banned list in our household, but iPods and iPhones are two things we don’t get for our kids.” (Melinda Gates, wife of Bill Gates, 2009)

Steve Jobs on Microsoft

“I guess I am saddened, not by Microsoft’s success – I have no problem with their success, they’ve earned their success for the most part. I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third rate products.” (1996)

“I wish [Bill Gates] the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.” (1997)

“Our friends up north [Microsoft] spend over $5bn on research and development, and all they seem to do is copy Google and Apple.” (2006)

“Microsoft has had two goals in the last 10 years. One was to copy the Mac, and the other was to copy Lotus’ success in the spreadsheet — basically, the applications business. And over the course of the last 10 years, Microsoft accomplished both of those goals. And now they are completely lost.” (1994)

“Microsoft’s greatest asset is Windows. Their greatest liability is Windows. Windows is so nonobject-oriented that it’s going to be impossible for them to go back and become object-oriented without throwing Windows away, and they can’t do that for years. So they’re going to try to patch things on top, and it’s not going to work.” (1994)

“I think Bill Gates is a good guy. We’re not best friends, but we talk maybe once a month. I think Bill and I have very different value systems. I like Bill very much, and I certainly admire his accomplishments, but the companies we built were very different from each other.” (1994)

Both services are supposed to help you create conversations and give you a richer experience around Web-based media like videos, images ,and regular text. But while Buzz and Wave have a lot in common, there also some key differences that set each service apart.

Wave and Buzz? What the heck are you talking about?

Google describes Wave as “an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.” Basically, Google Wave is e-mail, instant messaging, an online collaboration tool and a wiki all rolled into one service.

But Google Buzz is designed solely to let you share videos, photos, links, and status updates with others just like you would on Facebook or Twitter. You can access Buzz through your Gmail inbox or through your mobile device’s Web browser.

Real-time communication versus e-mail conversation

While you will receive Buzz updates very quickly via e-mail, communication in Google Wave is much faster. Unlike Buzz, communication in Wave happens in real time, and you can actually watch someone typing out their response or comment on an individual wave. That’s a big difference, since it allows Wave users to easily collaborate on a project.

Wave is about collaboration, Buzz is about conversation

Wave was built on collaborative features like editing a document, planning an event, creating meeting notes, and so on. But if you just want to share photos, videos, or comments that don’t require real-time communication, then Google Buzz is probably the better option.

Waving is complex, Buzzing not so much

One of the problems with Wave is that it’s a difficult tool to explain to others, and once you understand what Wave is it’s even harder to understand everything you can do with it. Buzz, on the other hand, works similarly to e-mail and is focused on one thing: sharing content with others.

Buzz is a gateway to Wave

In a lot of ways, Buzz is a halfway point between regular e-mail and Wave. For example, when you get an updated Buzz in your inbox or Buzz tab, it displays the various comments and media that have been shared as a list. As the Buzz develops, that list gets updated and edited, but you only ever have one copy of an individual Buzz in your inbox.

Similarly, in Wave you only ever see one copy of an active wave, making it easier to track changes to a document or conversation. But new e-mail messages pile on top of one another, and it doesn’t take long before you end up with these massive conversation strings that are constantly being replicated every time you hit the reply button.

So my guess, as well as the guess of others, is that once you’re comfortable with Buzz, you might be more willing to use Wave for collaborative online projects. But the trick will be to get you to buy into using Google Buzz, and that may be a tough sell if you’re already used to sharing items with your existing networks on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter

-PC World

PayPal, an eBay company, has suspended personal payments to and from India and transfers to local banks in the country.

Customers can still make commercial payments to India, but merchants cannot withdraw funds in rupees at local Indian banks, it added.

The services have been suspended while the company works with its “business partners and other stakeholders to address questions they have about the service,” according to PayPal’s blog. PayPal did not say what questions have been raised.

PayPal said it is trying to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and that it was sorry for the inconvenience that it may cause its customers in India and around the world. A number of bloggers and Web sites have reported that the company has reversed and returned payments to senders.

PayPal executives in the region were not available for comment on specific reasons why the service was discontinued.

The move by PayPal may be linked to new Indian government rules aimed at preventing money laundering, according to an analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity. Last November, the Indian government introduced rules requiring financial institutions and other intermediaries to verify the identity of clients carrying out international money transfers.

PayPal’s user agreement says it does not guarantee any user’s identity because user verification on the Internet is difficult. PayPal does reserve the right to validate customers’ identities, including asking for documents.

PayPal is used in India by many to receive payment for services such as software development and freelance writing.

Intel is bringing its vPro platform to its new Core processors, a move aimed at making it easier for businesses to secure and manage the systems.

Intel announced Feb. 4 that it will put the vPro technology in its 32-nanometer dual-core Core i5 and i7 chips, which the company officially rolled out at the CES show in January.

The technology gives IT administrators a hardware-based way to remotely manage and secure corporate desktops and laptops, using both wired and wireless methods.

vPro also enhances the flexibility of these systems and drives down overall costs, according to Intel officials.

The new vPro-enabled chips come at a time when such applications as video, social networking and IP telephony are putting greater demand on PC performance, according to Rick Echevarria, vice president of Intel’s Architecture Group and general manager of its Business Client Platform Division.

“Businesses, particularly those that haven’t purchased PCs for several years, face a computing environment that no longer handles the applications many workers and IT are adopting,” Echevarria said in a statement.

A host of OEMs, including Acer, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba, are readying corporate PCs based on the vPro Core processors. In addition, solution providers for both enterprises and small and midsize businesses, including Microsoft, Symantec, LANDesk and LogMeIn, are adding support for the technology to their products.

A number of new hardware features come with this vPro platform, including Intel’s Anti-Theft Technology Version 2.0. Intel AT is designed to deny access to a PC if it’s stolen, a key consideration for laptop users. With Version 2.0, IT administrators can disable access to cryptographic keys to make it even more difficult for thieves to get the data on the systems. In addition, a custom message can be displayed on the screen before the operating system kicks in that can be read by someone trying to access the PC.

Another new feature, KVM Remote Control, gives IT administrators full control of a user’s PC—even if the operating system isn’t working—and shows the technician exactly what the user sees on the screen.

Intel also added AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) to the vPro hardware, which enables faster encryption and decryption of data. Another security feature, Remote Encryption Management, lets systems administrators more easily remotely manage PCs with encrypted hard drives by enabling them to more securely unlock the drives.

-Eweek.com