Windows Vista Firewall acts like a fence between your computer and the outer world, but since any fence needs a gate, you have to let some data get in and out by setting exceptions. While some exceptions are set up automatically by Windows Vista, others have to be configured manually, so follow these steps to allow them manually.
Click Start and enter the Control Panel
Here, click the link called "Allow a program through Windows Firewall" (bellow the Security).
Go to the General Tab, and make sure that the option "On (recommended)" is selected. If not, enable it (this will enable the firewall).
Go to the Exceptions tab at the top.
To add a program you to your exception list click Add Program (near the bottom).
A list with the programs on your computer is displayed. Locate the program, highlight it and click OK.
Be sure that the check box besides your program is checked, then click OK.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/
Monday, March 17, 2008
Deal Of The Day - Sony Ericsson W580i - Low Line Rental
Today's deal offers the Sony Ericsson W580i on an T-Mobile contract from Carphone Warehouse
The W580i is not just a light-weight phone and a music player but it also acts as a personal trainer. In addition, on this deal, it is absolutely free and comes with one of the most flexible deals on the market - the classic Flext tariff from T-Mobile. In addition, the line rental has been slashed in price so you save a very healthy £210 in line rental fees over the course of the contract.
- Handset name: Sony Ericsson W580i
- Supplier: Carphone Warehouse
- Free handset: Free
- Contract name: Flext 35
- Free call minutes: 900
- Free Texts: or 1800 [or any combination of the 2]
- Rental/month: 12 months at £17.50, then 6 months at £35
- Contract: 18 months
- Offers: 12 months half price line rental & 12 months free cinema tickets.
Look and feel
It feels quite solid but the battery cover is prone to the odd creak while the soft keys are overly spongy.
Features
With the built-in pedometer, runners can track distance, average speed and time while the monitor is on default to automatically count your walking steps.
Performance
The W580i harbours a standard mid-range two-megapixel snapper, woefully deprived of autofocus, Macro focus for close-ups, and any type of flash.
Ease of use
A very easy to use phone and the Walkman player is fun. The five-way navigation pad controls the player when in Walkman mode.
Battery life
The Walkman W580i is another juice-tastic handset from Sony Ericsson.
Blu-Ray Vs. IPTV: an Unequal Battle
The battlefield in new media is moving to a showdown between Internet protocol (IP) TV and Blu-ray discs now the Blu-ray camp appears set to declare victory over the rival HD DVD camp in the next-generation data storage format war. The National Assembly recently passed a law on IPTV, while domestic home appliance makers are preparing to introduce Blu-ray products, this being the camp Korean electronics manufacturers wisely bet on.
Both IPTV and Blu-ray are new formats enabling consumers to watch movies at home as and when they want. But they are hugely different in terms of customer convenience and image quality.
Stiff competition will be inevitable when IPTV goes into service this summer. IPTV is convenient to use. Once a set is installed, users will have the freedom to choose and watch films they want by clicking the remote control. By contrast, Blu-ray users must borrow or buy films every time they want to see them, and they must purchase Blu-ray equipment first. The advantage is that the Blu-ray format is incomparably superior to IPTV in image quality. Blu-ray basically stores films in full high definition, while IPTV has four or five times poorer image quality at the moment, when it is being offered on a trial basis.
With the clash on the horizon, both sides are busy strengthening their businesses. Telecom firms have signed a series of contracts to secure contents. LG Dacom, KT and Hanaro Telecom have the rights to some 1,000 movies each. The three companies began this month airing the Korean blockbuster "D-War" directed by Shim Hyung-rae.
But the Blu-ray camp is not sitting on its hands. Sony Pictures Entertainment will release 50 more Blu-ray videos by late this year, expecting the market to grow in earnest in 2008. Sony was the first to introduce a Blu-ray video in Korea in late 2006 and aims to break through the currently sluggish video market. Electronics companies like Samsung Electronics expect Blu-ray also to increase demand for full high definition TV, because customers need to purchase full HD TV sets to enjoy Blu-ray's image quality fully.
Samsung Electronics released a Blu-ray video player costing over W500,000 (US$1=W997) last year. It is to market a follow-up model soon. LG Electronics also plans to release a new Blu-ray product. Sony, meanwhile, is adding the Blu-ray play function to its game console PlayStation 3.
Form : http://english.chosun.com/
Sony BDP-S500 Blu-ray
Sony BDP-S500
RRP: $999
Rating: 4 out of 5
http://www.sony.com.au
The trumpets have sounded, the debris has been cleared from the battlefield and Sony's Blu-ray format has been declared victorious in the "high definition DVD" war. There were a few souls who tempted fate (and lost) by taking the plunge on Toshiba's HD DVD players, especially after prices dipped below $500 just before Christmas. Most people, though, were happy to stand on the sidelines until a winner was declared.
Now that Blu-ray's time has come, Sony has a raft of players lining up for your home entertainment dollar. The latest of these is the top-shelf BDP-S500, which is strikingly similar in design and features to the $699 BDP-S300. With the S500's higher asking price come numerous advanced audio options delivered by the updated HDMI 1.3 interface.
Provided your system is built around a compatible late model AV receiver, the BDP-S500 can either stream or internally decode all the latest 7.1 surround sound formats except for DTS-HD Master Audio, which should only dishearten the purest of audio buffs. Even so, the sound on our older 5.1 system was crystal clear, with detailed channel separation.
Data formats supported include recordable disc formats such as writeable Blu-ray, which we'll start to see on high-end PCs and Macs before the year is out.
The S500 also gets a motorised front sliding panel that elegantly lowers to reveal the disc tray and transport buttons. A LCD display shines through from behind the panel with disc information. As with the more affordable S300, this model also supports Sony's 24p True Cinema for smoother visuals when it comes to movies shot at 24 frames a second.
It also performs well at upscaling standard DVDs to 1080p, in most cases giving the movies far more definition than the original picture.
Missing from that list is the picture-in-picture option that's starting to appear in some movies. This was introduced late last year when the Blu-ray specification was updated and, while it hasn't been confirmed, a possible firmware update for the BDP-S500 could add this feature down the track.
As it stands, this superior player ticks all the right boxes, particularly in the advanced audio area. If you're willing to forgo these features, the BDP-S300 at $699 would be worth considering.
Form : http://www.smh.com.au/
PS3: in-game XMB would be donwfall of humanity or Sony’s delaying on purpose
There’s a reason why Sony won’t release a PS3 firmware update to add in-game XMB to the PS3: the addition would mean the end of humanity, or maybe the company’s just waiting until it’s perfect.
In a recent post, we expressed our indifference towards the lack of in-game XMB in the latest PS3 firmware update, v2.17. We can’t see why we’d need in-game XMB so much that we’d be outraged by the lack of it, but many PS3 fans seem to want it… bad. Just check some of the responses to our v2.17 post.
Ron: "Why is in-game XMB so important? Are you retarded?"
They’re not all logical, but some actually felt the need to support their arguments.
vjkhv: "we need it 4 sending messeges u noob hoe"
Others, however, really supported their point.
doober: "The in game xmb would allow us to chat, see who’s in what, (instead of just that ‘message’ that your pal is online) and let you connect with your friends without saving up, closing a game, looking on the bar, sending a chat mail and hopeing they read it before you die of waiting. it could all be done as you play! That’s great!"
It’s exactly these arguments that forecast the end of all that is face-to-face. Think about it: these players want to be in their game to such a high degree and they’re so used to multitasking, that concentrating on simply communicating with another human being isn’t enough — scary. Maybe Sony just wants to gaming to be gaming, and social interaction to be social interaction. Is that such a crazy idea?
No, some fans are like us and don’t care.
OMEN: "XMB is no big deal, i’d rather have them fix the issues on the games than XMB crap."
Many of us just want to play great games off or online with better network stability!
jaime: "Give all system resources (cell and memory) to the game.
Why should be a running process eating resources that could be given to the game for better graphics or better a.i.?
Why limit every single game, with something that not all will benefit (not everyone conect the ps3 to internet, a lot less play games always conected to internet)
Its a little win for a few and a great lose to everyone."
Here’s one more possibility: Sony wants in-game XMB done right, and it’s willing to delay the process until the proper product is ready for release. After all, the company’s used to delaying products until they’re ready. Sony’s "successful" Blu-ray format was also significantly delayed, and it slaughtered the cheaper HD-DVD format. In a bigger success story, the company didn’t release the PS3 until a year after the Xbox 360, and the quality-difference between the two almost sets the PS3 in the next-next-generation of gaming. If Sony has a plan for in-game XMB, there’s a good chance it’s going to kick a ridiculous amount of ass.
Form : http://gamer.blorge.com/
Acer Ferrari 1100
Acer's latest Ferrari-themed notebook is sure to turn heads, but the outrageous price will make most users roll their eyes. It also had us shaking our heads. For one shiny dollar shy of $4000 you expect a lot more laptop for your money, and we're not just talking about the physical size of this sub-notebook. We simply can't work out what makes this worth the asking price.
Yes, there's a limited production run of which Australia will get only 99 individually numbered models, but that's more a marketing stunt to artificially generate demand. The hardware specifications are pretty solid, but unlike its motoring namesake, this Ferrari is no bitumen-burning mean machine. It's merely "fast enough" rather than "wow". This is due partly to the choice of an AMD processor rather than Intel's Core 2 Duo powerplant.
And while battery life is typically paramount in choosing an ultra-portable notebook, our informal tests indicate you'd be lucky to hit three hours running wireless networking and a usable level of screen brightness.
The overall design is harder to fault. The Ferrari motif has been extended beyond the "prancing horse" badges to mouse buttons that mimic foot pedals, a racing check pattern on the lid and the trackpad (which gives the trackpad a pleasing texture) and a power switch cheekily styled to look like a big red starter button. Inclusions are a comfortable notebook mouse and a compact VoIP handset, both of which are wireless.
The keyboard is one of Acer's best and overall the Ferrari 1100 has a solid feel. That's not surprising, as it weighs a rather hefty two kilograms, whenmost sub-notes with a 30-centimetre screen shave at least 500 grams off that. Acer's trumpeted carbon-fibre assembly is limited to an insert on the exterior lid, making no difference to the overall weight.
Yet as smart as the overall package is, the Ferrari 1100 struck us as a little more flash than dash for a whole lot of of cash.
Form : http://www.smh.com.au/
Natural protein may provide cure for main causes of blindness
A protein found in blood cells could be the key to treating or preventing two of the commonest causes of blindness, scientists in the United States believe.
In mice that simulate the processes of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy, damage was prevented by drugs that activate a protein called Robo4, they report in Nature Medicine.
The protein stopped the growth of abnormal blood vessels and stabilised existing ones, according to Professor Dean Li and colleagues from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
Abnormal blood vessel growth and leakage are two primary factors in AMD and diabetic retinopathy.
“Many diseases are caused by injury or inflammation destabilising blood vessels and causing them to leak fluid into adjacent tissues” Professor Li said.
“We found a natural pathway – the Robo4 pathway – that counter-attacks by stabilising blood vessels.”
New treatments are needed for both conditions. AMD is the commonest cause of loss of sight in the elderly and diabetic retinopathy is the commonest cause in people of working age.
Treatments for one form of AMD do exist, but the best drugs are extremely expensive and at best slow down the disease. Many patients with AMD have been denied treatment with Lucentis on the NHS, at least until they have lost the sight of one eye.
The implications of the finding may go even farther because there are other diseases, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, in which blood vessel stability is lost, allowing fluids to leak into the lungs.
Tumours hijack blood vessel growth to feed on nutrients. Although this study did not prove Robo4 would treat those diseases, Professor Li believes it merits investigation.
Scientists from the University of Bristol said last week that they were ready to launch clinical trials of a drug to treat AMD and diabetic retinopathy. Professor Dave Bates and Dr Steve Harper have identified a naturally occurring form of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) that inhibits the formation of new blood vessels. Professor Bates said: “We discovered the potential of VEGF165b in 2001 and have spent the last six years proving its efficacy. We plan to demonstrate clinical proof of concept of the drug in diabetic retinopathy and wet AMD patients by mid2009 so this is a very exciting time for us.”
The drug technology, which has been developed with the help of the charity Fight for Sight, is being licensed to a biopharmaceutical company, PhiloGene Inc.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)