Friday, October 29, 2010

Tatmash 3D Tattoo Generator on Body Pictures

The culture status of tattooing has steadily evolved
from that of an anti-social activity in the 1960s
to that of a trendy fashion statement in the 1990s



It doesn't matter who you are or what your profession is. It doesn't matter if you're in the East Village or East Alabama. Whatever your socio-demographic is - from prisoners to princesses - having a tattoo is now an acceptable practice throughout most of society. With few religious and social exceptions, for the most part, people from all walks of life can be seen sporting a "your name here" on their lower-back or a classic image on their bicep.

Could it be possible tattoos are less meaningful nowadays that they're acceptable? Could it be body art has increased in popularity, perhaps as a means by which the boring can become interesting? New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks affirms this sentiment, saying, "Other people are trying to unveil their wild side. They're taking advantage of the fact that tattoos are associated with felons, bikers and gangstas. They're trying to show that far from being the dull communications majors they appear to be, they are actually free spirits - sensual, independent, a little dangerous."

Tattoo popularity could also be booming because people in American society are becoming more tolerant. It would make sense "normal" people (not gangstas or felons) get inked now that the stigma attached with tattoos has dramatically reduced. While Grandma may not be entirely approving, most of society won't cast a second look.

According to a 2006 American Society of Dermatological Surgery survey, 24 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 50 have a tattoo. That's one in four, a whopping number compared to the 10 percent of Americans who were inked in 1936, according to Life Magazine. U.S. News & World Report said tattooing is one of the fastest growing markets, along with computers, cell phones and internet offers.

In spite of the huge popularity and growing tolerance to the tattoo wearers, you should be really careful choosing and applying one. First of all, the presence of tattoos and/or body piercings is not considered a religious practice and is not protected by the anti-discrimination standards established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Employees with tattoos and/or body piercings are not members of a protected class and may be refused employment or otherwise discriminated against in the workplace. Also, permanent tattoo is something you’ll wear for long, so it should be something that make you more attractive, sexier, or more open, and not bring you the “weirdo” verdict from other people.

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The Tattoo Generator will help you to apply virtually any chosen tattoo on your body parts, and check if that really what you want. Pick a tattoo out of hundreds of designs (you can also upload your own design), then upload a photo of yourself with the part of the body you would like to see tattooed. Free version of these interesting online service is limited (you cannot upload your own design and you have limited amount of fonts, for example), but that is a good place to start your tattoo exploration journey.

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You can visit Virtual Tattoo Simulator and start now: http://www.tatmash.com/


Sunday, October 24, 2010

How to troubleshoot unknown devices in Windows XP Device Manager?

Working computer have all the drivers for the hardware used, and you might not even think about all these pieces of computer code supporting the functionality of all systems. However, after computer crash or following the complete re-installation of the Operating System, you may find that not all the hardware elements are recognized automatically by Operating System. If you are advanced and careful computer user, you might have the drivers backup somewhere, or, at least the original drivers disk, which came with computer purchase. But, what if you miss this information? The devices, where the drivers are not assigned or improperly assigned, might not properly function, or not function at all.

First of all, visit your Device Manager to see, what kind of problems you have. Device Manager displays a list of all devices that are installed on a Windows XP-based computer. When you view device information in Device Manager, you may see a device listed as Unknown Device next to a yellow question mark. It may be difficult to determine the cause of this unknown device, because there are few indications of what generates it. There are several ways to access Device Manager. One of them is choosing My Computer on your desktop or menu and with right click calling Properties. Next, select the tab Hardware and click on the Device Manager button.

When you located the questionable device, try to update the driver, pointing the search to the disk with the stored drivers collection or just let computer search Internet for the suitable one, if you do not have a disk. The worst situation is when your problematic device is related to networking, not allowing you to go online. For this case, you will have to operate from another computer to locate and download the required driver.

There are several ways to update the driver, if it is not recognized automatically:
1. Visit the following Microsoft Web site to see whether the Web site autodetects an updated driver for your device. Install all recommended drivers.
http://www.windowsupdate.com (http://www.windowsupdate.com)

2. Search for Universal Drivers Pack in Google for your Operating System. Download it and burn DVD or copy to the external drive. Then, direct for the updated driver search to the location where the drivers are placed. I have several packs for Windows XP, and there was no single case, when the drivers were not recognized, except for the hardware malfunctioning issues.

3. Visit directly the manufacturing site for the device you need to troubleshoot:
  • Visit the Web site of the computer manufacturer if the device came with the computer.
  • Visit the Web site of the device manufacturer if the device was installed after you purchased your computer.
  • Visit the Web site of the device manufacturer if the device was preinstalled on your computer and the computer manufacturer does not have an updated driver.
Look for a Drivers section or a Download section on the manufacturer’s Web site, and search for the device name. Download and install the Windows XP version of the driver. If you do not know the identification and manufacturer of the malfunctioning device, follow the steps:
  • Right click on the unknown device and click on Properties.
  • Under the Properties window click on Details tab and select Device Instance Id (or Device Instance Path) from the drop down box.
  • You should see a code similar to this

          PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27DC&SUBSYS_30868086
          &REV_01\4&1E46F438&0&40F0
  • The portion of the code highlighted in RED is the Vendor ID and the portion highlighted in GREEN is the Device ID. In this example:

          Vendor ID = 8086
          Device ID = 27DC
  • Once you have obtained both the IDs, proceed to PCI Database. There you can either search for the vendor from the vendor ID or directly get information about the device along with the vendor name by searching with the device ID.
4. Locate the required driver from the specialized websites
In case, the manufacturer does not provide the drivers download option, or ceased to exist at all, you can search for the required drivers on the websites collecting all kind of drivers. There is a list of the sites, you can use:

Sources and Additional Information:



Sunday, October 17, 2010

How to clean easily your Gmail Account?




I am sure that Gmail is the best service on the free email addresses offerings on the market. You get a huge amount of space on the server, set of nice features and outstanding spam filters. But still you can get to the situation when the provided amount of storage is not enough. What can you do if you get notification that you run out of space for your Gmail account? Solution is easy and straightforward: find unneeded messages and delete them.

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Free online service Find Big Mail can help you to remove large emails in your account, so you can delete them fast and easy.

How to do that?

  • 1.       Access the website http://www.findbigmail.com/
  • 2.       Enter your Gmail address in the online form and click on Click Here button.
  • 3.       Give permission to the service to access your email account.
  • 4.       New Gmail labels will show what is using all your free space.
  • 5.       Review and delete your big messages, then empty the trash.
The service is rated 3 out of 5 on the RateItAll list of 48 Free Online service and Freeware Utilities for Gmail users. Feel free to check other items on the list.


Saturday, October 9, 2010

iPad Jailbreaking News: LimeRa1n versus GreenPois0n

Definitely, the news about jailbreaking process breakthrough is not just for iPad holders, but for all kind of iPhones as well. But since, I am faithful Droid fan, I personally care about iPhones much less. So, October 10 and October 11 should be great days in the technological history of iProducts. Because the solutions to unlock the full power of these devices are coming...

What is Jailbreaking?
                       
Jailbreaking is a process that allows iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad users to run any code on their devices, as opposed to only that code authorized by Apple. This process permits users to install homebrew applications on their devices by unlocking the operating system and allowing the user root access. Once jailbroken, iPhone users can download many extensions and themes previously unavailable through the App Store via unofficial installers such as Cydia. A jailbroken iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch is still able to use the App Store and iTunes.

Does Apple like the users’ ability to bypass their filters and use the commercial applications for free? Definitely, no. Therefore, they release once a while software updates, which cause the jailbroken devices to be returned to the original state. The severe competition between freelancing hackers and hackers employed by Apple continues.

Is that legal to Jailbreak your device?

All the law obedient citizens would be surprised, but the answer is YES. You have a freedom to unlock the Apple device, and Apple has a freedom to prevent you from doing that, but not through legal and enforcement approaches, but purely through technological solutions only.

Jailbreaking an iPod or iPhone in the United States is legal "fair use", and does not violate copyright laws defined by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In response to a request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the U.S. Copyright Office explicitly recognized an exemption to the DMCA to permit jailbreaking in order to allow iPhone owners to use their phones with applications that are not available from Apple's store, and to unlock their iPhones for use with unapproved carriers. Apple had previously filed comments opposing this exemption and indicated that they did consider jailbreaking to be a violation of copyright (and by implication prosecutable under the DMCA). Apple's request to define jailbreaking as a violation of copyright was denied as part of the 2009 DMCA rulemaking. In their ruling, the Library of Congress affirmed on July, 26, 2010 that jailbreaking is legal under U.S. copyright law.

Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, argued that jailbreaking is "legal, ethical, and just plain fun." Wu cited an explicit exemption issued by the Library of Congress in 2006 for personal unlocking, which notes that locks "are used by wireless carriers to limit the ability of subscribers to switch to other carriers, a business decision that has nothing whatsoever to do with the interests protected by copyright" and thus do not implicate the DMCA.  Wu did not claim that this exemption applies to those who help others unlock a device or "traffic" in software to do so. As of July 26, 2010, The U.S. Copyright Office has approved exemptions to the DMCA that allow iDevice users to Jailbreak their devices legally. These exemptions also allow phone users to unlock their phone in order to switch carriers. It is still possible Apple may employ technical countermeasures to prevent jailbreaking or prevent jailbroken phones from functioning, but they will not be able to sue users who jailbreak.

GreenPois0n and LimeRa1n

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All the iDevices fans were expecting the new jailbreak solution from Chronic Dev Team, and recently the release date of the Greenpois0n  has been announced as October 10, 2010. It supposed to cover all iOS 4.1 Devices for life including Apple T.V 2G (which means a solution for all iPad 3.2.2 holders as well). There are two more important points to bring in: the solution should be for life, so Apple future efforts should not harm the unlocked devices, and that the solution is untethered meaning that users do not have to plug the jailbroken device into a computer every time it needs to be restarted (as in some previous software releases.

The spice to the picture added the fresh news on the competitive solution LimeRa1n, created by Geohot, the famous guy who unlocked the iPhone and also creator of blackra1n. This new exploit supposed to jailbreak all iDevices including iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3G which even the SHAtter exploit and GreenPois0n cannot jailbreak.

With Limera1n and GreenPois0n around the news, one thing is sure that we will definitely get the jailbreak for iPhone 4, 3GS, iPod Touch 4G, 3G and iPad with in next 2 days. It can either GreenPois0n or Limera1n or even both. The Chronic Dev Team did note that since Geohot's LimeRa1n is a different exploit, it will effectively "burn" it. This is because Apple will be tipped to the new exploit. With rumors of a Verizon iPhone coming in early 2011, this could enable them to close the bootrom exploits, both of them, prior to that device's rumored launch.

Which jailbreak I will recommend? At the moment it is still unclear even for the people which are more experienced on the topic than I am. I would recommend not jumping to the first trials, but waiting to see what the results of both GreenPois0n and LimeRa1n are. Wait couple of days and choose jailbreak which is the easiest, fastest, and safest.

Happy Jailbreaking!

Update 1:
The plans have changed fast. Jailbreak limera1n was released today for 4.1 iDevice users with some limitations, like supported only for Windows OS, while the previously announced dev-team jailbreak, which was due out tomorrow, may be put on hold while the team works on revising their tools for the limera1n exploit rather than exposing multiple exploits that will quickly be patched.

You can download Limera1n now: http://www.limera1n.com/

Update 2
There is a confirmation that GreenPois0n jailbreak will be delayed. The latest update from Chronic Dev Team Blog:

Thanks to the irresponsible antics of geohot, we will have to delay the release of greenpois0n (new ETA = as soon as possible), so that we have time to clean up his little mess and integrate the exploit he uses in limera1n into greenpois0n. This way, we can save SHAtter for future devices that may still be vulnerable to it.

We know that this is not what some people want to hear, but due to geohot needing to feed his ego (as usual) and revealing his limera1n exploit, we do not have any other responsible options.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

21 Useful Tips on how to extend life of laptop battery

As more and more people are becoming part of the mobile workforce and using laptop or tablet PC's battery life is often a primary concern. Today's portable computers use lithium-ion batteries instead of older style nickel-cadmium power sources. In addition to being able to hold a greater charge, lithium is also very light weight, another important concern for portable computers.

When you are purchasing your computer investigate if a long-life battery is available. While it will add to the cost it can give up to double the usage of a normal battery. To get the most usage out of your battery you'll need to understand a little bit about how batteries work. Each battery has a limited number of charge cycles. If your battery lasts for 4 hours and on the first day you use it for 2 hours and then recharge it fully and the next day you use it for 2 hours again and then fully recharge it again, you will have completed one charge cycle. Each battery has a limited number of charge cycles before it starts losing it's the charge it can hold.

We will present the effective recommendation on how to extend the battery life as much as possible:

1. Defrag regularly.
The faster your hard drive does its work – less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery.  Make your hard drive as efficient as possible by defragging it regularly. (but not while it’s on battery of course!) Mac OSX is better built to handle fragmentation so it may not be very applicable for Apple systems. Definitely, the effect is minimal, but this efficiency goes hand in glove with hard drive maintenance.

2. Dim your screen.
The LCD screen of a laptop is huge power sink. Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen.  Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance.  Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.

3. Cut down on programs running in the background.
Itunes, Desktop Search, etc.  All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life.  Shut down everything that isn’t crucial when you’re on battery. Monitor the resource usage through a ‘Ctrl-Alt-Del’ which brings up the Windows Task Manager (in Windows). If you’re not on the internet, it is safe to shut down the immediate non-essential programs running in the taskbar like the antivirus and the firewall. Weed out unnecessary programs running as start-ups by launching the System Configuration Utility from Run – Msconfig – Tab: Startup. Uncheck the programs which you don’t want to launch and reboot the computer once.

4. Cut down external devices.
USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi drain down your laptop battery.  Remove or shut them down when not in use.  It goes without saying that charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.

5. Turn off ports
Disabling unused ports and components, such as VGA, Ethernet, PCMCIA, USB, and yes, your wireless, too. You can do this through the Device Manager or by configuring a separate hardware profile.

6. Add more RAM.
This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory.  Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory.

7. Run off a hard drive rather than CD/DVD. 
As power consuming as hard drives are, CD and DVD drives are worse.  Even having one in the drive can be power consuming.  They spin, taking power, even when they are not actively being used.  Wherever possible, try to run on virtual drives using programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones.

8.  Keep the battery contacts clean. 
Clean your battery’s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol.  This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient. But allow it to dry thoroughly before reinstalling it!

9. Take care of your battery.
Exercise the Battery.  Do not leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time.  Once charged, you should at least use the battery at least once every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On battery completely discharge. (Discharing is suitable only for older batteries with memory effects).

10. Hibernate not standby.
Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn’t save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does.  Hibernating a PC will actually save your PC’s state as it is, and completely shut itself down.

11. Keep operating temperature down.
Your laptop operates more efficiently when it’s cooler.  Clean out your air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner. Allow for open space around the vents for air to circulate freely. Keep the area around the laptop clean to avoid entry of dust. Undue heat kills off a battery slowly but surely. Avoid leaving the laptop under direct sunlight or inside a closed car. Use a cooling pad when using a notebook computer on your lap. Avoid propping your laptop on a pillow, blanket, or other soft surface that can heat up.

12. Set up and optimize your power options.
Go to ‘Power Options’ in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the ‘max battery’ for maximum effect).

13. Don’t multitask.
Do one thing at a time when you’re on battery.  Rather than working on a spreadsheet, letting your email client run in the background and listening to your latest set of MP3s, set your mind to one thing only.  If you don’t you’ll only drain out your batteries before anything gets completed!

14. Go easy on the PC demands.
The more you demand from your PC.  Passive activities like email and word processing consume much less power than gaming or playing a DVD.  If you’ve got a single battery charge – pick your priorities wisely.

15. Pause the scheduled tasks.
It may be a defrag or a virus scan, but make sure it is scheduled for a time when you are near a power outlet. If not then nix them for the moment.

16. Prevent the Memory Effect.
If you’re using a very old laptop, you’ll want to prevent the ‘memory effect’ – Keep the battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it at least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule are Li-Ion batteries (which most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect.

17. Kill the Sounds.
Mute the speakers and try avoiding the use of multimedia software to maximize the battery life. Installed sound schemes also drain a battery perceptibly.

18. Turn off the looks.
Today’s OS’s like Windows Vista come with features like ‘Aero Glass’ which are resource guzzlers. One can turn it off and go for the ‘Classic’ appearance which consumes less power. In Vista, click on Desktop – Preferences – View Colour – Appearance – Classic Appearance and Windows Basic graphical interface. In XP it’s – Display Properties – Theme – Windows Classic. Linux and even Macintosh are better optimized for longer battery life.

19. Update software and drivers.
This sounds a bit incongruous but then newer drivers and software are often designed to be more efficient (and hopefully less resource hungry).

20. Use the right adapter.
Ensure that the adapter you use to charge the laptop battery is an original one or one with the correct specifications. A mismatch in the wattage could cause an overload thus damaging the laptop and the battery.

21. Pack it up.
If you don’t plan to use the laptop on batteries for quite some time, ensure that the charge is nearly 40 percent – remove the batteries and store it in a cool place.


Sources and Additional Information:


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