BEST ANTIVIRUS: KEEP YOUR WINDOWS PC SAFE FROM SPYWARE, TROJANS, MALWARE, AND MORE

Featured

May 25, 2018 in News, Tips and Tricks

BEST ANTIVIRUS: KEEP YOUR WINDOWS PC SAFE FROM SPYWARE, TROJANS, MALWARE, AND MORE

BEST ANTIVIRUS: KEEP YOUR WINDOWS PC SAFE FROM SPYWARE, TROJANS, MALWARE, AND MORE

7 Credit Card Charges You Must Know About

Credit cards can be a boon when used judiciously as they entitle you to advance credit and great rewards. But if you’re careless with your card use, you could incur charges, penalties and a hefty interest rate.

To ensure that you use your card smartly and not get overcharged, make sure you are aware of some crucial charges associated with credit cards.

Joining or Annual Fee

While many credit cards come free of cost, i.e. no joining fees and perhaps exemption from annual fee for a particular period, the ones with bigger rewards and benefits generally tend to have a joining fee. Some may waive off the joining fee for the first year but may have it from the second year. Sometimes these charges are waived off if one spends up to a threshold specified by the bank.

Interest and Finance Charges

Most credit cards offer a 50-day interest-free period to pay for all spends. Some premium cards have finance charges regardless of where and when the card is swiped. But once the interest-free period passes, banks will levy an interest/finance charge to be borne by the customer if the full payment is not made on time.

Cash Withdrawal Charges

Credit cards also allow you to withdraw cash from ATMs. This option should be exercised only in emergencies. While there’s an interest-free period for all other credit card transactions, the interest rate applies immediately for cash withdrawals. If you withdraw cash in an emergency, repay it as soon as possible to avoid the hefty interest rate.

Over Limit Charge

There is a charge if you breach your credit limit and cash withdrawal limit. For instance, if your credit limit is Rs. 1 lakh but you have spent Rs. 1.25 lakhs on the card, be prepared to pay a charge. Normally a percentage of the excess spend is charged as penalty. So make sure to keep track of your spending and if you think you need to make a big purchase deposit the deficit amount by cash to the card if necessary.

Late Payment Charges

A late payment on your credit card bill can be disastrous in many ways. Firstly, your credit score gets affected, and secondly, you have to pay a late fee each time you are late in paying dues. While some banks charge a standard late fee, some charge a percentage of the amount due as late fee. Some may even charge an additional fee if your ECS for the credit card payment gets rejected.

In case you don’t have the full amount to repay your card, make sure to at least pay the minimum amount due, in order to avoid the late payment penalty.

Foreign Transaction Fee

Whenever a credit card is used for foreign transactions, whether online or at a point of sale, the bank levies a foreign mark-up fee. It ranges anywhere between 1.5 per cent and 5 per cent depending on the bank and the card. Cash withdrawals abroad are charged at a higher rate that card swipes. So when abroad you can carry enough cash or get a travel card to avoid these charges.

Balance Transfer Fee

A balance transfer is when you pay off the balances on existing credit cards or loans by transferring them to another credit card account. While many high value cards allow this free of cost, in some cases you may be charged a fee to complete the balance transfer – typically a percentage of the transfer balance. It is basically an expensive way to move money from one account to another, rather moving debt from one account to another, and you must avoid getting to this point by repaying your debts in a timely manner.

Source by:-ndtv

May 24, 2018 in News, Tips and Tricks

What’s Next In Autonomous Cloud Services: Analytics, Integration, And Development

What’s Next In Autonomous Cloud Services: Analytics, Integration, And Development

“Why doesn’t software manage itself?”

That’s the question his team asked about seven years ago, Oracle president Thomas Kurian told journalists at a recent briefing at the company’s headquarters in Redwood Shores, California. In 2018, the answer is now “It does,” in the form of Oracle’s autonomous cloud services.

Earlier this year, Oracle launched the world’s first autonomous data warehouse and pledged to add self-driving, self-securing, and self-repairing capabilities across its cloud platform services. Now, three more autonomous services have come on line: Oracle Autonomous Analytics Cloud, Oracle Autonomous Integration Cloud, and Oracle Autonomous Visual Builder Cloud. Powered by machine learning, these services perform tasks like patching and optimizing without human intervention, lowering operating costs and freeing IT teams, DevOps engineers, cloud architects, and even citizen developers to focus on more creative work.

“For every $1 spent on developing software, companies spend $3 on administering software,” Kurian said. With a vision of reducing this burden and freeing up time for more inspiring activities, Oracle started a four-phase project. “First, let software install itself, and do patches and backup. Second, let software take care of capacity management, adding servers on the fly,” Kurian said. “Third, let software tune itself, observing how queries run on the database, then indexing. Fourth, let it do health management: If the system is not looking healthy, take corrective action.”

These industry-first autonomous systems can also help reduce security risk because systems are patched automatically, rather than waiting for a person to schedule time to do that. “Embedding AI and machine learning in these cloud services will help organizations innovate in revolutionary new ways,” said Amit Zavery, executive vice president of development for Oracle Cloud Platform.

Three New Services: Analytics, Integration, and Development

All the autonomous services built on Oracle Cloud Platform reduce human labor, automatically upgrade and patch while running, and scale up or down without downtime (self-driving). They protect from malicious activity and automatically encrypt all data (self-securing). And they boast 99.995% availability, or less than 2.5 minutes of downtime per month (self-repairing).

Beyond that foundation, each of these three new services has been optimized for its audience.

Oracle Autonomous Analytics Cloud, for example, helps business users uncover insights by asking questions without having to write complex queries. Analytics Cloud converts the questions into backend queries using natural language processing, then creates rich visualizations of the answers. All the while, it’s learning from those interactions in order to proactively suggest insights and reveal hidden patterns.

With Oracle Autonomous Integration Cloud, machine learning can help integrate the thickets of systems companies run on—a problem that is only getting thornier. “The problem we’re solving is to make it easy to map those end points quickly,” Zavery said. “We will figure out what schema maps to what other schema in your SaaS applications. We provide a lot of pre-packaged connectors, so customers don’t have to do a lot of that coding.” Most impressively, Autonomous Integration Cloud learns from crowd-sourced data of all executed integrations and then makes visual recommendations of how to connect objects across different systems.

And finally, there’s the challenge of feeding the beast: Keeping up with the insatiable demand for new mobile and web apps. Oracle Autonomous Visual Builder Cloud makes it easier for developers and business users alike to deliver cross-platform mobile applications written in JavaScript and HTML, with code generated via WYSIWYG tooling including Oracle JET, Swagger, and Apache Cordova. Visual Builder Cloud Service also has autonomous capabilities to eliminate repetitive tasks so you can focus on designing, prototyping, and releasing your app. Simply name your server and click the button, and VBCS configures a database, host, and full development platform. Publishing a mobile app is just as simple: All it takes is one click to package the code for iOS and/or Android.

Will professional developers want to use such a visual coding tool? Oracle believes the productivity of visual coding will pay off for serious coders, now that Visual Builder Cloud Services lets developers add their own custom code to achieve richer behaviors. “While VBCS automatically generates code for you, the code is directly accessible for the developers—they can go in and enhance and modify it,” said Shay Smeltzer, director of product management for Oracle. “Basically, a professional developer can think of Autonomous VBCS as a platform that removes the boring part of coding and lets them focus on the more challenging part of development: implementing unique functionality for their organization.”

Make AI Do the Mundane

Oracle announced earlier this month that it plans to release more autonomous services later this year focused on mobile and chatbots, data integration, blockchain, security and management, and additional database workloads, including OLTP.

And expect more autonomous tools to help developers. “We are looking into leveraging more AI to help remove mundane tasks,” said Smeltzer. “So for example, one of the ideas we are working on is being able to scan an image with a conceptual design of a page and generate the HTML to implement it for you.”

May 24, 2018 in Health Care and Wellness, Tips and Tricks

TOP 7 TIPS TO GET BEST FUEL ECONOMY FROM YOUR PETROL OR DIESEL CAR

TOP 7 TIPS TO GET BEST FUEL ECONOMY FROM YOUR PETROL OR DIESEL CAR

Fuel prices hit a record high today in Delhi at Rs 77.17 per litre for petrol and Rs 68.34 per litre for diesel and we expect the increase of prices to continue until the government lowers taxes. And with higher fuel prices comes higher running costs. While most cars in India have stated fuel economy figures between the 15 kmpl to 25 kmpl mark, in real usage conditions, fuel economy figures are actually considerable lower. The misconception states, smaller the engine, more the fuel economy. But this isn’t always true. It is now about what car you drive, it is about how you drive it. So here are 7 important tips that will help you improve your fuel economy.

1. Service your car!

While you might think doing that one free service a year when you get a phone call from your authorised service centre is enough, it actually isn’t. You car is a machine and like every machine, it needs constant upkeep. We aren’t asking you to check your car every morning like it is the 1960s, but checking oil levels and coolant levels once every two weeks can actually have a big difference on your car. Oil levels are crucial and so is using the correct grade of oil that has been recommended by the manufacturer.

Another very important part of service are filters. Air filters, fuel filters and oil filters make a big difference in ensuring the engine runs at peak mechanical efficiency and that in turn ensures good fuel economy. It also helps to make sure your spark plugs are clean and without a layer of soot on them.

2. Maintain the correct air pressure

The manufacturer recommended air pressure is crucial – not only for a comfortable ride and correct handling but also for ensuring fuel economy. An under inflated tyre leads to friction and that leads to kinetic energy being lost. Another trick is to actually increase the air pressure in your tyre by a few PSI. That makes the side walls firmer and reduces the contact patch of the tyre but at the same time it can lead to blowouts (if over inflated) and lower grip as compared to correct pressures. And while it is known to work, we personally would not recommend it.

tyre decals

(Maintain the correct tyre pressure for best fuel economy)

3. Drive in the correct gear

You are not Vin Diesel. You are not chasing an Antonov AN 225 down a runway with baddies shooting at you. And thus you don’t need to change gear every 3 seconds. Being in the right gear at the right RPM helps the most. Especially if you are in a high traffic area. Another mistake people regularly make is to rev the engine all the way to its redline before changing gear. And while that might be great if you don’t give two hoots about your fuel economy, it makes a HUGE difference if you do.

Always remember, shift up as quickly as you can and only shift down when you need to. Also, sometimes, especially while coming down slopes, it is actually better to leave the car in a higher gear and not shift it to neutral. Remember, neutral means that the RPM of the car is at idle and therefore controlled by the ECU. Alternatively, being in a higher gear makes sure that RPMs depend on engine speed and considering the fact that the throttle is closed off as much as the ECU would allow, fuel economy is actually higher. That said, NEVER TURN YOUR CAR OFF WHILE DRIVING DOWNHILL!

4. Don’t carry unnecessary weight

Weight is the worst enemy when it comes to fuel economy. And while you cant ask your passengers to get off just because you want 1kmpl more, you can get rid of anything unnecessary from your car to save weight. This of course does not mean that you should get rid of your spare wheel or tools, but always remember to clean our your boot of anything unnecessary while you travel. And while an extra spare wheel is great when you travel, it is not necessarily needed while in the city.

ford freestyle diesel review

(Always keep the windows up while driving for best fuel economy)

5. Keep those windows up!

While it might not seem so, aerodynamics play a HUGE part in improving fuel economy. Windows rolled up means that the car’s body is as slippery when coming in contact with the air that it can possibly be. This means that the air flow around your car will be at its best and you don’t need that little extra power to make your air cut through the air. Of course, in a country like India, it is always best to have your windows up and your air conditioning on in order to sacrifice a little fuel economy for the sake of your health.

6. Park in a shaded area

While most lists will ask you not to use your air conditioning, we know it is an essentially need rather than a luxury if you intend to drive in India. In summer, with temperatures peaking at almost 50 degrees outside, the car’s interiors are usually even hotter and can take quite a while to cool down to a bearable level. This means that your AC has to work overtime at full blast, in turn sapping power from the engine. So just park under a shade. You will have a cooler car to come back to and your wallet will thank you too.

mumbai traffic

(Avoid idling at a traffic light for more than 60 seconds)

7. Avoid long idles

Avoid situations where the car is idling for over a minute. While normally a starting procedure takes more fuel, it is less than having your car idle for over a minute. IF you have a car with start-stop technology, use it. This will help especially if you in a situation where traffic rolls for a few metres and then comes to a stand still repeatedly.

 Source – auto.ndtv.com

May 24, 2018 in Tips and Tricks

The top IT initiatives of enterprise network managers are cloud and software-defined data centers, overcoming server virtualization’s dominance for the past 10 years, according to Enterprise Management Associates.

The top IT initiatives of enterprise network managers are cloud and software-defined data centers, overcoming server virtualization’s dominance for the past 10 years, according to Enterprise Management Associates.

In 2018, for the first time cloud and software-defined data-center concerns have become the primary focus of enterprise network teams, bumping server virtualization from the top spot, according to an Enterprise management Associates (EMA) report based on a survey of 251 North American and European enterprise network managers

This is the first shift in their priorities for in more than a decade. Since 2008, EMA has been asking network managers to identify the broad IT initiatives that drive their priorities. Server virtualization has dominated their responses year after year. Cloud and software-defined data center (SDDC) architectures have always been secondary or tertiary drivers.

In 2018, this pattern has finally broken, according to EMA’s “Network Management Megatrends 2018” research. This shift in drivers is also leading to mainstream focus on software-defined networking (SDN), network virtualization and software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN).

Server virtualization and workload consolidation

Before there was vCloud, OpenStack, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or even ESXi, there was simply VMware ESX. At its outset, VMware’s server-virtualization technology allowed enterprises to run more than one application on an x86 host, which allowed data center operators to consolidate workloads onto a smaller number of servers. Virtualization allowed enterprises to remove hardware, save rack space and drive efficiency in power and cooling. Virtualization also facilitated the decomposition of monolithic applications into multi-tiered application architectures, where different layers of an application could run on separate virtual machines.

This consolidation of workloads and the decomposition of applications that followed had profound impacts on networks. Bandwidth demand at the server access layer expanded, and the amount of traffic traveling east-west between servers exploded. Network engineers have spent the last decade reacting to this, building flatter, leaf-spine networks and replacing spanning tree protocol with equal-cost multi-pathing schemes.

That is why network managers have told EMA over and over again since 2008 that the broad IT initiative that most drives networking is server virtualization by a wide margin.

2018: software-defined and cloud architectures

While server virtualization remains influential on networking in 2018 (35% of network managers), it is no longer the top driver. This year, several other initiatives moved into a virtual tie with it, which indicates that mainstream enterprises are asking the network to support next-generation technologies. EMA asked network managers to identify all broad IT initiatives that were driving their priorities. The top driver in 2018 is SDDC architecture (37%). Other leading initiatives are infrastructure as a service (35%) and private cloud architecture (35%). Note that all these newly influential initiatives are ideas that draw on server virtualization as a foundational technology.

This data suggests an inflection point. For years, technology companies anxious to sell next-generation solutions have claimed this inflection point had already arrived, despite limited supporting evidence. Finally, EMA sees this shift in the numbers. Network managers are turning their focus away from east-west traffic optimization in the data center to programmable, software-defined technologies.

SDN and SD-WAN finally have their day

Network teams will naturally adopt new technologies to support these next-generation initiatives, and EMA research affirms this. In 2014 and 2016, network managers told us that network security and WAN optimization were the two most important networking initiatives they were dealing with.

Security is always a major concern, since the threat landscape is always evolving and challenging the security team. But WAN optimization is by no means a technology of the future. Its popularity always suggested that enterprises were focused on extracting more value out of their high-priced and bandwidth-constrained MPLS networks.

Network teams tasked with supporting cloud and SDDC architecture need to expand their technology focus. This year’s Megatrends research found just that. Network security (43%) remains at the top of the list, but data center SDN (40%), network virtualization (37%) and SD-WAN (36%) are near the top of the list. In previous years they were afterthoughts.

CLOUD

How does SD-WAN work?

This shift in priorities suggests that mainstream enterprises are at last focused on these solutions after years of hype. Data center SDN and network virtualization are essential to private cloud and SDDC initiatives. They make the network more dynamic, agile and programmatic. Meanwhile, SD-WAN brings many of the same benefits to the WAN, and it facilitates the connection of remote sites to public-cloud environments.

WAN optimization (36%) remains relevant, but the rise of SD-WAN suggests that a tectonic shift is happening in the WAN, since SD-WAN enables enterprises to supplement or replace MPLS with broadband internet.

(Shamus McGillicuddy is a senior analyst, network management, at Enterprise Management Associates and the author of the report “Network Management Megatrends 2018”.)

This story, “Survey: Mainstream adoption of SDN, SD-WAN finally arrives” was originally published by Network World.

April 29, 2018 in Tips and Tricks

Add new user account from command line (CMD)

Add new user account from command line (CMD)

Some times we may want to add new users from command line instead of using the UI. For example, if we have to add some 100 users, using a script will save lot of time and manual effort. Windows provides net user command for this purpose. This command works on Windows 2000, Windows XP/2003, Vista and Windows 7.
To add a new user account on the local computer:

net user username password /ADD

Example: To add a new user account with the loginid John and with password fadf24as

net user John fadf24as /ADD

Hide password

If you do not want the password to be visible while adding new user account, you can use ‘*’ as shown below.

C:\>net user /add John *
Type a password for the user: 
Retype the password to confirm:
The command completed successfully.
C:\>

To add a new user account to the domain:

net user username password /ADD /DOMAIN

Note that the command does not include the domain name.

Example:

net user John fadf24as /ADD /DOMAIN

Rename a user account

Net use command does not have any switches to rename a user account.  But we can do that using wmic commands. Please check this – Rename user accounts on Windows

Few more Advanced uses of net user command.

To set user full name while creating the user account

net user username password /ADD /FULLNAME:"User_Fullname"

To allow user to change password:

net user username password /ADD /PASSWORDCHG:Yes

To restrict user not to change the password:

net user username userpasswd /ADD /PASSWORDCHG:NO

To set account expiry time we can use /EXPIRES switch. This can also be used to set that the account never expires.

To specify if the user must  have a password set we can use /PASSWORDREQ switch. For more information on all net user options, read this – Net user command: syntax and examples

How to create a new administrator account?

An administrator account can’t be created directly.  We first need to create a user account and then add the user to the administrators group.

Errors:

  1. If you don’t have privileges to add new user account to the system, you would get an error like below. C:\>net user John /add System error 5 has occurred. Access is denied. C:\>
  2. While adding user to domain, make sure that your computer is connected to the domain. Otherwise it throws up below error. C:\>net user testuser testpassword /ADD /DOMAIN The request will be processed at a domain controller for domain mydomain.com. System error 1355 has occurred. The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted.

April 13, 2018 in News, Tips and Tricks

VMWARE TACKLES COMPLEXITY OF MULTI-CLOUD ENVIRONMENTS

VMWARE TACKLES COMPLEXITY OF MULTI-CLOUD ENVIRONMENTS

VMware has expanded its portfolio of cloud tools to help enterprises improve the manageability of their public cloud and on-premises environments. At the same time, VMware announced the first global expansion of VMware Cloud on AWS, its joint hybrid cloud service with Amazon Web Services.

VMware has expanded its portfolio of cloud tools to help enterprises improve the manageability of their public cloud and on-premises environments. At the same time, VMware announced the first global expansion of VMware Cloud on AWS, its joint hybrid cloud service with Amazon Web Services.

Complexity is on the rise for enterprises as they expand their use of cloud computing – which often is not limited to a single cloud provider. VMware estimates that nearly two-thirds of companies will use two or more cloud service providers in addition to their on-premises data centers.

VMware Cloud Services are designed to provide a consistent set of tools – for visibility, operations, automation, security and governance – across multiple public cloud and on-premises environments. The goal is to enable consistent operations from the data center to the cloud, providing greater visibility into cloud usage, infrastructure costs, network performance and application monitoring, for example.

Our new gaming site is live! Gamestar covers games, gaming gadgets and gear. Subscribe to our newsletter and we’ll email our best stuff right to your inbox. Learn more here.BE SURE NOT TO MISS:

“The need to support a complex set of new and existing applications is driving cloud adoption, and the needs of the applications are driving cloud decisions,” said Raghu Raghuram, chief operating officer for products and cloud services at VMware, in a statement. “VMware Cloud gives customers unprecedented flexibility to develop any type of application, deploy these apps to any cloud and deliver them to any device, while leveraging a consistent infrastructure across clouds and a consistent set of operations across any cloud.”

VMware Cloud Services

Two new products and two upgraded products are among the announcements VMware made today:

VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension for Private Cloud
VMware’s Hybrid Cloud Extension services are SaaS offerings designed to support large-scale application migrations between diverse vSphere environments, on-premises and in the cloud. VMware has previously announced Hybrid Cloud Extension services for both IBM Cloud and VMware Cloud on AWS; these are now available for enterprises that want to extend their VMware-based environments to the public cloud.

The new service – VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension Service for Private Cloud – is geared for self-managed private enterprise data centers. It’s designed to make it easier for enterprises to migrate applications without modification, with little or no application downtime, in environments that span multiple private data-center locations.

VMware Log Intelligence
This new log-analysis service is a single troubleshooting tool that works across private data centers and multiple clouds, including VMware Cloud on AWS. Log Intelligence uses machine learning algorithms and log analytics to scan for anomalies in data center and cloud environments and give IT teams visibility into application behavior and infrastructure health.

Wavefront by VMware
VMware updated its SaaS-based metrics monitoring and analytics platform, Wavefront by VMware, to include 45 new integrations, including GCP, Chef, GitHub, Spark, Nginx+, and Mesos. In May 2017, VMware acquired Wavefront, which specialized in monitoring complex applications – consisting of hundreds of microservices in containers with lifespans of seconds – spread across private and public clouds. Wavefront by VMware now supports Kubernetes in Pivotal Container Service, application platform services such as Pivotal Cloud Foundry, and enterprise applications running on VMware-based private clouds. It also now integrates with VMware’s vRealize Operations, a monitoring tool that helps enterprises troubleshoot and plan capacity for virtualized environments.

VMware Cost Insight
Cost Insight is VMware’s cost monitoring and optimization service for public and private clouds. It’s designed to help IT teams analyze, track and streamline cloud spending. Cost Insight already supported AWS, Microsoft Azure and VMware-based private cloud data centers. Now it includes support for VMware Cloud on AWS. When enterprises want to consider migrating workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS, Cost Insight can provide details about how much the migration would cost. It’s also tied to VMware Network Insight, so users can calculate the impact of networking costs during a migration.

VMware Cloud on AWS goes global

In addition to the new and updated cloud management tools, VMware announced the European expansion of its AWS offering. VMware Cloud on AWS (the bare-metal cloud platform that makes it easier for customers to run VMware workloads on the Amazon Web Services public cloud) is now available in the AWS London region. After the UK, European expansion will continue with the AWS data center in Frankfurt, Germany.

“Since launching VMware Cloud on AWS just six months ago, we’ve seen tremendous interest from our global customer base and multi-national enterprises. Today marks an essential starting point for our global expansion to deliver unparalleled hybrid-cloud services in major geographies around the world,” said Mark Lohmeyer, vice president and general manager of the cloud platform business unit at VMware, in a statement.

The hybrid cloud model with VMware and VMware Cloud on AWS is a key component of the technology and business transformation at Brink’s, according to Greg Osgood, global vice president of infrastructure and security at the Richmond, Va.-based cash-management company.

“VMware and VMware Cloud on AWS are the foundation of Brink’s global infrastructure,” Osgood said in a statement. “These systems allow the company to easily move workloads between its private cloud and the public cloud, providing agility for production services and disaster recovery. Using these VMware technologies, and with a partnership with Eastern Computer Exchange, Brink’s successfully consolidated its North America data center operations in 2017, and is planning to extend this model to Europe, Latin American and Asia in 2018.”

VMware also debuted a partner program for its AWS cloud service.

This story, “VMware tackles complexity of multi-cloud environments” was originally published by Network World.

April 11, 2018 in News, Tips and Tricks

HOW TO CHECK IF FACEBOOK SHARED YOUR PERSONAL INFO WITH CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA

HOW TO CHECK IF FACEBOOK SHARED YOUR PERSONAL INFO WITH CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA

Cambridge Analytica harvested personal information from 87 million Facebook users.

Was your Facebook data shared with Cambridge Analytica? The political research firm harvested the personal information of roughly 87 million people to target American voters, using a personality quiz called “This Is Your Digital Life” that scraped the Facebook data of you and your friends. The social network recently started notifying users who had their information scooped up.

If you haven’t seen the prompt in your News Feed, you can check if your Facebook data was shared with Cambridge Analytica by logging into the network and visiting this help page. The section titled “Was my information shared?” explains whether your or your friends ever logged into the nefarious quiz, though it won’t name which friends handed over your data to the app.

While you’re at it, take the time to look over the other apps that you’ve granted access to your Facebook account, and disable any ones you no longer need. The Cambridge Analytica saga drives home how crucial it is to keep close rein on apps that hook into your social media accounts. Securing your personal data is more complicated than just running an antivirus suite and using a password manager to come up with unique logins for every site. This revelation sparked big changes in the way Facebook handles third-party apps, including the launch of a new data abuse bounty, but it’s better to be proactive on your end.Our new gaming site is live! Gamestar covers games, gaming gadgets and gear. Subscribe to our newsletter and we’ll email our best stuff right to your inbox. Learn more here.

Curious to see what Facebook itself knows about you? Check out our guide to downloading your Facebook data, and if you feel uncomfortable about what you find, here’s how to delete, disable, or limit your Facebook account.

This story, “How to check if Facebook shared your personal info with Cambridge Analytica” was originally published by PCWorld.

April 11, 2018 in News, Tips and Tricks

WHAT IS THE OPEN COMPUTE PROJECT?

WHAT IS THE OPEN COMPUTE PROJECT?

Hardware designed to Open Compute Project specification accounts for well over $1 billion in hardware sales.

The Open Compute Project began in 2011 when Facebook published the designs of some homebrew servers it had built to make its data centers run more efficiently.

Facebook hoped that other companies would adopt and adapt its initial designs, pushing down costs and improving quality – and they have: Sales of hardware built to Open Compute Project designs topped $1.2 billion in 2017, double the previous year, and are expected to reach $6 billion by 2021.

Those figures, from IHS Markit, exclude hardware spending by OCP board members Facebook, Intel, Rackspace, Microsoft and Goldman Sachs, which all use OCP to some degree. The spend is still a small part of the overall market for data-center systems, which Gartner estimated was worth $178 billion in 2017, but IHS expects OCP’s part to grow 59 percent annually, while Gartner forecasts that the overall market will stagnate, at least through 2019.

Reasons to adopt OCP

When Facebook designed the hardware for its first dedicated data center in Prineville, Ore., it wanted to make savings on three fronts: energy, materials and money.

It boosted energy efficiency by cutting wastage in the power supply and by making the servers taller, which left room for bigger, more effective heatsinks and meant that it could use fans of a larger diameter, able to move more air with less energy.

By doing away with vanity faceplates, paint, logos, unneeded expansion slots and components such as video cards and even mounting screws, it saved more than 6 pounds of material per server.

That inevitably led to cost reductions, as you don’t pay for electricity you don’t consume or parts you don’t use. On top of that, it made savings on labor: Without the mounting screws, racking and unracking servers was quicker; standardization saved time dealing with spares, and overall systems coulc be deployed more quickly.

Barriers to adopting OCP

In its 2018 spending study, IHS Markit identified the three main barriers to the adoption of OCP hardware as being concerns about security, sourcing, and integration.

One of the risks of giving everybody the specification to make OCP hardware is that anybody can make it: Somebody could tamper with it before delivery, and nobody would be any the wiser. In other words, supply chain security becomes a problem.

Security

At the OCP Summit held in San Jose in March 2018, OCP leaders said they were addressing supply chain security with the creation of a new Security Project focusing on the creation of a standard hardware interface and protocols for ensuring boot code integrity.

Microsoft has already contributed its Project Cerberus, a hardware root of trust for firmware on the motherboard designed to comply with NIST 800-192, Platform Firmware Resiliency Guidelines.

Building on this base, they also plan to develop security firmware APIs, open-source firmware for dedicated security hardware, secure firmware provisioning methodologies, and tools to secure and verify all mutable storage, including flash for BIOS, microcontrollers and complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs). In this way, enterprises taking delivery of OCP hardware can be sure it’s only running the firmware they expect it to be running.

The project leads aren’t just concerned about new hardware: They’re also thinking of the second-hand gear. To secure the resale market, they will look into providing tools for recovering hardware from a compromised or untrusted state, and for tracking and changing its ownership.

Hardware-software integration

Integrating hardware and software is getting easier – particularly at the operating system level since Microsoft joined the OCP board and contributed designs for the racks and servers it is now using to deliver Azure services to its customers.

There is still work to be done at other levels, including the very lowest, the firmware that enables OCP servers to boot up.

That’s where another new OCP initiative comes in: the Open System Firmware Project. It’s working on open-sourcing the code that initializes server chipsets so that it can be used on a variety of platforms and processor types. Building on projects like UEFI and Linux Boot, it aims to provide support for all cloud operating systems and processor architectures found in the data center, including GPUs, FPGAs and other hardware optimized for applications such as machine learning.

With Open Compute hardware increasingly finding a role in network virtualization, there are also moves afoot to integrate open software and hardware here, too. Traditional networking equipment vendors like Cisco Systems or Juniper Networks tightly link the two, delivering proprietary software tailored to proprietary hardware.

OCP is working with the Linux Foundation to integrate its hardware with that organization’s Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) software, and the two recently renewed their commitment to joint testing of hardware and software products meeting their respective specifications.

Where to buy OCP gear

Sourcing Open Compute Project hardware is getting easier. The project website features a marketplace through which you can research equipment specifications and contact Open Compute Project vendors.

There are over 100 products referenced that have achieved either OCP Inspired or OCP Accepted recognition. The OCP Inspired label can only be used on products that comply fully with an existing, accepted OCP specification and that are made by an OCP Silver, Gold or Platinum member. OCP Accepted products can be made by anyone, but they too must comply fully with an existing, accepted OCP specification and open-source design files must be made available for them.

Types of Open Compute Project hardware

The early focus on OCP servers and power supplies has grown to encompass racks, storage and Open Compute Project networking. The organization has even accepted a specification for open Wi-Fi hardware.

While OCP servers started out as simple, commodity devices, there have been moves since to tailor servers to different workloads and, inevitably, the computing demands of machine learning applications have influenced those designs.

Facebook in particular is continuing to push the OCP server envelope. At the 2018 U.S. OCP Summit in San Jose, it showed its third-generation machine learning platform, Big Basin v2. This uses Nvidia Tesla V100 GPUs, a step up from the P100s used in Big Basin v1. Individually, the new processors offer two-thirds more performance than the previous ones, and Facebook said that thanks to some other tweaks to the Big Basin design, it had managed to retain almost all that performance gain as the number of processors used increases.

Facebook also showed a new system, Fabric Aggregator, designed to link neighboring datacenters within a region, and also datacenter regions with one another. Built using Facebook’s own OPC 100G switch, the Wedge 100, and FBOSS (Facebook Open Switching System) software, Fabric Aggregator allows businesses with networks like Facebook to scale intra-region and inter-region traffic independently.

Microsoft is hoping for a share of the open switching market too: Its containerized Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC) has found its way into new devices from Mellanox Technologies that allow enterprises to extend their spine and top-of-rack switches from their own premises into the Azure cloud. This could be a way for it to leverage hardware vendors’ sales into a market for its own cloud services.

Through another OCP initiative, Microsoft could end up changing the structure of the storage market too. The makers of flash storage devices and storage subsystems disagree about where the intelligence that handles address mapping, garbage collection and wear leveling should reside. Putting this intelligence in the storage subsystem may make sense for workstations or consumer devices, but in cloud services functions such as garbage collection become slow and wasteful if the controller is unaware of where the data is coming from. That’s because the storage system’s cache typically mingles data from different applications and VMs — data that will be freed up at different times. With its Project Denali, Microsoft wants to allow OCP storage device makers to move that intelligence higher up the stack, from the SSD drive into the host, allowing it to adapt drive behavior to particular workloads.

This story, “What is the Open Compute Project?” was originally published byNetwork World.

March 20, 2018 in Tips and Tricks

How to secure online transactions: Six easy tips to follow

Every now and then, we keep hearing about a new online security hack being discovered and while the world is moving towards complete digitisation, it is also true that there is a long way ahead of us, when it comes to optimum online security. That said, online transactions is one area where most cyber attacks are focused and while, we as consumers, have made online transactions popular since they make life much easier with several options it offers, it is also true that everything in life comes with a risk and with online transactions, it’s bigger than we think.

The online economy is nothing but billions of dollars being exchanged almost every single day, moreover, online transactions/shopping has resulted in lower prices, unmatched ease of buying as well as incredibly diverse choices for consumers. Being confident due to the millions of transactions taking place, many of us regularly shop and bank online with any second thought. From ordering pizzas to literally buying a house and from transferring money to booking tickets online, these online transactions are the need of the hour which is also looking to practically eliminate the worry of standing in a queue or waiting, to say the least.

However, as unfortunate as it might sound, online fraud and identity theft sort of come complimentary with the popularity and ease of online transactions, thanks to clever cyber thieves as well as sloppy consumers with precarious Internet shopping habits.

When it comes to ‘how to secure your online transactions’, while there is no guarantee that you will always be safe from a cyber threat including viruses, hackers, malware and other scams, it’s more of a habitual change that you need. On that note, here we are listing six tips that you can follow to secure your online transactions.

Tips for secure online transactions

1. Choose your password wisely: While choosing a password, strictly follow the given instructions by banks, mutual funds, etc for choosing the same while making an online transaction (keep it complex and change it regularly). Also using anniversaries or names and a date of birth, of people who are close to you is strictly discouraged since all this could easily be guessed. Moreover, neither share a password with an outsider nor communicate it via social media.

2. Avoid phishing emails: Always Be careful about emails asking about your personal/confidential financial information. The government, SEBI, RBI or even any other regulated entities never ask for password or card numbers.

3. Beware of public Wi-Fi: Never ever resort to making an online transaction from a cyber cafe or through a public Wi-Fi or a shared system. Always prefer your home computer and also install adequate firewalls and anti-virus software. It’s also a good habit to keep your computers/laptops updated with new security patches and operating systems, always.

4. Secure Socket Layer (SSL): Always check for Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or https security on the login page of any particular bank’s website. Here, the ‘s’ after the ‘http’ indicates that a particular site is secure. Similarly, look for identity verified-signs as well as SSL security of an online shopping portal in order to protect your debit/credit card number along with your personal information. Also, check for the padlock icon in the browser window.

5. Autocomplete: Always disable Autocomplete/Password storage in your browser since they have a tendency to keep caches of sites you visit, and on prompting, could offer to save passwords for you. However, if you opt for this, you will have to enter all the passwords and URLs every time to come online, but the inconvenience is worth it as your data will be safe in case of a data theft attempt or if your system gets stolen.

6. Web browser privacy mode: This is said to be the best tool in order to keep your online transactions safe, moreover, every new browser comes with this feature. This option sets up a separate browser window that deletes all the data on the moment a particular browser window is closed while clearing caches as well as keeping your private data out of public domain.

March 17, 2018 in Tips and Tricks

Windows Defender Error code: 0x80070426

When my PC starts I get this error code and windows defender will not start.

I tried sfc /scannow it said it found some issues but cannot repair them all, I also tried repairing under safe mode.

This happened after upgrading to build 1607

Answer

We understand that you get the error code, 0x80070426  when you try to use the Windows defender. Also that the SFC scan was unable to fix it even in the safe mode. That being said, please try to do a DISM scan and check if it helps. Ensure that the computer is connected to the internet when you do so.

Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) is a new command line tool that you can use to service a Windows image or prepare a Windows PE image. The DISM tool replaces the Package Manager (pkgmgr.exe), PEimg, and Intlcfg tools. DISM consolidates the functionality found in those three tools, as well as delivers new functionality to improve the experience of offline servicing.

Please follow the given steps to run a DISM scan:

1) Press Windows + x on your keyboard.

2) Select Command prompt (Admin) to open Administrator Command prompt.

3) In the Administrator: Command Prompt window, type the following commands. Press the Enter key after each command:



dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth

     dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

If the issue still persists, please try to run a clean boot and check if it helps.

Putting your system inClean Boot state helps in identifying if any third party applications or startup items are causing the issue. You need to follow the steps from the article mentioned below to perform a Clean Boot.

DISCLAIMER: After troubleshooting, refer to this section “How to reset the computer to start normally after clean boot troubleshooting”.

Please get back to us with the necessary details so that we can resolve your issue at the earliest.

Thank you.

Have a good day!