Microsoft gets a new logo for the first time since 1987

Microsoft is changing its corporate logo in 25 years, Microsoft, which has used its solid, boldfaced, italicized logo since 1987, is expected to unveil its new, more colorful logo Thursday at the Boston opening of the 23rd Microsoft store. It will also appear Thursday at the Seattle and Bellevue Microsoft stores, as well as on the microsoft.comhome page.

Windows 8 much more secure than Windows 7

Researchers Chris Valasek (Senior Security Researcher at Coverity) and Tarjei Mandt (senior vulnerability researcher at Azimuth Security) spend their days seeking ways to compromise security in Windows. They're good guys; if they find a problem they report it, rather than exploiting it for illicit gain. At the Black Hat conference they reported on their analysis of new low-level security features in Windows 8.

The precise details of what they discovered were barely within the realm of my comprehension. Apparently many doubly-linked lists within Windows 8 are now protected by "pool cookies." To avoid exploits that involve forcing arbitrary code or data into places it doesn't belong, Windows 8 randomizes locations for memory allocation and adds "guard pages" as needed. That sort of thing.

In between slides filled with code and intense details, Valasek and Mandt displayed a couple that anybody could understand. The column for Windows Vista was all red, meaning not secure. Windows 7 was close, with just a few green checkmarks. And of course Windows 8 displayed a column of solid green checkmarks. Expert or not, we know that green is good.

After the talk I checked in with Valasek.

Rubenking: Back in the day I would write TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) programs in DOS, and they were great, and useful. But the malware writers used the same DOS features to write bad stuff. Microsoft could have shut them down, but they would have shut me down too. It seems from your talk like they don't plan to shut anybody down. They're doing fine-tuning, working really hard to ensure that everything still works while they crank up security. Do you think it's conceivable you could write an operating system that just wouldn't be vulnerable to attack?

Valasek: No, that doesn't exist. Not as long as humans are writing the code. Once Skynet takes over and humans don't write code any more that might be possible. They have to have a certain amount of data and algorithms and structures that are needed, so there's always a potential to use this stuff for exploitation purposes. Here's the thing. If you don't make it impossible, but you make it severely difficult so only a tenth of one percent of the population can do it, you've effectively lowered the threat to decent levels.

Rubenking: And if you hire that one tenth of one percent…

Valasek: That's just what Google and Microsoft have done. Hire that one tenth of one percent, then you're good.

Rubenking: Thank you Chris!

Indeed, Windows 8 isn't perfect. Valasek and Mandt laid out a number of possible avenues that hackers might conceivably exploit. But as Valasek said, it will be severely difficult, and only the most adept will come close to exploiting the tiny vulnerabilities that remain.

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iPhone 5 coming on August 7 2012

Apple's next-generation iPhone popularly being referred to as iPhone 5 is launching on August 7, claims a blog on Know Your Mobile website. The website makes this claim citing "a reliable industry source" who, it says, has stated that the Cupertino-based tech giant will launch the device during a keynote speech.

Earlier, the same website had reported that the launch date of iPhone 5 has been pushed ahead to August in order to compete better against Samsung Galaxy S III.

11 Things You Didn’t Know About Facebook Pages

Do you manage a Facebook brand page? With all the recent changes, you may have felt a little lost on the social platform. To help you out, we’ve put together some useful tips and tricks.

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Android 4.0 source code now available: Google

Google has rolled out the source code of Android4.1 (Jelly Bean) for developers, who can receive it from Android Open Source Project.

With this release, the manufacturers who use Android in their smartphones and tablets can begin working on the latest edition of Google's open source mobile operating system for existing and upcoming devices.

Custom firmware providers like CyanogenMOD and MIUI will also use the source code for JellyBean to build the next iteration of their firmware. The team at CyanogenMOD has already stated that it will commence working on CM10, whereas the plans for the previous edition of its custom firmware are on schedule.

On the official Android building group, Android team's Jean-Baptiste Queru posted that the search giant has also rolled out the 'proprietary binaries' for devices like Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus. The same for Nexus S and Motorola Xoom are expected soon.

source

Adobe won’t support flash in android 4.1

And so ends the tale of Flash on mobile browsers- Adobe has announced it will not support Flash Player browser plugin for Android 4.1 and onward.

“There will be no certified implementations of Flash Player for Android 4.1,” writes Adobe on its official blog, adding that it recommends “uninstalling Flash Player on devices which have been upgraded to Android 4.1.”

The company will pull the existing Flash Player from Google Play Store on August 15 this year.

Google announces cloud-computing service "Compute Engine"

 Google has announced Compute Engine, a cloud-computing service that allows businesses to run their applications on servers in the tech giant's data center. 

"We're introducing Google Compute Engine, an infrastructure-as-a-service product that lets you run Linux Virtual Machines on the same infrastructure that powers Google," said Google in its official blog Thursday. 

According to the company, the economy of scale and efficiency of its data centers can provide users 50 percent more computing power than other leading cloud providers, reported Xinhua. 

Industry watchers said Google Compute Engine will compete and challenge the leading position of Amazon Web Services, which was launched in July, 2002

SQL Server 2008 Profiler - How to filter trace to only display events from one database ?

Create New template and follow below steps on "Trace Properties" window-

1 - Click on the "Events Selection" tab
2 - Click on the "Show All Columns" check box
3 - Click on the "Column Filters..." button
4 - Select "DatabaseName", click on the plus icon to Like in the right-hand side pane, and type your database name.

Thanks

Microsoft may be making own phone - Analyst

Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) is looking at making its own smartphone to kickstart sales of its Windows mobile software, according to a Wall Street analyst who has followed the company for many years. The talk - unconfirmed by Microsoft - comes a day after the company unveiled its latest Windows Phone 8 software, and the same week it announced an own-brand tablet, signaling a break with 37 years of focusing on software and leaving hardware manufacturing to its partners.

"Our industry sources tell us that Microsoft may be working with a contract manufacturer to develop their own handset for Windows Phone 8," wrote Nomura analyst Rick Sherlund in a note to clients on Thursday.

"It is unclear to us whether this would be a reference platform or whether this may be a go-to market Microsoft-branded handset," wrote Sherlund, who covered Microsoft for Goldman Sachs when the bank brought Microsoft public in 1986.

Microsoft did not confirm or deny the speculation. A spokesman said the company was a "big believer in our hardware partners and together we're focused on bringing Windows Phone 8 to market this year."

Windows Phone 8 is the latest version of Microsoft's mobile software, set for release in autumn. So far, the software giant has struggled to make a mark, with Windows-powered smartphones taking only 2 percent of a worldwide market dominated by Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPhone and devices running Google Inc's (GOOG.O) Android system.

Microsoft built its business on creating software to be used on other companies' hardware, but the success of Apple's iPhone and iPad have demonstrated that making both and integrating the two smoothly has its benefits.

Microsoft charted a new course this week by announcing two own-branded tablet PCs, although doubts remain whether that was a move to invigorate hardware makers or a genuine attempt to compete with its partners.

A similar move in phones could make sense, and the company has little to lose by trying its own handset, said another analyst, considering the strategic importance of smartphones and poor sales of Windows phones.

"Microsoft can't afford not to have phones sell. They have to find a way of selling it," said Sid Parakh, an analyst at fund firm McAdams Wright Ragen. "It's a significant piece of their long-term vision of integrated devices."

If Microsoft did make its own phone, it would be a blow for struggling Finnish handset maker Nokia (NOK1V.HE), which pledged to use Windows software in its smartphones under a multi-billion dollar pact last year. If Microsoft wanted to be in the handset business, it might even consider buying Nokia, suggested Parakh, although he said that was unlikely.

Such a move would also bring Microsoft into competition with Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), HTC Corp (2498.TW) and Huawei, which are slated to bring out new Windows phones later this year.

Microsoft has experimented unsuccessfully with handsets before. It bought fashionable phone designer Danger and developed a phone in-house called Kin, which was pulled off the market months after launch in 2010.

Cloud Computing Simply Isn't That Scary Anymore: Survey

Cloud computing just isn’t as scary as it once was to companies and their CIOs. A new survey of 785 companies finds a meager 3% considering it to be too risky — down from 11% last year. Only 12% say the cloud platform is too immature, and that’s down from 26% a year ago. Furthermore, 50% of the survey respondents now say they have “complete confidence” in the cloud — up from 13% a year ago.

Of course, looking at it another way, that means 50% aren’t quite comfortable. But still, cloud is finding its way into day-to-day business.  More 

Top 10 sql interview questions asked for .Net Developer position from Beginner to Sr Developer

Below are the questions-


I- What kind of function can be written in SQL? How a function is differ from Stored procedure?

II- What is trigger? Can you write the syntax for AFTER trigger?

III- Have you ever used Magic tables? What are they? And where/how can be used?

IV-     What is the difference between Temp table and Table variable?(a) Difference between local temp table and Gloabal temp table.

V-      What is Identity column type? Can we reset the value of column of this type? What will be the next value, (a) if we delete all the records from this table and insert a fresh new record? (b) if we delete the table (c) if we truncate the table

VI-     What is the difference between Joins and Subqueries? Which one is better? Can you write the syntax for CROSS JOIN.  (a) difference between Left join and Right join.

VII-    How many types of Indexes can be done inSQL? What is the difference between them? Which one is the default type? Which one is better to use? (a) Can we have a table without any type of Indexes? (b) can you have a primary key on a table with non-clustered index?

VIII-   What is the difference in Primary key constraint and Unique key constraint? Is”Default” a constraint in SQL? (a) difference between varchar datatype and char datatype.

IX-     When and How to use cursor with syntax.

X-      How to do SQL query optimization?

Need More Question... Click Here

SQL SERVER 2008 – Database diagram support objects cannot be installed because this database does not have a valid owner

Full Error : Database diagram support objects cannot be installed because this database does not have a valid owner. To continue, first use the Files page of the Database Properties dialog box or the ALTER AUTHORIZATION statement to set the database owner to a valid login, then add the database diagram support objects.

Solution : You can fix this error if you have full permission of database -

ALTER AUTHORIZATION ON DATABASE::YourDatabaseName TO sa

GO 

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DLL reference is not working visual studio 2010

You need to change the target framework of your application from ".NET Framework 4 Client Profile" to ".NET Framework 4"

Windows 8 beta grabs 1 million downloads over one day

Proud parent Microsoft tweeted yesterday that one million copies had been downloaded since the beta hit the Web on Wednesday. The beta was released on the same day the company demoed the software at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Windows users were clearly curious to sample the beta, especially after tasting the Developer Preview launched last September. A work-in-progress peek into Windows 8, the Developer Preview raised hackles among many who found it geared more toward touch-based tablets than desktops and laptops.

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Five ways Google's unified privacy policy affects you

Today, Google's unified privacy policy goes live, allowing the search giant to combine and manipulate data from all its 60 free services, something it could not do under its previous policies.
Coverage of the policy change has been abundant during the last few weeks leading up to it, though Google has made no secret of its intentions--pop-ups alerting users to the transition can be seen on the home pages of all its services.

Read More....

Email sending problem on godaddy shared hosting server

Include below namespace

using System.Net;
using System.Net.Mail;
using System.Net.Configuration;

C# Code Here

string strFromEmail= "";
string strToEmail = "";
string strSubject= "";
string strBody= "";

MailMessage mailMessage = new MailMessage(strFromEmail, strToEmail, strSubject, strBody);
mailMessage.IsBodyHtml = true;

SmtpClient smtpClient = new SmtpClient();
smtpClient.Host = "relay-hosting.secureserver.net";
smtpClient.Port = 25;
smtpClient.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultNetworkCredentials;
smtpClient.Send(mailMessage);

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Unable to login from google toolbar in firefox

Its coming due to google has been changed the login from

www.google.com/accounts

to

accounts.google.com

Solution: Open up toolbar.js with in some editor.

Find: www.google.com/accounts

and replace ALL with: accounts.google.com

Restart Firefox

Login through the toolbar.

-----------------------------------------------
You can find toolbar.js file on below location.

->open run command
->go to %AppData%\ location
->search toolbar.js

----------------------------------------------

Have fun :)

invalid command-line parameter: Files\Android\android-sdk\tools/emulator-arm.exe. Hint: use '@foo' to launch a virtual device named 'foo'. please use -help for more information

Problem :

invalid command-line parameter: Files\Android\android-sdk\tools/emulator-arm.exe.
Hint: use '@foo' to launch a virtual device named 'foo'.
please use -help for more information

Answer : You can fix with by changing SDK path

just change SDK location in eclipse preferences: C:\PROGRA~1\Android\android-sdk

Thanks

Google Plus threat to Facebook, Twitter

That is, of course, only one way of looking at Google's labour of over one year, when the team guys sat writing codes, eager to make as big an impact in the social media sector as in the mail, search, photo and document storage domains.

This time, they were also hoping to do one better than Orkut, which was literally steamrollered by Facebook in popularity and functionality, and certainly better than its disastrous Wave. The idea, one supposes, was to create a product that would make a mash of its prime competitors Facebook and Twitter and wipe them out. Will Google + do that?

Google + is still in its snooty, exclusive, I-will-call-you-don't-call-me phase, but let us remember that was Mark Zuckerberg's strategy initially as well. Facebook was the privy of exclusive Ivy League schools in the U.S. and the U.K. until the blitz happened. So, invitations are still scarce to come by, not all those in the Plus can extend invitations to friends who are still nonplussed. However, for sure, there are many more being added to my circles every night, nearly thrice the number than I started off with.

But when you are in, you may not notice this; it automatically signs you in on a secure (https) server, significant if you consider the recent controversies over Facebook taking liberties with users' privacy. So far, so good.

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Microsoft launches Office 365 in India

Microsoft has announced commercial availability of Microsoft Office 365 in India. Offering attractive prices starting $2.0 per user per month, (excluding applicable taxes) this will allow SMBs and enterprise customers to access Microsoft’s popular e-mail, collaboration, conferencing and productivity capabilities online.