Social Items

As a result of the more modern jobs climate, many people have got family and close friends who have moved abroad. Whether they have moved for work or for pleasure though, we usually want to keep in touch as much and as often as we can for as little expense as possible. In the current climate, so many telephone companies are trying to exploit customers and want to charge extortionate amounts to make such phone calls abroad.

What is the right package for me? 

It’s hard to know which company and package to choose in order to serve your individual needs most effectively. Cheap phone calls seem to be a thing of the past. But thanks to BT, the process of staying in touch with friends and family abroad is now easier than ever before.

It’s very important to keep in touch with our loved ones, friends and family. But we don’t want to break the bank in order to do so. With cheap phone calls you can make a phone call abroad day or night, whether it’s to say a quick ‘Hello’ or for a longer conversation.

It’s equally important to make sure you have the right call package for your needs. If you only call abroad once a month for a five minute chat, you don’t need all the added extras. You’ll simply be wasting your money in this scenario. However, if you can’t stay off the phone and are permanently chatting to the other side of the world, you will need a bigger package to make sure you’re getting the cheapest calls you possibly can.

The mobile phone dilemma

With so many cheap phone call deals from BT, you can stay in touch with over 199 different destinations. Calls can be as little as 0p a minute to landlines in 36 of BTs most popular destinations. You can also call mobiles at a cheaper rate. Many of us used to avoid calling mobile phones abroad as much as possible. However, thanks to BT, we can make cheap phone calls to mobiles abroad and not bankrupt ourselves at the same time.

If you are interested in finding out more about getting cheap phone calls? Log onto: http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/landline/international-calls on the BT website for all the information you need to make an informed decision.

Mobility Dilemma: Any Cheap Calls?

Google Slides finally gets an offline mode, according to the Google Enterprise Blog, now users can create, edit and comment on Slides presentation without internet connection. The new offline presentation feature means bringing the capabilities of the Microsoft Office suites on Google Drive.

The offline mode is such that new presentation or changes you make will automatically be updated when you get back online, making it possible to continue slides presentation without worrying about connection disruptions.

Google Docs offline feature works with Slides presentation as well, meaning that if you have enabled offline editing on Docs you don't have to make any changes to Slides for offline functionality. If you have not enabled offline editing on Docs, you will have to follow the steps outlined on Google Drive help.

However, the offline capabilities have some restrictions based on device used, whereas on Chrome browser or Chrome OS  you can be able to view and edit presentations, while on Android or iOS you are limited to viewing documents only. The company also added that they are working to make offline spreadsheets available soon.

Slides On Google Drive Gets Offline Mode

Facebook commenced public availability of its latest search innovation, "Graph Search" today. Albeit, only to a limited number of users for now, the search innovation follows on "natural language" search technology to present actionable information on real-time social engagement which before now is not available on the social network.

Graph Search is perhaps a bridging on the limitations of Facebook timeline feature to impact users experience and enhance information retrieval.

It's devoid of keywords like in normal web search, rather utilizing structured search phrases is able to provide information on related terms as "all natives of a particular location" on the social network. Also common phrases like "friends who like going to cinemas" or "friends of friends who like certain restaurant" can be employed to arrive at an actionable social information.

The uniqueness of this search innovation remains that getting such nature of information was not obtainable on Facebook before now, which had called to question the usefulness of Facebook Timeline to users, who invariably may want to tap into the collective social data for business intelligence.

However, in-between the benefits of this search innovation comes its privacy bearing on users. And Facebook has taken the time to spell out the privacy implications of the new Graph Search feature, stressing that the search mechanism will only return results based on what users have granted it permission.

Graph Search: Actionable Real-time Analytics?

Oracle has finally made available a patch for the critical vulnerabilities in Java 7 which could allow an unauthenticated Java applet access without requiring code signing. A flaw which attackers have leveraged to break into users computers to execute arbitrary codes.

The ubiquitous Java software has lately become a hotspot target for hackers, leading to blockade of the software by major internet technology vendors.

The critical malware threats that engulfed Mac OS X mid last year, which made Apple revert from its old stance that the platform is not under any threat, were all attributed to Java flaws.

Mac OS X users have nothing to worry about in this latest vulnerabilities as Apple has already disabled Java plug-ins on its operating system.  Mozilla has also followed suit in blacklisting the software on its browser.

The software update which is now available for download on the company website, fixes the flaw in Oracle's Java 7 update 10 and earlier versions.

However, given that Java for Mac is Apple-compiled, and it ports Oracle's patches according to its own schedule may mean delay in the Fixes for Mac OS X.

Oracle Fixes Flaw in Java Software

Mozilla is certainly not a push over, the open source advocate is very much still at the forefront of innovations on the browser-side technology. Mozilla Firefox 19 beta promises a native PDF viewer, which hitherto had required a plug-in for viewing PDFs on Firefox.

The built-in PDF viewer on Firefox 19 means users would not have to worry again concerning vulnerabilities associated with third-party plug-in when viewing PDFs, as the plug-ins come with proprietary closed source code that may pose security risks.

The native PDF viewer on Firefox 19 is developed using HTML5, allowing secured and familiar interface with the browser. Additionally, the open source API means that it can run on any platform: PCs, tablet and smartphones.

Firefox 19 for Android also comes spotting new features: additional ARMv6 support and Firefox integration with Google search widget, making it possible to launch the browser direct from the home-screen through the Google search widget.

Firefox 19 beta is currently available for download for both: Desktop and Mobile
for those who wish to have a spin at what's coming.

Browser PDF Viewer Debut on Firefox 19

Microsoft security blog, Technet on Saturday released an advisory warning of a vulnerability in older versions of Internet Explorer, IE6,7 & 8, which could allow remote code execution through memory corruption in the browser.  The zero-day bug is reportedly being actively exploited in the wild to hijack users PCs, allowing attackers to execute malicious codes.

The company had announced a work-around, termed "fix it" to temporarily contain the exploits and have promised a permanent solution in its security update.

IE users are thereby recommended to be weary of unknown links within emails, as the exploits are only possible, when a user visits a maliciously coded website. And an attacker can only be successful if able to trick users into clicking the link.

Microsoft IE9 and 10 are free from the vulnerability, therefore users have nothing to worry about. But, ironically only Windows 7 and above can run this newer IE versions leaving the great majority of Windows users at the mercy of the bug.

Microsoft, however, has promised on coming-up with a permanent fix soon. Adding that Internet Explorer on Windows server 2003, 2008 and Windows server 2008 R2 runs in a restricted mode by default, which mitigates the vulnerability.

IE Vulnerability: Microsoft Quick Fix Issued

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)