Yugatech and Globe is giving away tons and tons of of gadgets this Christmas.  Join “The Yugatech Great Gadget Giveaway” and get a chance to win Php 3000,000 worth of prizes.

“Merry Tweetmas” which is part 1 of a series of more contest has just started this week.  So wait no further and follow the mechanics from YugaTech.com to join.

Here’s one way of joining:

Round 1: Our theme for this week will be Twitter. Here’s the mechanics:
1) Follow @abeolandres and @talk2globe on Twitter.

2) Post a tweet “Just entered to win a Modu Phone. Quick! Go follow @abeolandres and @talk2globe and retweet: http://bit.ly/6e2q7O #thanks2yugatech”
We’re giving away a Modu phone, 10 Globe Tattoo and 20 Php500 prepaid call cards randomly. That’s 31 winners in all for the Twitter giveaway.

Check out YugaTech for other ways of joining the contest.

Seagate just announced their first SSD drive – PULSAR. It’s a 2.5 inch SSD drive offered in 50GB, 100GB and 200GB sizes. The drive is targeted towards the enterprise segment.

It has a 3GB/s SATA interface and provides a read and write speed of 240MB/s and 200MB/s respectively. The SSD is still a growing market and Seagate is certainly a brand that has a solid reputation and credibility in storage technology. Hopefully seagate will be introducing this to the consumer segment soon.

The continued domination of Google over search has been made even stronger today as they announced “real-time search” on their recent event. Key to this new feature is search integration with Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, Myspace, Jaiku and Identi.ca.

According to the official blog of Google, these features will allow you to discover breaking news the moment it happens, check the video below. As per mashable this feature is only available to select users but will be available to the public soon. However all users can still get a preview in Google Trends via their “Hot Topics” feature, just click on any of the topics there. But when Google launches the feature to all, you would see “Latest” as an added option in the “Show Options”sidebar.

Integrating the valuable data that their partners have like twitter and facebook definitely gives google capability of delivering real time data as they happen.  Imagine getting real time update on sports events with up to the minute detail by just doing a search on google?.. that’s definitely cool. 

Here’s a first look on real time search by Google:

UPDATE: tried it myself and i got it to work.

Just happened to chance on Friendster today and was surprised to see that it has been revamped.  The site has been redesigned and given a fun and fresher look, and they even changed their logo.   Aside from the noticeable change of color scheme from blue to green, they also remade their activity stream and shout-out boxes.  I just cant help but notice a similarity of the interface now with that of Facebook.

Most of the pages have been reworked to match their new theme and added new features.   One of which I noticed right away is their gift and games sections.  Wait! Facebook’s got this too right?  Anyhow, they have also got this Friendster wallet thing, its like a payment platform where you can purchase stuffs virtually like for buying those stuffs from their gift shop.  Im not sure of how big value this would be, I cant imagine myself buying a virtual cake for someone who cant eat it… but that’s just my take.

There is no doubt that Facebook is still the king when it comes to social networks but this makeover could definitely help Friendster regain some of their lost patrons.  But if the goal is to topple down the king?… I don’t think it will happen any time soon.

One of the largest torrent site in the world has   just been ordered to shutdown, well, kinda. Mininova has been recently ordered by a Dutch court to remove all copyright infringing materials from their site. Considering that millions of people visit the sites to download TV rips, dvd movies, music, games, software, etc., which are mostly copyrighted materials, will basically mean their going to have to loose almost all their content.

Although based on their blog they will continue to operate but only as a content distribution site, meaning… “start finding other torrent sites”.

Even with this giant being taken down, it will only be a matter of time that the torrents and their uploaders will find a new home soon.  Below are a few alternatives to mininova that you can check out.

1. The Pirate Bay
2. isoHunt
3. ExtraTorrent
4. alivetorrents
5. torrentzap
6. kickasstorrents
7. vertor
8. torrentroot
9. yourbittorrent
10. 1337x

I have been a big fan of mininova and most of the time only download torrents from their site, i do not personally have a lot of experience with these other sites. Please tell us which torrent site you prefer as an alternative. If there is a site that i missed, please leave a comment so that we can update the list.

Tons of hotmail, msn, and live.com passwords have been recently exposed online, about 10,000 of them.  Researchers who were able to study the leaked passwords found out that many are still using very weak passwords.  These accounts were said to have been genereted via phishing scams targeted mostly to Latino’s because majority of the passwords had spanish names.

Based on the study, 42% of the password used were all lower case, only about 6% were using passwords that mixes alphanumeric and other characters.  As said, there were a lot of spanish names used as passwords like alejandra and alberto, suggesting that the phishing attacks were propably targeted to Latino communities.

The passwords were posted over to a clipboard site Pastebin.com.  The list has already been removed by the site owner but Bogdan Calin of Acunetix was able to grab a copy.

Based on his findings, the most common passwords used were “123456″ and “123456789″.  The longest password used was 30 characters long “lafaroleratropezoooooooooooooo”.  Average passwords were 6-9 characters long, 8 being the most.

Accoording to the data gathered, a big majority of users are still using very weak passwords.  If you are still one of those using weak passwords for your email, then you might want to consider changing your password now!  A more secured password would contain both letters and numbers, with a mix of capital and lower case letters, it’s also an added security if you use special characters.

We have an entry to add on our list of free antivirus software.  I have just created a new Downloads page so that it would be easier to find software that I recommend you to download.  New on our free anti-virus software list is the Microsft Security Essentials.  Yes, its from Microsoft and its free.   It’s basically a revamped Microsoft Live One-Care but has been made very light on resources and based on some reviews, it’s actually quite effective and unobtrosive. 
 
Although Live OneCare has not gained that much popularity and trust from pc users, with MSE Microsoft has taken all the not so useful from OneCare and left all the essentials and a very simple UI which users might really appreciate.  It has virus, malware and spyware protection. The UI has been made really simple to navigate and understand. The UI is separated by multiple tabs,  a green monitor icon tells you that everything is OK with your system, or a red one which obviously tells you something’s wrong, or yellow if your potentially unprotected.  The buttons you need to press to fix issues are hard to miss, so this is very suitable to ordinay home users. 
 
If your looking for a free virus protection software then give Microsoft Security Eseentials  a spin or you can check out my first list of free anti virus software for more options.  Keep on checking our new downloads page for new free stuff which I will sure to update.

Download Microsoft Security Essentials here.

Note:  If you are using a non certified copy of Windows, MSE will know and wont allow you to download the software if you dont pass the verification process.

Before writing this, I bumped my head on the table as i reached down to plug the charger of my laptop in the wall outlet.  It was not the first time I tell you that, but my hopes are high because Dell is probably going to change my luck.

Introducing the Dell Latitude Z600.  This notebook is directed towards the corporate and ultra portable market – people craving for the thinnest and lightest of laptops.  Its a 16-incher and standing at a height of  0.57 in. and weighing 4.5 pounds could make it the thinnest and lightest of it’s kind.  This laptop is designed to charge wireless through a technology known as Electromagnetic Induction.  Power coils are built-in to the base of the Z600 and can be charged using the optional magnetic inductive stand known as DWPNS (Dell Wireless Power Notebook Stand).  With this, you no longer have to plug any cables into the laptop because simply setting it on top of the induction stand initiates the charging of the system.

If you think that’s cool…. there’s more. Aside from it’s wireless charging, and of course wireless networking cards standard for laptops, it can also connect to peripherals wirelessly using Wireless USB technology based on the Ultra Wideband radio platform.  Dell will also be offering a wireless dock with WUSB technology where you can just plug in all your peripherals (mouse, monitor, printers, etc.) to it instead of directly to your laptop.  Its also has the Latitude On technology that gives you immediate access to email and internet without booting to the main OS.  Its basically a Linuxbased OS on a chip embedded on the motherboard which can be booted up in just 1 minute or 2. There’s also EdgeTouch, it’s basically touch sensors placed on the LCD bezel.  This can be used as shortcut to launch applications and by default works as a scrollwheel – by simply rubbing your fingers up or down the bezel gives you instant scrolling action.

Thinking about these new technologies I can almost feel the awesomeness of being free from all those cords!  *snap* Back to reality, I may not have the pleasure to experience this beauty after all, considering the expected price of almost Php 100,000.00 converted from US dollars. But thinking about it, fast forward 5 years from now, this kind of technology would probably be standard already, and who knows it might just be available in CDR-King at very affordable prices soon don’t you think? ^^,

Google recently released a new browser plug-in called Google Sidewicki.  This allows users to add and read comments on any webpage on the internet.  This is installed together with Google Toolbar and works with both Internet Explorer and Firefox.  Google said they are currently working on integrating this with Google Chrome and other browsers as well.

I’m not really a fan of toolbars, I think they’re just clutter on  my browser.  But this cool universal comment system on the web would probably be a good thing to have.  This would be a good way to get info from other people about the reliability of the website and a good source for more information about the website as well.  I just wish we could have this as a stand-alone tool though.

However, I believe this could also be prone to abuse as well.  Uncontrolled comments from website might turn out to vandalism.  Google already thought of this as well and they’ve worked out algorithms to display the most high-quality entries on top rather than the common recent-entry-on-top style.  As per google..

We worked hard from the beginning to figure out which [entries] should appear on top and how to best order them. So instead of displaying the most recent entries first, we rank Sidewiki entries using an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries. It takes into account feedback from you and other users, previous entries made by the same author and many other signals we developed.

This is a free download for Internet Explorer and Firefox.   Get more info about Google Sidewicki from the official Google Blog.

The Land Transportation Office or LTO announced that starting this October 2009, they will be adding RFID (Radio Frequency Identification System) tags on motor vehicles in the country.  These tags will be used as a revolutionary way to store vehicle information designed to be easily accessible and readable through special scanners in real time.  It’s estimated cost will be around Php 350 for each vehicle registered.  RFID is a new technology that works like bar codes.  The information on the tags are transmitted through radio waves and read by RFID scanners. This  works similar to those tags you see on shirts of most apparel stores these days. 

This technology will basically allow the LTO to effectively study traffic patterns, monitor and improve traffic conditions specially on areas with constant heavy traffic.  Traffic violators can now be easily apprehended and “colorum” public utility vehicles can now be easily barred from the streets.  It would now be easier to identify stolen vehicles using these radio frequency tags as well.  Another advantage pointed out by LTO is that it will also lessen air pollution by being able to easily ban smoke belchers from the road.

I can just imagine an LTO vehicle with big RFID scanners on the sides and sweeping  the streets looking for traffic violators or stolen vehicles parked on  roadsides.  A lot of people are actually quite concerned about possible security risks on this technology.  The possibity of obtaining private information and even tracking you while you take your morning cup of tea is a bit intimidating to some.  However, RFID only has an effective distance of about 3 meters and does not function like a GPS does, so this should be a relief.  This kind of technolgy is infact already implemented in the United States, Japan and other countries.

Like what Secretary Arturo Lomibao said, “The RFID technology will revolutionize land transportation in the Philippines. This is a great first step in putting order in our streets”. (People’s Journal)