8 Purrfect Cat Websites For Feline Lovers

Cats are everywhere online… as photos shared by friends on social networking sites, as cute pics on Reddit, on any of the cat-centric Tumblr sites, and even here on MakeUseOf. Oh, and then there’s Nyan Cat. There are even whole websites dedicated to our feline friends, eight of which are highlighted below.

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Need New Tabs On Your Facebook Page? [Weekly Facebook Tips]

If you run a Facebook Page, you probably want to make it the perfect portfolio for your business or association. Facebook presences are important these days, because if your audience is there already you’ll want to make the most of it. To make the most of your Facebook page, it’s a great idea to add some tabs.

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Facebook Bug Exposed Personal Details Of 6 Million Accounts [Updates]

Facebook revealed that personal details of 6 million people were exposed due to a data glitch. The bug was found in the method Facebook uses to manage contact lists and addresses on its network. Facebook's algorithm processes the data so it could make accurate friend recommendations.

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Google+ Photos App for Chromebook Pixel

A few months ago, François Beaufort posted some screenshots of a Native Client Chrome app for Google+ Photos. The app is now available, but only for the Chromebook Pixel.

"When you plug an SD card into your Pixel, the app will back up your new photos to Google+ automatically. (For your eyes only, of course.) And when you're offline, you can still view your most recent photos. The Pixel's high resolution display makes your photos look their best, and browsing via touchscreen is a lot of fun. You can share individual photos, set of photos, or an entire album in just a few seconds. Simply select the images you want, then click 'Share.'"

It's a pretty useful app for Chromebooks and it won't be limited to the Pixel. In fact, I don't see why it couldn't work on any desktop computer that runs Chrome. It could even replace Picasa at some point.

Pixel owners can download the app from the Chrome Web Store. Google engineers "are working to bring the app to other Chromebooks as well". The Office Viewer powered by the Google-acquired Quickoffice used to be limited to the Chromebook Pixel and it's now available as a Chrome extension.



I've tried to install the app in Chrome for Windows and it worked:

... but then I got this message:

How To Recognize And Avoid Free Gift Card Scams

These types of scams are almost always supposedly sent out by seemingly trustworthy sites such as Amazon or eBay, and much like the web URL, they may appear to be sent by the sites themselves. However, scammers are sneaky, and they thrive on carelessness.

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1 Billion Google Safe Browsing Users

"Safe Browsing is a service provided by Google that enables applications to check URLs against Google's constantly updated lists of suspected phishing and malware pages." It's used by a lot of popular browsers: desktop Chrome, desktop Firefox, desktop and mobile Safari, so it must be the most popular malware detection service.



According to Google, "approximately one billion people use Google Safe Browsing. We help tens of millions of people every week protect themselves from harm by showing warnings to users of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari when they attempt to navigate to websites that would steal their personal information or install software designed to take over their computers." Google currently flags up to 10,000 sites a day.



The 1 billion number seems pretty low, considering the number of iOS users and the desktop market share of Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Google has recently reported that Chrome has 750 million active users, but this number includes mobile Chrome users (and the mobile Chrome doesn't use Safe Browsing yet without enabling the data compression proxy). Apple announced that 600 million iOS devices were sold. Firefox has about 450 million users.



Here's a graph that shows the number of users who see warnings per week:

A few weeks ago, "a campaign targeting vulnerabilities in Java and Acrobat Reader infected more than 7,500 sites. As a result, more than 75 million Safe Browsing API users received malware warnings."



Safe Browsing is also used by Google Search. Here's a graph that shows the number of Google search results per week that contain a warning about threats to users:

There's a map that shows information about the percentage of sites hosting malware for each country. Some examples: US - 2%, Canada, China and UK - 5%, Brazil and Australia - 7%, Russia - 8%, Spain - 9%, Germany - 10%, Turkey - 11%, Mexico -12%, Thailand - 13%, India - 14%.

Google also shows the malware distribution by autonomous system. "An autonomous system is one or more networks controlled by a single entity, often a large company, a university, or an ISP. (...) Autonomous systems are part of the network layer of the Internet's architecture, and they play a role in determining how traffic is routed across the web." Google offers an alert system for network admins. "The goal is to provide network administrators with information of malicious content that is being hosted on their networks."



{ via Google Blog }

3 Amazing Places That Google Earth Satellite View Helped Me Discover

For the moment, Berlin is my adopted home. This is the Berlin, Germany's old and new capital, a city of many controversies, world renowned for its eventful history, diverse art scene, and vibrant nightlife. I have spent many hours walking through the city, getting more familiar with it one step at a time. I wondered whether Google Earth could help me discover cool places I had not seen before. Join me as I explore my city in aerial and street views before heading out into the real world.

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Twitter Now Notifies You When Someone Favorites A Tweet That Mentions You [Updates]

Twitter's effort to make it easy for you to track conversations continues. The social network is starting to point out when someone favorites a tweet mentioning you – or Retweets a Tweet that you Retweeted. It sounds confusing, but it's not: the new notifications make it easier to see who's connecting with you on Twitter.

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5 Things You Need To Know Before Installing Windows 8.1 Preview

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Microsoft is all set to release the first Preview version of Windows 8.1 update and most Windows users are eagerly waiting for this update even since some leaked builds revealed that this update isn’t a service pack and instead, includes hundreds of new features as well as enhancements. As some of you know, Windows 8.1 [...]

Mobile Facebook On your PC or LAPTOP using any browser like Chrome Firefox Safari IE and Search the web faster

Steps to follow

      Step 1 : Open Browser that you like most. ( Firefox mah favourite after Chrome. )

      Step 2 : Click on this Link ---> http://m.facebook.com/

      Step 3 : Log into your Facebook. That's it. 

Advantage

• Useful when you have slow internet connection.

Cool Websites and Tools [June 24th 2013]

Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. Most of the listed websites are FREE or come with a decent free account option. If you want to have similar cool websites round-ups delivered to your email daily email subscribe here....

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Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Is Now Available To MSDN And TechNet Subscribers

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With just a day left for the official release Windows 8.1 Preview and Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview to the public, Microsoft has made available for download the Preview version of Windows Server 2012 R2 to TechNet and MSDN subscribers. That is, PC users who have a TechNet or MSDN account can now download and [...]

Lenovo IdeaPad: details on the new Haswell-based models

Design

Following the announcement from their company last week, Lenovo has provided detailed information about new versions of the Ideapad laptops, which will receive the update with Intel Haswell. It is therefore part of theU330 and U430 models that are: 13 and 14 inches, which will fit a Core i7 processor, 8 GB of DDR3 RAM and an optional SSD.

CPU

As for the display, the U330 will offer the HD or Full HD option, while the U430 will have a HD + (1600 × 900 pixels) display with the ability to upgrade to Full-HD; the Ideapad U430 14-inch will also be configured in SLI with two GeForce GT 730m. The products will be available in the third quarter at a starting price of € 799 (U330) and $ 899 (U430).

Additionally, speaking about the Y410p; it will have a 14-inch device that can also fit a Haswell Core i7, 16GB RAM, 1TB HDD and a dual video card GeForce 750M 2GB. Strangely, in this case you can choose between a HD or HD + display. Pricing starts at $ 799.

The offer is completed by the line of the S series, more specifically for the 'Touch S210 11.6 "Touch the S400 14" S500, and finally the 15.6-inch Touch. In this case we will have the ability to mount a CPU Ivy Bridge or Haswell Core i3 or Core i5 processor, 8 GB of RAM and HD display, all to aim at a range of the battery, without sacrificing too much performance.

Battery

• Information about the product:


• Warranty: 2 YEARS!


• Type: Li-ion


• Capacity: 4400mAh


• Color: Black


• Weight: 335g


• Voltage: 14.8V


• Dimensions: 202.71 x 50.24 mm x 23:35

If you want the security of having a second battery for back up, www.a1batterypro.com.au supplies the a42-g73 high quality battery at a very low price. Their high quality standards, powerful products and reliable service will and satisfy the most demanding user.

In this regard, the devices are sold with specially integrated graphics and discrete GPU with AMD or Nvidia for models S400 and S500. Prices start at $ 429 for S210, rising to 449 of the 'S400 and S500 $ for the 579 model.

How To Access A Deceased Relative’s Digital Accounts

While the Internet has already provided for ways to remove your deceased loved one's digital accounts , there is occasionally the need to access them. Sometimes it's for will information - other times it has to deal with financial reasons. Whatever your objective may be, I understand how tough it is.

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Top Tools for Managing and Maintaining Your SSD

Did your SSD start out Usain Bolt fast, but now limps along? You can whip your drive back into shape using a handful of toolkits and optimization software, but caveat emptor: Some SSD optimization software are potentially damaging to your solid state drive. Analysis tools help determine your model, its condition and its firmware version. Toolkits will automatically optimize the drive. Finally, SSD benchmarking software determines whether or not your drive functions at or near peak performance.

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How To Restore, Refresh, or Reset Your Windows 8 Installation

In addition to the standard System Restore feature, Windows 8 has features for "refreshing" and "resetting" your PC. Think of these as ways of quickly re-installing Windows -- either keeping your personal files or deleting them from your hard drive. In addition to functioning as troubleshooting features, Refresh and Reset are similar to the "restore to factory defaults" option found on many simpler devices. We'll explain how to use these features, but we'll also explain what they do and when you'd want to use them.

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7 Legal Ways To Watch Movies Online For Free

With the advent of the Internet, media delivery has become so easy and so convenient for us. It started with music but quickly moved to include TV shows and feature-length films, and in the wake of Napster illegal piracy has skyrocketed. But what can you do if you want to watch movies online while staying within the confines of the law?

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Troma Studios: 150+ Trashy, Independent Horror B-Movies On YouTube [Stuff to Watch]

Don't be put off by the words "cheap" and "tasteless" - when it comes to mass-produced B-movies this is among some of the highest accolades a budget horror can achieve - and if there's one company that knows how to make a cheap and tasteless horror film, it's Troma. Formed in 1974 in New York, Troma have been the masterminds behind some of the most iconic shockers of the last three decades.

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How to Correctly Guess Someone’s Email Address [Video]

Learn how you can easily figure out someone's email address on the Internet with the help of a popular Gmail add-on and some trial-and-error.

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This story, How to Correctly Guess Someone’s Email Address [Video], was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 24/06/2013 under Email, GMail, Internet.

YouTube And a Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack

Here's an interesting excerpt from a Google I/O presentation about YouTube's adaptive streaming:

Another surprising thing we learned from this process is that software has bugs. Some bugs are more surprising than others. For instance, if a popular mobile handset manufacturer releases a software update that opens TCP connections and doesn't close them, you get something that looks like this. [The graph shows the number of connections.]

A globally distributed denial of service attack on your servers that lasts for months. And there's basically nothing you can do to avoid this situation except sit and wait and hope they release an update. That means that we have to make the choice between degrading service for all users, or cutting off a large fraction of users. And we never want to make that choice. With application level streaming, we can deliver a fix or a work around in hours, instead of months.

"A popular mobile handset manufacturer"? What are the most popular mobile handset manufacturers? Samsung, Nokia, Apple and a few other companies. It must be a popular smartphones manufacturers which releases software updates and most users install them. Apple?