How It Works: P2P Sharing Made Simple

Some Peer-to-peer or P2P file sharing applications may have developed a bad reputation among many computer users. While there are some disreputable P2P file sharing applications, tracker sites, and users, the practice itself is perfectly legal and has many legitimate uses. The software and programming that run P2P file sharing apps are very sophisticated. However, using P2P apps legally and safely is fairly simple. Understanding the basics of P2P networks will help take the mystery out of the process.

P2P File Sharing Defined

P2P files sharing gets its name from the fact that peers share files with one another. File sharing applications make it possible for people to seek the files that they want while sharing files with other users. There are many legitimate uses for P2P file sharing sites, including open source computer software, artistic works in the public domain, and where copyright holders have authorized free distribution of their works.

Torrents and File Transfers

When individual computers access files, the process is called downloading. Torrents are transfers that allow multiple users to access the same file from the same server at the same time. Torrents also allow differing file formats to be transferred directly or through trackers.  Vuze is a major player in the torrent arena. It facilitates for P2P file sharing by using the bittorrent protocol. Vuze also provide a host of resources for legal P2P downloading.

Rogue File Sharing Sites to Avoid

Back in the day, there were and still are some rogue P2P file sharing applications and tracker sites. Those sites specialized in flouting the law and openly offering pirated music, movies and other illegal downloads. However, in recent years, some of those sites have either spent more time in court than nearly anywhere else, or been sued out of existence. Sticking to legal P2P sites and software is a wise strategy.

File Sharing in the Business World

If you think the P2P file sharing is just for teenagers and young adults, think again. Many businesses use P2P file sharing as well. Your co-worker could very well be using P2P file sharing software right now. P2P software is especially popular among gaming and software companies. For instance, World of Warcraft is known to push its updates and new items to its millions of users through such file sharing networks.

Safe P2P Sharing Practices

There is no reason to be fearful of P2P networks. Watchful, yes. Cautious, yes. But not fearful. Practice safe P2P network usage and the risks associated with using torrents can be minimized. For instance, always maintain updated anti-virus and anti-malware software, along with double-checking your firewall settings. Store the files that you obtain from file sharing sites in a separate folder. Resist the temptation to visit sketchy websites that promise “all the big hits” for free. You may be browsing toward a scam site.

Even if you are diligent, you run a somewhat higher risk of exposure to unwanted files by using P2P sites ; Run anti-virus and anti-malware software both before and after accessing P2P  file sharing sites. While carrying out these safeguards in association with using P2P file sharing sites may seem inconvenient, it is far less inconvenient than trying to rid your computer of a nasty virus or Trojan.

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7 Amazing Life Hacks You Probably Don’t Know Exist

We are living in a fast-paced world. Everyday, we see people racing against time in an effort to NOT come in late for work, miss their classes, fail to make it to an appointment, miss their deadlines and so on. That said, anything that could potentially save a person some time is always welcome. Such is the concept behind efficiency, not just in the workplace, but life in general.

Efficiency is definitely not a buzzword, but a metric that can potentially measure a person’s aptitude, if not common sense. And to stay the efficiency course, people have devised shortcuts (or life hacks) for the purpose of making their lives simpler, easier and free of clutter. And if you’re a certified shortcut hunter, here are 5 sites you might want to consider:

1. Bitrix24.com

If you own or manage a company, chances are productivity is foremost in the list of things you value, and you want to use all types of software that can do just that – increase productivity: CRM for sales and marketing, instant messaging to keep communication lines open between yourself and your employees, activity planning software to ensure that everything that needs to be accomplished gets accomplished in time, calendar or activity planner to track your own responsibilities and so on.

Bitrix24.com is an online social intranet platform that does all of the above and more. First off, it is cloud-based, so there’s no installation necessary. Second, it’s absolutely free for companies with 12 employees or less. For companies with more than 12 employees, service starts at $99 a month.

2. LastPass.com

If you’re like most people, you’ve probably already said, “I’ve had it with these passwords!” more times than you can count. And if you’re somebody concerned about security, you know by now that using the same password for several accounts is not a good idea. Using different passwords, however, especially if you have a lot of accounts to manage, can be very tedious as it’s so easy to forget which password is for which account. Next to using the same password, writing your passwords down where someone else can accidentally get hold of them, is not a brilliant thing to do, too.

Good thing there’s LastPass.com, a browser plug-in that synchronizes your data – passwords included – with the computer you often use. Once your data has been stored, you can conveniently forget about your other passwords. Your LastPass.com password is all you ever need to remember. And the service only costs $1 a month.

3. PickyDomains.com

You’re launching a new business, or a new product, or a new website. Naturally, you need a name or a slogan to go along with it. But the problem these days, on the domain front, most of the good domains are no longer available. And if you’re running out of ideas and practically had it with mechanical domain generators, head on to PickyDomains.com, a crowdsourcing site of over 55,000 contributors.

To start receiving suggestions, register as a client, pay the required $50 deposit for names and domains (slogans cost $75) and identify your specifications. Now, here comes the best deal – if nothing fits your needs, you’re entitled to a refund.

4. JetRadar.com

Summer is almost here. If you’re a regular gal or dude, you probably are envisioning yourself basking in the sun in a tropical beach somewhere. And if you’re one with a doctorate in frugality, you know pretty well that airlines aren’t seeing eye-to-eye with price-comparison websites these days, so that cheap tickets are mostly offered only through their own corporate websites or other sites they have exclusive contracts with. What happens now is that you, the consumer, would have to hop from one airline website to another, one ticket-selling agency to another to scour for the cheapest deal possible. Tough, eh?

Tough no more it is. JetRadar.com is here to do the work for you. JetRadar is an engine that systematically searches through 35 ticketing sites and 728 airlines and make the data publicly available, definitely your one-stop shop for everything cheap in the airfare arena.

5. TimeBridge.com

If you’re a business honcho, you perhaps already know how difficult it is sometimes to come up with a meeting schedule that’s amenable to everyone in your team. Despite you constantly nagging your people, there’s always the off chance that somebody will come in to the meeting either late or unprepared, which can become agonizingly frustrating.

Acquired by MerchantCircle in 2010, TimeBridge.com is a web and mobile app that coordinates your people’s calendars and confirms the best date and time for a one-on-one or group meeting automatically. TimeBridge also guarantees everyone shows up through e-mail alerts and SMS notifications.

6. HootSuite.com

Social media is the “in” thing nowadays. Almost everyone is on Facebook, Twitter and several other social media platforms. And if you’re a business owner hoping to capture a decent share of the market, chances are you already have a social media campaign in place. What’s remarkable about social media is it’s constantly growing, and several other platforms are expected to crop up anytime soon. That being said, sooner rather than later, it may become increasingly challenging for a business to manage marketing activities through existing and upcoming platforms.

HootSuite.com is a social media administration tool that allows you to handle all of your social media campaigns using one web-based control panel. The service can either be free or pro. Pro costs $9.99 a month.

7. Gliffy.com

If you’re an architect, an engineer, a teacher or somebody who constantly deals with charts and/or diagrams to send your message across, you know how valuable a flowcharting application is. It saves you time, energy and yes, money. Coined from the word “glyph,” Gliffy.com is an online diagram service that makes designing floor plans, network layouts, SWOT charts, organizational charts and other complex technical drawings as easy as they can be. Gliffy’s service may either be free, standard or pro. The standard package starts at $4.95 per user per month.

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Kali Linux 2.0 Release Day Scheduled: Kali Sana Coming, Powerful Than Ever

Ever since its debut in the year 2013, Kali Linux users were waiting for a new and revamped version of the hack-friendly OS. Now Kali Linux developers have heard their prayers and announced the next version-Kali Sana.

This popular hacking and penetration testing platform will release Kali Linux 2.0, codenamed Kali Sana, on August 11, 2015. Kali Linux has been a widely successful system developed by Offensive Security through the rewrite of BackTrack, another forensics Linux distribution.


The team working on Kali Linux 2.0 says that the new platform is full of the most powerful features for digital forensics. The next version will be showcased at the DEF CON hacking confab in August.

The team says: “We’ve been awfully quiet lately, which usually means something is brewing below the surface.” Kali Linux 2.0 features a revamped and streamlined user interface, new menus and brand-new testing tools. The developer team refuses to go deep into the details but here are some know details about the platform:

The core set tools in Kali will be weekly updated.
Kali UI is redesigned for a streamlined working environment.
Native support for Ruby 2.0 for faster Metasploit load times.
 Built in screencasting and desktop notifications.
Cutting-edge wireless penetration tools and more.
At Black Hat Vegas 2015, Kali team is organizing free Kali 2.0 Dojo Workshop where they will be showcasing the most advanced features in Kalo 2.0

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It’s Official: Linux is the King of Supercomputing

For the proud Linux users, we have brought yet another joyous news. The list of top 500 fastest supercomputers June 2015 is out, and a majority of these are powered by Linux.

China’s lightning fast Tianhe-2 is still ruling the charts of the top 500 supercomputers of the world with the processing speed of a staggering 33.9 petaflops (- ability to do one quadrillion floating point operations per second). The supercomputer runs on 3,120,000 core processors that include Intel Xeon E5 and Intel Xeon Phi processors. And guess what, it is powered by Linux as does the other 485!


Linux has swept away all the competition and is the favorite operating System even for the blazing fast supercomputers.

The speed of the systems is judged by the LINPACK Benchmark. It reflects the performance of the machines for solving a dense system of linear equations.

However, the positions of the top 5 fastest supercomputers of the world is still the same and there is only one new entrant in the Top 10 list. Shaheen II, a supercomputing Cray Xc40 system installed at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia holds the seventh spot now.

Intel Xeon E5 generation of processors are still ubiquitous in most of the Supercomputers. The company in May 2105, introduced a new series of Xeon E7 processors that promise to be even better than the E5s.

With the new and faster processors in line and the companies trying to build even better and faster computing machines, it seems the reign of Tianhe-2 might soon be over

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How To Access Computer’s Hard Drive With Smartphone

Yes, you heard that right. You can access your computer’s hard drive with your smartphone in few simple steps.  For this, you don’t have to download or install any big software on your PC or  smartphone. Your Android’s file explorer can do the task easily.
The good thing with this tutorial is that you can copy and paste big files, software, and other things easily to your phone at high speed. Let’s take a look at how this works:

To make this trick work, you should be connected to same network (Wi-Fi).

Step 1: Right click on the drive you want to share.  Use the below-mentioned path to share this folder. You will see an icon appeared which mean the drive is shared.

Properties> Sharing> Advance sharing>share this folder.

Step 2: In order to access files from hard drive with smartphone open ES file explorer.  Now click on the three line hamburger symbol then click on LAN

Step 3: Now perform a scan and you will see  your PC if it’s connected to the same network. Now enter the username and password of your PC.  There you will see the shared folder. 

Step 4: Here you will all the items in your computer’s drive. You can tap and hold to copy or cut any folder to your smartphone.

I performed copy action and achieved nearly 5 Mbps speed.

Did you find this tutorial helpful? let us know in comments below.

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Which Version of Windows 10 is Best For You?

As the official launch date of Windows 10 is approaching, we are getting new details about various Windows 10 versions. Previously, we told you which version of Windows 10 you will get and today we are here with an article that will tell you which version of Windows 10 is best for you.

upgrading to Windows 10 is a very easy process as you can reserve your Windows 10 copy by just clicking on the Windows 10 icon in your PC.

If you can’t spot the Windows 10 upgrade icon, we’ve taken care of that and you can get it using few simple steps. Once reserved, Microsoft will automatically upgrade your eligible Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 versions toequivalent Windows 10 version.

But, how to know which version of Windows 10 is best for you: Home, Pro, Enterprise, or Education?

Recently, Microsoft has released a chart to list the differences between different versions including Home and Pro to make life easier for you.

Windows 10 is being released in four major versions for you: Home, Pro, Enterprise, and Education. Microsoft has divided the Windows 10 features in two parts i.e. Core Experiences and Business Experiences. All four versions of Windows 10 will get all Core Experience features that include:

Customizable Start Menu, Windows Defender and Firewall, Fast start up with Hiberboot and InstantGo, TPM support, Battery Saver, Windows Update, AllCortana Features, All Windows Hello features, Virtual desktops, Continuumand Microsoft Edge.

But when we look at the Business features of Windows 10, there are many features which are absent from Pro and Home versions.

So, it’s clear that Windows 10 Home has the least number of features, but they are enough for most of the users. To get features like Remote Desktop, Bitlocker etc., you need to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. For more advanced features with more security features, you’ll need Windows Enterprise and Windows Education.

Did you find this article helpful? Tell us in the comments below.

Source: Microsoft

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Top 5 Super computer

Supercomputers of today are the retrogressive image of the one’s in 1960s i.e. a gigantic machine racking up an entire room with a huge screen and hundreds of wires and buttons.

sure, modern computers look like a stack of books in a library, but the computing prowess of these babies is outrageous. The processing power of the latest Supercomputers is calculated in Petaflops ( ability to do one quadrillion floating point operations per second)

Let’s begin the top 5 list of Supercomputers of this generation.

5. Mira (USA)

Mira is IBM’s self-built Supercomputer that has the peak performance of 8.6 petaflops. At Argonne National Laboratory, US, it uses IBM’s BlueGene/Q platform with 786,000 core processors.

4. K Computer ( Japan)

At 10.5 petaflops, Fujitsu’s K computer is located at Japan’s RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science. With 705,000 SPARC64 VIIIfx octo-core processors, K computer performs scientific operations including global disaster prevention, meteorology and medical research.

3. Sequoia (USA)

Another IBM machine Sequoia also runs on BlueGene/Q design with 1.6 million 16- core processors. It has a performing speed of 17.2 petaflops.

2. Titan (USA)

A major upgrade to another Supercomputer Jaguar,  Titan performs at a blazing speed of 17.6 petaflops. It uses a total of 561,000 Opteron 6274 16-core 2.2GHz processors along with NVIDIA GPUs.

1. Tianhe-2 (China)

Literally meaning Milky Way-2, the king of supercomputers processes at a staggering speed of 33.9 petaflops. It was developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology. This peerless Supercomputer runs on a whopping 3,120,000 cores, comprising of a mix of Intel Xeon E5 processors, custom processors and Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors.

With these super fast machines on board, scientists have managed to expand their boundaries and work the ultra complex quantum mechanical calculations. Also, these supercomputers are utilized in climate research, simulation of early moments of Universe, Nuclear fusion, and Cryptanalysis.

Was the blog post informative to you? Let us know in comments below.

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Mark Zuckerberg Wants to Use These Internet Lasers to Connect the World

Internet.org is Facebook’s initiative to provide free and basic internet to every person on the Earth. It has received its share of attention due to controversies and some appreciable efforts. Continuing his efforts, Facebook CEO just showed off the internet lasers on his Facebook page.

facebook’s Internet.org is taking an initiative to deliver the internet using lasers. The company has employed a team that is working on a laser communication system to beam the internet from the sky- above the airplanes but not as high as satellites.

CEO Zuckerberg says that it will increase the data transfer speed dramatically over the long distances. In the past he took the same Facebook route to tell the world that he wants to provide the internet using drones.

Yesterday in his Q&A session, that also featured the likes of Stephen Hawking and Schwarzenegger, he mentioned his plans to use lasers to connect more remote areas to the internet. In the pictures he posted, he showed some demonstration pictures from the Connectivity Lab which is known to staff some of the best minds in the communications and aeronautics technology.

The idea that drives this approach is that different population densities need different ways of internet delivery. In the demonstration pictures, you can actually see the lasers but that’s just for the show. Mark aims to increase the connection speeds dramatically and the work on the same is being done.

Apart from this, Facebook has also released a whitepaper that mentions a plan to use Free Space Optics to distribute a concentrated laser beam for faster connectivity. It mentions that Free Space Optics provides ultra-high bandwidths and capacity when compared to the usual fiber optics networks.

Well, as we have seen in the past, not all plans of Facebook have produced the expected success. I wish Mr. Zuckerberg all the best as it would be interesting to have lasers above us raining fast internet.

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how to speed up your wi-fi speed

Still stuck buffering your You-Tube videos? Agonising over the long time it is taking for the page to load while sulking at the screen and cursing your Internet Service Provider? Worry not! Here is a tweak that might help you to increase Wi-Fi speed.

If you have been surfing the internet in the hope of finding a solution to help overcome this problem you might have encountered the word channel. No, well most of the Wi-Fi home  networks use a narrow radio frequency range of around 2.4GHz for signal transmission. This range has been distributed further into a number of smaller bands or channels, similar to television channels.  There are 14 channels designated in the 2.4 GHz range spaced 5 MHz apart (with the exception of a 12 MHz spacing before channel 14).

This paltry signal range leads to overlapping of channels which combined with the fact that other electronic devices such as microwave ovens, cordless phone etc. along with the wireless networks of your neighbors may also use the same frequency range can lead to interference with the wireless home network, affecting its performance adversely.

The interference could be due to the following causes:

But as you might have observed in the picture above Channels 1, 6 & 11 are spaced far enough so as to not overlap with each other and are as such the best channels for usage along a Wi-Fi network.

Further as interference leads to the reduction in the throughput of the system usage, selection of the proper channel to improve the performance of the WLAN equipment is also necessary.

To change your routers’ Wi-Fi channel you need to simply log into your router’s web interface in a web browser. Go to Wi-Fi setting and find the Wi-Fi Channel option and choose your new Wi-Fi channel.

The next question which might be buzzing in your mind would be how to select the correct channel for usage. Besides using channel 1, 6 and 11, you could further use the following methods to select the best channel:

How to Increase Wi-Fi speed by choosing right channel?

Android-WiFi Analyzer App:

One of the best android apps for selecting the most appropriate channel is the Wifi Analyzer App. Once you have installed the app from Google Play, it shall give you an overview of the wireless networks in your area and the channels which they are using, while also suggesting the best Wi-Fi channel for your Wi-Fi Network. You can also view the channel and star rating of Wi-Fi channels from the view menu and increase Wi-Fi speed.

Linux – The iwlist Command

Open the terminal and just type in the following command which is inbuilt in all popular Linux distributions:

Sudo iwlist wlan0 scan | grep \(Channel

Next you just have to simply study the output and select the Wi-Fi channel which is the least congested for optimum Wi-Fi performance and increase Wi-Fi speed.

Mac OS X – Wireless Diagnostics:

Mac OS X has this feature integrated into it.

Simply Hold the Option key & Click the Wi-Fi icon on the menu bar->Select Open Wireless Diagnostics-> Click the Windows Menu->Select Open Wireless Diagnostics->Click the Window Menu-> Select Utilities-> Select the Wi-Fi Scan Tab & Click Scan Now. The “Best 2.4 GHz Channels” and “Best 5 GHz” Channels” fields will automatically recommend the ideal Wi-Fi channel one should be using on their router and increase Wi-Fi speed.

Windows:

Windows users can simply opt for the inSSIDer utility or Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector or perhaps NIrSoft’s WifiInfoView to judge the Wi-Fi channel which is the least congested and choose it to increase Wi-Fi speed.

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Microsoft’s Plan for Worldwide WiFi Service

What do you do when you are away from your carrier’s reach and can’t get the internet access? Or, what do you do when you travel internationally and your cellular service provider charges heavily for roaming? To counter these problems, Microsoft is soon going to launch a new service – Microsoft WiFi.

Microsoft has accidentally leaked its plan to launch a new service called Microsoft WiFi to connect the 10 million hotspots around the world. Microsoft WiFi is a partial re-branding of its old Skype WiFi service along with some additions.

Microsoft WiFi promises “hassle free internet around the world” by connecting 10 million hotspots spread across 130 countries.

A leaked page on Microsoftwifi.com was spotted yesterday and the website read: “Don’t waste time filling forms with personal information or managing different carriers to get connected. Sign in once and you are done: you will be automatically connected to a vast range of Wi-Fi hotspots around the world.”

The current Skype WiFi service is a similar pay-as-you-go service and allows you to connect to local WiFi hotspots and pay for the internet used using your Skype credit. The price charged is for the connection time and there isn’t any data limit.

So, it seems that Microsoft will retire Skype WiFi and launch the new Microsoft WiFi. But, here’s a little catch- this service will be available for Office 365 Enterprise subscribers. The previous Skype WiFi users and offers will be entertained but they won’t be able to pay for it using their Skype credit. It’s possible that the OS making company could introduce some direct payment mode or integrate it with its store.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, it is not just a re-branding of Skype WiFi – Microsoft WiFi is way bigger than that. While the older Skype WiFi claims to have access to more than 2 million WiFi hotspots across the world, Microsoft WiFi claims the access to more than 10 million WiFi hotspots.

Finally, let’s tell you a bit about its functionality. It will be cross-platform service with support for Windows 7, 8 and 10 PCs along with Android, Mac and iOS. Windows 10 will ship with this app already installed.

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Multi OS Booting Is Here

Multi OS Booting Is Here

Microsoft has recently bagged a very important patent that could change the shape of the future smartphone industry. Right now, Microsoft is busy investing millions into its Windows Phone venture and is unable to produce appreciable profits despite the fact that Windows Phone devices possess a solid build quality. Microsoft is now the owner of the multi-OS booting patent. Smart and futuristic! 
Now, let’s talk a bit more about it and the real meaning of this multi-booting patent. The usual theoretical notion of the simple multi-OS booting is dual-booting Android and Windows Phone on the same device. Earlier, we have read about a new software from Microsoft that was being developed and an Android Phone Xiaomi Mi4 was seen running on Windows 10. But, this patent is a lot more than that. 

What is the meaning of multi-OS booting? 
According to the United States Patent number 9,003,173, Microsoft has developed a new way to combine multiple operating systems on a mobile device to provide different functionalities. This patent will allow the user to select the OS necessary to perform a particular task, i.e. different tasks will be performed by different operating systems.

What are its advantages? 

This multi-OS booting patent will give your phones a functionality to switch between different operating systems depending on the user needs (time, date, user etc.). The parts of the operating systems that need not to be stored on the device, can be accessed via cloud or downloaded from the web. 

Also, this will give the user a new limited functionality option: suppose your phone is switched off and instead of booting it completely, you want to dial some emergency number or load just the camera function. Thus, the device will boot just a part of an OS as per the user needs. 
What could be Microsoft’s future plans? 

Microsoft could use this multi-OS booting patent to run Android apps on Windows Phonedevices. This could be developed into a tool that would enable the developers involved in Android app development to make Windows Phone supported apps easily.


This technology also features the part-cloud booting option that could be the thing of future given the market trend that 2015 is the year of cloud. 

Currently, this idea of multi-OS booting is in the nascent phase and it’s a long way from the actual implementation. But, this surely is something impressive and futuristic from the Microsoft labs in Redmond. 

Did this idea of dual-OS booting intrigue you? Tell us in comments!

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