What is Tethering?

What is Tethering?

When I say tethering, you promptly think of the nice dog outside calmly tethered to the tree right? Well, in some cases you are right, but in the tech world that we love so much, it means something totally different. Tethering can start a huge ethics battles because in all actuality, it can be classified as theft. So, what is tethering? Tethering is the application of sharing of the Internet with other devices. SO in essence, it's free Internet when you think about it in laymen’s terms. While the whole idea of tethering may sound like a grand ol time, it sends your mobile carrier reeling. You see, they charge you outrages prices for you to have a data plan right? Well, that data plan is for your phone only. Not your friend’s devices, your next door neighbor and not even your tech obsessed grandma. While your phone company is not ignorant about this whole concept of tethering, they really do try to combat it by monitoring sudden spikes in bandwidth and other means of measuring how much data your little device sends out. When you singed your life away on that 200 page contract when you got your own phone, it states that you will not share any data with another person by any means. Well, we tend not to want to listen to these contracts and will do it anyways. It has become so easy on the Ice Cream Sandwidch version of Android, and even on the other versions, you can still do it! I mean all you gotta do is download any number of apps off the Android Market and have a field day giving your Internet away to the person you don't even know. So to wrap all this up, all tethering is is the sharing of Internet by a mobile device to another device. Is it legal? Is it illegal? Ahh, who knows.


Authored by: Lucky

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How to get the new Google Bar

You've probably heard the news - Google made a complete redesign of the navigation bar at the top of every page, moving all the links under one awesome menu.

However, it's not out for everyone, and this guide will show you how to get it.

Chrome:

• Open http://google.com in a new tab.
  
  
• Open up the JavaScript console by pressing Ctrl + Shift + J
  
  
• Paste this code and press Enter:

  document.cookie="PREF=ID=03fd476a699d6487:U=88e8716486ff1e5d:FF=0:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1322688084:LM=1322688085:S=McEsyvcXKMiVfGds;domain=.google.com";

Firefox:

• Open http://google.com in a new tab.
  
  
• Press Ctrl + Shift + K
  
  
• Paste this code and press Enter:

  document.cookie="PREF=ID=03fd476a699d6487:U=88e8716486ff1e5d:FF=0:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1322688084:LM=1322688085:S=McEsyvcXKMiVfGds; path=/; domain=.google.com";window.location.reload();

  
  
• Close the console by pressing Ctrl + Shift + K again.

I'll add more browsers as I find out how to enable the bar

Hope this helps someone. I really like the new bar, it's a very efficient use of space, and I hope Google rolls it out to everyone soon

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Firefox 10 is out

Mozilla has released Firefox 10, and man, I'll just start out by saying I'm impressed.
They've added an auto-updater, fixed most of the addon-compatibility problems with new versions of Firefox, and added their own built-in dev tools, so I don't have to use that crappy addon called Firebug anymore

Other changes include the following:

• The forward button is now hidden until you navigate back
  
• Most add-ons are now compatible with new versions of Firefox by default
  
• Anti-Aliasing for WebGL is now implemented (see bug 615976)
  
• CSS3 3D-Transforms are now supported (see bug 505115)
  
• New <bdi> element for bi-directional text isolation, along with supporting CSS properties (see bugs613149 and 662288)
  
• Full Screen APIs allow you to build a web application that runs full screen (see the feature page)
  
• We've added IndexedDB APIs to more closely match the specification
  
• Inspect tool with content highlighting, includes new CSS Style Inspector
  
• [FIXED] Mac OS X only - after installing the latest Java release from Apple, Firefox may crash when closing a tab with a Java applet installed (700835)
  
• [FIXED] Some users may experience a crash when moving bookmarks (681795)

Here's a picture of the awesome new dev tools:


To update, click the Firefox Menu, hover over Help, and then click About.

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Microsoft CES 2012 Keynote: A summary

As you've most likely heard, MIcrosoft was at CES this year and demonstrated some sort of new stuff, including Metro, Windows Phone, Windows 8, and the new update for the XBox. I'm going to provide a short summary of that keynote here.

First, they talked about the Windows Phone. They showed off a sleek and snappy device and went into the philosophy and the design of the Windows Phone a bit, and showed off a few features. One of these features was the People Hub, where you can see what's happening on all your social networks in one place, another was voice dictation for texts (which didn't work very well), seamless chatting across text, Facebook Chat, and MSN, and a long speech on how Windows Phone is different from everybody else's mobile OS.

Then it moved into Windows 8, with new laptops being showcased from companies such as Dell, Lenovo, and Sony, as well as a demonstration of the new Metro interface being worked into Windows 8 and a lot of other Microsoft products. The Start screen and the apps seemed to be the main show, which emphasis being put on the fullscreen apps (which I'm sick of hearing about) and the sleek design. They showed off a feature in Windows 8 which they call "Charms", which is summoned by a gesture and overlays what you're doing, giving you the time and sharing options, as well the the Windows logo.

After that, it was the XBox. The new update has given the XBox the Metro interface, Bing, and voice control, which I thought was really cool. They demonstrated controlling your XBox using only your voice and they watched Transformers and some football. After that, they showed off Kinect and the new interactivity with TV shows such as Sesame Street and how great it was for games.

And that pretty much sums it up. Microsoft didn't bring much new stuff to the table in my opinion, I heard of all this stuff long before the keynote. The only new stuff there in my opinion was the hardware, such as the new phone models from Nokia and the new laptops.

Be sure to reply and let us know what you think.

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GoDaddy said to be intentionally blocking or hi...

GoDaddy has got itself into a heap of trouble lately with its support of SOPA, despite dropping its support soon after.
Customers have been moving their domains to NameCheap and other registrars en masse, and so far tens of thousands of domains have been transferred.

This morning, NameCheap reported in their blog that GoDaddy wasn't being very helpful with the domain transfers, mentioning that they were receiving incomplete WHOIS information:

Quote

While we don't know for sure if GoDaddy is really doing this on purpose, it does seem to fall in line with past events.

I'm personally glad I never used GoDaddy for any of my domains and I recommend you get your domains out of there as soon as possible.

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MyBB 2.0

So, a lot of you guys use the popular free, open-source forum system, MyBB. The current version of MyBB is 1.6.5, and development for the 1.6 series charges forward, adding features, fixing bugs, and enhancing user experience.

Also in development is MyBB 2.0. Speculation is high about what is to be included in it, but, citing that features change and they don't want to promise anything that won't be in the final release, the MyBB Team hasn't released very many details. Don't get your hopes up, though I am on the MyBB Team, I won't be releasing anything new. I can tell you though, MyBB 2.0 is going to be the best forum software out there.

I am here to tell you what all has been confirmed in MyBB 2.0 so far.

To start, a MyBB Blog post as released On June 7th, 2011 that had screenshots of MyBB 2.0. One, of the login page, showed a sexy looking login box and also a preview of the code used to output the page. An equally sexy install page was also released.

Features were also announced in the blog post. Member-side, conversation-style Private Messaging was promised, as well as a simplified User Control Panel. For the staff, a better moderation queue was also revealed. Overall, a more “modern, efficient, user friendly... [and] state-of-the-art forum system” was shown to be in development.

MyBB 2.0 will run on the Yii framework, and will use Twig for the templates. Though this will cause more frequent updates, seeing as MyBB will need to update whenever Yii or Twig do, security will be very good on MyBB 2.0. As the default JavaScript library, jQuery will also enhance the MyBB system.

SEO friendly URLs will also be included, as they are with MyBB 1.6, according to staff posts on the MyBB Community forum. An easy API will be shipped with MyBB 2.0 for easy integration into other software. User profiles will also receive a boost. Mobile functionality will also be greatly improved. However, threaded topic display will no longer be included due to lack of usage.

Overall, the outlook on MyBB 2.0 looks great, from a new sexy look to awesome new features. Though no approximate release date has been announced, the next major release of MyBB is something to look forward to.



Information from:
http://blog.mybb.com...ing-the-future/
http://community.myb...read-99746.html

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Firefox 9 brings a bit more speed, no noticeabl...

Mozilla has released Firefox 9 today, and as to be expected, they made minor changes. They include the following:

• Added Type Inference, significantly improving JavaScript performance
  
• Improved theme integration for Mac OS X Lion
  
• Added two finger swipe navigation for Mac OS X Lion
  
• Added support for querying Do Not Track status via JavaScript
  
• Added support for font-stretch
  
• Improved support for text-overflow
  
• Improved standards support for HTML5, MathML, and CSS
  
• Fixed several stability issues
  
• Fixed several security issues

It's safe to say that other than the JavaScript performance boost they're trying to market, there's not much new in this version that you'll notice, unless you use OS X.
Stay tuned for Firefox 10, which will be out around the 24th of January.

To update, click the Firefox menu, then click Help, then About. The download will start automatically and when it's done a button will appear which will restart the browser and then update it.
When I updated, I actually had to download and restart the browser twice for some reason. Not sure why that happened.

What's your opinion on Firefox 9?

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Mozilla's search deal with Google saved for...

According to Mozilla's blog, the search deal with Google was saved, and for the next three years. This is a big thing for Mozilla because the company reported that at least 80% of their revenue each year comes from this deal.

Here's what their blog post said:

Quote

My thoughts on it is that after three years, Chrome will have a very significant lead over Firefox, and the deal won't be renewed again. That's if Mozilla continues in this break-neck development pace releasing new versions of the browser with little improvements every 6 weeks.

What's your opinion?

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Mozilla asks for donations

So Mozilla posted this video today:


I think Mozilla is scared because of the trouble they've been in lately - According to this analytics website, Google Chrome has recently surpassed Firefox in browser usage. And the deal they had with Google to keep Google as the default search engine has expired, and with Google's browser being so successful, it's likely that it's not going to be renewed.

While I like the vision behind Firefox and some of the recent changes, I don't use it as often as I use Chrome, after I sorted out an issue with scrolling performance.
The four things that keep me from using Firefox regularly are:

• Sync is a PITA in Firefox. I have to carry around a 9-character random code just to set up sync on another computer. And once it's set up, it doesn't sync extensions, which really sucks. I should't have to install an extension just to sync extensions. With Chrome, it syncs everything, and the only info I need are my Google account credentials.
  
• Extensions break a lot. Every major update to Firefox has broken a ton of extensions, and I have to wait days, and sometimes weeks or months, before that extension is updated. While Firefox allows the extensions to go deeper than Chrome does, the addon incompatibility issues make it not worth it for me. I've never encountered an incompatible extension for Google Chrome.
  
• It's not as fast as Chrome. Sorry Firefox, but with all your little enhancements of a few milliseconds and crap, you're not faster than Chrome. While you may feel faster on some sites, in the end Chrome wins. Get as fast as Opera and I'll consider you again.
  
• The version system is stupid. This is just a little issue that has nothing to do with usability or performance, but I was really mad when Mozilla decided to change the Firefox version system, so that almost every new version is a major version with few changes. While it makes sense from a marketing standpoint, if they were going to do it they should have started a long time ago. Plus, this isn't going to make IT people friendlier towards the browser.

So what do you think? Is Mozilla Firefox doomed?

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The Benefits of Designing Themes for Web Software

Want to design a theme, but can't really be motivated to do so? You might think no one will buy it, or if you make it free, no one will download it.

Well, this article is for you. There's some benefits to designing themes for web software such as forum scrips, blogs, and stuff like that.

One of those benefits is the backlinks. If you're not looking into getting into web design full time, like becoming a freelance designer and dealing with people's crap over the tiniest details and creating your own site just for that purpose, then putting a link in the footer of your theme pointing to a site you own will be very rewarding for two reasons:

One, if your theme is popular it will end up on a ton of sites and increase the amount of backlinks to your site, which, if the sites your theme is installed on are very good, your site's Google rank will go up.

Two, it's free advertising, and if the people who download your theme want support and don't want to get a DMCA, then they're forced to leave your link there for as long as they use the theme. Make your footer attractive and more people will see your link, click on it, and visit your site. It's wonderful.

Another benefit is the cash, if you think your theme is good enough to go premium. I'd recommend starting your prices at $5, this will bring in a lot of money if your theme is really good, because most people are willing to pay $5 for one. So you get backlinks and some cash! Find a girl and take her out to McDonalds.

So how do you promote your theme so you can get these awesome benefits? Well, submitting your theme to the software's addon/mod/theme directory is a start. Any web software worth its salt has one of those, and the good ones have it set up like a store, so people can easily find and buy your theme. If the software doesn't have one of those awesome stores, then you're forced to find another site to sell your theme on. There's some good ones out there, you'll have to ask around, but when you've got your theme on there post a thread about the theme and where to find it on the web software's forum, if they have one.

Another option to promote your theme is to consider making a free version and add all sorts of fun little additions to the full theme, such as social icons, social sharing buttons, better graphics and CSS, and almost whatever you can think of. Then put the free version on the web software's mod site, and include a link in the description and the footer of the theme if you want, promoting the full theme.

So there's something to motivate you to try your skills at making themes for web software and blog sites. Let me know if this helped you and I look forward to hearing your stories on the forum.

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