The Pirate Bay Relocates to a Nuclear Bunker

The Pirate Bay has gone underground. Literally. After being bounced from several hosting sites, the controversial download hub has relocated to the CyberBunker, an underground data center facility housed in a former NATO bunker in the Netherlands.

Within the last week The Pirate Bay has been offline for extended periods after moving from its previous home in Sweden to a facility in the Ukraine. The operators of the site have been cut off by several ISPs as entertainment companies pursue legal efforts targeting illegal downloads of copyrighted content.

The owner of the CyberBunker says it will continue to host the site and does not intend to cave in to the threats of the entertainment industry.? The facility has shielding to protect it from an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and 5-foot concrete walls to protect against a nuclear blast. There?s no immediate evidence that entertainment lawyers will be wielding nukes or EMP weapons, as they seem focused on legal notices to network providers.

Source

Ad-supported Microsoft Office Starter 2010 coming to a PC near yo

Redmond has announced that it plans to allow OEMs to pre-install the complete version of Office 2010 on new computers -- except it will be tweaked to run at a limited capacity. Instead of shipping PCs with the dreaded Microsoft Works or a 60-day trial of Office 2007, new systems will have an ad-supported version of Office 2010.
Dubbed Office Starter 2010, the new offering will serve as a handicapped edition of Office 2010, providing users with the ability to view, edit, and create documents via Word or Excel. Office Starter 2010 will be accompanied by advertisements, and despite the restricted functionality, Microsoft says it is "designed for casual Office users," who would be ok with the software's limitations. The company based its decision on the number of users who are displeased with Works as well as Office trials, and thus are not purchasing the company's complete productivity suite.
Being that the complete version of Office 2010 will already be installed on these systems, Microsoft plans to sell Product Key Cards via OEMs and major retail outlets. The cards will contain license numbers for the many consumer SKUs of Office, which will remove the constraints of Office Starter. Customers will also be able to download and buy Office 2010 online via Microsoft's new "Click-To-Run" technology. If a good old-fashioned disc is more your taste though, you will still be able to pick up Office 2010 on DVD, which will contain both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Show Hidden Files and Folders not working

Show Hidden Files and Folders not working?..... If we select the radio button “Show hidden files and folders” and then press Ok.. the changes would just disappear upon opening the dialog again. It was probably some virus attack after which the Windows registry was not being updated properly. So here is what methods to restore it back. There are so many methods to restore back the registry. If one method is not working, please try another one.

Method 1:

Go to registry editor by running regedit in the run box.
Go to this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

In the right hand area, double click hidden and change the value to 1.

Now you’re all set to go. Check it in your tools menu if the changes have taken effect.

Method 2:

1. Click “Start” -> “Run…” (or press Windows key + R)
2. Type “regedit” and click “Ok”.
3. Find the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
Advanced\Folder\Hidden\SHOWALL
4. Look at the “CheckedValue” key… This should be a DWORD key. If it isn’t, delete the key.
5. Create a new key called “CheckedValue” as a DWORD (hexadecimal) with a value of 1.
6. The “Show hidden files & folders” check box should now work normally. Enjoy!

Method 3:

If none of the above methods work, please download our Smart Virus Remover from here:

Smart Virus Remover

Using this Virus Remover please restore your Windows settings and your show hidden files and folders will be set to default.

Please spare a few moments from your precious time and tell us about your experiences

Apple quietly buys mapping company Placebase

Apple might be getting ready to rival Google in the online mapping space, according to Seth Weintraub at Computerworld. The Cupertino-based company has recently purchased PlaceBase, creators of a mapping API called Pushpin, and hired their CEO and founder Jaron Waldman to work on the so-called Geo Team.

The acquisition has naturally sparked speculation that Apple may be looking distance itself from the search giant by creating a mapping service to replace Google Maps on the Mac and iPhone. While this certainly is a possibility, knowing how the company likes to control the technology behind their devices, it may also go a long way explaining why Apple rejected Google?s Latitude for its App Store.

Placebase is a mapping service similar to Google Maps, and the Pushpin API resembles Latitude, only that it offers more ways to customize maps with deep array public and commercial data sets, including boundaries, social and demographic, financial, cell phone coverage, traffic information and weather information. It is certainly possible that realizing the importance of geo-location services, Apple is simply cooking something it doesn't want competition for.

This may be just the latest in a series of disputes between the two companies. As Weintraub notes, Apple has also been fighting with Google lately over the Google Voice app, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently quit Apples board to avoid conflicts of interest.

Microsoft permanently barred from selling Word

Microsoft has been ordered by a US District Court to halt sales of its popular word processing application, Word. Judge Leonard Davis has ruled that the software-giant is guilty of patent infringement and has prohibited it from selling, importing, testing, demonstrating or marketing any Microsoft Word products able to open XML, DOCX, or DOCM files (XML) files containing custom XML.

Plaintiff i4i sued Microsoft in March 2007 claiming that it violated a 1998 software patent (number 5,787,449) for a document system that eliminated the need for manually embedded formatting codes. One of the fundamental features of the markup language XML is that it is readable by both people and machines. XML allows developers and users to define their own tags for data - unlike other markup languages like HTML which have predefined tags.

Microsoft has already paid $200 million after a federal jury ruled that the XML properties of Word 2003 and Word 2007 infringed on i4i's patent. Redmond accumulated another $77 million in fees after the most recent ruling, $40 million for willful patent infringement and $37 million in prejudgment interest. The company must comply within 60 days and is planning to appeal the verdict.

Speed-Up Folder Navigation in Windows XP/Vista

If you are encountering the one of the most common problem of slow opening of my computer in windows xp and contents of my computer as a result display very lately then you will be surprised to know that your computer is not old or slow but there is simple fix to this problem.

Why Does My computer opens slowly ?

The main reason behind is the default option being checked in windows xp to search for network drives and printers every time you open my computer and there may be network drives which are being accessed when you open my computer.

How to Speed up My Computer Opening ?

1. Open My computer >> File Menu >> Tools >> Folder Options >> View
2. Uncheck the first checkbox which says "Automatically search for Network folders and printers".
3. You can also simply Disconnect the Map drives to solve this issue,



Go to Tools >> Disconnect the Map Drives(Network Drives) and select the network drive to disconnect.

Get XP Key From CD itself

There is a Way to get xp product code from cd itself, It really work!!
I was once wondering around d XP CD......n got dis!!
Jst try it out.....

Just explore the cd then open the folder I386 then open the file UNATTEND.TXT and scroll down to the

last line and it goes to show what dumbasses
microsoft are u have a product code.

Have fun!!!
Now u'll never need to search for a product code for xp again...!!!!

Windows XP Mode hits RTM, will debut alongside Windows 7

Microsoft has announced that "XP Mode" for Windows 7 has reached the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) phase. The completed version will be ready for download in exactly three weeks on October 22 -- the same day Windows 7 will hit store shelves. This is good news for OEMs looking to provide Windows XP Mode for their customers from the get-go.

Windows XP Mode is essentially a virtual Windows XP environment running under Windows Virtual PC. It is mostly intended to allow small and mid-sized businesses to use old software that is incompatible with Windows 7 during the transition from Microsoft's dated operating system. Redmond insists that many XP programs will be compatible with Windows 7, but XP Mode is something to fall back on for those that aren't.

If you're running Windows 7, you can download the Release Candidate (RC) of Windows XP Mode on Microsoft's site.

Verizon to introduce metered bandwidth?

As the Internet grows, so does the demand for bandwidth. A gigabyte of transfer was astronomical ten years ago, but you can burn that by watching a single movie through Netflix these days. This has put a lot of pressure on ISPs to deliver bandwidth reliably, and they have responded in many different ways. The Comcast fiasco is still up in the air, which ultimately resulted in them implementing (or rather admitting to and then enforcing) a 250GB per month cap on the majority of their customers. Many other ISPs also practice this, with varying caps. Now, another large U.S. ISP may follow suit. This time around, it is Verizon.

Verizon has stated recently that they see a radical change in pricing structure for Internet services down the road, one that may introduce metered bandwidth -- presumably based primarily on how much someone downloads per month. Rather than selling strictly on speed, Verizon mentions they may switch to a point where they are selling "packages of bytes". This statement came along with some apparent disdain for the FCC, which shows Verizon's concern over how the agency is seeking to become involved in monitoring Internet service in the U.S.

While bandwidth caps may seem harsh to those who currently have unrestricted ISPs, the practice is very common around the world. Though it originated amongst ISPs with limited resources available (Satellite and Cellular come to mind), it is spreading to the largest of networks, such as cable and DSL. Even if it's not what people want to hear, it might be a plain truth that all large ISPs may move down the path of metered bandwidth.

Pioneer first to market with 12x Blu-ray writer

Pioneer has introduced the BDR-205, the world's first 12x Blu-ray writer for single and dual-layer media. With a burn rate of 12x, Pioneer's new drive provides a slight boost over the 8x most current units offer. In addition to the quicker write times, Pioneer claims to have designed the BDR-205 with a low-vibration apparatus, which improves write accuracy over the presently available drives.

The BDR-205 comes at a time when much attention is on the market. In late August, research firm iSuppli released a study that suggested widespread Blu-ray-equipped PCs are a long way off. The outfit estimated that by 2013 Blu-ray drives will be present in 16.3% of shipped PCs -- versus 3.6% this year. Other analysts foresee a surge of Blu-ray drives in notebooks by next year, though, as prices decline.

Pioneer's BDR-205 will begin shipping this month, and the retail version, the BDR-2205, will be available in the first quarter of next year for $249.