A million Instagram Android app downloads in a day isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? 5 million in 6 days.

A million Instagram Android app downloads in a day isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? 5 million in 6 days.:
Instagram is enjoying the biggest week in its existence. The company, already riding high on its iOS success, launched its Android app and captured 1 million downloads in its first day and unless you live under a rock, you will know that yesterday, Facebook came in and bought the company for a cool $1 billion.
Whilst everyone digests yesterday’s news, Instagram has just hit another impressive milestone — 5 million Android downloads in six days — making it one of the biggest Android app launches of all time. In fact, the iOS version of the app took about six months to reach 5 million users, on Android it took just six days.
Android users had been waiting a long time for the photo-sharing app to launch on the platform, and when even when the company launched its pre-registration process, smartphone owners rushed to be a part of it. When it opened pre-registration for its Android variant on March 24, it attracted 430,000 pre-registration signups in the following days.
Soon after launching on Google Play, Instagram was seeing 2,000 sign-ups a minute. The impact this had can be seen on the download graph below, which dipped shortly after launch as the initial demand subsided.
Today’s milestone is shown on Instagram’s Google Play page, which now registers downloads between 5 million and 10 million:

We put the app through its paces to see how the Android flavor compared against the one that iPhone users have grown to know and love. We found that much of the aesthetic had been ported over from iOS, with just a few concessions to Android user interface conventions.
The news will be of equal importance to Facebook, which is seeking to push ahead with its mobile offerings, as it decides just how it will incorporate the service into its social network. For now, Instagram will operate as it always has but its a question of when, not if, the company will start to make changes.

source: thenextweb.com

Yahoo Messenger with Video Chat Comes to iPhone

Yahoo Messenger with Video Chat Comes to iPhone: "

Remember that iPhone Messenger app with video calls that Yahoo promised us late last week? Well, it’s now live in Apple’s App Store.
The new version of Yahoo Messenger enables users to make video calls and stream live video one-to-one over 3G or Wi-Fi. What makes the app really interesting is the ability to establish a video call between an iPhone and an Android device (provided it has a front-facing camera) or between an iPhone and a PC.
You can also make free voice calls to your Yahoo Messenger friends, as well as low-cost international calls with your Yahoo Voice Phone Out account. Unfortunately, this last bit is available only to users in the U.S., France, Germany, Spain and Singapore.
Finally, the new version now supports multitasking, meaning you can work on other tasks on your iPhone while the app happily runs in the background.
The app is available for free in the iTunes store.

Microsoft's COFEE Spills All Over Internet, First Exclusive Images On Internet

Microsoft's COFEE Spills All Over Internet, First Exclusive Images On Internet: "

As quite expected Microsoft's automated computer forensic utility COFEE (Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor) meant for law-enforcement agencies got leaked on internet and is now readily available on torrent portals and file-sharing websites.

These Are The First EXCLUSIVE Images Of COFEE Utility

The utility is designed EXCLUSIVELY for crime-investigators allowing quick and fully-automated extraction of forensic data from computers suspected of containing criminal activity evidence letting investigators search through data on-site, the utility is provided for free by Microsoft to law-enforcement agencies world-over in a USB device which executes more then 150 commands to collect forensic data offering features such as the ability to decrypt passwords, search the computer's Internet activity, and analyze the data stored on it even including the data stored in volatile memory.

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Windows 7 already bigger than Snow Leopard and Linux combined

Windows 7 already bigger than Snow Leopard and Linux combined: "It's only been a couple of weeks since Windows 7 was released, but Microsoft's new OS has already captured a larger percentage of the market than Apple's OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Linux (yes, all of Linux). This doesn't come as a huge surprise, considering how many Windows users were clamoring for Win7 after the flop that is Vista. Microsoft says Windows 7's launch outdid Vista's by 234%. Those brisk sales have already netted Windows a 2% share of the world's OS business, compared to just over 1% for Snow Leopard, and just under 1% for Linux.

Despite the strong sales of Win7, Windows as a whole dropped a quarter of a percentage point in October, with Mac and Linux both making small gains. That quarter of a point hardly matters when you've got 90% of the OS market and your new operating system is being adopted quickly, though.

I expect to see Windows swing back up after Windows 7's been available for a while. I mean, we're talking about an operating system that outsold Harry Potter in the UK. Right now, it's only got a 2% share, compared to 19% for Vista and 70% for XP, but that's after only two weeks. Expect that number to zoom upward by the end of November.

[via Ars Technica]

Windows 7 already bigger than Snow Leopard and Linux combined originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Introducing Closure Tools

Millions of Google users worldwide use JavaScript-intensive applications such as Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Maps. Like developers everywhere, Googlers want great web apps to be easier to create, so we've built many tools to help us develop these (and many other) apps. We're happy to announce the open sourcing of these tools, and proud to make them available to the web development community.

Closure Compiler
Closure Compiler is a JavaScript optimizer that compiles web apps down into compact, high-performance JavaScript code. The compiler removes dead code, then rewrites and minimizes what's left so that it will run fast on browsers' JavaScript engines. The compiler also checks syntax, variable references, and types, and warns about other common JavaScript pitfalls. These checks and optimizations help you write apps that are less buggy and easier to maintain. You can use the compiler with Closure Inspector, a Firebug extension that makes debugging the obfuscated code almost as easy as debugging the human-readable source.

Because JavaScript developers are a diverse bunch, we've set up a number of ways to run the Closure Compiler. We've open-sourced a command-line tool. We've created a web applicationPage Speed to conveniently see the performance benefits for your web pages.

Closure Library
Closure Library is a broad, well-tested, modular, and cross-browser JavaScript library. Web developers can pull just what they need from a wide set of reusable UI widgets and controls, as well as lower-level utilities for the DOM, server communication, animation, data structures, unit testing, rich-text editing, and much, much more. (Seriously. Check the docs.)

JavaScript lacks a standard class library like the STL or JDK. At Google, Closure Library serves as our 'standard JavaScript library' for creating large, complex web applications. It's purposely server-agnostic and intended for use with the Closure Compiler. You can make your project big and complex (with namespacing and type checking), yet small and fast over the wire (with compilation). The Closure Library provides clean utilities for common tasks so that you spend your time writing your app rather than writing utilities and browser abstractions.

Closure Templates
Closure Templates grew out of a desire for web templates that are precompiled to efficient JavaScript. Closure Templates have a simple syntax that is natural for programmers. Unlike traditional templating systems, you can think of Closure Templates as small components that you compose to form your user interface, instead of having to create one big template per page.

Closure Templates are implemented for both JavaScript and Java, so you can use the same templates both on the server and client side.


Closure Compiler, Closure Library, Closure Templates, and Closure Inspector all started as 20% projects and hundreds of Googlers have contributed thousands of patches. Today, each Closure Tool has grown to be a key part of the JavaScript infrastructure behind web apps at Google. That's why we're particularly excited (and humbled) to open source them to encourage and support web development outside Google. We want to hear what you think, but more importantly, we want to see what you make. So have at it and have fun!

that accepts your code for compilation through a text box or a RESTful API. We are also offering a Firefox extension that you can use with By the Closure Tools team

source : http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2009/11/introducing-closure-tools.html

Microsoft Security Essentials rated best free antivirus for Windows

Microsoft Security Essentials rated best free antivirus for Windows: "

Thousands of downloads. Countless positive reviews on software blogs around the Internet. It's been quite a ride so far for Microsoft Security Essentials.

In AV Comparative's most recent report on malware removal, MSE was the only free antivirus rated Advanced+. That ranking placed it alongside big names like Norton, Kaspersky, and F-Secure. Security Essentials also beat out technician favorite ESET, which managed only an Advanced rating.

It's also worth noting that only three antivirus apps - Norton 2010, eScan, and Security Essentials - scored marks of good or better in removal of malware and removal of leftovers. So not only has MSE beaten free competitors like AVG (version 8.5 tested, not 9.0), Avira, and Avast, it also posted test scores equal to or better than a dozen antivirus programs you'd have to pay for.

Well done, Microsoft!

[via Ars Technica]

Microsoft Security Essentials rated best free antivirus for Windows originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

SkyDrive Explorer - Lets User's Add 25 GB Of Secure Online Storage To Windows Explorer

SkyDrive Explorer - Lets User's Add 25 GB Of Secure Online Storage To Windows Explorer: "

Microsoft SkyDrive offers a generous 25 GB of free online-storage but lacks the simplicity of having the online-storage mounted as an local disk-drive for easier access like the one offered by ZumoDrive and LiveDrive, however, the same can now be achieved by using free Windows utility - SkyDrive Explorer.

SkyDrive Explorer enables users to use SkyDrive online-storage like a local disk-drive attached to the computer, user's can perform all the actions as they are working on a local disk-drive including full drag-n-drop support and multi-operations like renaming objects or deleting a group of files/folders.

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Keep Track of New Email with Gmail Notifier

Keep Track of New Email with Gmail Notifier: "

Opening a web browser and checking your Gmail account several times a day can become annoying. Today we look at a cool free utility that runs in the background and notifies you when a new message is received.

Using Gmail Notifier

Installation is quick and straight forward and once complete click on your language.

Then sign into your Gmail account.

Notice above there is a message to verify you have IMAP enabled. Log into your account and under Settings and Forwarding POP/IMAP section.

You can add multiple accounts to keep track of.

It sits quietly in the taskbar until you get a message.

Right-click on the icon in the Taskbar to get a menu of different options.

In Preferences you can change the way it notifies you and also notice that you can use Gmail for Mailto: links.

From the interface you can navigate your inbox, read email, mark it as read, and delete messages.

Hover over the sender to get their email address while reading the message.

If you are looking for a way to easily keep track of your Gmail accounts you might want to try this out.

Download Gmail Notifier

Microsoft Security Essentials is a Free Antivirus Utility

Microsoft Security Essentials is a Free Antivirus Utility: "

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free utility that provides real-time protection to identify and eliminate harmful viruses and other malware from your PC. Today we’ll take a look at how it performs and the protection it has to offer.

Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is free Anti-Malware protection that replaces their previous “pay for” utility One Care. It has left beta and version 1.0 was released to the public yesterday. As with the beta we showed you before, this version provides real-time protection and runs quietly in the background. It actually runs a lot like the beta version and the user interface is the basically same.

Before installation make sure there is no other Antivirus or spyware application running on the machine. However, you don’t need to turn off Windows Defender, because MSE takes care of it for you.

You will have to validate your copy of Windows to be able to install and use Security Essentials.

The user interface is basic, simple, and easy to use. After installation it will update the virus definitions right away. After that it will update itself automatically in the background so once installed it truly is a “set it and forget it” process.

After the database is updated the computer status turns green. There are 4 tabs at the top that allow you to control different functions.

Under Settings you can choose what actions it should take with malware based on its threat level.

By default Real-time protection is enabled but if you want to disable it you want. The Real-time protection is light on system resources and doesn’t slow down other processes at all.

It shows a green icon in the notification area letting you know your system is protected.

Progress is displayed while a manual scan takes place and tells you the amount of time it takes. Scan times will vary between systems based on amount of files and hardware performance.

It works like most other Antivirus apps and lets you scan a single file.

If a threat is detected a red attention screen pops up in the Notification Area and you can clean the threat right away based on your recommended actions or find out more detail about the threat.

If you want more details, they actually provide a good amount of information on a threat. When in the details screen you can change the recommend action if you want and clean it from there.

During out tests we tried to download an infected file, but MSE stopped it and wouldn’t allow the download to continue unless manually selecting to ignore it. This is very nice so someone doesn’t ignore the warnings, click out of the screens, and try to download and install the app anyway.

For testing we ran this on the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium but it will also work with XP and Vista. It is light on system resources and runs quietly without constantly popping up messages and annoying you. It does pop up a message when it matters though. If a threat is found it will pop up a red alert to let you know about the malware and decide what actions to take. It’s nice to have a free anti-malware utility that is easy to use and effective. While Microsoft doesn’t always offer the best security solutions, they seem to have gotten this one right.

Download Microsoft Security Essentials

IBM Lotus Symphony is a Free Alternative to MS Office

IBM Lotus Symphony is a Free Alternative to MS Office: "

In these tough economic times it can be frustrating or impossible to shell out a lot of money for MS Office productivity suite. Today we take a look IBM Lotus Symphony, which is a full suite of office apps built on Open Office technology and produces quality documents and presentations.

About Lotus Symphony

IBM Lotus Symphony is an office productivity suite that includes apps for creating documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. It is completely free of charge and is built on OpenOffice.org technology and supports Open Document Format standards. You can create the same great quality documents as you would with MS Office apps, use MS Office formatted documents, and it’s completely free.

Lotus Symphony Document

This is their word processing app that would replace MS Word. It has all of the tools you would expect from a quality word processing application and make make professional looking documents. Notice there is a single interface with tabbed sections for each program and / or document.

There are plenty of templates for various types of documents to choose from and download.

It includes a decent library full of clip art you can use in your document creation, and they offer more you can download from the site.

Save documents in in Open or MS formats.

Lotus Symphony Spreadsheet

This is a replacement for MS Excel and lets you create new spreadsheets or use built in templates.

Lotus Symphony Presentation

Presentation is their version of MS PowerPoint where you can create shows from scratch or preconfigured presentations.

Web Browser

Also included is a basic but handy web browser that will open up in a new tab. This comes in handy when downloading additional items from their site and for doing quick research while working on documents.

Conclusion

If you need a basic office suite then Symphony is a good choice as it can handle most tasks. It doesn’t include an email client or database app like MS Access, but if you need that you can use OpenOffice.org Base which is a free database program. Let’s take a look at a few of the other features available, including using MS documents with the open format of Symphony.

The entire suite opens up all documents using tabbed sections to make navigation easier.

You can associate Symphony with open document formats.

It will open up MS formatted documents…(.doc, .docx, .xls, .pptx) but you may lose some quality. I had little problem with documents I tested out and opened between the programs.

If you are working with another person who has Microsoft Office 2007 remember they can save their documents in Open Document format as well.

You can easily save documents, spreadsheets, and presentations to PDF format.

There are a lot of extra plug-ins you can download for additional functionality for all three apps.

If you get stuck there is a help section that will guide you through basic tasks.

If you are a small business, student, or an individual with not a whole lot of extra money to spare, Lotus Symphony is a great way to get the professional office document results you need.

Download Lotus Symphony