PC Memoirs

Choosing a terminal emulator can be a bit unnerving when you first start. There’s a wide range of possible systems, variants, and operational considerations. However, it’s not as hard as it looks. You can get a good terminal emulator that can simplify operations and do a lot for productivity quite easily. Important: You should consult with your computer support people to get a good map of the operational issues before you make up your mind, but we’ve got a good basic guide to selection issues to help you decide.

Terminal emulators and systems

Depending on the type of system you use and your operational needs, you may require:

• Data security – This is critical, basic “risk management” for major systems. It’s also considered best practice by IT professionals as a good all-round way to insure against any possibility of compromised data systems.
• Keyboard mapping – This is used to achieve maximum fluency in your programming, and it’s a particularly valuable, productive asset for programmers.
• Character set support – Going very much hand in hand with keyboard mapping, character set support provides good operational support for all program languages.
• Multi session capabilities – The ability to run several applications simultaneously is obviously useful, but the new generation of multi session means these applications can run independently and be configured separately.
• Keyboard macros – Another high productivity feature, used for commonly required functions.
• User defined toolbars – More productivity, creating a simple “point and click” capability for navigation.

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If you love Mozilla Firefox but hate the brain drain on your computer, then you are not alone. Millions of Firefox’s loyal users are frustrated with the browser’s strange idiosyncrasy. But what can you do to prevent Firefox from eating your computer’s memory? Try one of these four tricks!

Plugins and add-ons

Sometimes simple things can muck up the works. On Firefox you can customize it many different ways. However, those customizations can be one of the causes of a memory drain. Things like themes, extensions and plugins can make Firefox run slow. To solve this problem, remove as many unnecessary add-ons as you can.

On MozillaZine one user said: “I was using 7 extensions for Firefox, with no theme at all and my browser would sit, three tabs open, my website, admin panel and Netvibes. 200MB utilization. Seemed a bit odd. Got rid of the extensions I didn’t need and bam my computer went back to a reasonable number, 50mb.”

Look-see

Mozilla offers a place to go for tips and help: MozillaZine. The site also offers a problematic extensions list for Firefox. The list illustrates extension-specific conflicts and information. See if you can improve your memory by changing a few plugins to more economical settings.

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The hacker group Anonymous claimed last Monday that they had acquired and shared source code for Symantec’s PCAnywhere and Norton Antivirus. If confirmed, this would represent a major breach in the company’s security.

It appears that in mid-January a Symantec employee offered a hacker who used the name Yamatough $50,000 in exchange for reassurances that the software code had been destroyed. In an interview with Reuters, Yamatough said “We tricked them into offering us a bribe so we could humiliate them.”

In a strange turn, it appears the employee who was offering the money was actually a decoy set up by a law enforcement agency in an attempt to catch the hacker in an extortion plot.

The company is apparently looking into the alleged breach and is refusing to comment, as an investigation is currently under way.

In the final message of the email correspondence back and forth between Yamatough and the Symantec employee, the hacker announced that the deal was off and the code would be released on Feb. 7.

This will be a huge setback for Symantec. As of 2007, Norton Antivirus held a 61 percent share of the market for antivirus software.

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Following from the enormous success of last year’s Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure video game, Activision have recently leaked the upcoming release of the franchise’s next installment: Skylanders Giants.

The conveniently named Skylanders Giants “builds upon the ground breaking fundamentals of the first game-merging the physical and virtual realms with an innovative line of cross-platform toy figures that have “brains,” which players everywhere can magically bring to life in the world of Skylands,” said Activision. Like the original game title Giants will also feature all new arenas, more gameplay options in Battle Mode, enhanced Elemental Zones, new Hero Challenges, and much more.

Eight new giant Skylanders characters will be released each being more than twice the size of the first edition Skylanders figures, both out of the box and in the game. They will also feature built in lights that illuminate when they’re placed near the Portal of Power. The first of these behemoth characters to be announced are a giant version of Cynder, the dark dragoness and Tree Rex, who bears a passing resemblance to Stump Smash and can only be assumed to be an earth element Skylander.

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Avast Internet Security 6 and Kaspersky Pure 2012 are great for computers meant for home use. Both the security systems have enough features to protect your computer from worms, virus, root kits and malicious websites. Before beginning this dual fight, if you want an in-depth feature analysis of their latest version, performance metric, ratings, screenshots and comparison with other top vendors then be sure to read exhaustive Avast internet security review and kaspersky pure review. You would have known practically everything about them without even trying them.

When Avast upgraded from its version 5, it did not make any major changes as far as the interface was concerned. However, it did add a couple of strong features like Auto Sandbox and WebRep. In addition, some features that were earlier available only in the paid versions have been made available for free in Avast Internet Security 6 ‑ a fact that should win over a lot of new fans for the computer security company.

Let us see if it’s worth paying for Kaspersky Pure 2012 or whether Avast Internet Security 6 fits the bill for home users.

Feature Set

Avast and Its Features

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