Acer unveils world's thinnest laptop

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Acer on Sunday unveiled the world's thinnest laptop computer as an array of "ultrabook" rivals prepared to debut this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The Taiwan-based computer titan will begin shipping Acer Aspire 5 models in the second quarter of this year, with prices to be disclosed in coming weeks.

"That S5 is quite significant," analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies said after the Acer press event.

"It looks like the thinnest and lightest, and it sets the bar for the rest of the ultrabook vendors," he continued.

The Aspire S5 has a 34-cm (13.3-inch) screen and is 15 mm at its thickest point. The ultrabook weighs slightly less than 1.35 kg (three pounds).

"We are committed to evolving this technology," said Acer chief executive J.T. Wang. "By the second quarter of this year we will have four models of ultrabook and more to come."

Ultrabooks powered by Windows 8 will be released by Acer after Microsoft releases the new version of its computer operating system later this year, according to Wang.

He estimated that ultrabooks would make up at least 35 percent of the Acer product line by the end of this year.

Since Aspire S5 is Windows based it is not likely to be a direct challenge to MacBook Air laptops, which have been winning converts to the sleek machines powered by Apple software, according to Bajarin.

"The real battle is not with Apple, it is with all the other vendors coming out with Windows ultrabooks," Bajarin said.

"Apple will still do great with MacBook Air, but in the Windows world it is great news that five years after Apple set the tone the industry is finally getting something equal," he continued.

Acer also announced plans to launch a free service that will let users of its computers store video, photos, music, and documents in the Internet "cloud" and access files from any Windows 8 or Android software powered gadgets.

"We believe Microsoft will take care of Windows devices; Google will take care of Android devices, and Acer will take care of in between," Wang said.

"We will make Windows work very well with Android and other platforms too."

Bajarin described Aspire S5 as the first viable Windows equivalent of popular MacBook Air laptops built by California-based Apple.

Acer Cloud appeared to be a Windows version of the Apple's freshly-launched iCloud service that lets people access their content from iPads, iPhones, iPods, and Macintosh computers, according to the analyst. 

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How to Hide and Show Purchases in the Mac App Store

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Did you purchase an "embarrassing" application from the Mac App Store? Want to hide the fact that you downloaded it? Thanks to an obscure feature, you can. The Mac App Store lets you hide applications you've purchased so they don't show up in the Purchases list. It's a great way to cover your tracks so other users in your house can't see exactly what you downloaded.

Note: Hiding a purchase in the Mac App Store does not uninstall the application. It just hides the record that you've purchased the application.

How to Hide Purchases in the Mac App Store

Hiding a purchase does exactly what it sounds like. It simply removes the record of the application being purchased. The application will still be installed on your computer, and Apple will still have a record that you purchased and downloaded the application.

Here's how to hide purchases in the Mac App Store:

1. Open the App Store application. (It's on the Dock, or in the Applications folder.)
   
2. Click Purchases.
   
3. Move the pointer over the application purchase you want to hide. Click the X button that appears, as shown below.

4. The application is no longer displayed in your Purchases list.

Remember, the application is still installed on your computer, and you can always "unhide" the purchase, as described below.

How to Show Hidden Purchases in the Mac App Store

Need to see all of the purchases that you've hidden in the Mac App Store? No problem. All you have to do is click a couple buttons in your account settings.

Here's how to show hidden purchases in the Mac App Store:

1. Open the App Store application. (It's on the Dock, or in the Applications folder.)
   
2. Click Featured.
   
3. From the Quick Links section on the sidebar, select Account.
   
4. Enter your Apple ID and password, and then click View Account.
   
5. Click View Hidden Purchases, as shown below.
   

6. The list of hidden applications appears, as shown below. Click Unhide.
   

The hidden applications are now unhidden. You can see them in your Purchases list.

submitted by guest blogger
shawn mikky,Canada

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Ubuntu: SSHOpenSSH Transfer Client Key to Host

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Transfer Client Key to Host

The key you need to transfer to the host is the public one. If you can log in to a computer over SSH using a password, you can transfer your RSA key by doing the following from your own computer:

ssh-copy-id <username>@<host>

Where <username> and <host> should be replaced by your username and the name of the computer you're transferring your key to.

 Due to this bug, you cannot specify a port other than the standard port 22. You can work around this by issuing the command like this: ssh-copy-id "<username>@<host> -p <port_nr>". If you are using the standard port 22, you can ignore this tip.

You can make sure this worked by doing:

ssh <username>@<host>

You should be prompted for the passphrase for your key:

Enter passphrase for key '/home/<user>/.ssh/id_rsa':

Enter your passphrase, and provided host is configured to allow key-based logins, you should then be logged in as usual.

Troubleshooting

Encrypted Home Directory

If you have an encrypted home directory, SSH cannot access your authorized_keys file because it is inside your encrypted home directory and won't be available until after you are authenticated. Therefore, SSH will default to password authentication.

To solve this, create a folder outside your home named /etc/ssh/<username> (replace "<username>" with your actual username). This directory should have 755 permissions and be owned by the user. Move the authorized_keys file into it. Theauthorized_keys file should have 644 premissions and be owned by the user.

Then edit your /etc/ssh/sshd_config and add:

AuthorizedKeysFile    /etc/ssh/%u/authorized_keys

Finally, restart ssh with:

sudo service ssh restart

The next time you connect with SSH you should not have to enter your password.

username@host's password:

If you are not prompted for the passphrase, and instead get just the

username@host's password:

prompt as usual with password logins, then read on. There are a few things which could prevent this from working as easily as demonstrated above. On default Ubuntu installs however, the above examples should work. If not, then check the following condition, as it is the most frequent cause:

On the host computer, ensure that the /etc/ssh/sshd_config contains the following lines, and that they are uncommented;

PubkeyAuthentication yes
RSAAuthentication yes

If not, add them, or uncomment them, restart OpenSSH, and try logging in again. If you get the passphrase prompt now, then congratulations, you're logging in with a key!

Permission denied (publickey)

If you're sure you've correctly configured sshd_config, copied your ID, and have your private key in the .ssh directory, and still getting this error:

Permission denied (publickey).

Chances are, your /home/<user> or ~/.ssh/authorized_keys permissions are too open by OpenSSH standards. You can get rid of this problem by issuing the following commands:

chmod go-w ~/
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Debugging and sorting out further problems

The permissions of files and folders is crucial to this working. You can get debugging information from both the client and server.

if you think you have set it up correctly , yet still get asked for the password, try starting the server with debugging output to the terminal.

sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -d

To connect and send information to the client terminal

ssh -v ( or -vv) username@host's

Where to From Here?

No matter how your public key was generated, you can add it to your Ubuntu system by opening the file .ssh/authorized_keys in your favourite text editor and adding the key to the bottom of the file. You can also limit the SSH features that the key can use, such as disallowing port-forwarding or only allowing a specific command to be run. This is done by adding "options" before the SSH key, on the same line in the authorized_keys file. For example, if you maintain a CVS repository, you could add a line like this:

command="/usr/bin/cvs server",no-agent-forwarding,no-port-forwarding,no-X11-forwarding,no-user-rc ssh-dss <string of nonsense>...

When the user with the specified key logged in, the server would automatically run /usr/bin/cvs server, ignoring any requests from the client to run another command such as a shell

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elena martins, Brazil

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How To Recover Data From Crashed Windows Operating System

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Option I: By using a Linux Live Boot Disk

Users who are quite accustomed with Linux based operating systems will know that there are many distributions of  Linux  Live CD’s. These CD’s are nothing but bootable operating systems. These CD’s rather these operating systems run depending on the distribution, completely from the disk, a USB drive, your computer’s RAM or a small portion of a Hard Disk Drive(HDD).

You can download these Live CD’s absolutely free as an ISO image as these Live CD’s are open sources. Then this ISO image can be burnt into a bootable disk (for booting with a CD Drive) or you can also download the files and boot from a USB drive if your system BIOS supports USB booting device.

It is very simple to make the Live CD work. All you have to do is make a bootable CD and then have a pen drive or an external Hard Disk Drive(HDD) to store the files that you need to copy. Then just follow the procedure mentioned below:

1. Search the internet for the version of the Live CD that you like and download the zip file.

2. Once you have an ISO reader like Power ISO, the file will drag and drop straight into it.

3. Power ISO will then extract the image as a bootable image , the moment you click on the ISO image.

4. If you simply burn the CD or write the files into a USB drive you will possess a bootable Linux operating system       ready for use.

5. Go to your BIOS settings by pressing the key assigned for it (mentioned in your hardware manual) an dset your first priority boot device to USB drive if you are using a thumb drive or CD drive if you are booting from a bootable CD.

6. Now restart your system with the proper boot device (USB or CD) inserted and Linux will start booting.

When the above mentioned tasks are completed you will be able to access your Hard Disk Drive(HDD) in pretty much the same fashion as you did in case of Windows. After copying all your important documents in an external HDD or a USB drive you can reboot and reinstall windows XP into your machine.

Option II : BY using your Hard Disk Drive as an external drive

If option-I using Linux live CD is not suitable for you, then this another much more simpler way to solve your problem. What you have to do is unscrew your processor, fetch a new external HDD case and connect your HDD to another computer by USB. The entire procedure is discussed in detail below:

1. Switch off your computer and carefully unscrew your processor(CPU) and take out your Hard Disk Drive.

2. Correctly adjust the jumper to change your HDD set from MASTER to SLAVE (for this you may consult the diagram illustrating pins for the ‘master’ and ‘slave’ settings).

3. Now set the jumper to slave by refering to your manufacturer instructions (although usually done by removing the jumper connector) but donot forget to reset the jumper after you finish.

4. Make all the connections and switch on the computer. Now your Hard Disk Drive will show up as an extenal drive in ‘My Computer’. From here you can copy your important documents and data which would have been lost if you tried to repair your operating system.

submitted by guest blogger
oleg R. ,Czech Republic

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Mac OS X : Reposition Windows for Multiple Monitors with AppleScript

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Note: please submit an AppleScript, Automator action, or bash script for free for publishing if you have any you would like us to publish that can help others out there. please submit to the admin of computgozez:    iyobor3@gmail.com

AppleScript that will resize and organize my windows when I switch my display configuration. Set to run with a global hotkey via Automator, the script will figure out how many displays I have connected (if my current screen width is not the size of a 15" MacBook Pro display, then there are two), and configure my windows accordingly.

# arrange.scpt
#
# set dimensions and position of commonly used applications
# depending on whether one or two monitors are attached
#
# to add an application, find its bounds with both one and two
# displays connected:
#
# tell application "System Events"
#   tell application "ApplicationName"
#     get bounds of window 1
#   end tell
# end tell

# get frontmost application so we can bring it back to frontmost 
# on completion of script
tell application "System Events"
  set focus to name of the first process whose frontmost is true
end tell

# get width of desktop
tell application "Finder"
  set bnds to bounds of window of desktop
  set wide to item 3 of bnds
end tell

# find out number of displays connected based on screen width
# 1440 is the width of a 15 inch MacBook Pro. change this 
# based on your screen size. 
if wide is equal to 1440 then
  set displaynum to "onedisp"
else
  set displaynum to "twodisp"
end if

# make the smaller, center-most terminal window frontmost
# i always have two terminal windows open - this assures
# the correct windows are resized and moved. 
tell application "System Events"
  set if_running to (exists process "Terminal")
  if if_running then
    tell application "Terminal"
      activate
      set bnds_one to get bounds of window 1
      set wide_one to item 3 of bnds_one
      set bnds_two to get bounds of window 2
      set wide_two to item 3 of bnds_two
      if wide_one is greater than wide_two then
        tell application "System Events"
          keystroke "`" using command down
        end tell
      end if
    end tell
  end if
end tell

tell application "System Events"
  set if_running to (exists process "Terminal")
  if if_running then
    if displaynum is equal to "onedisp" then
      tell application "Terminal"
        activate
        try
          set bounds of window 1 to {286, 176, 1052, 668}
          set bounds of window 2 to {323, 215, 1425, 889}
        end try
      end tell
    else
      tell application "Terminal"
        activate
        try
          set bounds of window 1 to {2249, -467, 2868, -101}
          set bounds of window 2 to {2249, -86, 3351, 588}
        end try
      end tell
    end if
  end if
end tell

# resize the rest of the applications that are usually open. 
# note the "try" commands - this is a failsafe in addition
# to 'exists process "foo"' so the script doesn't choke if the 
# application is not running. 

tell application "System Events"
  set if_running to (exists process "TextMate")
  if if_running then
    if displaynum is equal to "onedisp" then
      tell application "TextMate"
        activate
        try
          set bounds of window 1 to {18, 34, 567, 885}
        end try
      end tell
    else
      tell application "TextMate"
        activate
        try
          set bounds of window 1 to {1450, -466, 2239, 582}
        end try
      end tell
    end if
  end if
end tell

tell application "System Events"
  set if_running to (exists process "Google Chrome Canary")
  if if_running then
    if displaynum is equal to "onedisp" then
      tell application "Google Chrome Canary"
        activate
        try
          set bounds of window 1 to {196, 55, 1398, 811}
        end try
      end tell
    else
      tell application "Google Chrome Canary"
        activate
        try
          set bounds of window 1 to {0, 22, 1440, 899}
        end try
      end tell
    end if
  end if
end tell

tell application "System Events"
  set if_running to (exists process "iTunes")
  if if_running then
    if displaynum is equal to "onedisp" then
      tell application "iTunes"
        activate
        try
          set bounds of window 1 to {90, 103, 1239, 833}
        end try
      end tell
    else
      tell application "iTunes"
        activate
        try
          set bounds of window 1 to {85, 135, 1234, 865}
        end try
      end tell
    end if
  end if
end tell

tell application "System Events"
  set if_running to (exists process "Transmission")
  if if_running then
    if displaynum is equal to "onedisp" then
      tell application "Transmission"
        activate
        try
          set bounds of window 1 to {962, 36, 1424, 404}
        end try
      end tell
    else
      tell application "Transmission"
        activate
        try
          set bounds of window 1 to {2882, -470, 3344, -102}
        end try
      end tell
    end if
  end if
end tell

# tweetie is old and incompatible with the other functions.
tell application "System Events"
  tell process "Tweetie"
    activate
    try
      set size of window 1 to {355, 878}
    end try
    try
      set position of window 1 to {1, 23}
    end try
  end tell
end tell

# set frontmost application back
tell application focus
  activate
end tell

submitted by guest blogger
mark brown , Neitherland Retweet this story

How to Install Android on Your PC

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How to install or Run Live Android on Virtual Box Machine on Windows:

1. You will need to download Virtual Box here. And Download the version of Android you want to test from here. You can download OSX86 version of Android 3.2 HoneyComb andAndroid 4.0 IceCream Sandwich from the provided link. The file will be a .iso disk image ready to burn on CD or you can keep the .iso file to install on Virtual Box.
2. Once you download the Virtual Box, create a Virtual Machine by clicking the New button on the top header area of open Virtual Box App. You can name it as Android and choose the OS type as other and version too as other.
3. Now, you will need to setup different properties of Virtual machine. Set the RAM to atleast 1GB so that you can run games etc on the virtual machine. Create a Virtual disk space at least 2GB. Once created save the virtual machine.
4. Now, right-Click the Virtual machine and click start. This will automatically pop up a First Run Wizard. You can choose the select installation Media and go ahead. Now Browser to the Android ISO file we have downloaded.
5. You can choose to install the Android-X86 on Virtual hard disk. Also, there is a great option to run the Android Live without installing. Choose the best for you and go ahead.
6. Once you finish installing, restart the virtual PC. You’ll get the Android running on your PC.

This makes you ready to use the Android as an operating system. Beside that you can use keyboard, music speakers, and your LAN/Wi-Fi internet connection. You would love using Android on PC, if you like the interface or the usability, you can buy an Android phone. Android is a getting popular and has captured a big chunk of smartphone market(43% according to recent Study). Also, you can install Android 4.0 on a netbook and keep it as a permanent Netbook OS.

submitted by guest blogger
cloe  michelin, France

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How To Install Ubuntu inside Windows using VirtualBox

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The first thing you have to do is obtain VirtualBox. Visit the VirtualBox website's download page.

After you launch VirtualBox from the Windows Start menu, click on New to create a new virtual machine. When the New Virtual Machine Wizard appears, click Next.

You can call the machine whatever you want. If you're installing Ubuntu, it makes sense to call it Ubuntu, I guess. You should also specify that the operating system is Linux.

VirtualBox will try to guess how much of your memory (or RAM) to allocate for the virtual machine. If you have 1 GB or less of RAM, I would advise you stick with the recommendation. If, however, you have over 1 GB, about a quarter your RAM or less should be fine. For example, if you have 2 GB of RAM, 512 MB is fine to allocate. If you have 4 GB of RAM, 1 GB is fine to allocate. If you have no idea what RAM is or how much of it you have, just go with the default.

Click Next.

If this is your first time using VirtualBox (which it probably is if you need a tutorial on how to use it), then you do want to Create new hard disk and then click Next.

Click Next again.

Theoretically, a dynamically expanding virtual hard drive is best, because it'll take up only what you actually use. I have come upon weird situations, though, when installing new software in a virtualized Ubuntu, in which the virtual hard drive just fills up instead of expanding. So I would actually recommend picking a Fixed-size storage.

Ubuntu's default installation is less than 4 GB. If you plan on adding software or downloading large files in your virtualized UBuntu, you should tack on some buffer.

Click Finish and wait for the virtual hard drive to be created. This is actually just a very large file that lives inside of your Windows installation.

Click Finish

The next thing to do to make the (currently blank) virtual hard drive useful is to add the downloaded Ubuntu disk image (the .iso) boot on your virtual machine. Click on Settings and Storage. Then, under CD/DVD Device, next to Empty, you'll see a little folder icon. Click that, and you can select the Ubuntu .iso you downloaded earlier.

Once you've selected it, click OK.

Then double-click your virtual machine to start it up.

Once it's started up, just follow the regular installation procedure as if you were installing Ubuntu on a real hard drive (instead of a virtual one).

Afterwards, in order to use your virtualized installation (instead of continually booting the live CD), you have to change the CD/DVD Device entry to beEmpty again.

submitted by guest blogger
edu rolando, Brazil

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