Customers of Orange and T-Mobile will soon be able to hop between the two mobile networks.

The deal is one of the first practical benefits from the recent merger of the two firms, which have 30 million customers combined.

The network sharing deal is limited to 2G signals, so customers will see little benefit when using the mobile web.

Analysts said that T-Mobile had the most to gain from the merger.

“Outside of the South-East of England there has been a constant perception that T-Mobile is an underperforming network,” said Shaun Collins of research firm CCS Insight. “This deal literally takes it away overnight.”

He said that network coverage was becoming a “key battleground” between the major UK networks.

“The network coverage advantages of the merger [between Orange and T-Mobile] were always the most important part of it,” he said.

Customers of the two firms will have to sign up for the free “roaming” service, which goes live on 5 October. Once registered, their phone will automatically hop between the networks when it loses signal. The underlying system is similar to that used when a phone “roams” on a different network abroad.

Next year Everything Everywhere – the company that runs Orange and T-Mobile in the UK – said that phones would automatically switch to whichever of the two networks has the strongest signal mid-call.

It said it also plans to roll it out to 3G services.

Source: BBC Tech News

A new and improved version of the BBC’s catch-up television service, iPlayer, will go live later today (6th September).

The revamped iPlayer features a new design that makes it easier to find television programmes, personalisation tools, so that users can tailor-make their viewing experience, and social networking integration, to enable people to share their favourite shows on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The new-look iPlayer is the first major upgrade to the catch-up TV service since it launched in December 2007.

More than 1.1 billion minutes of video are watched on iPlayer every month.

iPlayer is available on a variety of platforms, including through television sets, on-demand TV services, online, through games consoles and on mobile devices.

Source: Telegraph Tech News

Microsoft has declared Windows Phone 7 “ready”, and started to ship the software to handset makers and networks.

This process, known as release to manufacturing (RTM), means that Microsoft’s partners will be able to apply their own tweaks and settings to the Windows Phone 7 operating system in preparation for its launch later this year.

Terry Myerson, corporate vice president of Windows Phone engineering at Microsoft, published a post on the Windows Phone blog yesterday (2/09/2010) announcing that the work of the internal engineering team was “largely complete”.

Windows Phone 7 had up until now existed in ‘technical preview’ form and remained in testing for an extensive period of time. According to Myerson’s post, the operating system has undergone the most complex testing the company has ever carried out, with nearly 10,000 devices running automated tests every day.

The new mobile OS represents a significant change for Microsoft, as the company seeks to move away from the slow, clunky and much-criticised interface and user experience that has been the hallmark of previous Windows Mobile devices.

Windows Phone 7 features much of the social networking integration and connectivity seen in both Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s IOS platform. Microsoft’s popular Xbox Live service will also be built in to Windows Phone 7, enabling gamers to integrate their online gaming portals with their mobile device.

Multiple Windows Phone 7 devices are rumoured to be in production from various manufacturers including HTC.

Source: Telegraph Tech News

A lot of people add to the functionality of their Internet browsers by installing various add-on toolbars. These toolbars are normally designed to improve your browsing experience.

The toolbars provided by Google, Yahoo and Windows Live are some of the most useful toolbars you can use as they can offer you many useful features. For example, with the use of these browser toolbars, you can perform single-click access to specific pages on the Web as well as bookmark some others. In addition, you can block pop-ups and create shortcuts to some of the most common tools that you use.

Sometimes, you may install an add-on toolbar without even knowing about it. Many legitimate downloads often arrive with a toolbar that is part of the download process. This is generally installed by default unless you clear the tick in the checkbox to stop the browser toolbar from being downloaded. Over time, you may end up with multiple toolbars on your Internet browser. This situation is likely to muddle the browser window and can sometimes even reduce your Internet browsing speed.

To reduce the clutter you will have to remove one or more of your browser toolbars, so how do you go about doing this if you use either Internet Explorer or Firefox as your primary browser?

Uninstall Toolbars from Internet Explorer

If you want to uninstall add-on toolbars from Internet Explorer, you need to first close all Internet Explorer windows.

The steps to uninstall add-on toolbars are listed as below:

1. Select the Control Panel command from the Start menu to display the Control Panel window.

2. In the Control Panel window, select the Add or Remove Programs link in Windows XP, or the Programs and Features link in Windows Vista.

3. Then browse through the currently installed programs list and select the toolbar that you want to uninstall.

4. Next, select the Change/Remove (XP) or Uninstall (Vista) button, whichever applicable.

Once the uninstall process is complete, restart Internet Explorer and verify that the toolbar has been removed.

Uninstall Toolbars from Firefox

You need to use the available options in the Web-browser if you want to uninstall toolbars from Firefox. Here are the steps you need to take:

1. Click on the Tools menu in the Firefox window and select Add Ons, then the Extensions tab to display all your Firefox Extensions.

2. In the Firefox Extensions window, scroll down the list and select the toolbar you want to uninstall.

3. Next, depending on your preference, select either Disable or Uninstall. This will remove the selected toolbar from view or completely remove it.

Now exit the Firefox Extension window and restart the Web-browser to complete the uninstall process.

When a toolbar is uninstalled you should perform a full system and registry scan using a good anti spyware/anti virus program to completely remove any rogue toolbar elements. This will ensure that any malicious files and registry entries are completely removed from your PC.

Tip: remember, unnecessary programs clutter your hard disk and add useless entries in your registry, which can slow down the processing speed of your computer. To find a good removal tool see our software reviews page for both paid and free software solutions.

To find out what Google thinks about your website, perform a “similar” search for your websites domain name.

Enter the following in Google’s search box:

related:www.yourdomain.co.uk/ ~yourdomain.co.uk

For example if I was to check my website I would type the following into the Google search box:

related:www.qbs-pchelp.co.uk/ ~qbs-pchelp.co.uk

If the resulting websites on the search result page are directly related to your website’s content then everything is okay.

However, if the websites are about totally different topics, then you have a problem and Google probably won’t display your website in the search results for the right keywords. If this is the case, you should start optimising your website for the right keywords as soon as possible. I use the Free version of Web CEO to optimise the QBS PC Help website as it helps me choose the right keywords for this site.

Web CEO is free, so there’s no reason not to Download the free edition of Web CEO and give it a try. Of course, there are a few restrictions in the free version but it’s not time-limited and even the free version of Web CEO is much better than most commercial tools you can buy.

True Time Tracker 1.51 is an automatic time and project tracker and is Free! With True Time Tracker you can learn how you spend your personal or working time.

The program starts with Windows and gathers information on applications started, websites visited and various activities over time and consumed traffic. Based on this data it creates detailed reports.

By looking at these reports you can see information about all your daily activities and the effectiveness of your work. You can learn how many times you interrupted your work and how much time each particular task took.

The built-in project manager allows you to review an overall development cost at a glance. A generated report or an invoice can be printed, saved or exported to PDF with a single click.

The program features an easy to use and intuitive interface. You can even block access to True Time Tracker with a password.

True Time Tracker features

• Automatic data collection of your computer usage. It shows you how much time you spend on individual tasks, applications and at websites.
• Data is stored locally, so no privacy issues should occur.
• Automatic invoice creation.
• Graphic displays of all your daily activities.

Read more about True Time Tracker at http://www.truetimetracker.com

Download link: http://www.truetimetracker.com/TimeTracker.exe

Adobe has fixed some critical flaws in its Reader and Acrobat products, as promised earlier in the month.

The zero-day vulnerability affecting the software could have beeen exploited if maliciously-designed TrueType font(s) were embedded into a PDF, allowing memory to be corrupted, according to security advisory provider Secunia.

“These vulnerabilities could cause the application to crash and could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system,” Adobe posted in its security advisory.

An update for Adobe Flash Player has also been issued for vulnerabilities identified in version 10.1.53.64 and earlier.

“Adobe recommends all users of Adobe Flash Player 10.1.53.64 and earlier versions upgrade to the newest version 10.1.82.76 by downloading it from the Adobe Flash Player Download Center or by installing it via the auto-update mechanism within the product when prompted,” Adobe said.

“For users who cannot update to Flash Player 10.1.82.76, Adobe has developed a patched version of Flash Player 9, Flash Player 9.0.280.”

Source: IT Pro

Mozilla hopes to release its fourth beta of Firefox 4 on Monday, adding hardware-accelerated graphics for some Windows users but leaving it turned off by default.

Also coming is a major user interface change called tab sets, formerly known as tab candy.

Hardware acceleration, coming to all the major browsers in various forms, is designed to shift some tasks from a computer’s main processor to its graphics processor. One way Firefox is tackling the technology is by using Windows’ Direct2D (D2D) interface, which can speed up the display of text and graphics on newer versions of Windows.

Mozilla planners had hoped to enable Direct2D in the fourth beta, but decided caution was appropriate. “B4 won’t have D2D on by default after all; just not quite ready to send it to that many users. Soon!” said Mike Shaver, Mozilla’s vice president of engineering, in a Twitter post.

Even though Direct2D rendering won’t be activated by default, Mozilla hopes people will test it.

Here are Mozilla’s instructions for enabling Direct2D in Firefox by changing settings accessed by typing “about:config” into the address bar:

• To turn on Direct2D: Go in to about:config and set mozilla.widget.render-mode to 6, andgfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled to true.
• To turn off Direct2D, once it is on by default, set mozilla.widget.render-mode to 0.
• To check whether you are running with Direct2D, go to about:support [in the address bar] and look at the bottom.

Firefox 4 is designed to be faster and better so Mozilla’s browser can compete better as Google Chrome matures and as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer reverses its usage-share slide and gets a major overhaul. Faster display is crucial in the performance race.

Speed isn’t the only factor, of course. As people spend more time in browsers, though, it gets harder to manage all the different tasks running simultaneously. For this reason Mozilla developed tab candy. It will appear in Firefox 4 beta 4 with the less tasty but more descriptive “tab sets” name.

The Firefox 4 beta 4 code is frozen for finalization, putting the “release target as next Monday, Aug. 23,” according to Mozilla’s meeting notes.

Source: ZDNet UK

If you are a good writer and can supply a post that relates to this blogs content – see the list of topics in this blogs sidebar – you can get Free advertising pointing back to your own blog or website.

I welcome guest blog posts, and will promote these heavily so that you can benefit from this two-way arrangement.

To see one the existing guest posts on this blog check out – http://www.qbs-pchelp.co.uk/blog/2010/02/24/mozilla-firefox-vs-google-chrome-advantages-and-disadvantages/

You can see that no links are allowed in the body of the post but a bio, containing your link, can be added at the foot of the guest post.

So if you want to spread the good news about your online business, submit your article right away. As long as it is suitable, it will be quickly published. It can then start to drive a ton of free traffic to your website or blog!

Microsoft plans to launch the beta of the Internet Explorer 9 browser on 15 September, according to a blog post on Thursday.

The software maker has scheduled an event in San Francisco to mark the arrival of the beta, billing the event and the browser as highlighting “the beauty of the web”, according to the post on the Internet Explorer (IE) blog.

Microsoft also sent packages to reporters containing a variety of art supplies, such as crayons and finger paints, inside a box with an IE logo.

That Microsoft is holding a launch event reflects the resurgent importance of the browser and the degree to which the company is counting on IE9 to get it back in to serious technical competition with Chrome, FireFox, and Safari. The beta needs either Windows Vista or Windows 7 — and will not run on XP — and will also require users to swap out their current installation of Internet Explorer.

Among the key features of IE9 is its support for HTML 5, an improved JavaScript engine and the ability to tap a computer’s graphics chip to accelerate text and image rendering.

This month’s package includes eight ‘Critical’ and six ‘Important’ updates to address 34 vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft XML Core Services and Server Message Block.”

Already this year Microsoft has fixed bugs in media applications or media file formats in February, March, April and June, so this month continues an obvious and growing trend. So much of what people do on the Internet these days includes videos or music and malware writers continue to take advantage of the fact that people are less aware of malware that could be embedded in these files.

The Patch Tuesday security bulletins are above and beyond the out-of-band patch released last week for the Windows shortcut flaw. Microsoft was compelled to rush that fix out due to a rise in attacks exploiting the vulnerability.

“Today’s Microsoft patches again underline the risk of using the internet unprotected,” said Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications at McAfee Labs. “These vulnerabilities could be exploited to booby trap websites, Office and media files to gain control over vulnerable computers simply by tricking victims into opening a malicious file or clicking a malicious link.”

Source: PC Advisor

Amazon wants to convince the world that dedicated e-readers are the way forward for ebooks and its new and improved Kindle shows that they could well be right. Add to this that they are finally launching a UK version of their ebook store, and everything seems to be ready for the UK Kindle launch.

Customers will be able to choose from over 400,000 books, including New Releases and 87 of the top 100 Nielsen UK Bestsellers. Over 1 million free books are also available to read on your Kindle device. Thankfully, Kindle’s Memory size has greatly increased so you can now store up to 3,500 books ready to read and enjoy.

The new Kindle comes in two flavours: 3G and Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi only. There’s a £40 difference in the two Kindles, but the choice really comes down to how you want to consume your ebook content. If you are going to be buying books on the go, then the 3G version is for you. If you are going to restrict your book buying to your Wi-Fi enabled home, or whenever you hit a Wi-Fi hot-spot, then the Wi-Fi only version is the one you want.

Weight-wise, this new version of the Kindle is a full 15 per cent lighter, making it one of the most comfortable ebook readers you can hold. And at only 247g, there is absolutely no strain on your arm – it’s even lighter than most paperbacks. And if you choose Wi-Fi only, then the weight is cut to a really lean 241g.

This new slim look definitely suits the Kindle. It now feels like more like a paperback version, rather than a bulky hardback!

The UK version of the Kindle has a higher screen contrast so even under the brightest sunlight, it looks brilliantly clear. The fonts have also been tweaked to make it easier on the eye and its 20% faster at turning pages.

The battery life has been extended so that you can now go a month without charging the Kindle. If you are heavy Wi-Fi user, though, a recharge will be needed after only 10 days or so.

In relation to other devices on the market, Amazon’s Kindle is cheap. When it comes to font clarity, nothing else competes and direct access to the Kindle store from the device means you aren’t tied to a computer when using it.

The new Amazon Kindle UK release date is 27th August. It will cost £149 with free 3G (supplied by Vodafone) or £109 for the Wi-Fi only version.

The all-new Kindle and Kindle Wi-Fi can also be pre-ordered at www.amazon.co.uk/kindle3G and www.amazon.co.uk/kindleWi-Fi, and will be dispatched from the 27th August.

Windows phone 7 could signal a return to form for Microsoft who for years have struggled with the unpopular and unwieldy Windows Mobile.

From the outset the OS appears extremely slick, smooth and attractive. Windows Phone 7 also seems to have taken heed of its rivals and incorporated a lot of what is best on both Android and iOS. The social networking capabilities of Android are present and so is the simplicity and ease of use of the iPhone.

Rather than sticking strictly to the box-based application and icon system we now see on the majority of other mobile OS’s, Microsoft has created a 3D-like effect for Windows Phone 7. Large text floats in the background which points to your position in the phone’s menu system and sub sections are selected by scrolling left and right.

HTC have produced some great social networking and cloud integration for Android with their Sense UI. But getting the most out of Sense still drains battery and demands heavy data use. Microsoft say they have spent a long time making sure that Windows Phone 7 will go easy on the battery but this remains to be seen when it is finally available for purchase.

Nearly all the applications and software on Windows Phone 7 are cloud-connected with contacts, photos and home screens constantly updating. Initially this is a bit overwhelming as the phone book would appear unfamiliar as each contact’s picture or status changes. However, once you realise how deep the social networking capabilities of the OS run, its potential becomes clear. Rather than feeling confusing the phone seems to develop a life of its own, as your contacts change so do the various applications and the home screen. This means each time you look at the phone it is never quite the same. This is a big risk for Microsoft: many people may enjoy the personalisation and life the OS provides but others may find it overly confusing and simply too social network heavy.

Source: Daily Telegraph

The defragmenter in Windows XP rearranges all of the files on your hard drive, so that programs and files are all stored in one large section of your hard drive instead of being spread out all over the drives surface. It takes the most commonly used files and moves them towards the inner most part of your hard disk, which in turn will make the access time to that data faster.

If your drive is relatively full, it is good practice to run Disk Cleanup before you begin to defragment it.

Before you run the defragmenter turn off your screen saver. This step is very important and necessary because on some machines if the defragmentation process is interrupted, it can cause problems. Also close any other programs that might be running. This includes the programs that run in the background such as your antivirus software, software firewall and any search tools.

It is also very important not to use your computer while the defragmenter is running. This can interrupt the process.

To get started open the Defrag utility. The defrag utility is located in your start menu. To access it click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter.

Click the ‘Analyze’ button which is located in the bottom left corner of the window. Then once the analysis is fully completed it will give you an option of whether you want to view a report or if you would like to defrag. If the report suggests your PC should be fragmented click the Defragmenter button. This will start the defragmentation process. This process will take anywhere from thirty minutes to several hours. A lot of people defragment their drive overnight while they are sleeping.

Once you receive the “Defragmentation is complete for (drive)” you are finished with the defragmentation process. But, look at the disk usage image after the process. If you see 25 or more different sections of blue, separated by white sections, then it would be a good idea to run the defragmenter again. Remember that you must close all programs and don’t use your computer during the process. If you want to do an even better job, try running the defragmenter in safe mode.

Running Defrag in Windows Safe Mode

To run the defragmenter in safe mode you must first restart your computer and press F8 at the appropriate time, tapping F8 will work too. Once logged back into windows, this time in safe mode you should notice that it says ’safe mode’ in all the four corner of your screen. Now that you are logged back into windows, start the defragmenter.

You will notice that this time the amount of unmovable files is smaller than before, this is because there are barely any processes running in safe mode.

Tip: Each time you run the disk defragmenter it does a better a job.

The defragmenting utility is a very useful program that should be used regularly to keep your system running smoothly and you should notice a little performance boost as well after the process is complete.

Using this tool once or twice a month is ideal for anyone who likes to keep their computer running smoothly.

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