The government has said its departments are free to consider any browser, and should consider open-source software including Firefox.

According to a parliamentary written answer from Cabinet Office minister Angela Smith, there is no rule that says government departments must use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, even though it is the browser most widely used within Whitehall. When asked by Francis Maude MP what the government’s policy on the installation of different web browsers is, Smith said: “Government policy regarding installation and use of web browsers is that all decisions must be in line with value-for-money requirements. “In addition, the open source, open standards, re-use strategy requires departments to consider open-source browsers such as Firefox and Opera on a level basis with proprietary browsers such as Internet Explorer,” she added in a written answer published on 24 February.

The use of Internet Explorer, particularly IE6, by some government departments has caused controversy as the browser is considered to pose security risks. In July 2009, Labour MP Tom Watson told GC News that he was dismayed that some departments still use IE6, adding that civil servants should be given the choice of using Firefox, Chrome or Safari browsers.

Source: ZDNet

Recently, I had the pleasure to check out the “$365k Blog Traffic Formula” ebook.

I will tell you in a second what this is all about, but for now let me share with you what this is not.  This is not one of those ebooks which you can find free on the Warrior Forum or on other affiliate marketing sites.  If you always wondered what the professional bloggers out there do to attract more cash and generate more traffic than you, look no further.  The best part in this 70-page printer-friendly PDF book is the overal content – 7 blogging “wizards” revealing the secret to their Internet success – free traffic strategies and top traffic sources.

So what’s in it for you?  Imagine you could talk to just one of these pro bloggers for a few minutes so that you could learn one or two methods to better moneterise your own blogs by attracting higher quality traffic. You get all this, without having to pay any consulting fees and without having to attend their costly seminars. You can implement these ideas without even leaving the comfort of your own home.

You can actually download this ebook instantly and implement these traffic-getting strategies to your own blogs; that’s almost like stealing as the whole package costs a measly $37, a one-time cost. That’s less than $6 per interview.  I think you will agree that you will never get the chance to talk with a pro blogger for $6, not even if you only had one question to ask!

What I also liked about “$365k Blog Traffic Formula” are the two additional interview stories included as bonus gift. I feel that these interviews alone are worth more than the asking price of the whole package.

It’s in your best interest to grab a copy of the “$365k Blog Traffic Formula” today, especially if you want to learn the best free traffic methods of these 7 pro bloggers: Chris Garrett, Daniel Scocco, Darren Rowse, Jack Humphrey, Jason Katzenback, Matt Garrett and Yaro Starek.

Google released Chrome back in 2008, and although it received a lot of good reviews, it never became widely used… until recently. The update that everybody was hoping for finally happened a couple of weeks ago, with Google announcing Chrome would fully support extensions.
The biggest appeal to Firefox is the extensions – as you are able to completely re-skin, extend and improve. Now that Chrome is copying suit, has it become a genuine contender in the browser market? We believe so, and here’s why.

Google Chrome Advantages over Firefox

Speed – Originally, Firefox was a refreshing change from Internet Explorer and other browsers due to how fast it was. From opening the program to opening web pages, Firefox seemed to have got it right, but now Chrome has taken it a step further. Chrome is the ultimate in fast browsing. With Internet connections getting faster and faster, a browser should be able to keep up with the pace of rendering images and content, which is what Google have managed to do perfectly (as you would expect being such an Internet giant).

Simplicity – Firefox can often seem a bit cluttered due to various buttons, options and information bars. Chrome on the other hand has arranged everything in an organised manner, meaning the focus remains entirely on what it should be – browsing the Internet.

Extensions – The extension support in Chrome has been done fantastically. The ease of installing new plugins means no restart is needed, and the browser speed doesn’t suffer when lots of extensions are installed. The functional support for addons means full support for Grease Monkey scripts too, which is a great added bonus.

Google Chrome Disadvantages

With advantages comes disadvantages – but that isn’t to say there are many. The biggest disadvantage could be simply ‘why switch?’. Chrome is fantastic at what it does, but if you are already using Firefox then there isn’t that much of an incentive to make the jump over to Google’s browser.

To succeed in gaining a higher market share in the browser market, it may be best for Google to target Internet Explorer users as opposed to directly taking a slice out of Firefox usage – and ultimately play the long game. Google have already taken strides to target IE users with the Google frame work that plugs straight in to IE6 – directly transforming it to the Chrome engine for free. They are also working on their own operating system, which will of course be shipped with Chrome as the default browser.

So which browser to use? This guide might be best: Using Firefox? Maybe stick with it for the time being – but don’t rule out Chrome for the future. Using Internet Explorer? Switch to Chrome and don’t look back – it’s the future of web browsing. Using Safari or another browser? As with IE users – it is probably best to make the switch to Chrome.

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The above post is courtesy of Axon-IT – Manchester IT support experts, specialising in outsourced IT for small and large businesses across the UK. If your business needs help making the switch, or could benefit from IT support and consultancy, then visit Axon-IT.com today.

Adobe issued a fix on Tuesday for a critical vulnerability in its Download Manager program that could be used by an attacker to download malware onto a user’s PC.

People who downloaded Adobe Reader for Windows from Adobe’s Reader download site or Flash Player for Windows from Adobe’s Flash Player site prior to the release of the security bulletin on Tuesday are vulnerable, the company said.

The issue is resolved for any new downloads of Reader and Flash Player from those sites. Download Manager is a tool that helps users efficiently download files from web servers. It is used one time per session and is deleted when the computer is restarted. However, Adobe recommends users verify that a potentially vulnerable version of the Adobe Download Manager is no longer installed on their machine,” said the security bulletin.

Check to see if you’ve got a vulnerability by seeing whether the C:\Program Files\NOS\ folder and its contents (NOS files) are present on your computer. If they are, Adobe recommends running the ‘services.msc‘ prompt and making sure that ‘getPlus(R) Helper‘ is not in the list of services. If it is, it should be removed.

Source: ZDNet

Affiliate marketing is obviously not the easiest thing to do because many people seem have a go at it, but soon give up due to the lack of any real success. So what can you do to improve your chances of becoming an affiliate marketing super star?

Here are a few vital tips to point you in the right direction. But bear in mind that it takes dedication and persistence to be successful in affiliate marketing. Your first attempt may even fail! But keep on trying and success will eventually come calling.

Here are the key headings from our latest article on Affiliate Marketing.

• Buy a few good affiliate marketing books
• See top affiliate website’s for even more ideas
• Types of affiliate program
• Initially, choose a topic you know well and love
• There is no best merchant program out there
• Keyword research
• Buy a domain name
• Build your website
• Write compelling website copy
• Choose ads that fit with your website’s purpose
• Be Prepared to Work for Your Affiliates
• Try Different Affiliate Programs
• Advertise using Pay Per Click – Google AdWords
• Banners – are they a good idea to use?
• Article Marketing
• YouTube
• Make good use of Google Analytics
• Work Hard to get the site making money
• Beware – crooks can steel your affiliate commission

To find out what affilliate marketing is all about see our complete article – The Very Best Affiliate Marketing Tips.

Microsoft will finally start offering some European Windows users a choice of web browser this week, the company announced on Friday, as it starts to publically test its legally mandated browser ballot process.

The ballot screen, which follows extensive negotiations between Microsoft and the European Commission, is still being tested internally at the company, but will see its first external testing this week, before a wider European rollout that will start around 1 March.

In the external testing phase, Windows users who have Internet Explorer set as their default browser will be able to voluntarily download the browser ballot through Windows Update. The update, which presents an information screen about browser choice before displaying the ballot screen itself, will be rolled out next week.

Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari are among the browsers to be presented to users. According to the latest statistics from Statcounter, IE currently has a 45.5 percent browser market share in Europe, followed by Firefox with 39.2 percent, Chrome with 6.3 percent, Opera with 4.3 percent and Safari with 3.7 percent.

At QBS PC Help we have a lot of information on PC repairs and this knowledge base keeps on growing and growing. As you can see we already publish a WordPress blog and now intend to distribute a newsletter called ‘Computer Tips Monthly’.

This newsletter will always feature a key PC Tip of the month and have links to the most searched content on our website, blog and database. It will also cover all the major news stories mentioning computers, software, operating systems and mobile phones/pda’s.

Other goodies, such as competitions and polls may be added over time.

To help us to get started why not sign up now for your free Computer Tips Monthly Newsletter.

More than 74,000 PC’s at nearly 2,500 organizations around the globe were compromised over the past year and a half in a botnet infestation designed to steal login credentials to bank sites, social networks, and e-mail systems, a security firm said Wednesday.

The systems were infected with the Zeus Trojan and the botnet was dubbed “Kneber” after a username that linked the infected PC’s on corporate and government systems, according to NetWitness.

NetWitness said it discovered more than 75 gigabytes worth of stolen data during routine analytic tasks as part of an evaluation of a client network on January 26. The cache of stolen data included 68,000 corporate login credentials, access to e-mail systems, online banking sites, Facebook, Yahoo, Hotmail, 2,000 SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate files and data on individuals, NetWitness said in a statement and in a whitepaper available for download from its Web site.

In addition to stealing specific data, Zeus can be used to search for and steal any file on the computer, download and execute programs and allow someone to remotely control the computer.

More than half of the compromised machines were also infected with peer-to-peer bot malware called Waledac, the company said. Nearly 200 countries were affected, with most of the infections found in Egypt, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States.

With these sort of attacks on the rise make sure your PC is secure with a good anit-virus program and a strong firewall (preferabably a hardware firewall rather than a software firewall).

Microsoft has released retail prices for Office 2010 for British buyers, and has introduced a new product key-based version that is cheaper than traditional boxed software.

The prices, announced on Wednesday, cover three of the four retail versions of the suite, which is due for release in June 2010. The three versions are Office Home and Student, Office Home and Business and Office Professional. Microsoft also plans to sell an academic version of Office 2010, but did not say in its announcement how much it will cost.

When customers buy a product-key card, they get a code that will unlock versions preinstalled by manufacturers on new PC’s.

The key card allows installation of the Office suite on one machine only, while the boxed version is licensed for use on two. The exception is Office Home and Student, which is licensed for three.

Office Professional, which has the largest range of updated tools, is priced at £430 for the boxed version and £300 for the product key card alternative. Office Home and Business, which Microsoft recommends for small businesses, will cost approximately £240 in a box and £190 in a product key version. Office Home and Student is £110 and £90 respectively.

Upgrade pricing is being dropped completely for Office 2010, according to Adams. Those who want to move up from Office 2007 must get the boxed version, or buy a new PC with it preinstalled, ready for unlocking with a product key card. However, Adams pointed out that Microsoft’s pricing structure for Office Home and Business means it is cheaper to buy the 2010 version than it was to upgrade to Office 2007. The upgrade to the full version of Office Home and Business 2007 cost £350, whereas the full boxed version of Office 2010 is £240.

Retail prices for Office 2010 in the UK are consistently more expensive than in the US, if the prices are given a currency-exchange calculation. For example, the product key card version of Office Professional in the US is $349 (£223), compared with £300 in the UK.

Adams said Microsoft had received positive feedback to its beta, saying that more then three-quarters found Office 2010 to be improved. According to the latest available figures, the beta has been downloaded two million times, he said.

Source: ZDNet

Far fewer people are finishing IT apprenticeships in the UK than are taking them up, new figures have shown.

The significant gap between the number of people beginning apprenticeships with IT companies in the UK and those completing them was revealed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in a written answer to parliament last week. The BIS figures, announced by business minister Kevin Brennan, show that while 30,700 people started IT apprenticeships between 2005 and 2009, only 16,300 completed them.

The ratio of people completing apprenticeships is comparable to that of other industries over the same period – about the same as retail and commerce apprenticeships where 180,300 people started and 96,500 people finished, but lower than construction and planning apprenticeships where 106,200 started and 72,300 finished.

Source: ZDNet

Microsoft has launched the latest iteration of its mobile phone operating system, called Windows phone 7 series.

The software has a redesigned user interface and incorporates many Microsoft services such as Xbox LIVE games and the Zune music service.

The software was introduced at an event at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

According to research firm Canalys, Microsoft’s software currently has around 9% of the smartphone market. That puts it fourth in the global market behind Symbian, Rim (makers of the Blackberry) and  Apple’s iPhone OS.

The first multi-touch phones to use the operating system will be available before the end of the year.

Source: BBC Tech News

If you are trying to make money by selling ad space and writing paid reviews then you are leaving behind a huge chunk of money on the table.

You can actually earn much more from your blog by promoting multiple affiliate programs.

How Can You Do This?

You can do so by linking specific keywords in your blog posts to your affiliate programs.

Take the following example: If your blog is about Health and Fitness and you’ve talked about “healthy diet”. You can link that very keyword “healthy diet” to an affiliate program. Now your readers can follow that link to buy the related product and you’ll be the one earning commission out of it.

Let’s say you have another post and you have the phrase “aerobic exercise”. You can link this keyword to a good aerobic exercise tutorial video and if your readers buy the video from that very link you’ll be the one getting paid again.

Getting paid commissions out of the keywords that lead to affiliate links is not a small deal. Can you imagine how much impact that will be making to your overall blog income? Having those keywords linked with your affiliate tracking code means that you will be the one to earn commissions even if someone reads that post after say, five months or even a year.

Now, think about all the hundreds of blog posts lying idle on your blog. If you have hundreds of posts its not possible to edit all of them, it will take far to long. The fact is, Ninja Affiliate can do all that work for you. All your blog posts that laid idle and all those keywords that you wanted to link to can be made affiliate links instantly, so you can earn passive ongoing commissions.

What about all those thousands of RSS subscribers you have? I bet that most of your loyal readers read your blog using an RSS feed. That means they see no ads, and they don’t increase any page views. Unfortunately they just don’t do anything to increase your earnings. But linking your keywords to affiliate links will earn you money even from your RSS readers as well. Check out what Ninja Affiliate can do for you: Think of the possibilities and fore-see how far you can go with your blog income.

The choice is yours, whether to stick with a blog that produces a little or no income or to learn an effective way to becomong an affiliate marketing star.

Microsoft said on Thursday that it is planning an update to Windows 7 that will close a number of loopholes that counterfeiters had used to thwart the operating system’s built-in antipiracy measures.

The Windows Activation Technologies Update for Windows 7, which will be released later in February, closes more than 70 “activation hacks”, according to Joe Williams, general manager of Microsoft’s Genuine Windows unit, responsible for anti-counterfeiting measures. The update will also check with a server periodically to see if there are further hacks that need to be addressed, though Williams said no personally identifiable information about the user will be sent to the server.

In an interview, Williams cautioned about the dangers that come with using illegitimate versions of the operating system, citing a German study which looked at several hundred copies of Windows 7 posted online, and found nearly a third had some type of malware.

Source ZDNet

Just days after Microsoft warned Windows 7 users of an impending shutdown of the free release candidate, the company reminded customers running Windows 2000, XP and Vista of approaching support deadlines for those editions.

The closest cutoff is April 13, when Microsoft will drop support for Vista RTM (release to manufacturing), the term used for the build the company launched at retail in January 2007. After that date Microsoft will not provide security updates for Vista RTM, said Jerry Bryant, a senior manager with the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC).

Instead, users should upgrade to Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), or preferably, Vista SP2, Bryant said. Microsoft shipped SP1 and SP2 in March 2008 and May 2009, respectively.

Both Windows 2000 and Windows XP face support deadlines of July 13, 2010, Bryant added in an entry last week to the MSRC blog.

Microsoft will retire Windows 2000 from all support in July, ending all security patches for the operating system that celebrates its 10-year anniversary this month.

Windows XP SP2, the popular 2004 update that beefed up the security of the under-attack OS, will also exit support on July 13. To continue receiving bug patches, users must upgrade to XP SP3, the May 2008 update. Bryant claimed that “many” customers are still using XP SP2, and urged them to upgrade to either SP3 or Windows 7.

According to web metrics company NetApplications.com, Windows XP powered 66% of the machines that were online last month, while Vista ran 17.5% and Windows 2000 just 0.6%.

Last week, Microsoft reminded users of Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) that beginning on February 15, the free preview will warn of a March 1 deadline. On March 1, the operating system will start to shut down automatically every two hours.

Source: PC Advisor

Microsoft has fixed 26 vulnerabilities in 13 security bulletins as part of its Patch Tuesday, including critical ones for Windows that could be exploited to take control of a computer and one that has resided in the 32-bit Windows kernel since its release 17 years ago.

The top priorities for deployment are bulletins plugging holes in the SMB (Server Message Block) Protocol, Windows Shell Handler, ActiveX via Internet Explorer, DirectShow and the 32-bit version of Windows, Jerry Bryant, a lead senior security communications manager at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post.

The DirectShow bulletin should be at the top of the list, according to Bryant. It is critical for all supported versions of Windows except Itanium-based server products. To exploit the hole, an attacker could host a malicious AVI (Audio Video Interleave) file on a website, and lure a user to visit the site or send the file via email so the user could open it.

Source: ZDNet

You may already know that promoting affiliate programs in your blog is one of the best ways to earn some money from your all your blog posts.

The problem is that you can’t think of recommending or linking the right affiliate program while you are trying to concentrate on writing a blog post. Even when you figure out what to promote, you first have to find the affiliate link, then link it to the right keyword in your blog post. You can usually do this for a new post that you are in the process of writing. But what if you discovered a new affiliate program and you want to promote it in your old posts? You’ll will obviously have to edit and save them all again.

Now, think about this – what will you do if you want to change hundreds of posts you have already written to include that affiliate link? It could take forever to do such a thing? But by using MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate, you can easily do that in mere seconds. You’ll just have to tell Ninja Affiliate what your affilite link is and what keywords you want it to link to. Then it will automatically replace all the keywords in your wordpress blog with the affiliate link of your choice.

The hundreds of old posts sitting there in your blog doing nothing will now instantly promote various affiliate programs which will keep on earning affiliate commissions on autopilot for you.

Not only that, MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate is a complete link management solution as well. You can also manage, track, cloak and shorten any number of links by using the Ninja Affiliate plugin.

Try this superior WordPress plugin for yourself. You won’t be sorry you did!

Ericsson plans to demonstrate an HSPA+ network with a peak theoretical download rate of 84Mbps at next week’s Mobile World Congress, aiming for the fastest peak rate yet for an HSPA+ network.

The demonstration in Barcelona will be the first public showing of an 84Mbps HSPA+ network, Ericsson said in its announcement last Friday. The company demonstrated the first 56Mbps HSPA technology at 2009′s CTIA conference in Las Vegas.

HSPA+, also known as Evolved High-Speed Packet Access, is an advanced version of HSPA, which improves the performance of existing 3G WCDMA protocols. The downlink protocol for HSPA is called high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), while the upload protocol is known as high-speed uplink packet access (HSUPA).

Ericsson said this technology is aimed at allowing users to access applications such as social networking, online gaming and video conferencing on the move.

Source: ZDNet

Sci-fi shooter Mass Effect 2 has topped the UK all-format games chart for the second week running.

The highly-acclaimed EA Games title has once again kept Just Dance for the Nintendo Wii off the top spot.

The epic Mass Effect 2 merges the character-driven plotlines of an RPG with the action and intensity of a first-person-shooter and is available on Xbox 360 and PC.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 retains the number three position in its thirteenth week in the charts.

This week’s highest new-entry was Dante’s Inferno for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, an action-adventure loosely based around Dante Alighieri’s epic poem, The Divine Comedy.

The best-selling PC-only game was Star Trek Online, a new-entry from Atari in at number 11.

Microsoft and Facebook have revised their search pact into a global deal where the social-networking giant will sell its own ads and get more of Bing’s features on its web results.

Microsoft outlined the changes in a blog post.

• Facebook users will get the full-featured version of Bing beyond links for the site’s Web search.
• The deal becomes a global pact that will bring Bing to Facebook users abroad.
• And Facebook will sell its own display ads.

The revised deal makes a lot of sense on many fronts. First, Facebook should be selling its own display ads so it can work on better targeting and control its revenue stream.

Jon Tinter, general manager of Bing, said: “Given the kinds of advertisements that make sense within a product as unique as Facebook, it just made more sense for them to take the lead on this part of their advertising strategy”.

This international partnership could be a big win for Microsoft as it seeks greater market share for Bing.

Source: ZDNet

There are only two type of affiliate marketers – the Ninja Affiliates, and everyone else.

It’s no secret that 95% of all bloggers out there make pennies from affiliate marketing, while a select few who are privileged enough to be in the “inner circle” make thousands of pounds effortlessly.

A lot of secrets are highly guarded in the blogging “inner circle” – and Ninja Affiliate is at the top of that list! MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate is WordPress plugin developed to imbue lethal marketing powers into your WordPress blog and instantly double or triple your affiliate marketing commissions with almost no effort on your part.

There’s $30 OFF on Ninja Affiliate before midnight of 5th February.

By the time you read this post, the offer might have already gone. Check this link to see if the offer is still available.

Caution: This OFFER expires in less than 12 hours.

Using Ninja Affiliate, you can automatically convert any keyword in your blog to an affiliate link instantly. You can also cloak your affiliate links, track them and manage them right from your WordPress text editor.

The price will go back to $97 if you don’t buy it before midnight today.