The reality of a wire-free world seems to get closer at hand by each passing day. DisplayLink, a company based on providing users with new and powerful ways to connect monitors and computers togather, offers an innovative leap towards a truly wireless VGA connection.

If you are using a desktop, you are aware of that thick cord connecting your monitor to the computer itself. While clunky in nature, these wires are a neccessity when it comes to VGA connection.

DisplayLink claims to have developed two new products which will provide video to USB laptop docks as well as the ability to transfer display data from your PC to your monitor without the use of a DVI/VGA cable. Data can be transferred over a wireless USB or a wired USB 2.0 connection and will display resolutions up to 1280 x 1024 and 1600 x 1200 using the Dl-120 or DL-160 interface respectively.

The company explains that the technology works by using software on the host PC which will act as a Virtual Graphics Card (VGC). The VGC will send data over a wireless USB or USB 2.0 connection to a Hardware Rendering Engine (HRE) on the display, which will rebuild the image onto the monitor.

While performing basic computing will be easy, more complex tasks such as playing video games that require a immense load of image rendering might be harder to perform in my opinion. However, this technology does show promise for the future of wireless.

Wether you are a average pc user or a power user,rememering those long lists of shortcuts built into your windows operating system can be a hassle.However, these shortcuts can be very handy when it comes to saving you some extra time.

I had some time to spare and thought I should help my fellow readers out with some quick shortcuts that you might of forgotten or simply unaware of.Hopefully these shortcuts will come in handy when you upgrade to windows vista.This way you are bound to save alot of time with these shortcuts.

»Windows system key combinations

•	F1: Help
•	CTRL+ESC: Open Start menu
•	ALT+TAB: Switch between open programs
•	ALT+F4: Quit program
•	SHIFT+DELETE: Delete item permanently

»Windows program key combinations

•	CTRL+C: Copy
•	CTRL+X: Cut
•	CTRL+V: Paste
•	CTRL+Z: Undo
•	CTRL+B: Bold
•	CTRL+U: Underline
•	CTRL+I: Italic

»Mouse click/keyboard modifier combinations for shell objects

•	SHIFT+right click: Displays a shortcut menu containing alternative commands
•	SHIFT+double click: Runs the alternate default command (the second item on the menu)
•	ALT+double click: Displays properties
•	SHIFT+DELETE: Deletes an item immediately without placing it in the Recycle Bin

»General keyboard-only commands

•	F1: Starts Windows Help
•	F10: Activates menu bar options
•	SHIFT+F10 Opens a shortcut menu for the selected item (this is the same as right-clicking an object
•	CTRL+ESC: Opens the Start menu (use the ARROW keys to select an item)
•	CTRL+ESC or ESC: Selects the Start button (press TAB to select the taskbar, or press SHIFT+F10 for a context menu)
•	ALT+DOWN ARROW: Opens a drop-down list box
•	ALT+TAB: Switch to another running program (hold down the ALT key and then press the TAB key to view the task-switching window)
•	SHIFT: Press and hold down the SHIFT key while you insert a CD-ROM to bypass the automatic-run feature
•	ALT+SPACE: Displays the main window’s System menu (from the System menu, you can restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the window)
•	ALT+- (ALT+hyphen): Displays the Multiple Document Interface (MDI) child window’s System menu (from the MDI child window’s System menu, you can restore, move, resize, minimize, maximize, or close the child window)
•	CTRL+TAB: Switch to the next child window of a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) program
•	ALT+underlined letter in menu: Opens the menu
•	ALT+F4: Closes the current window
•	CTRL+F4: Closes the current Multiple Document Interface (MDI) window
•	ALT+F6: Switch between multiple windows in the same program (for example, when the Notepad Find dialog box is displayed, ALT+F6 switches between the Find dialog box and the main Notepad window)

Information week has a great article highlighting the return of spam in 2007.For the past two years, spam has been on a decline due to advanced filters and anti-spam services.

This coming year we will see a significant rise in the amount of spam sent to your inboxes.Signs of this development can be seen already according to a email filtering vendor known as Postini.They claim spam volumes have grown 73 percent in the last two months.

You can look forward to Spammers who are now embedding their messages in image files to get past spam filters that search for key words and phrases.Since filters are not yet fully capable of OCR(Optical Character Recognition) technology which to put it simple is a process in which digitised images can be scanned to retrieve text used inside of them.The number of emails with images has grown from nearly zero to almost 25 percent.

Spammers are also experimenting with text used inside of spam messages which can be tweaked easily to bypass conventional spam filters.

More spam is being sent from hijacked home PCs, making it harder for spam filters to block so-called blacklisted senders. Spammers are also getting better at identifying vulnerable PCs they can convert to botnets, the hijkacked PCs that are sending all this new spam.

You can definitely expect to find more spam in your mobile devices in the coming year.Spammers are turning to SMS, or text messages, as a way to target both mobile devices and PCs.There is little in terms of security for most cell phones, making them an easy target for spam and phishing attacks.Also most desktop email spam filters are not designed to handle spam or phishing attacks from SMS servers.

Newsgator brings us another breakthrough in designing websites.TopStyle is a multiple script language editor packed with some serious features that will make your hair stand up.Here we have taken the time to review the latest edition of this software written by the creator of HomeSite.

Are you a web designer who spends hours trying to create websites and make them compatible with multiple browsers using a variety of tools?Well, there is some positive news for those of you spending hours of pains taking work to design sites.Using TopStyle is both fast and easy when you are looking at a large web project at hand.

Newsgator TopStyle is a program capable of handling multiple script languages in only a 3mb download.You can edit CSS,HTML,and xHTML in a single program and can even convert your age old markup to an equivalent style of the new version.Haven’t taken the time learn xHTML?No problem,newsgator can even convert HTML to xHTML.To make it even better, the style checker can validate style sheets in multiple browsers.

Web developers have been wishing for some time to have the ability to preview markup in multiple browsers integrated in to a single program.TopStyle does just that and one better with a feature to actually preview your markup side by side.A built-in color schemer makes the daunting task of finding appropriate color schemes quick and easy.

TopStyle is also Integrated with W3C HTML Validation which means results of the validation are displayed within TopStyle, with hyperlinked line numbers that synchronize with TopStyle’s editor.

Newsgator has priced it at $79.99 which is reasonable for all the added features and the ease of use.This editor is a must have for those planing to design websites or just want to create a suitable layout for their blog.

A group of scientists from U.K and Greece have uncoded a computer said to be much older than the Divinci code.They have named it Antikythera Mechanism,after the greek island where it was found.    

The inscriptions on the Antikythera Mechanism have been deciphered to reveal theories for ancient planetary positions.The mechanism was used to predict and calculate lunar and solar eclipses on the basis of Babylonian arithmetic-progression cycles, according to the team’s report.

The mechanism also calculates lunar positions based on theories by the famous Greek astronomer Hipparchos for deciphering the Moon’s elliptical orbit. The machine’s ability to calculate sophisticated astronomical knowledge of the Moon’s unusual orbit even surprised the scientists.

The Antikythera could be considered the first analog computer.This device is said to be almost 1,000 years ahead of its time.Its remarkable that Greeks were so technologically advanced for their time.

[More info]

Real Media player is not one of the most liked players out there due to their annoying premium accounts and several other problems.Once up on a time real player was considered to be one of the best among it’s competitors.

I am sure many of you out there would love to get rid of it.However,you feel you have no choice in the matter as files associated with real player are still available through out the web.

Real Variable Bitrate(RVMB) is a format created by Real Networks that is still present to this day.These files are much smaller in size compared to MPEG4-part2 formats and so they are usually found in P2P file sharing platforms.

If you are a torrent user, I am sure you have noticed these files before.I was in search for a software that will allow me to play an RVMB file without me having to download the much hated real player.

I came across RealAlternative which does this exact function.It goes a bit farther by actually enabling the user to play RealAudio (.ra .rpm), RealMedia(.rm, .ram, .rmvb, .rpx, .smi, .smil), and even RealText (.rt), ReadPix (.rp) without ever touching another RealNetworks software.They offer both a lite and standard version of the software.

The difference between the lite and the standard version is that lite does not come with Windows media player classic.They include it in with the standard package because RealAlternative alone cannot play streaming content.

Some Advantages of RealAlternative compared to Real Player

» Quick and easy install (only 6.69MB)
» No background processes like realsched.exe from RealMedia
» You can use a player of your own choice including the one I  have mentioned before called VLC media Player
» Low on resources unlike real player
» No advertising, no registration forms, or any annoying attempts to sign you up for real premium membership

[More About RealAlternative] [Download RealAlternative]

   Have you ever painfully waited hours to download a video file,but only to find out you cannot play the file in your media player.Most users would simply delete the file, while others try to find a way to play it.All your hardwork might result in finding something regarding a codec.After finding this information about codecs,new questions arise in your mind about the functionality of the file and such forth.Put to rest this uncertainities and download this free media player known as VLC media player.

VLC media player to put it short is a highly portable multimedia player that can play almost all video and audio formats.Some of the supported formats include MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg and also plays  DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.If you are a power user it can be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network. 

Originally VLC media player was a VideoLAN student project started France.Over the years it has evolved to become a project constisting developers from 20 countries. 

The advantage of using VLC media player is the ability to play media files without the need to download external codecs or even bulky codec packages.VLC supports an enormous amount of formats other than the popular formats I’ve mentioned. It’s also completely compatible with Windows,Mac,linux and even a few others.VLC media player is completely costumizable with tons of free skins available at the site.To make it even more better,did I mention its completely free of charge.

[Download VLC] [Features List] [Check Out Screenshots]