Archive for the ‘Software’ Category

PESHAWAR: Security forces claimed to have arrested 23 suspected militants from the Bara Tehsil on Thursday.

Forces also recovered arms and explosives from their possession.

According to the frontier corps officials, the arrests were made during a search operation in Akakhel area of Bara Tehsil.

Four of the arrested militants were among the most wanted suspects and have been shifted to Peshawar for further investigation, while the others have been shifted to FC camp in Bara Tehsil.

Troops claimed to have killed over 100 local and foreign Taliban fighters and have arrested more than 200.

Meanwhile, forces stated that at least dozens of militant houses and strongholds have also been destroyed during the past forty-two days of Bara Operation.

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Tested spyware free

CNET editors’ review

Reviewed by: Seth Rosenblatt on May 29, 2009

TeamViewer is an excellent screen-sharing and file-transfer app that can be used to facilitate business collaborations as well as helping distraught relatives diagnose and cure computer problems. Along with being free for noncorporate use, it gives users precisely the tools they need to share screens securely, send files with a minimum of hassle, control access rights, and even flip which user has control.

The options available while you’re in control work smoothly. You can maximize the pane that the other computer’s screen is visible in, as well as utilize several smart options from a drop-down toolbar in the center of the window. A big X lets you close the connection, while the Actions button lets you switch whose in control, disable remote input, and reboot remotely. The View menu hides options to adjust the screen resolution, the optimization toward speed or quality, and control multiple-monitor displays.

When you log in, you’re given an access code and a password. Sharing those allows your computer to be controlled by the level you set it to: remote support, presentation, file transfer, or VPN. The TeamViewer servers remember which computers you’ve connected to, so reconnecting to previously shared computers happens faster. TeamViewer also has a Web-based version, for remote connecting to home from public computer. Even the installation process is impressive. Users can toggle admin rights, can opt out of running at startup, and can opt into installing the TeamViewer VPN driver for more secure screensharing. Overall, TeamViewer makes screensharing and file-sharing as fluid and unobtrusive as it should be.

Publisher’s description

From TeamViewer :

TeamViewer is a simple and fast solution for remote control, desktop sharing and file transfer that works behind any firewall and NAT proxy. To connect to another computer just run TeamViewer on both machines without the need of an installation procedure. With the first start automatic partner IDs are generated on both computers. Enter your partner’s ID into TeamViewer and the connection is established immediately. With over 60 million users TeamViewer is a standard tool to give support and assistance to people in remote locations. The software can also be used for presentations, where you can show your own desktop to a partner.

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Tested spyware free

CNET editors’ review

Reviewed by: Seth Rosenblatt on February 12, 2009

From its start as a post-Napster clone to its leading role as the quintessential Gnutella client, LimeWire is the highest-profile P2P application. Version 5 re-envisions LimeWire for a Web 2.0 world, with an emphasis on sharing with friends, square buttons with rounded corners, and overall a cleaner interface.

Two search bars and two sidebars cap off the redesign. The uppermost search bar is the global search that scans what everybody is sharing over the P2P network, while the secondary one on the right searches your library. The sidebars are set up in a similar way. Both are on the left, with the outer one offering three options: your library, the global P2P network, and your friends. Click on My Library and your inner sidebar shows your collection of music, movies, and documents. The P2P Network option shows what you’re uploading and downloading, while the Friends option lets you share your library specifically with your Google/Jabber contacts, which you can import. Search results can be presented in both the new Web 2.0-style that surfaces just the most relevant information, with an Information button to dive deeper or the “classic” spreadsheet view.

The Advanced Tools feature is also new, which lets power users drill down and get highly specific information about who they’re connected to, similar to what’s available from torrent clients. This data includes IP addresses, bandwidth, the program being used and its version. The new features and overall functionality make this by far the most mature version of LimeWire to date. Despite the typical performance flaws found in all file-sharing clients, this latest version continues to offer solid performance and good looks across the board.

Watch the CNET video review of LimeWire:

Publisher’s description

From LimeWire :

LimeWire is a P2P file-sharing application for all types of computer files, including music, video, pictures, games, and text documents. Other features include dynamic querying, file previews during download, advanced techniques for locating rare files, and an easy, clean user interface.

LimeWire’s new spam blocker gets rid of junk results, and automatic updates will keep you sharing faster than ever with the latest version. You can search for Creative Commons and Weedshare licensed files, and publish your own creative works with Creative Commons licensing. LimeWire continues its guarantee of no adware or spyware. Includes built-in bittorent support.

Roman Polanski has spent recent decades living and working in France

Film director Roman Polanski has asked a judge in Los Angeles to sentence him in absentia over the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

Judge Peter Espinoza said he would consider the request at a hearing scheduled for 22 January.

Polanski, 76, is currently under house arrest at his Swiss chalet and is fighting extradition to the US.

Prosecutors said they opposed any effort to sentence Polanski before he appears in court.

Judge Espinoza said he wanted to see legal briefs to explain why sentencing in absentia would be appropriate.

Prosecutor David Walgren said Polanski should not be able to fight the case “from the comfort of his Swiss chalet in the Alps”, and that a fugitive should not “dictate the court’s processes”.

Polanski faces a sentence of two years on a guilty plea, though his lawyers are expected to request he not serve any additional time.

Electronic tag

A California appeals court last month rejected Mr Polanski’s request to have the case dropped on the grounds of judicial misconduct.

But it ruled that the allegations of misconduct were “extremely serious” and should be investigated.

Polanski’s lawyers had alleged that a Los Angeles judge, now deceased, engaged in “backroom manipulations” while handling the case in 1977.

It was the appeals court that suggested Mr Polanski ask to be sentenced in absentia.

Switzerland is expected to decide whether or not to extradite Polanski early this year, though he could appeal.

The film director, who holds both French and Polish citizenship, fled the US in 1978 after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex with an underage girl.

He has been fitted with an electronic bracelet by the Swiss authorities to prevent him absconding.

The Swiss Federal Criminal Court granted the Oscar-winning director $4.5m (£2.7m) bail, pending proceedings for his possible extradition to the US.

The director of films such as Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown and The Pianist was arrested after travelling to Zurich on 26 September to pick up a lifetime achievement award.

Polanski spent most of the last 30 years living and working in France, which has no extradition agreement with the US.

Skype is the next phenomenon from the people who brought you KaZaA. Just like KaZaA, Skype uses P2P (peer-to-peer) technology to connect you to other users – not to share files this time, but to talk and chat with your friends. The technology is extremely advanced – but super simple to use… You’ll be making free phone calls to your friends in no time!
Skype was founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. Skype created a little piece of software that makes communicating with people around the world easy and fun. With Skype you can say hello or share a laugh with anyone, anywhere. And it’s free. Skype is available in 28 languages and is used in almost every country around the world. Skype generates revenue through its premium offerings such as making and receiving calls to and from landline and mobile phones, as well as voicemail and call forwarding. Skype, based in Luxembourg, has relationships with a growing network of hardware and software providers and is an eBay company.

Features:
• Free unlimited worldwide phone calls to anyone else on Skype, anywhere in the world
• Skype video (webcam), see who you are talking to with free video calls
• Chat with up to 100 people in group chats
• Conference call with up to four people for free
• Call ordinary phones with SkypeOut
• Superior sound quality – better than your regular phone
• Your calls are encrypted “end-to-end” for superior privacy
• Friends list shows you when your Skype friends are online and ready to talk or chat
• Works with all firewall, NAT and routers – nothing to configure!
• Super-simple and easy to use
• Based on cutting edge peer-to-peer technology developed by the creators of Kazaa and Joltid In order to use Skype for Windows software, your computer must meet the following minimum system requirements:
• PC running Windows 2000 or XP
• 400 MHz processor
• 128 MB RAM
• 15 MB free disk space on your hard drive
• Sound Card, speakers and microphone
• Internet Connection (either dial-up: minimum 33.6 Kbps modem, or any broadband: cable, DSL, etc.)

Release Notes

Homepage – http://www.skype.com

Size: 21.2 MB

Download Skype 4.2 Beta

Download Skype 4.1.0.179

Download Skype 4.1 Portable

Download Skype 3.8.0.188 Final

ICQ is a program that lets you find your friends and associates online in real time. You can create a Contact List containing only people you want to have there, you can send them messages, chat with them, send files, configure ICQ to work with external applications and more. In addition to familiar features such as chat, SMS messaging, and file-transfer capabilities, the newest version includes ICQ Xtraz, which allow you to send personalized greeting cards, apply custom icons to your buddies, play online games, and customize your shortcuts panel for one-click access to all your favorite features. The ICQ Xtraz platform enables ICQ to present users with a selection of new services as they are created, without the need for you to download a new client. Xtraz also supports the creation of new ICQ features that can be built separately from the core ICQ client and then delivered and automatically updated over time. The new interface also is clean and intuitive, so you can start chatting quickly and easily.

“Free tool to download videos from YouTube and save it to your local computer“
BrothersoftEditor: YouTube Downloader HD is a free Tool to download videos from YouTube and save it to your local computer. The videos can be converted to avi video format or to mp4 (compatible with iPod, iPhone).

The main distinguishing feature of Youtube Downloader HD is that now you can download High Quality videos, High Definition and Full HD videos from YouTube.

What’s new in latest version:

1. Option to download Full HD videos from Youtube
2. Fixed a bug with FileNames
3. Support for big video files
4. Unicode support: Youtube Downloader HD can save movies with Chinese, Japanese, Cyrillic, etc names

Youtube Downloader HD is a completely FREE Software. It contains absolutely NO ADWARE, NO SPYWARE, NO REGISTRATION, NO POPUPS, NO MALWARE or other unwanted software. you can free download Youtube Downloader HD 1.8 now.

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U.S. enlists Yemen president in al-Qaida fight

Embattled leader shows signs his country will cooperate against terror

	A Yemeni man passes framed pictures of President Ali Abdullah Saleh displayed at a shop in the capital, San’a, on Monday. Washington is embracing Saleh in the battle against terrorism, but it may be a risky bet. View related photos
Nasser Nasser / AP

 

Weapons go missing in Yemen Jan. 4: NBC’s Richard Engel reports on security measures inside Yemen after six trucks of weapons go missing, and more on the al-Qaida double agent who killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan.

 

SAN’A, Yemen – Yemeni security forces clashed with al-Qaida fighters Monday, killing two, the latest sign the embattled, longtime president is making good on vows that his country will cooperate with the United States in fighting the terror network.

Washington is embracing Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the battle against al-Qaida’s offshoot here, but it may be making a risky bet. The mercurial Saleh has held onto power for 31 years in this fragmented nation by relying on a system of manipulation — centralizing power within his family while buying off rivals and unruly tribesmen, Yemeni and American observers say.

At times, that has meant forging alliances with Islamic extremists, and Saleh has frustrated U.S. officials in recent years by freeing jailed al-Qaida figures on promises they would not engage in terrorism. Several top militants have since broken those promises.

Observers warn that Saleh’s rule is buckling under the weight of multiple crises, deep poverty and widespread corruption. The government has full control only around the capital, leaving much of the mountainous nation to heavily armed tribes, some of which have given refuge to al-Qaida fighters.

“Saleh is facing the most difficult time of his presidency,” said Ali Seif Hassan, director of a Yemeni organization that mediates government-opposition dialogue.

“Now he faces the decision whether to keep going as he has, all the way to becoming a failed state, or to make the hard choices to avoid that,” he said.

Pushing reform
For the U.S., the situation raises parallels with Iraq and Afghanistan, where Washington has had to go beyond military action to infuse economic help while pushing political reform on sometimes reluctant political leaders in hopes of undermining support for militants.

With an injection of U.S. counterterror aid and help for its security forces, Yemen’s government has vowed in recent weeks to work with the U.S. in stamping out the estimated hundreds of al-Qaida fighters who have built up strongholds in the country’s remote regions. Last month, with U.S. help, it carried out its heaviest strikes in years against al-Qaida hideouts, claiming to have killed 30 militants.

The renewed determination brought praise Monday from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “The United States commends Yemen for the recent actions it has taken to disrupt (al-Qaida) networks and we are reiterating our commitment to assist in those efforts,” she said.

In Monday’s clashes, Yemeni security forces attacked a group of al-Qaida militants moving through the mountainous area of Arhab, northeast of the capital, security officials said.

Among them was Nazeeh al-Hanaq, a senior figure on Yemen’s most wanted list. He escaped, but two fighters with him were killed, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

The battle came as the U.S. and British embassies in San’a were shut down for a second day Monday after threats of an imminent al-Qaida attack. Other Western embassies took similar steps Monday: The French and Czech embassies were closed to the public, while the Spanish and German embassies limited the number of visitors, their governments said.

The fight against the group took on greater urgency after the failed Christmas attempt to bomb an American passenger jet.

Over the weekend, President Barack Obama vowed that his administration has “made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government — training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike al-Qaida terrorists.”

Money talks
The United States hiked its counterterrorism aid to Saleh’s government, from none in 2008 to $67 million last year — an amount Washington says will double in 2010.

But Saleh’s government says the United States and other nations must also provide economic aid to tackle deepening poverty that it says fuels support for al-Qaida among Yemen’s swelling population of 22 million.

“The Yemeni government is capable of confronting acts of rebellion and destruction and solving all the internal problems,” ruling party spokesman Tareq al-Shami said Sunday. But he said the international community must “set a vision for complete economic development to treat the sources of terrorism.”

Video Missing weapons Jan. 4: NBC’s Richard Engel reports on security measures inside Yemen after six trucks of weapons go missing. msnbc tv

Many observers say Saleh’s regime itself must change.

“The mode of rule that Saleh has mastered over 30 years is no longer sustainable. The Yemeni government is running out of money,” Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen expert at Princeton University, told The Associated Press.

Oil revenues — which provide 70 percent of the budget — plummeted last year, to $1.5 billion from January-October 2009 from $4.2 billion over the same period in 2008, according to the latest government figures.

The resource drain could undermine Saleh’s ability to keep both supporters and opponents in line as he aligns closer to the Americans, who are viewed with deep suspicion by many Yemenis, against al-Qaida.

At the same time, the government is waging a costly war with Shiite rebels in the north and fighting separatists in the south.

Johnsen warned “the U.S. is focused entirely on al-Qaida in Yemen,” when it should also be paying attention to the problems Saleh faces and the multiple factions he must balance.

Holding on to power
Saleh, a military officer, rose to power in 1978 after two previous presidents were assassinated, one after only eight months in power. Many expected Saleh would not last long either.

But the 67-year-old leader cemented his hold by planting close relatives — including a son — in top military commands, and he has centralized political and economic power in his family.

He also struck alliances with Islamic extremists, known as Salafis. Many of the Salafis hold a similar fiercely anti-U.S. ideology as al-Qaida — and they have considerable influence in the government, military and economy.

Yemen is also the second most corrupt nation in the Arab world after Iraq, according to a 2009 report by the watchdog group Transparency International. Arms smuggling is rampant, providing weaponry to the country’s tribes, many of which resent the government, saying they are left out of Saleh’s patronage system.

Mohammed Abdul-Malik al-Mutawakkil, a political scientist at San’a University, is skeptical Saleh can change. If he cracks down too hard on al-Qaida, Salafis in the regime “will stand up against him,” and if he moves against corruption it will alienate key supporters who benefit from it, al-Mutawakkil said.

Hassan, however, said American aid could prove a life saver for Saleh.

“It is a turning point for Yemen, and …. there are indications he will turn to the right side,” Hassan said. “He has no other options. He has reached a dead end after all his maneuvering.”

WASHINGTON: The United States and Britain closed their embassies in Yemen on Sunday after receiving information that Al Qaeda is planning attacks at American and British targets in that country.

“We know that they have been targeting our embassy, our embassy personnel,” President Barack Obama’s top counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan told journalists in Washington.

It was not clear when the US or British embassies would reopen.

The US mission in Sanaa was the target of an attack in September 2008, which was blamed on Al Qaeda, and in which 19 people died, including a young American woman.

In Yemen’s capital Sanaa, the US embassy issued a message to American citizens in the country, urging them to remain vigilant.

The embassy said the threats came from an Al Qaeda group linked to the failed Christmas Day aeroplane bombing attempt in the United States.

Mr Brennan, the US Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism, told ABC News in Washington that the group had “several hundred members” in Yemen and was posing an increasing threat there.

“This is something that we’ve known about for a while,” he said. “We’re determined to destroy Al Qaeda, whether it’s in Pakistan, Afghanistan, or in Yemen.”

In London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the BBC: “This is a new type of threat and it is from a new source which is obviously Yemen, but there are many other potential sources Somalia, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

AFP adds: A government official in Sanaa said that Britain closed its embassy in Yemen on Sunday, following a similar move by the United States, because of threats from a local branch of Al Qaeda.

“The embassy is closed today (Sunday) for security reasons, and out of fear of possible Al Qaeda reactions,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

But he stressed there were “no direct Al Qaeda threats” against the mission.