Kiran Upadhyay

Keep blogging simple. Ghost is a new blogging platform built upon Node.js. Unlike WordPress, which has become a real behemoth of a CMS over the years and runs on outdated PHP/MySQL technology, Ghost promises to simplify things right back to where they began: pure, unadulterated  blogging . Main Features Ghost began as a Kickstarter last year – “it’s just a blogging platform”, they pitched. When £200,000 ($320,000) was raised for the open source project, they knew they were onto something. Ghost is about simplicity. It’s not a full-fledged CMS: it doesn’t even include comment functionality. It won’t transform your site into a jobs board or eCommerce shop – it’s literally just a blogging platform. It’s a beautiful blogging platform,  but that’s all it is . If you want something that can be mutated into any your heart can dream of, look elsewhere. So what makes Ghost different? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RkcPDHp6lo Preview pane and markdown editor.  One of the most stri

In a move to protect freedom of expression on the internet, Google is launching a new tool to help websites protect themselves from attacks by hacker groups and other elements. Project Shield leverages Google’s infrastructure to ward off DDoS attacks. A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is one of the favoured tools of hacker and activist groups. What’s a DDoS attack? Basically, several computers across the world start pinging one website incessantly, until its servers can no longer handle the load and the site crashes or is unavailable for viewing. It’s a crude attack, but effective and used often because it is cheap to execute. In fact, if done right, it can even make huge websites like Twitter go offline. “For small, independent media or human rights organizations, a website might be the only voice they have. These types of websites have increasingly become the target for DDoS attacks, preventing access to important information,” Google says. Project Sh

Click….wait. Click….wait. Click….ARG! Sound familiar? That’s the sound of someone running out of Internet bandwidth. A lot of things can drain away the capacity of that pipe that connects your computer to the Internet. It could be other people or devices on your network, or it could even be malicious applications or services running on the PC itself. The problem can get so bad that some people will toss out their computer and buy a new one. It doesn’t have to be that way. While the problem could be coming from anywhere, it isn’t impossible to troubleshoot if you know where to look, what tools to use, and what to do when you find the culprit. In this article, I’m going to give you a hand and walk you through the process of tracking down that bandwidth hog and shutting him down. Track Down The Bandwidth Bandit Via Your Router You could start just about anywhere when it comes to isolating the bandwidth hog on your network or inside your computer, but in order to grab at

What’s working smart? Well, it’s constantly looking for ways to streamline and automate just about every single “process” in your life – from making coffee and tying your shoes, to creating slideshow presentations and studying for a final exam. One very time-consuming task is analyzing information about your website in Google Analytics , and then somehow presenting that data in a way that makes sense to people who don’t pour through Google Analytics data and statistics all day. Creating Analytics reports can be time-consuming and at times extremely difficult, but by using some of the automation tricks I’m going to show you in this article, you can transform a laborious project with a couple of clicks. This automation utilizes Google Analytics, IFTTT, Dropbox, and Gmail, and in the end results in a high-quality report that you don’t have to put together yourself every month – it’ll virtually create itself! Setting up Google Analytics The starting point of the process is

Did you know that Amazon’s developers have made it their goal such that any customer can visit the site and purchase an item within 30 seconds? Take a moment and really let that sink in. Never before has it been possible to go from “I want X” to “I bought X” in such a short time, especially from the comfort of your own home. This, of course, amplifies the problem of impulsive shopping. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being an impulsive shopper. If you can afford it, then by all means go for it, but when impulsive shopping starts to take a toll on your finances, you may want to nip it in the bud before it rolls out of control. The other issue with impulsive buying, particularly online, is that you miss out on product research, which could result in not getting the item you thought you’d get. Think you have a problem with impulsive online shopping? Here are some tips and tricks to help you regain control. Don’t Save Credit Card Information Several years ago, before onli

Windows 8 was an ambitious operating system. Microsoft's goal was, and still is, to have a single operating system that can span the traditional PC, the tablet, and everything in between. To do this, the company introduced a new kind of application—the "Modern" or "Metro" style application. It created a new style of interaction—an edge-based UI for touch users, a hot-corner based one for mouse users. And it developed a new application launcher—the Start screen. Microsoft retained the familiar Windows desktop for running traditional mouse and keyboard driven Windows software. Windows 8 worked. It was a viable operating system, and in broad strokes, it fulfilled Microsoft's dream of one operating system for tablets and PCs. But Windows 8 was far from perfect. Its problems were in three main areas. First, the touch interface was in many ways incomplete. There was a nice touch-friendly settings app, for example, but it couldn't be used to configure m

Malware that takes computers hostage until users pay a ransom is getting meaner, and thanks to the growing prevalence of Bitcoin and other digital payment systems, it's easier than ever for online crooks to capitalize on these "ransomware" schemes. If this wasn't already abundantly clear, consider the experience of Nic, an Ars reader who fixes PCs for a living and recently helped a client repair the damage inflicted by a particularly nasty title known as CryptoLocker. It started when an end user in the client's accounting department received an e-mail purporting to come from Intuit. Yes, the attached archived zip file with an executable inside should have been a dead giveaway that this message was malicious and was in no way affiliated with Intuit. But accounting employees are used to receiving e-mails from financial companies. When the receiver clicked on it, he saw a white box flash briefly on his screen but didn't notice anything else out of the ordina

  When the USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) puts to sea later this year, it will be different from any other ship in the Navy's fleet in many ways. The $3.5 billon ship is designed for stealth, survivability, and firepower, and it's packed with advanced technology. And at the heart of its operations is a virtual data center powered by off-the-shelf server hardware, various flavors of Linux, and over 6 million lines of software code. On October 10, I flew up to Rhode Island to visit Raytheon's Seapower Capability Center in Portsmouth, where engineers assembled and pre-tested the systems at the heart of the Zumwalt and are preparing to do the same for the next ship in line, the USS Michael Monsoor—already well into construction. There, Raytheon's DDG-1000 team gave me a tour of the centerpiece of the ship's systems—a mockup of the Zumwalt's operations center, where the ship's commanding officer and crew will control the ship's sensors, missile laun

Starting on December 1st, Universities that license Office Education for their faculty and staff can offer students Office 365 ProPlus for free thanks to a new program called Student Advantage . For students at these institutions, that means free access to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, Access, Publisher, and Lync. While many cheaper alternatives to Office have sprung up, many students still rely on Redmond’s good ol’ productivity tools. Office 365 University  typically costs $80 for a 4-year subscription for students, which is already a heavy discount over the usual $99 per year subscription to Office 365 Home Premium . Microsoft has been moving from selling Office as a one-time deal to a subscription service through Office 365. Microsoft’s stated goal is to better prepare students for a workforce in which Office plays a very central role. In a study by Microsoft and the IDC, they found that proficiency in Microsoft Office was the third most sought after sk

For those of you who want to have absolute privacy and no geo-restrictions while browsing the Internet, a Virtual Private Network is the way to go. However, by virtue of the name itself, a VPN may sound very daunting to a lot of people, and so it is probably dismissed as something which can’t be done by someone with no tech knowledge. I am happy to tell you that it is  extremely  easy to set it up. In fact you can have it up and running in minutes, and I am going to show you how. The VPN that I am going to use today is  Tunnelbear .  This is without a doubt my favourite VPN and I  haven’t hesitated to say so in the past , and  neither has Erez . It’s reliable, fast, available for mobile and tablet devices, offers a minimum of AES 128-bit encryption, and if you are willing to pay a nominal $5 a month, you can have unlimited service (free users only get an initial 500MB a month, then an extra 1GB a month – and that’s only after they tweet on Twitter about the service). Today’s ar