Kiran Upadhyay

Are you concerned about your privacy online? Many people are and have taken to encrypting their internet traffic with a VPN (Virtual Private Network). For the uninitiated, a VPN allows you to tunnel your Internet traffic through another computer. The computer, acting as an intermediary, ensures that any data you send out cannot be identified to you based upon your IP address. More often than not, VPNs employ encryption; ensuring that nobody on your local network can intercept your traffic. VPN usage has historically been linked with the enterprise, offering companies a way for remote workers to access an internal network without worrying about external threats getting hold of their precious, private data. From this stuffy, corporate heritage, the consumer has found use for the humble VPN, with the proliferation of VPN services reflecting that. Common use cases involve circumventing georestriction on the likes of Hulu and iPlayer; anonymizing BitTorrent traffic and avoid

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

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

Honestly, I prefer this Google Glass design to the original. But there’s the question: is the original Google Glass so flawed that it needs to be redesigned even before it hits the masses? I’m getting sidetracked here because I don’t really care for the Google Glass, but the Nexus TV (concept by Jonas Daehnert) is definitely something I’d love to have in my living room. Make it happen!

When you purchase a computer that comes with Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows 8, that copy of Windows is tied to your computer’s hardware. It’s an OEM copy, which means it can only be used on that computer. Even if you purchase a retail, boxed copy of Windows and install it, that copy of Windows will become tied to your hardware after it activates itself with Microsoft. If you change your hardware later, your copy of Windows may become “non-genuine,” turn your desktop background black, and start pestering you to use a genuine version of Windows. You’re allowed to make certain hardware changes under the Windows license agreement, but even making allowed hardware changes may turn your copy of Windows into a “non-genuine” copy that requires reactivation with Microsoft. Why Windows May Become Non-Genuine Windows becomes non-genuine after some hardware changes to prevent you from taking a copy of Windows tied to one computer’s hardware and move it to a new computer. T

Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of talk about tablets — devices that usually run Android or iOS that look like supersized smartphones. While they’re certainly useful for various different purposes, there was something else called a tablet before the modern tablet became popular — pen tablets. These tablets don’t run an operating system, don’t have a conventional touch screen, and don’t run any apps or other similar functionality. Instead, they provide a pen and a surface that is receptive to the pen’s input. These pen tablets are fantastic for handwritten notes, drawing applications, and plenty more as they receive the pen input and send it to the computer that it’s attached to. While less common, they’re still useful today, and I picked up a  Wacom Bamboo Create Pen and Touch  tablet to see just how useful they are. There is one thing to note — shortly after we ordered the Wacom Bamboo Create Pen and Touch tablet, Wacom seems to have discontinued the line. The way it

Is Windows 8 truly awesome or an utter failure? We have examined Windows 8 from various angles, including what it’s like in daily use, the impression from a Linux user’s perspective, or how to make Windows 8 suck less. The one thing most of us agree on, is that the Modern interface, formerly known as Metro, is pretty cool. I mean, it’s clean and so much better organized than a Windows 7 desktop. That, however, is not quite enough to provide motivation for a full upgrade or PC replacement. So, how do you keep everything you love about Windows 7, while also enjoying the user interface of Windows 8? Windows 8 themes are the obvious answer. The one theme that in my opinion provides the Modern experience better than any other on Windows 7, is the  Windows 8 Transformation Pack . After reading Christian’s mention of the Transformation Pack, I decided to give it a test drive to see if it would be something worth keeping permanently installed. In this overview, I’m going to show you how