Nokia has released a product advisory bulletin regarding an identified affected case of battery overheating that is initiated during charging, causing the battery to dislodge.

So Nokia along with Matsushita came forward to replace all the batteries that have been manufactured between December 2005 and November 2006. This replacement is only available for Nokia branded batteries codenamed BL-5c.

To check if your battery is of BL-5c branded please open up your battery and check for “Nokia” and “BL-5C” which are printed on the front of the battery.

Once it’s confirmed go to this page and follow the step by step instruction to check if your battery is manufactured between the specified dates and comes under replacement.

I recently bought a nokia 6680 (gray market) and checked if my battery comes under replacement policy or not since i don’t have bill or warranty. I proceeded by entering the identification number and the nokia showed up the following message.

Your battery is not among those manufactured by Matsushita between December 2005 and November 2006 and your battery will not be replaced.

Thank god for saving my time to replace my battery and staying phoneless. Make sure to check if your battery comes under their replacement period.

Have you ever wondered creating your own facial password like the matrix film or the Lenovo Advertisement? Well it’s time to make your own security system with Banana Security.  Facial recognition is not all about buying a high tech surveillance system but a simple webcam and some blocks of programs would help you build up your own face recognition security system.

How to setup your face recognition security?

By downloading Banana Screen software and with a good quality webcam, your security system is not far away. After installation, the program acts as a default authentication system for your computer requiring your facial expression to be your password.

How does it work?

BS collects your facial features by a webcam which is used to build a statistical representation of face and does stores it in binary format for execution and detection.  This spyware free program which gives a lot concern for your privacy stores your image in encrypted format meaning no third party programs can access it.

The backend of this program seems like it can support all webcams launched way back to 2 years but the application is still in beta stage. BS has released its version only for windows platform where Mac users have to wait a bit. I myself tried the program which sits lite in the system and unlocks quickly after showing my face but the cons is it doesn’t allow multi-user support as far now.

Links: Download BananaScreen | [via ThinkDigit]

Over the past few days, the news was flowing about the serious issues regarding an exploit in which Windows Vista which unknowingly gives the ability for a user to extend their activation grace period to indefinite time. To simply say for more than a year. The hack requires no special software or crack from a warez site but a simply registry can do it. This simple hack can disable the countdown timer for time left for activation.
Although your OS seem to be in trial mode, but yet you can enjoy the full functionality without even activating. KEZnews has posted a step by step tutorial for permanentely activating Windows Vista by patching timerstop system in windows.
Also another registry tweak available to extend the time period of windows activation by a small registry modifications.

PS: This post is posted not to promote the trick of exploiting windows in non-legal way but to help the public realize and make Microsoft Recognize about the issues.

                                    
                                            Do you doubt that your Anti-Virus is not efficient? Want to test the Integrity and Power of your Anti-Virus ? Here is a simple way to do this. The below step is about creating a fake malware signature which makes your anti-virus to detect it. Please don’t be panic about this experiment because it just a fake malware creation and it has nothing to attack your computer.

• Right click your desktop and select > New > Text Document or click Start > Run and type notepad.
• A new text document is created in your desktop, open the newly created text document if it is not opened.
• Copy the following text (Excluding Quotes).       

“X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*”

• Now Save the notepad with any file name and close it. Open your Anti-virus and Scan the notepad file you edited now.

Your Anti-Virus should now Alert you about a Malware called EICAR Test-Not Virus!!. Congratulations on using a working Anti-virus. Note just delete the notepad or follow your Anti-Virus Instructions.

Thanks: Babu.

After installing the Zone Alarm Internet Suite, open it and

• Go to Email Protection, if you use external email client like outlook express etc then it is recommend to turn it on other wise turn off the radio buttons of the Inbound mail safe protection, outbound mail safe protection and Junk email.
• Go to Parental Control, unless your system is not used by any kid you can turn off Parental control.
• Go to Identity Protection and move the slider to Med. Generally you don’t need to give that importance for your identity but its best recommended to be at middle level.
• Now Go to Firewall and in the Internet Zone Security, move the slider to Med from High, you don’t want to be in stealth coz your are not that important to be traced and also do the same for Trusted Zone Security.
• ok lets come to the main part, the Anti Virus / Anti-Spyware. i personally believe that one doesn’t need a 24 hour spy ware monitor. Just turn off the Anti-spyware and leave the Anti-Virus untouched coz if you turn it off then there’s no reason of installing an AV. You can turn on the Anti-Spyware when you do a full system scan.
• Now go to Overview and in the preferences tab, uncheck the option Share my security settings anonymously with Zone labs.

Thats it now your slower system may seem little faster even after installing Zone Alarm Internet Security Suite.

Try Zone Alarm Internet Suite:

I have been using Internet and Computers from 2000 and have experienced the efficiency of all the Anti-virus softwares like Mc Affee, Norton, Pc-illian, AVG etc but not even satisfied with any one of them because they occupy huge space and need more resources that an AV shouldn’t use. Another great dis-advantage is that they are not that effective, first they are corrupted by Virus and then they allow Virus to corrupt our system. funny huh ..

After using AVAST Anti-virus for the past 3 years i have experienced not even a single problem becoz AVAST Anti-Virus uses very less resource and works effectively. But it was two days before my system totally got messed-up and i had no other way then to format my entire drive so i proceeded to do that so. After re-installing all the softwares i once again thought of installing the Avast AV but my friend Srinivasan recommended me to try Kaspersky Internet Security, so on taking his recommendation i installed the Kaspersky to my surprise i have never experienced such a good anti-virus software in my life. This AV is built with all the features a system requires and the main bit is that it uses very very less resource of ram.

You can download Kaspersky Internet Security :

I recommend the following Anti-Virus for your OS.
Only Anti-Virus:
If you prefer to use only anti-virus software and already have another firewall installed for your internet security then download Kaspersky Internet Security and while installing select only the Anti-virus to install.

Only Firewall:
If you prefer to use only Firewall then download the Mcafee Desktop Firewall which doesn’t even needs a 10 mb of ram. It works like a gate system and has no extra features.

Both Anti-Virus and Firewall:
Well the ultimate answer from me is simply install the complete Kaspersky Internet Security.

Wonder your mail contains Sensitive or Confidential materials or Phonographic which you intend to send one of your friend but unfortunately you misspell the email address and it was sent to someone whom you don’t know! Just think about the sequences or how bad the user might have felt or hurt reading your mail but mistakes or mistakes. What if the user takes a legal action against you ? So although its recommended to be safe while sending email, i strongly recommend you to add email disclaimers for your outgoing emails.

What is Disclaimer ?
It is a statement that states that entity is not responsible for something in some manner. There are many types of Disclaimers. E-mail Disclaimers alerts the readers to risks involved. These disclaimers are appended to email either as signature or attachment. I cannot assure you that email disclaimers will protect against actual libelous but it will certainly help you in some situations from liability.

Example of a standard email disclaimer which i use

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the company. Finally, the recipient should check this email and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Sankar Anand or Gmail™ of Google® accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email.

Adding Disclaimers as Signature in your mail:
Gmail or Googlemail:
*Click Settings.
*Enter your new signature text in the box at the bottom of the page next to the Signature option. As you type, the radio button will shift from No Signature to the text box.
*Click Save Changes.

Yahoo Mail :
* Select Mail Options from the Yahoo! Mail navigation bar
* Follow the Signature link (under Personalization).
* Enter the desired signature in the text field.
* Click Save.
Other Mail Service users can contact their local mail providers for instruction on adding signature to their outgoing mails.

You can get more samples of email disclaimers here.

Microsoft yesterday issued 9 critical patches for windows. These security patches are issued under the Microsoft Security Bulletin summary for August, 2006 reports Beta News. This is an Advisory update released for patching newly discovered vulnerabilites. The nine updates whose Knowledge Base number are KB921883, KB917422, KB920683, KB921398, KB920670, KB922616, KB920214, KB890830 and KB918899.
So to manually update your Windows XP System Open Internet Explorer, Go to Tools menu, Select Windows Update. You can even download the patch by searching with thier KB number which we listed for you. For other optional updates visit Microsoft TechNet. I strongly suggest you to use Automatic Updates which you can set in your computer by right-clicking the My computer icon and selecting Automatic Updates tab. Click the Automatic (recommended) radio button.

To learn more about protecting your computer and automatic updates go to Windows Update Site.You need to Validate your windows to download the patches manually.

Nowadays Phising and Fraudlent mails has become familiar in the word of Internet and users who are technically illiterate were unaware about it. You might have heard about many fraudlent cases about nigera and paypal scams. There are some sites that was born upon to do Forgery.

When i came across a security site, i found this Mcafee SiteAdvisor Add-in for Browsers. This add-in is available for all type of browsers.

This add-in helps you by protecting from all kinds of Web-based security threats including spyware, adware, spam, viruses, browser exploits, phishing, online fraud, and identity theft.

This add-in monitors your surfing all the time and searches its database with your stats and ensures you whether you are browsing a genuine site and alerts you when you signup or visit a fraudlent pages.

From my view i think every internet user should install this handy tool which is not less than 100 kb. This Add-in works perfect for me and it even reviews all the search results of google and yahoo.
The other best thing is its free and available for different versions of browsers.
You can download this Extenstion from the link below

• Download link for Firefox
• Download link for Internet Explorer
• Download link for Other Browsers

Have you ever wonder that your computer might be vulnerable to hackers and virus, or do you know that open ports in your computer can exploit all information ? Well although you use Anti-Virus software, it is recommend to use a Firewall inaddition to the Anti-Virus. Some Av’s come with in-built Firewall but some use an external firewall, but what makes us to think is whether your firewall actually works ? or what does it do ?

There is an answer for all your questions, Go ahead and test your computer or firewall in free firewall test sites. Actually these sites scan your computer ports and let you know if any of the ports or open or if your firewall really blocks the unwanted incoming traffic or not. They try to send packets of information to your computer.
Some of the sites listed below will allow you to scan your computer for any open ports or if your computer firewall is working well. The sites listed below are my favones where i usually test if my firewall works and insure that all my ports are in stealth mode.

• Shields UP! - Internet Vulnerability Profiling
• HackerWatch - Test your Firewall
• AuditmyPc - Firewall and Port Scanner

Comment your Test Results here so that we can know how safe your computer is.