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Dell Launches Exciting New Back2school Offers On Desktops For Kids

Jignesh Desai — Wed, 25 May 2011 15:58:00 GMT

DELL LAUNCHES EXCITING NEW BACK2SCHOOL OFFERS ON DESKTOPS FOR KIDS
· Sharpens Focus For Desktops In The Consumer Entertainment And Education Segment

Bangalore, May 25, 2011 – Delivering on its promise to offer the maximum value in education and entertainment, Dell today announced the launch of its “Back2School” offer. The Back2School offer focuses on families and students who are preparing for the new school year. Upping the cool factor for school-going students across the country, Dell has launched its range of consumer desktop computers with specially designed Disney Pixar ‘Cars 2’ branding. The Back2School offer is for the period beginning May 24 till the end of July and is available on the Dell Inspiron 560 and 580 Desktop models, the Inspiron All-in-One series and the XPS Desktops, creating an exciting start to the new school year with a variety of Disney Pixar ‘Cars’ branded merchandise for the Back2School crowd.

During the offer period consumers who purchase the Inspiron 560 and 580 Desktop models will receive a ‘Back2School’ gift collection of six ‘Cars 2’ stickers, the original Disney Pixar ‘Cars’ movie DVD and a limited edition ‘Cars’ widget CD containing a whole range of ‘Cars’ wallpapers and videos. Consumers who plan to purchase the Dell Inspiron All-in-One desktop or XPS desktops will, in addition to the ‘Back2School’ gift collection, get a ‘Back2School’ kit that includes a Disney Pixar ‘Cars 2’ branded school bag, tiffin box, water bottle, notebook and pencil box.

Commenting on the initiative, Mr. P. Krishnakumar, Executive Director – Marketing, Consumer and SMB, Dell India said, “The “Back2School” campaign is geared towards encouraging school children to adopt technology and utilize its potential in exploring and widening the scope of learning. Dell has always worked towards revolutionizing education through technology and through such offers; we want to make going back to school really exciting for students.”

The desktops are available at Dell India, Dell Exclusive Stores and Dell registered retailers in over 250 cities across India.

Dell leads the industry in delivering the latest technology solutions designed for your needs. Dell is committed to delivering reliable products that you can count on, with access to immediate and reliable support anytime, anywhere you need it.

Links:
www.dell.co.in

Norton AntiVirus 2012 Public Betas

Jignesh Desai — Sat, 07 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus 2012 Public Betas Now Available

2012 Betas Raise Bar for Protection and Performance, Provide Insight Into Safety and Stability of Applications Before Installation

BANGALORE, India – April 18, 2011 – Today Norton by Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) released the 2012 beta versions of the award-winning Norton AntiVirus and Norton Internet Security, which are now available for free download from the Norton beta website. The Norton 2012 betas improve on performance and protection in what are already the industry’s fastest and lightest security products^[1]. They include key security enhancements, including the ability to assess the safety and stability of an application before installation.

“As we’ve proven year after year, we are committed to arming consumers against cybercrime with the strongest protection possible, without slowing down their computers,” said Jens Meggers, vice president of engineering, for Norton products. “For the Norton 2012 release, our aim is to continue to raise the bar for both protection and performance.”

With the 2012 betas, Norton continues to deliver the strongest core protection technologies, without sacrificing performance. The betas feature Insight 3.0, the latest version of Norton’s exclusive reputation-based security technology, which leverages the anonymous software adoption patterns of millions of contributing Symantec users to automatically identify and block new malicious software. Download Insight, which checks every downloaded file for safety before it is allowed to run, has been updated this year to include information that lets users know if a downloaded application is likely to cause stability issues when they install it on their PC. Now Download Insight provides users with additional data they can rely on before installing an application, to decide whether to install that application or look for a similarly safe, yet more stable application. The betas also include upgraded SONAR 4.0 behavioral protection, which monitors running applications for suspicious behavior to quickly detect and disable previously unknown threats.

In terms of performance, the 2012 betas are designed to maintain or improve upon Norton’s industry-leading benchmarks in installation times, scan times and memory usage.

The Norton Internet Security beta features a revamped Norton Identity Safe, with a streamlined interface, improved login and form detection technology, and the capability to store passwords in the cloud so they are accessible from any computer with Norton 360 or Norton Internet Security installed. Both 2012 betas enable consumers to conserve bandwidth by postponing non-critical Norton activity to a later time, particularly useful for consumers with limited data plans.

The 2012 betas include an updated user interface, which offers quick access to the Norton Cybercrime Index, alerting consumers to online trouble-spots and potential hazards, including the day’s most dangerous websites, the most hijacked search terms by cybercriminals, as well as top scams, identity theft and spam. The free tool includes expert news about the most dangerous threat of the day and advice on how to stay safe online.

Beta Availability

The beta is available for free public download now at: http://www.norton.com/nis2012beta or http://www.norton.com/nav2012beta. Norton beta testers are encouraged to share feedback and discuss their product experiences in our online Norton Public Beta Forum.

About Norton by Symantec

Symantec’s Norton products protect consumers from cybercrime with technologies like antivirus, anti-spyware and phishing protection -- while also being light on system resources. The company also provides services such as online backup, PC tuneup, and family online safety. Like Norton on Facebook at www.facebook.com/norton and follow @NortonOnline on Twitter.

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

Laden’s death generates surge of online scams

Jignesh Desai — Wed, 04 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

As with other global news events, like the Royal Wedding and the recent Japan earthquake, cybercriminals are already coming out in full force to capitalize on news related to Osama bin Laden’s death, armed with poisoned spam samples, 419 scams and emails advertising “unseen footage” from bin Laden’s last moments.

With news of bin Laden’s death receiving more than four million page views per second on major news websites, Symantec experts are advising people to use best practices when searching for information online, including:

Use a trusted security suite – Make sure you are protecting your computer against unknown threats with a comprehensive security solution like Norton. You can also take advantage of free, downloadable tools like Norton Safe Web Lite and Norton Safe Web for Facebook to identify risky sites before you click on them.
Put yourself on high alert – Don’t open emails or attachments from people you don’t know, even if it sounds too good to be true. Online criminals commonly use shocking or sensational headlines in emails to lure people into falling for online scams.
Don’t click on that link! – Beware of shortened links found through social networking news feeds – they may be redirecting you to fake websites laden with malicious software. Manually enter website addresses into your browser to make sure you’re getting the news from trusted websites.

More information about the scams related to bin Laden’s death can be found on this blog posting: http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/osama-dead-no-longer-hoax

Norton 360 V5 Review

Jignesh Desai — Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT


As far as user interface is concern, version 5.0 is not different then its previous version. some of my observations are as below. The firewall automatically configures Internet and network access for programs. No need to worry about access for known bad programs, as the antivirus component deletes those immediately. Version 5 of Norton 360 includes the real-time threat map System Insight also profiles your programs to determine if any of them are slowing down system performance, and automatically alerts you when a program is eating up your resources.

There's also the Norton Bootable Recovery Tool, which will clean heavily infected systems enough to get Norton 360 installed Norton SONAR (Symantec Online Network for Automatic Response) looks for suspicious software behavior and automatically chooses protective actions. The scanning is quick. As per 3rd party review sites Norton has 99.1% detection rate, which is very good then of its competitors. You can choose from different scanning modes. "Quick" or "Full" scan : Standard Scan. "Reputation scan" : Also checks for your programs' trust levels, and Facebook Wall scan feature. I strongly recommend Norton to change its scan sequence as below. Deleting Stuff First : deleting IE Temp files, Windows Temp files. Live Update Registry Cleanup Finally Virus Scan. There is no point in scanning IE temp files or windows temp files as they will be anyways going to be deleted. This will reduce time taken by overall scan process. However you can be sure of one thing, as seen in image below. Conclusion: With solid protection and performance, Norton 360 v5 is a very competent security application . It has all the right features, very easy to use and light in term of resources. Worth for MRP 1,435/- (single user)

DELL LATITUDE 2120

Jignesh Desai — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 22:41:00 GMT

Dell has expanded its netbook lineup with the Latitude 2120 netbook. Designed not only for students to create, share, consume content, it is enabled to handle the rigors of the student environment. Businesses can also make use of its mobility as it comes equipped with systems-management support (e.g. wake-on LAN, ASF, SMS), helping save precious time and money.

The Dell Latitude 2120 netbook was unveiled at the CES earlier this month and is a complete solution for mobile collaboration.

Building on the success of previous models, the highly successful Dell Latitude netbook has evolved:

· The Latitude 2120 can be built to suit various needs for mobility with options of wireless or mobile broadband

· It comes with a 1366 x 768 pixel resolution along with a dual-core Atom processor and also a 2GB of DDR3 RAM, along with high capacity HDD. Teachers can easily monitor network activity and identify students browsing the Internet with a Network Activity Light.

· Pricing for the Latitude 2120 starts at Rs. 19000/-

· It is available in the black and blue color options in India

Advantages

· An updated functional rubberized outer casing provides an easy grip for smaller hands and protection against water.

· The laptop features an optional high-definition multi-touch screen for natural gestures and interactions on top of its proven video conferencing capabilities, to help make experiences such as digital collaboration an intuitive and fun experience. The optional multi-touch screen allows for intuitive interaction and high definition display (1366x768) to watch HD content.

· The optional tamper-resistant keyboard design helps to prevent the detachment of keys, as well as provides increased durability and optional anti-microbial protection for intensive student use.

· Available in select countries including India, the optional Dell Mobile Computing Station 2.0 even allows IT staff to push updates to systems while they're stored as all systems docked are hardwired into the school's existing network.

You are Protected with Speed and Power of Norton 2011

Jignesh Desai — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 22:02:00 GMT

You are Protected with Speed and Power of Norton

On September 11th, Symantec launched its latest version of security softwares, Norton Antivirus 2011, Norton Internet Security 2011 and Norton 360 version 4.0

A comparison of above 3 products can be found here http://us.norton.com/products/charts/comparison.jsp?pcid=mp

Norton 360 is like "All in one Security"

I am reviewing "Norton Internet Security 2011" . The Norton Internet security 2011 protects you against viruses, spywares, worms, phishing, online identity theft, cybercriminals, dangerous downloads, infected websites, Trojans, bots, rookits and spams.

Features I liked about Norton AntiVirus 2010 and 2011

I have Norton AntiVirus, AVG, and MacFee Installed on my machines at home. Over years I notice that Norton has expanded their product features and now its not just an antivirus, but also has social networking component that allows me to see others experience with a particular type of file or a website, I can check community ratings on them. This give me good insight and alerts me before I visit a website or download a file from internet. There is also a good running counter showing threat counts across cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Singapore.

I am quite happy with its relatively fast and Quick Installation process as compared to other antivirus. No much questions asked during installation except product key and if you wish to skip that you can, which in that case it will run as 30 day trial.

A good notification tool like It alerts me when an application is slowing down my PC

Safe Surfing and Download Intelligence is quite necessary, to help me to avoid downloading malware stuff. Its helps you to tell whether a particular downloads file is safe or not

Its good to know that they have included new feature which can monitor and scan my Instant Messengers too like MSN, Yahoo. But a bit surprise to know that popular messenger Skype is not in the default list.

A newly introduced feature "Parental Controls" is a good step to allow parents to track where their kids go and what they do online.

One of the thing that I was not happy with older version Norton 360 (2010). This might be little buggy feature that, when my computer is idle, it automatically starts scanning my PC and when I return back, I don't have option to cancel scanning immediately. looks like it creates some background thread and as a users I don't have any interface to view and cancel it. I have to wait until it automatically terminates the thread. This was a problem when I leave a long running automated GUI Testing task on my PC, The task get interrupted due to Auto Idle Time Scan.

In Norton Internet Security 2011 I am Happy to see an option which resolved my problem, Option "Idle Time Scans" which I can turn OFF.

Tiny things that annoys me about Norton Behavior.

1. My observation is that each time I open Norton Interface it auto start activation of products. As a user I may want to try for a couple of days more before activating it.
2. If a scan is in progress and I choose to cancel it , It take a lot of time to stop the scan, which is little annoying. It should abort thread immediately.

2010 Diwali Greetings

Jignesh Desai — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:45:00 GMT

Greetings

Finding Online Audience behavior

Jignesh Desai — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:22:00 GMT

Advertisement is a key to market your products, but if you want to increase your sales, you have to reach more no of people and target right audience.

Earlier Newspapers was the medium of to reach to mass no of people. Now there are many mediums, like RADIO, TV, Roadside Banners, and now a days people spend more of their day's time on social internet sites then on TV. So question is where do I invest my money for advertisement.

With Internet audience growing, how do I know the trend, Which sites are surfed the most?, by what age group? what are their likes and dislikes, Gender, their education, geography etc. Social internet sites contains valuable amount of information about users pattern.

I can use this traffic statistics to make some critical business decisions. Mumbai based Komli Media, has launchedwww.vizisense.com, A Internet Audience measurement platform. Accordingly to Amit Bhartiya Business Head –Vizisense, claims "Vizisense offer exhaustive audience measurement and traffic statistics which will help to do research & analysis of trend and behavioral data, for ANY internet site accesses from India." , "ViziSense is India's first open audience measurement service that accurately reports details of site visitor demographics and other audience characteristics. ViziSense PubView is an audience analytics tool for publishers, designed to provide in-depth audience insight and traffic analysis. ViziSense MediaMix is India's first online media planning tool that helps media planners and marketers identify the optimal mix of websites to attract the relevant target audience for online campaigns. ViziSense is a subset of Komli Media. "

Some Slides of their reports.

What suppose if some one tells you that Womens prefer social networking and Emails over shopping. I think most of Men will be happy to know about it.
Read more about it on ViziSense report here .

Norton 360 Version 4

Jignesh Desai — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Norton 360 Version 4

Today Norton from Symantec announced its new version of consumer product Norton 360 v4. Norton offers security products like

Norton AntiVirus: A antivirus and antispyware tool.
Norton Internet security: A smart firewall + antivirus and antispyware protection
Norton 360 V4: is a combination of Norton Antivirus and Internet Security , plus it offers Identity protection, PC Tuneup, Online backup upto 2GB and more.

I was one among the few who where lucky to receive 1st copies of the product for FREE from David Hall, Regional Product Manager Asia Pacific and Gaurav Kanwal, Country Sales Manager, India. The event was organized by http://www.2020india.com

I am yet to explore new features, some of them are

1. Norton reputation service: A technology that scrutinizes different attributes of files and applications in real-time to determine if they are safe.
2. Its now faster and occupies less memory footprint.
3. Reduces PC start-up time by allowing you to prioritize and stagger your start-up applications. No more slow startup frustration

Rest I will share my experience, when I explore it further.

Dell launches Alienware Gaming Laptop in India

Jignesh Desai — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Dell India Launches new laptop for Gamers. "Dell Alienware". Event was held at ITC Grand Central, Parel on 6th Aug.

A high-end model is targeted to audience who are addictive gamers. The base price is 1,40,000 INR. It supports upto 8GB of DDR3 RAM at 1333 Mhz and 1TB capacity of HDD @ 7200 rpm with NVIDIA GeForce 9400M G1 GPU.

Above all it has Intel® Core™2 Quad processor.

+Plus

Nice at configuration
Speed was good
Nice lighted Keyboard
You can configure color of the light through Alienware control panel.
System performance was rated as 5.7 out of 8.
Slot DVD / BlueRay Disk.

-Ve

Heavy on weight
Speaker not so powerful
Price is high for indian market.