Protecting Your Privacy Online: Free Security Guide From Microsoft

Nowadays online activities have increasingly become a central part of our daily life. Banking, purchasing goods and services online, sending emails, checking social network account, tweeting, sharing photos, downloading music, using online services like SkyDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. and creating documents needs to connect to the Internet.

Test Your Ability to Identify Fake and Real Antivirus Program with Microsoft MPC

The fake antivirus programs (also known as Rogue programs) are a kind of malware that often disguise as legitimate programs. Once installed it detect non-existent viruses on users PC and force them to pay money for removing the infections. Also, fake antivirus programs often installs sneakwares like browser add-ons and hijackers on users PC.

Two Ways to Move From Hotmail to Outlook.com

Recently Microsoft has re-branded its Hotmail service as Outlook.com with an intention to provide users a more “user friendly” and “enriched” web mail experience. Microsoft encourage all Hotmail users to shift to the new outlook mail, however, most Hotmail users yet to accept this change, it is probably because many are still unaware of the change or lack of information about it.

Free eBook From Microsoft to Keep Teens Safe Online

In partnership with security expert and author, Linda McCarthy, Microsoft offers a free downloadable version of her new book, “Own Your Space – Keep Yourself and Your Stuff Safe Online”. This book is dedicated to every teen who takes the time to learn about security and how to stay safe and be smart online.

This book is also an essential resource for every parent and teacher who wants to keep up with the latest computer and online safety issues and help kids learn to avoid them.

This book is designed for any teen who is:

1. In fear of drive-by downloads of nasty adware, spyware, and viruses
2. Anxious about scareware and ransomware
3. Trying to stay safe on social networking sites
4. Concerned about online predators and identity thieves
5. Scattering secrets to the wind in favorite hot spots
6. Shopping online without protection
7. Unsure of the risks about webcams and sexting
8. Dealing with cyberbullies at home or in school
9. Blogging alone and in the dark

You can download your copy free from Microsoft download center. [via]

Measure the energy consumption of your computer with Microsoft JouleMeter

The amount of power consumption of a PC or laptop depends on many different factors like connected devices, running software and games, operating system, etc.

Microsoft released a software based system for measuring the power consumption of PCs, laptops, servers and virtual machines and let you know the total energy used by your system.

The application called Joulemeter (currently alfa version) analyzes your system’s resources like CPU utilization, screen brightness, etc (CPU, disk, memory, screen etc) and estimates the power usage.

According to Microsoft “Joulemeter can be used for gaining visibility into energy use and for making several power management and provisioning decisions in data centers, client computing, and software design”.

Interested readers can download it free at Microsoft Research. More details at here.

WebMatrix – Free Web site builder from Microsoft

Microsoft just released a free, lightweight web development solution called WebMatrix which gives everything you need to build Web sites using Windows.

It includes a Web server (IIS Developer Express), a database (SQL Server Compact) and a Web framework (ASP.NET) and makes it easy to start Web sites from scratches or from popular open-source apps like Wordpress.

WebMatrix lets you download an application from an application gallery, customize it for your needs, analyze it for broken links, optimize it for the web, and deploy it to your hosting provider.

WebMatrix is designed for developers, students, or just about anyone who just wants a small and simple way to build Web sites. [Via]

More information and download (currently beta) at Microsoft