Evernote Resets All Passwords Following A Security Breach

50 million accounts need new passwords, but Evernote says no content had been compromised

Evernote, the developer of popular note-taking and organisation software, found suspicious activity in its networks over the weekend, prompting it to reset passwords for 50 million users.

The company says that the measure is merely a precaution, as it found no evidence of hackers accessing private user content or payment details.
Better safe than sorry

On Saturday, Evernote initiated a “service-wide password reset”, after the security team discovered a “coordinated attempt to access secure areas of the Evernote Service”.

LichtmeisterAn investigation launched by the company soon discovered that an unidentified party was able to gain access to account information stored on the platform, such as user names, emails and encrypted passwords.

It is unlikely the attackers will be able to use the stolen data, since Evernote, abiding by good security practices, ‘hashed’ and ‘salted’ its passwords.

“While our password encryption measures are robust, we are taking additional steps to ensure that your personal data remains secure. This means that, in an abundance of caution, we are requiring all users to reset their Evernote account passwords,” explained the company on its blog.

Evernote said that it will update a range of apps in order to make the process of changing passwords easier. In an email, it also advised users on how to make their new passwords more secure.

“Avoid using simple passwords based on dictionary words, never use the same password on multiple sites or services and never click on ‘reset password’ requests in emails — instead go directly to the service,” suggests Evernote.

Last year, an attacker had stolen 6.5 million passwords from LinkedIn and published them online, with the social network claiming losses between $500,000 and $1 million due to the breach. LinkedIn was heavily criticised by security professionals, since the passwords weren’t ‘salted’ and could be easily decrypted.

Yahoo and Tesco are some of the other companies that were singled out last year for not encrypting their passwords and thus ignoring basic security rules.

“As recent events with other large services have demonstrated, this type of activity is becoming more common. We take our responsibility to keep your data safe very seriously, and we’re constantly enhancing the security of our service infrastructure to protect Evernote and your content,” said the company.

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A Review of Micromax A116 Canvas HD

Since last one year, Micromax has been working really hard to come up with such smartphone that can take over the market. Well, they have succeeded in their mission to some extent too. Previously, we saw Micromax A110 which was a great success in the Android Smartphone market and now they have come up with A116 Canvas HD smartphone. You will be amazed to know that Micromax sold more than 9,000 units of A116 Canvas HD smartphone on the day of launching ceremony. This is a great phone for those who don’t have a lot of budget in their pocket to purchase an expensive smartphone like Samsung Galaxy SIII, HTC One or iPhone 5.



Here is a simple review of this device that will help you understand what Micromax is offering to its customers.

Design and Build

Those who have seen or used A110 already know about the quality offered by Micromax and its smartphone. A116 is an upgraded version of A110. That is the main reason why the front of this smartphone looks like the A110. However, the rear back of Micromax A116 is completely different from A110. The overall body of A116 Canvas HD looks like HTC One X. The smartphone has got two GSM SIM slots under its rear cover and in between those two slots; there is MicroSD card slot too. if you want to change your SIM card or remove your SD card then you will have to remove the battery of your phon. To be honest, I’m not really impressed with the design of Micromax A116 Canvas HD.

Features and Interface

There was no IPS panel in A110 but Micromax has included the IPS panel in A116 keeping the demands of customers in mind. Another improvement that you will notice in A116 is that, instead of using the WVGA display screen, a complete HD display screen with 1280×720 pixels resolutions is added to this device. However, while reviewing the phone I realized that the pictures look more bright and vivid on its HD display screen but when it comes to videos, you can spot the brightness and contrast difference very easily. Still, this much defect is negligible keeping other specs of the smartphone in mind. Android OS Jelly Bean 4.1.2 has been installed in this smartphone. A little bit of modification has been made by Micromax in this OS to adjust with their smartphone.

Media Player

Jelly Bean’s default media player is used in the smartphone. All your media files will be played by the same media player that has been installed in the device by default. If you want then you can change the media player easily by downloading another media player from Google Play Store. The rear speaker of A116 is quite loud which means you will not miss the notifications of your phone even if you are busy in a place full of noise. The internal memory of the smartphone is 4GB but you can increase it up to 32GB by using a MicroSD card.

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Canon EOS 100D Review

Having last year launched its first mirrorless-system camera – the tiny EOS M – Canon seems determined to shrink its DSLR range, too, starting with the EOS 100D. This, Canon claims, is the smallest DSLR on the market.

Such claims sound specious when you consider that adding even the stock 18-55mm lens to the EOS 100D eliminates almost all the benefit of shaving a few extra millimetres off the body – you certainly aren’t going to be slipping this DSLR into a jacket pocket like you could with the EOS M. That said, Canon has made impressively few compromises to get the 100D down to size, and it’s much lighter than Canon’s other new consumer DSLR, the 700D, weighing 407g (body only) compared to the 700D’s 580g. Even the supplied camera strap is thinner than normal.



The 100D adopts the touchscreen that has now become standard on Canon’s consumer DSLRs, although unlike the 700D, the 3in display on the 100D isn’t articulated. The ability to quickly adjust settings on the touchscreen compensates for the buttons that are sacrificed to get the body down to size. There are no dedicated D-pad buttons to adjust white balance, shooting mode, or autofocus for example: the downsized D-pad merely acts as a cursor controller. You do get a dedicated ISO button alongside the jog wheel at the top of the camera, though, and the number of options on the mode wheel on top has been sensibly pared back from recent Canon models.

At first we feared the shrunken body would make the 100D awkward to hold, but that isn’t the case: the rubberised front grip protrudes just far enough so you can get a firm grip on it with a forefinger resting naturally on the recessed shutter button. There’s also enough space for the right thumb to rest on the rubberised grip on the rear without accidentally triggering the surrounding buttons. Only those with basketball-player-sized hands need worry the 100D’s too small.


The 100D shares much the same specifications as the pricier 700D. Both use Canon’s DIGIC 5 processor, and an 18-megapixel CMOS sensor. The autofocus system is different: only the 100D’s central autofocus point is of the more sensitive cross-type, although in real-world use we found very little difference in autofocus performance between that and the 700D, which has nine cross-type points. Only in dim situations did the autofocus start to wander. The 100D has a maximum burst speed of 4fps, a little slower than the 5fps of the 700D.
Picture quality is up to Canon’s normal high standards. Images deliver plenty of detail, even with the 18-55mm kit lens, and we were particularly impressed by how the 100D handled difficult exposures with areas of bright sunlight and shade, almost always managing to deliver a balanced exposure. Even at the maximum ISO of 6400, images aren’t battered by noise and can be easily rescued with a little judicious adjustment in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, making the 100D well suited to flash-free party or wedding snaps. That’s just as well, because the built-in flash is weak, and the 100D doesn’t have the integrated Speedlite transmitter that’s found on the 700D.

Video performance – recorded at Full HD at up to 25fps – is decent, too. The ability to tap the screen to focus while shooting in live view is handy, and although video autofocus is still horribly slow, taking a second or two to lock onto a new subject, the AF motor on the new 18-55mm kit lens is now all but silent. We’re also fans of the Miniature Effect shooting mode, which creates a fake tilt-shift effect, then accelerates the captured footage to either 5x, 10x or 20x speed to create a time-lapse movie. It’s brilliant for capturing busy crowd scenes, with people bustling around like ants.

There are novelty shooting modes for stills photography, too, including presets for shooting fast-moving kids, and another for making food photography look more vibrant by cranking up the saturation. There’s also the option to apply creative filters after the event, replicating the Instagram-style filters you generally associate with smartphone photography: effects such as fisheye, watercolour and soft focus. The filters are hit and miss, but give those who don’t want to spend hours fiddling with photos in Picasa or Photoshop something to play with.

Overall, we’re won over by the EOS 100D. The smaller body may have few practical benefits, but little has been sacrificed to achieve this compact shape, and the weight saving is significant if you’re merely throwing the DSLR into a bag with other stuff, instead of carrying around a full camera bag. More serious photographers will probably be better off spending the extra on the 700D for the fold-out screen and slightly improved specification, but for those who just want a DSLR to pick up and go, the 100D is a tempting proposition.

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Nokia Lumia 925 Review

Nokia has a new flagship Windows phone 8 handset in the shape of the Nokia Lumia 925, and it looks like a big step forward. The Lumia 925, which was launched in London, hot on the heels of the US launch of the 928 earlier this week, is far slimmer at 8.5mm and lighter than its predecessor, the Lumia 920, and eschews that phone’s bulbous rear in favour of a sharper, sleeker, more modern look.



With the phones pictured side by side, the difference between the two handsets is clear to see. The new handset’s display is the same size and resolution at 4.5in and 768 x 1,280, but the chassis has been completely redesigned.

For the most part it’s still constructed from the same sensible and hard-wearing solid polycarbonate as before (in a variety of more muted colours), but with the Lumia 925 it’s framed with a curved, matte-finish aluminium rim, which also acts  as the phone’s antenna.



Physically, it’s a huge improvement over the Lumia 920, and it’s the phone we’d rather have in our pocket, although we’d have appreciated the addition of a microSD slot. Just like the 920, the 925 isn’t expandable, storage-wise, and you can’t replace the battery either.

Most noticeable about the 925 is how much lighter it is when you pick it up; at 139g, it weighs 46g less than the hefty 920. It looks fantastic, too; we only hope that the aluminium surround proves as durable as we’ve found the fully polycarbonate Lumia handsets to be.

The other key difference  is that the 925’s display is an AMOLED unit instead of the IPS screen of old. It looks as bright and saturated as you’d expect of an AMOLED screen, but we’ll only be able to tell if it’s an advance when we get an official review unit; AMOLED displays tend to have lower brightness than IPS screens, making it more difficult to read in bright sunlight, so this may well represent a small downgrade.


For snaps, Nokia claims to have improved the camera technology, in particular the lens, which now consists of six elements instead of five, and the software processing. The resolution remains the same at 8.7 megapixels and it retains the optical image stabilisation technology from the Lumia 920, the f/2 aperture and the Carl Zeiss branding.

The phone also comes preloaded with a raft of new camera features. The Nokia Smart Camera app adds several new features, including Best Shot – where the camera shoots multiple frames that  you can choose between afterwards– and Action Shot, which is similar to the Samsung Galaxy S4’s Drama Shot. It shoots a burst of shots then overlays them on top of each other. Motion blur keeps foreground objects in sharp focus, while blurring the background dramatically.


Change Faces is similar to the S4’s Best Face function, taking multiple shots of a group of people, allowing you to pick the most smiley mugs from a range of facial expressions. And there’s also a tool that will use the burst mode to remove annoying moving objects for you, for times when someone walks across the frame while you’re trying to snap a picture in a crowded space. Again, this is similar to a Samsung Galaxy S4 feature – called Eraser.

Aside from that, it’s typical Lumia fare. The Lumia 925 comes loaded with all the usual Nokia software bells and whistles, from Nokia Music for streamed music mixes to Here Maps, which offers free worldwide navigation with downloadable maps.


And, lastly, the CPU powering the 925 hasn’t changed: a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 and 1GB of RAM taking pride of place. This should prove perfectly sufficient for Windows Phone 8, which felt extremely slick and smooth on the new phone.

So when will the new Nokia Lumia 925 appear? In June, when it will cost around €469; the 32GB model will be available on contract exclusively from Vodafone.

Read more: Nokia Lumia 925 review: first look | PC Pro blog http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2013/05/14/nokia-925-review-first-look/#ixzz2TU5r2ovG

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Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.”

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Review OF Samsung HMX-QF30

The QF30 is for those looking for an affordable solution and who are willing to overlook some quirks and average video quality, but keep your expectations low.
Features and design

At $280 the QF30 is essentially a budget camcorder. A low price usually comes with low expectations, but Samsung has packed a few midrange features like a 20x optical lens and optical image stabilization. The camcorder has a 5-megapixel back-illuminated CMOS sensor (albeit 1.75MP effective pixels) that’s designed for improved low-light performance, although it’s a small sensor.

If your concept of a camcorder is something cumbersome, you’ve been stuck in time. The QF30, while by no means pocketable, is relatively compact and easy to hold in your hand. When you pick it up you’ll notice right away how lightweight it is (roughly 6 ounces). Construction wise the plastic feels a bit on the cheap side; it’s a budget cam, what can we expect. The camera can be held right- or left-handed, and it can do vertical recording.

The 2.7-inch LCD has a resistive touchscreen with a menu system designed to mimic that of a smartphone. You can swipe between screens and press on an icon to enter that function. But don’t expect the same kind of responsive experience. Because it’s a resistive display, you really have to use the tip of your fingernail since lightly pressing on it will get you nowhere; the same goes for sliding between screens. We had a difficult time using it, and it was oftentimes not as responsive as it should be. Rated at 230k dots, the display isn’t very bright, and can be hard to use under bright sunlight. Plus, when icons appear onscreen while you’re shooting, it’s difficult to see what it is that you’re recording. When the display is open, there’s a balancing issue as the camera tilts to the left, so you can’t put it on a table. If you want to do that, you’ll have to close the display with the screen facing the outside – a minor inconvenience.

You can shoot video in a few modes. Smart Auto is a full-auto mode where the camera takes care of the settings. A manual mode lets you adjust settings for things like white balance, exposure value, and focusing, but don’t expect total manual control. There’s also an Art Film mode for adding filter effects and an Art Time Lapse mode for shooting time-lapse video. (You can take photos in Smart Auto, manual, and Art Film modes) For video, you can shoot H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) videos

in Full HD (1920 x 1080/60i), HD (1280 x 720/60p), and Web/HD resolution (ideal for posting online).

Samsung is putting Wi-Fi into many of its products, from low-end to high. With the QF30’s Wi-Fi you can backup your videos and stills to a computer, but you can also transfer them to an iOS or Android smart device running Samsung’s MobileLink app; upload directly to YouTube, Facebook, and Picasa; or conduct a live broadcast via Ustream as you’re recording.

For a budget camcorder, we kept our expectations low, so we weren’t overly surprised by the performance.
The design of this camcorder is clean and simple, with few physical buttons to have to figure out. On the front is the lens with a switch on the side to open and close the lens cover. On the back are buttons for zoom, record start/stop, and My Clip (which lets you tag a moment while shooting and can be extracted later); a small cover peels back to reveal the DC-in jack to connect the power adapter. The bottom of the camera is where you’ll find battery and memory card slots behind the compartment door, and the tripod receptacle. At the top is the built-in microphone.

Along one side of the camcorder is a strap/grip to secure the camera to your hand. On the other side is the touchscreen LCD panel that flips out and swivels; next to the LCD is a home button that takes you back to the main menu screen. With the LCD opened you’ll see a small speaker and jacks for audio/video, HDMI, and micro USB (behind a cover). There’s no hot shoe or a way to connect accessories.

The QF30 supports the SD, SDHC, and SDXC (up to 64GB, which is approximately 497 minutes of recording time in Full HD 1080/60i) formats, however, Samsung recommends a Class 6 memory card or higher, which is what we used for testing.
What’s in the box

The QF30 comes with a removable battery (charged in-camera), AC power adapter, USB cable, audio/video cable, and a quick start guide. Although the QF30 has a micro HDMI port for connecting to high-resolution displays, you’ll need to supply your own cable or adapter. The camcorder can be charged either with the AC power adapter (i.e., wall outlet) or via USB.
Performance and use

Turning on and off the camera simply requires flipping the LCD panel open and close; if the screen is already open, simply press and hold the home button. The problem you’ll notice right away is that the QF30 takes a bit of time to power up and down, which is a potential issue if you’re trying to capture those moments that pass by too easily if you aren’t quick enough. If you’re shooting constantly, make sure you enable the standby feature that allows for instant-on operation when you open the LCD; this mode essentially leaves the camera on even when you close the LCD, but it powers down automatically after 5 minutes of inactivity. One little annoying thing is you also have to manually open the lens cover, and usually forget to close it after use.


The typical user of this camera will shoot in the Smart Auto mode. The manual mode is nice to have when you want to play with the white balance and exposure compensation, but because the touchscreen display is so unresponsive it can be frustrating to drill through the various menu options. Unless we really needed to make those adjustments, we stuck with auto. Using the camera is fairly straightforward and easy.

With the camera strapped on your hand, zooming in and out and hitting the record button is easily reachable by thumb; you can also zoom by pressing on the LCD, but you don’t need to. Because the power adapter plugs into the DC-in port that sits above the rear controls, it can be annoying if you’re shooting with a cable in the way. Another quirk we found is that the video record button isn’t very responsive when we want to stop shooting.

As for performance, the video quality isn’t exceptional when viewed on a 46-inch HDTV and 27-inch computer display, but we somewhat expected that. The optical image stabilization isn’t as strong as we would like, and many of the videos we shot were jittery despite with the OIS on. Videos don’t look silky smooth when panning, and there are a lot of compression artifacts and lost details, despite shooting in Full HD. Colors look a bit faded, edges are jaggy, and it just doesn’t look as bright and sharp as we would like from a dedicated camcorder (in fact, we liked the video quality from our iPhone a bit better). The biggest issue is autofocus. We found that the QF30 had a hard time focusing, even before we start recording; it would also stumble when zooming and panning. Coupled with a slow lens, you need to move very slowly and try to avoid the zoom. The QF30 can’t handle low light shooting well, despite the back-illuminated CMOS, resulting in noisy video. And forget about taking photos: Stills come out very noisy even under the best light, and it likes to over brighten the image. If you plan to upload videos to the Web and view them in smaller sizes, they’ll look OK. The ideal usage for the QF30, in our eyes, is in a situation where the camcorder is on a tripod and there’s very little zooming and panning involved – great for starting up your own TV network on Ustream (what you do on your own network is none of our business).

The Wi-Fi functionalities are relatively easy to use in concept. We had no problems connecting it to our iPhone, but there are a few steps involved to get the two devices paired. Once connected we could view content and save them on the phone. But there are stability issues. The Samsung MobileLink app oftentimes would have issues keeping the connection (if you go out of it, you’ll have to close the app completely and restart it again; sometime we would have to reestablish the Wi-Fi connection before the devices would talk to each other). If there’s any interruption to the app, the connection will drop. Then, strangely, after a while, the app would no longer display any of the camcorder’s content; even though there’s plenty of videos and photos in the camcorder, the app would say there’s none. We tried reinstalling the app several times and turning on and off the phone, but we were never able to view any content. (We also discovered that you can only transfer and view videos recorded in the Web/HD resolution on the smartphone.) We had better luck uploading some samples directly to YouTube and Facebook, but the issue we encountered here was logging into our accounts with the touchscreen. It’s tedious because it’s slow (exacerbated by the unresponsive touchscreen) and it’s through a 3×4 keypad (similar to typing a text message on an old cell phone), not a virtual QWERTY keyboard. (You’ll also face this issue when you have to enter a password for a secured Wi-Fi network.)

Samsung rates a continuous recording time (without zoom) of 105/120 minutes and playback time of 140/160 minutes in Full HD (1080/60i)/HD (720/60p), and a recharge time of approximately 130 minutes (AC) and 270 minutes (USB). In our actual usage we got less than a day’s worth of on-and-off shooting in standby and with Wi-Fi turned on.
Conclusion

For a budget camcorder, we kept our expectations low, so we weren’t overly surprised by the performance. What did surprise us was how mediocre it performed against our iPhone. Sure, you can enable optical zoom with image stabilization, but that’s a plus only if it works well. We did expect a better Wi-Fi experience, however, since we tend to like what Samsung does with wireless connectivity in its digital cameras, but the experience here was underwhelming (we do like that you can upload directly to YouTube and Facebook, provided that you can punch in your login information correctly the first time). If you can spend more, there are definitely better options.
Highs

    Affordable Full HD video-capture solution
    Wi-Fi connectivity with Ustream
    Compact, easy to hold and operate

Lows

    Average video quality
    Unresponsive touchscreen
    Wi-Fi, smartphone app quirks

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A lion, A tiger and A bear!

As cubs a lion, a tiger, and a bear had been owned by a drug dealer who did not properly care for them. The bear’s harness grew into his skin because the owner did not alter it as the animal grew. They had been abused and neglected early in life, but were finally rescued. The bear's harness was surgically removed.

After they had been taken in by an animal sanctuary in Georgia, the staff tried to separate them due to obvious concerns that the three large predators would fight. During the trial of separation, the animals were uncooperative and behaved poorly. Once reunited, the three calmed down and were well behaved.

Twelve years later, the three friends spend their days playing, cuddling, and eating together. There are no plans to separate these lifelong friends.

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