Help Japan

Last March 11, 2011, an 8.9 earthquake hit near the east coast of Honshu, Japan. The strong quake also caused tsunamis that caused more damage to residential areas, farms and vital infrastructures like the Sendai Airport and the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Thousands have been confirmed dead, and thousands more are missing.

You can get more information and extend help through any of the following ways:

• Google Crisis Response page (2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami) - Has a donate button whose proceeds will go the Red Cross Japan. Also on the webpage are other resources like Person Finder,Maps and Latest News.

• CNN | Tsunami aid and relief: How you can help - Has links to different organizations that are currently accepting donations and help for the people who have been affected by the quake and tsunami.

• Yahoo 7 news | DONATE FOR JAPAN - Links to different charitable organizations where people can channel through their support.

• Unplgged | The Japan Earthquake: How to Help - Links to sites, and mentions other ways to donate like via text and iTunes.

Lightroom automatically opens when USB drive / Memory Card is inserted

Just a quick tip to stop Lightroom ( in this case 3.2 ) from automatically opening when inserting a USB drive / Memory Card.

1. Open Lightroom, from the main top menu, select Edit > Preferences.
2. Under the General Tab, look for Import Options.
3. Uncheck "Show import dialog when a memory card is detected". Click OK to save the setting change.

AVG 9 ( Free Edition ) now available for download

For PC users who are looking for an alternative free anti-virus software, and for those who are current users of AVG 8.5, the most current version of the popular free anti-virus is now available for download.

I just wished the "Game mode" feature was also a part of the free version, but I guess AVG still needs to keep features that will give users a reason to upgrade to the "Full" version.

Links

1. AVG homepage
2. AVG 9 features and comparison table
3. AVG 9 download page

Understanding robots.txt

Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team, presents and discusses how Google handles the robots.txt file. Watch the video below, follow and share comments on Matt's blog or discuss the video on YouTube.

Resources

1. Robots exclusion standard ( Wikipedia )
2. Block or remove pages using a robots.txt ( Google webmaster tools )
3. Robot Control Code Generation Tool
4. Search Engine Optimization 101 ( Nettuts )

Google to release a new Chrome-based OS in 2010

Google announced on July 7, 2009 that they will be releasing a new browser-based ( Google Chrome ) OS sometime in 2010 ( according to them, it will be in netbooks by the second half of the same year ). Google Chrome OS will be open sourced this year, so developers who will be working on it once it is in private beta, could give their hands-on experience on the current state of the OS at that point. According to the announcement, Chrome OS will be a light operating system, with a ( Google developed ) windowing system and the Chrome browser as the user facing application. Many are really excited with the announcement, but there is also a large camp who are really skeptical of how impactful this new OS will be. The hype around the new operating system is pretty strong, but the lack of information about the mysterious product maybe the only cause for this. Google is not alone in pursuing a web-centric OS, with Crunchpad and Intel's Moblin also having the same goals - to make machines that rely more on the network than on traditional desktop apps.

For further reading:

1. Introducing the Google Chrome OS
2. Google Chrome OS - FAQ
3. Wikipedia entry for Google Chrome OS
4. Google Chrome OS & What It Means For Future of Computing
5. Chrome OS Could Offend the Open Source Community
6. Google Chrome OS: Is It the End of an Era?

Fontsquirrel: Free and High Quality Fonts

Fontsquirrel aggregates free, high-quality fonts that have all commercial-use licenses for designers and font addicts.

Fonts are available in OpenType and TrueType, and are further categorized according to "style".

Links:

1. Fontsquirrel site
2. Most Downloaded fonts
3. Newly Added fonts

Conficker Removal Toolbox

I recently needed to remove Conficker on some Windows XP machines, and downloaded some of the removal tools available from Anti-Virus companies and Microsoft. I also used a Portable copy of ClamWin, which was useful as Conficker would not allow the installed AV to run updates. I've zipped and uploaded the following tools to Mediafire, to serve as an emergency copy and for others to use if they are not able to download from the different AV vendor sites ( a Conficker infected machine will have difficulty downloading from AV sites ).

You can use the Conficker Eye Chart to check if you are infected by Conficker.

If you want to try and download removal tools directly from their sources ( or if you are in a different machine that is not infected ), you can use this list provided by the Conficker Working Group. You can also check their Home page as well as their FAQ to read more about Conficker.

If you want to download the removal tools that I've collected as the Conficker Removal Toolbox, you can follow this link. The list of things that you'll find in the zip file are:

1. Symantec Downadup Removal Tool
2. BDTools from BitDefender
3. Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool
4. ClamWin Portable ( extracted and updated on April 26, 2009 )

Resources:

1. Conficker in Wikipedia
2. Conficker Working Group
3. Conficker Eye Chart
4. List of Removal Tools
5. Download link for zipped collection of removal tools with ClamWin AV
6. Download link for zipped collection of removal tools without ClamWin AV