Online economy in UK is now worth £100bn

THE UK’s internet economy is now worth a staggering £100bn a year, according to a landmark survey commissioned by search giant Google.

The online economy now represents 7.2 per cent of UK GDP – more than construction, transport or utilities. The report shows this share is likely to grow by about 10 per cent a year, reaching 10 per cent of GDP by 2015.

The survey, carried out by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), shows the UK is among the top e-commerce economies, exporting £2.80 for every £1 imported. This is at odds with the offline economy, which exports 90p for every £1 imported.

Overall, the UK ranks sixth, scoring similarly to the Netherlands, Norway, and Finland and better than Germany, the US, and France. The highest-ranked country is Denmark. Within the UK London was the leading region.

The industry now employs 250,000 people in the UK. Around 60 per cent of the online economy is driven by online shopping and the cost of users’ connections to the internet.

The number of adults who bought goods or services online in the past year totalled 31m, or 62 per cent of all adults.

Source : cityAM

E-mage: a new tool to secure personal information online

An increasing number of internet users are now taking the help of a new online identity security system --e-mage-- to secure their personal data over the cyberworld .

"At E-mage management, we help people to hunt for their fake profiles online on different websites and social networking groups that defame their entities, posing problems for them in seeking jobs, etc.," Karnika Seth, Cyber lawyer and provider of E-mage service, said.

"What we do is after having fetched such profiles, we sort out ways and means to get them deleted permanently," she said.

On an average, Seth addresses one such case every week. There has been an increasing number of fake profiles online on different websites like blogs, microblogs or social networking sites where fraudsters avenge their grudge or harass someone by creating their profile online that hampers his or her reputation.

"These fake profiles not only affect an individual on the personal level by creating difficulties in employment, ruining his or her social and professional connections, damaging reputation, but it also has an effect on their finances, in case of customers' or corporate data being stolen," another cyber crime specialist said.

Rashmi Sood (name changed), a researcher with a firm in the US, had sought the help of e-mage management to deal with her derogatory 'fake profile' which someone had created.

"I was not getting a job despite being the best in my field because someone had created an online fake profile of mine that had derogatory remarks about me.

"Here abroad, employers conduct an online screening of individuals before incorporating them in their organization. When I enquired with the organization, they directed me to this respective website."

Sood had registered a case with the police but it yielded no results, after which she turned to e-mage management for help.

"The police is not well trained or equipped to handle cyber crime cases and as such most of the time such cases are not registered. Even if they are registered, there is no investigation. That is why despite the IT Act being so old, conviction rate in cyber crime cases till date is only three," another cyber lawyer said.

Source : The Economic Times

Internet Explorer Browser Slowly Losing Users

According to StatCounter.com, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is losing web browser users.
The web analytics revealed that the amount of Internet Explorer users has fallen to below 50% in the month of September. Although Internet Explorer is still the leader in the web browser market, the combined market of web browsers is now larger than Microsoft’s browser.

At one point in time, Internet Explorer controlled over 90% of the web browsing market (mostly because most Windows computers were preloaded with Internet Explorer as the web browser). However, antitrust suits filed against Microsoft in the United States and European Union forced the company to offer Windows customers a list of web browsing operating systems to choose from.

Additionally, there are more web browsers in market now that are more sophisticated than Internet Explorer and are catching the eyes of many users, such as Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, and Mozilla’s Firefox.
To stay in the game, Microsoft has noted the features it’s rivals offer (but they don’t) and rolled it into their latest version of product, Internet Explorer 9.

According to Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter’s CEO, “Just two years ago IE dominated the worldwide market with 67%.”

Source: Concept News

Fix Wireless Connection

If you need to fix your wireless connection, here's some troubleshooting tips to solve your connectivity problems. You are probably on a computer with a network connection, you wouldn't be able to see this page otherwise. :)

Many new laptops come with a physical switch that disables the wireless connection. Consult your computer’s manual and make sure that if you have such a switch, it is switched "on".

But what if the switch is "on" and your wireless connection still does not work?

Take a look at Windows Device Manager and make sure that the wireless card is listed there Learn how to access your Windows Device Manager.

If there is trouble with the Network adapter in the Device Manger, it will have a yellow exclamation mark next to it.

Next, log to Windows Control Panel/Network Connection, and make sure that there is Local Network Connection for the device.

If there is no icon for your Local Network Connection, Reboot your computer with your wireless switch "on". Windows would install the Network Connection.

Right click on the Local Network Connection icon, and choose properties.

If every thing is good thus far, look at the TCP/IP properties of the Wireless Local Connection.

Notice that the TCP/IP is set to "Obtain an IP Address and DNS Automatically", unless you were instructed at the first time when you set the Wireless to use a Static IP, you should leave it on "Obtain Automatically".

Many new wireless laptops and wireless ready desktops come with a configuration that loads the original wireless manufacturer’s utility at startup. The wireless connection can be maintained only by one agent. As a result, most of these utilities are programmed to switch off the Windows Zero Configuration (WZC).

Many people prefer the flexibility of WZC. In such a case the 3rd party utility has to be disabled from starting, and WZC has to be initiated again.

What if the wireless connection seems to be working and you can see in the wireless application that there is a signal and an available Wireless source but you still cannot use the Internet?

Seeing a signal in the wireless configuration application does not mean that you actually have a functional Wireless connection.

If you can use the Internet with your wireless computer, the wireless connection is OK. If you do not have an Internet connection available (or the connection does not work) a simple way to ascertain that you have a basic wireless connection is to try to use the Internet browser in a wireless client computer and find out if you can connect to the (Access Point). Most AP's are encrypted with a key, it is this key that is needed to complete the connection. Once you have the key and you try to connect WZC should ask to enter the key.

Hopefully these troubleshooting tips will help you with your wireless problems. If you have other tips or troubles, please leave a comment.

source:- www.computerrepair.com

Five reasons to use Internet Explorer 9

Wondering whether to try the just-released beta of Internet Explorer 9? I've put the beta through its paces in a review for Computerworld. Here are five reasons IE9 is worth a try.

It's fast

IE 8 is slow and sluggish --- according SunSpider tests I ran a while back, it took about six times as long to complete SunSpider JavaScript tests as did its next slowest rival, Firefox 3.6.

It's sluggish no longer. Tests I ran on IE9 show that it's now faster than Firefox. It completed the benchmarks in an average time of 432 ms, faster than Firefox 4 beta, which completed them in 535 ms. It was still slower than Safari, Opera, and Chrome, but not by a wide margin: Safari completed them in 387 ms, Opera in 343 ms, and Chrome in 322 ms.


It's better-looking

IE9 features a cleaner-looking, stripped-down interface with tabs at the top. Gone are most buttons, menus, and controls. True, now all the browsers look basically the same, thanks to Chrome's interface innovation. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. And in IE9's case, it's a very good thing.

However, by default, a Bing toolbar is turned on, conflicting with the clean look. If you're not a fan of toolbars in general, or Bing specifically, it's easy enough to turn off.

It warns you about add-ons' performance problems

Add-ons can add a lot of overhead to browser load time and browsing time. Load down your browser with enough of them, and no matter the browser's basic speed, it can become sluggish.

IE9 has a very nice feature that automatically warns you via a pop-up when your add-ons increase load time and browsing time, and let you disable them. (If you want, you can later turn them on.) You can see the new tool in action, below. Other browsers, notably Firefox, would do well to follow suit, and develop tools like this as well.

It integrates with Windows 7

If you're a Windows 7 user, you'll find some useful features designed for that operating system. You can pin a Web site to the taskbar for easy launching, especially important in a world in which Web-based apps are replacing desktop apps.

When you launch a pinned site, IE9 automatically takes on the color of the site for its forward and back buttons, and displays the Web site's icon on the upper left of the browser.

In addition, developers can make use of the Windows 7 Jump List feature for pinned sites. So a news site, for example, could let people immediately navigate to a sports or technology section directly from the taskbar, without first having to launch the browser, and navigate.


It has a double-duty Address Bar

IE9 takes not just its new look from Chrome, but another innovation as well --- having the Address Bar do double-duty as a search box. So you can either type Web addresses or search terms. Microsoft calls it One Box. No matter what you call it, it's useful.

Source: blogs.computerworld.com

Rogue Antivirus Attack - Warning Microsoft

Microsoft is advising users to be wary of a rogue antivirus program that creates fake warnings that appear to come from the user's browser.

The program, called MSIL/Zeven by Microsoft, detects what browser is being used and then launches a page virtually identical to pages generated by Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox that warn users when they are about to surf to a malicious site.

A key difference is that there will be a place on the page for users to click to download an antivirus program to protect them.

"All the 'updates' point to a copy of MSIL/Zeven that promises to provide 'a new approach to windows detection,'" blogged Daniel Radu of Microsoft Malware Protection Center Dublin. "Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome do not offer such a solution when a Website is blocked. When installed, the product [Win7 AV] looks very genuine: It allows you to scan files, tells you when you're behind on doing your updates, and enables you to tweak your security and privacy settings. ... However, the features don't work; everything is there just to look nice, not to offer any kind of protection."

When another warning appears telling users about malicious files discovered on the machine, users are told the files cannot be deleted until they update. The idea is to get users to pay for the full version of the product, which has the ability to download updates, Radu wrote. However, these files "are totally bogus."

"If you decide to buy the product, this rogue opens an HTML window enabled with 'Safe Browsing Mode' and high strength encryption to 'help' and 'protect' you while completing your purchase," he blogged. "Of course, these features are totally worthless and don't actually do anything in the way of securing your credit card details."

The main page of the fake AV itself is designed to look similar to the Microsoft Security Essentials Web page, Radu noted.

"The people behind it have even copied the awards received by Microsoft Security Essentials and link to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center - pretty sneaky of them," he blogged.

Microsoft couldn't say much about the attack vector the mind or minds behind Zeven are using to infect people in the first place, but told eWEEK users should keep their computers protected with up-to-date antivirus.

Source: securitywatch.eweek.com

How Browser Addons Affect your PC

Add-ons, also known as ActiveX controls, browser extensions, browser helper objects, or toolbars, can improve your experience on a website by providing multimedia or interactive content, such as animations. However, some add-ons can cause your computer to stop responding or display content that you don't want, such as pop-up ads.

If you suspect that browser add-ons are affecting your computer, you might want to disable all add-ons to see if that solves the problem.

Hide all To disable all add-ons temporarily

• Click the Start button , click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, and then click Internet Explorer (No Add-ons).


• If disabling all add-ons solves the problem, you might want to use Manage Add-ons to disable all add-ons permanently and then turn on add-ons only as you need them. To disable an add-on, follow the steps below.

To disable add-ons by using Manage Add-ons

1. Open Internet Explorer by clicking the Start button , and then clicking Internet Explorer.


2. Do one of the following:

•In Internet Explorer 8, click the Tools button, and then click Manage Add-ons.
•In Internet Explorer 7, click the Tools button, point to Manage Add-ons, and then click Enable or Disable Add-ons.>

3. Do one of the following:

•In Internet Explorer 8, under Show, click All Add-ons.
•In Internet Explorer 7, in the Show list, click Add-ons currently loaded in Internet Explorer.

4. Click the add-on you want to disable, and then do one of the following:

•In Internet Explorer 8, click Disable.

•In Internet Explorer 7, under Settings, click Disable.



Repeat step 4 for every add-on you want to disable. When you are finished, click Close in Internet Explorer 8, or click OK in Internet Explorer 7.

Source: windows.microsoft.com