Microsoft gives away Office apps for iPhone, iPad

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Microsoft is offering free upgraded versions of its Office software for iPhones and iPads, as the software giant further embraces the so-called "freemium" strategy favored by many newer companies seeking success online.

Give away a basic version of a popular service, and the world may beat a path to your door and be willing to pay a little more for extras, or so the thinking goes.

Microsoft, the longtime king of desktop software, has generally protected its model of getting paid upfront for what it developed. But as the company strives to stay relevant for workers and consumers in an increasingly mobile world — and better compete with Google, Apple and others — it is offering substantial versions of its most popular products free of charge for smartphones and tablets. Microsoft is hoping to keep people using its products across all their devices, while betting that many will ultimately pay for fuller-featured versions of the software.

All Black suffers Twitter withdrawal

Self-confessed tweeting fanatic, All Blacks winger Cory Jane, said Monday he was suffering severe withdrawal pangs after the team management imposed a Twitter ban until the end of the Rugby World Cup.

Although he's stopped sending messages, Jane said he's constantly checking his account.

"I'm battling. I'm checking it like every 10 minutes just to see what people are writing and what's going on. It's starting to hurt but rules are rules," he said.

"The worst thing about it is when somebody writes something you just want to answer and let them know... but we're not allowed to."

Jane's tweeting has landed him in trouble with the All Blacks in the past, notably when he revealed in 2009 he had not been selected for a Test against England 24 hours before the team was officially released.

Coach Graham Henry admitted then he did not know what Twitter was and "thought it was a new guy playing five-eighth (fly-half) for England."

Jane said that while he struggled with the ban on responding to the many messages he received, he was not tempted to use a pseudonym because of the consequences of being caught.

"I'm not going to do that. I don't want to get kicked out first of all. I'll just abide by the rules and keep checking it every 10 minutes."

Meanwhile, the England team management have told their players they can tweet during the September 9-October 23 tournament as long as they don't reveal team selections, criticise the management or taunt the opposition.

Lian Li Launches Full-tower PC-90

Keelung, Taiwan – Lian Li Industrial Co. Ltd, maker of high-end, all-aluminum computer chassis for over 12 years, today introduced a full-tower chassis, the PC-90. Available in striking black or silver hairline-brushed, anodized metal casing, the PC-90, also known as 'The Hammer', represents the best of Made-in-Taiwan ingenuity and quality, with the ease of tool-less design.

The Lian Li PC-90's unique internal layout allows large HPTX motherboards to be held in a standard, full-tower case with a weight of only 6.6kg. 'The Hammer' PC-90 is light and compact, and can easily fit under a desk like a standard PC chassis. This makes the chassis an excellent solution for systems/servers/workstations without needing a large, heavy steel case.

Instead of standard HDD cages that obstruct internal air-flow, the PC-90's HDD drives are mounted vertically on two trays inside the left side panel. This way, the entire back of the case can be used to hold the motherboard, even enabling a larger HPTX or server motherboard to fit into the standard, full-tower chassis.

The Lian Li PC-90 offers the advantage of two 140mm front fans blowing cool air directly and unrestricted over the motherboard and VGA card to the rear 120mm fan. Its sturdy HDD trays on the side of the case lock firmly into place in order to avoid vibration. Nonetheless, the trays can be easily removed via thumbscrew, allowing for easy installation of three 3.5” HDDs in the front and three more 2.5” drives on the back of the two trays, for a total of 12 HDD drives for the entire system. Thanks to the chassis design without HDD cages, 'The Hammer' supports video cards up to 400mm length and also offers a tool-less graphics card holder. To support modern motherboards and avoid having to use external connectors, the case is equipped with USB 3.0 for 20-pin connector.

Rounding out the Lian Li PC-90's superior features are its cable organization system and liquid cooling holes. Washable air filters offer easy-to-remove, and recyclable, computer protection.

Traditional Durability
The essence of Lian Li is the craftsmanship of the engineering. Intrinsic to the workmanship and quality of Lian Li's products is their customization capabilities, which include a whole host of optional extras that can be added to an already feature rich product. For more details on features and extras available for the PC-C90, please go to the Lian Li website: www.Lian-Li.com



Product photos and detailed specs are available at:
http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=583&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=138&g=f



About Lian Li
Lian Li Industrial Co. Ltd is an aluminum chassis and chassis peripheral manufacturer and provider of industrial wholesale, as well as OEM & ODM, services for the PC industry. With over 20 years of service excellence, ISO 9001 certification and a professional staff willing to do the utmost to deliver durable, superior quality products, all backed by a *2 year guarantee; your satisfaction is guaranteed.(*conditions apply)

NETGEAR Brings Business Class WiFi Reliability and Private Cloud File Sharing to Home Routers

SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- NETGEAR®, Inc. (NASDAQGM: NTGR), a global networking company that delivers innovative products to consumers, businesses and service providers, today announced worldwide availability of the N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router – Premium Edition (WNDR3800), the first home router to offer Clear Channel Selector and the first to create private cloud file sharing through NETGEAR's new ReadySHARE™ Cloud service.

Clear Channel Selector, previously available only in more costly wireless routers for businesses, automatically detects when the WiFi channel currently in use becomes overcrowded and switches to another less-crowded channel. WiFi overcrowding is a growing problem as the number of WiFi access points proliferates and there's more competition for WiFi frequencies from household devices such as microwave ovens, cordless phones, baby monitors and from neighbors. Clear Channel Selector creates a more reliable home WiFi network by greatly reducing sudden disconnects and slowdowns, especially important for demanding applications such as HD video streaming, multi-player gaming and online voice or video chats.

ReadySHARE Cloud (www.netgear.com/readyshare) transforms a USB hard drive or flash drive plugged into the USB port of the N600 Premium Edition into a private "cloud" storage system for securely accessing and sharing files within the home network or across the Internet. There's no need to go through the lengthy process of selecting a public file-sharing site and then uploading files, and no worries about privacy policies or what happens if the service suddenly goes out of business. Instead, ReadySHARE™ Cloud makes it easy to designate which files and folders on the USB drive can be shared. These shared files can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection, as well as through apps from NETGEAR for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android smartphones and Android tablets.

Installing and managing the N600 Premium Edition is a snap. There's no CD required for installation, and the router can be configured through a simple browser-based interface accessible on PCs, Macs, smartphones, the iPad and other tablets.

The N600 Premium Edition is NETGEAR's most feature-rich home router, built around a powerful 680 MHz processor backed by 16 MB of flash memory and 128 MB of RAM. Among the router's many advanced features are:

ReadySHARE Printer – USB printers plugged into the N600 Premium Edition can be accessed by any computer linked to the home network. There's no need to buy a new printer with built-in WiFi to print wirelessly.
NETGEAR Genie – a free computer software utility for monitoring, controlling and repairing the home network (available at http://www.netgear.com/genie).
NETGEAR Live Parental Controls – a centralized, flexible and reliable way for parents to control which web sites their children visit and what times of day they can go online, covering all devices on the network including Windows PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets.
Guest network – allows visitors to go online without having to be given the home network password and without gaining access to computers, printers, storage drives and other home-network devices.
DLNA – supports the DLNA standard for streaming media to DLNA-enabled HDTVs, Blu-ray™ players and game consoles.
Automatic Quality-of-Service (QoS) – provides the best possible viewing experience for Internet video by giving priority to video streams over other home network traffic.
Expanded TiVo storage – for TiVo owners, a USB drive connected to the router can serve as extra storage for TiVo video recordings.
Fast wireless – dual-band wireless-N for simultaneous speeds of up to 600 megabits per second, divided between the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands.
Fast wired connections – Four high-speed gigabit Ethernet ports.
Automatic WiFi security – the router comes out of the box with wireless security turned on, so home WiFi networks are protected by default.
Open platform – do-it-yourself tech enthusiasts can tweak performance and features by installing open source firmware and joining the open router community at www.myopenrouter.com.


"The N600 Premium Edition brings a new level of sophistication to home networks," said Som Pal Choudhury, NETGEAR director of product marketing. "The unprecedented feature set of this advanced router makes wireless connections more reliable, breaks down the barriers to file-sharing in the cloud and much more – yet it's easy to set up and manage. This is the future of home networking, and it's here today."

Pricing and Availability

The NETGEAR N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router – Premium Edition (WNDR3800) is now available worldwide from major retailers – in stores and online – at $179.99 in the United States. The ReadySHARE Cloud apps for iOS and Android devices are also available now at $2.99.

China official tells Web firms to control content

BEIJING (AP) — A Communist Party leader has told China's Internet companies to tighten control over material online as Beijing cracks down on dissent and tries to block the rise of Middle East-style protests.

The party secretary for Beijing, Liu Qi, issued the warning following a visit this week to Sina Corp., which operates a popular microblogging site, according to the party-published newspaper Beijing Daily.

Internet companies should "strengthen management and firmly prevent the spread of fake and harmful information," Liu was quoted as saying after the visit Monday to Sina. He said companies should "resist fake and negative information."

Communist authorities encourage Internet use for education and business but are uneasy about its potential to spread dissent, especially after social networking and other websites played a key role in protests that brought down governments in Egypt and Tunisia.

Beijing is in the midst of one of its most sweeping crackdowns on dissent in years and has detained or questioned hundreds of activists, lawyers and others.

The government tries to block access to foreign websites deemed subversive and Chinese operators of websites where the public can post comments are required to watch the material and remove any that violates censorship rules.

The government's censorship rules prompted Google Inc. to close its China search engine last year. Mainland users can see Google's Chinese-language search site in Hong Kong but access is slower and the company's China market share has shrunk.

The report on Liu's warning gave no details of how Internet companies were expected to change their management.

Employees who answered the phone at Sina referred questions to a spokeswoman who did not answer her phone.

With Liu during the visit were Sina CEO Charles Chao and Kai-fu Lee, a former boss of Google's China unit who runs a technology investment company, according to the Beijing Daily.

Chao told Forbes magazine in March that Sina's microblogging site, Weibo, has at least 100 employees monitoring content 24 hours a day. The company said in May that the number of Weibo users had passed 140 million.

Also this week, the Beijing Internet Media Association, a government-sanctioned industry group, called on its 104 member companies to police Internet content, possibly prompted by Liu's order.

"Propaganda guidance to the public should be led toward a correct direction," the appeal said, according to the Beijing Daily. "Online news should be trustworthy and should not spread rumors or vulgar contents."

Liu, the party secretary, also visited the headquarters of Youku.com Inc., a video portal, and talked with CEO Victor Koo, the report said.

China has the world's biggest online population, with 485 million Internet users as of June 30, according to the government-sanctioned China National Internet Information Center.

Meanwhile, a major Chinese Internet commerce platform, Taobao, has told merchants that use its service to stop selling virtual private network and other software that allows Web surfers to avoid government filters.

Taobao, part of Alibaba Group, said it acted after finding VPNs were being used to visit foreign websites illegally. A company spokesman said Tuesday it took the action on its own without receiving government orders.