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gHacks technology news

A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas.

Android Phone EmulatorToday

T-mobile setup a flash based emulator of their upcoming Android phone T-Mobile G1 which visualizes some of the functionality of the of the first Android phone. The emulator has its shortcomings like displaying the Android phone in the wrong size and some functionality is severely limited.

Taking those limitations aside the Android phone emulator does provide a good overview of some of the functions that the Android phone will offer. It is possible to get a first impression of the Google browser, Google maps and other functions like receiving calls, sms or mms. There is no real interaction with the emulator though. It is for instance not possible to use it to open any websites or actually call someone.

The flash based website about the Android phone contains two additional sections that are important if you want to get an impression of the phone’s dimensions because they seem to display the phone in the correct size.

The above screenshot has been taken from the Android phone emulator while the screenshot below was taken from the 360 view option. The screenshot from the Android phone emulator had to be reduced in size to fit on the screen while the screenshot below depicts the actua

PDF Meta EditToday

Like Microsoft Office documents Adobe PDF documents contain meta information that can sometimes reveal information that the author does not want to be accessible by readers. Meta information such as the author name, the application the PDF document was created with or PDF file creation dates are easily accessible by anyone analyzing the document closely.

PDF Meta Edit (the complete name is BeCyPDFMetaEdit) is a software program for Windows that provides not only means to view the PDF document meta information but also means to edit them. The application can be downloaded as a portable version or one that needs to be installed on the computer system.

Functionality is the same and the software program opens the file browser immediately after starting the application. After loading one pdf document from the computer it will display the meta information in the first of eight tabs.

The program displays the title, author, keywords, subject, software that was used to create the pdf document, file creation and modification dates and copyright notices in that tab. Each of the information can be edited individually. The Clear All Fields button alternatively clears all information at once from the PDF document.

Comodo Secure EmailToday

Although every user on the Internet is using email to communicate only few encrypt and digital certify their emails. The main reason might be the feeling that encrypting and certifying emails is a complicated process that requires lots of technical knowledge. It requires in addition to convince friends and business partners to secure their email accounts as well so that the system would be effective. It does not make sense to encrypt emails if the receiver does not know how to encrypt them.

Basically it comes down to being complicated and a nuisance that is not worth the effort. Comodo Secure Email is a free for personal use product by popular software developer Comodo that removes the complexity attribute from the process. Secure Email is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP or Windows Vista and fully integrates itself in popular email clients such as Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird.

A software wizard will walk the user through the process of creating a digital certificate that will be used for an email address. It simply means to select the email address that should receive the digital certificate. The user enters his name and email address and the certificate will be automatically generated.

Secure Email will start signing outgoing emails digitally right away and encrypt them if the contact has provided the user with an public key as well. The whol

Quick Launch Icon SizeToday

My new computer monitor arrived yesterday. It is an hp computer monitor with 24″ for maximum screen space. Pretty much feels like working with two 19″ monitors only that you got everything on one screen now. One thing that I noticed after connecting the new computer monitor to my computer system was that the quick launch bar was missing from the Windows Taskbar.

Not sure why that happened but it was not there anymore. A right-click on the Windows Taskbar and the selection of properties displayed the menu where I could enable the Quick Launch feature again in the taskbar.

This time however the icons where large so that only two icons fitted next to each other in one row. Back with the 19″ there were four icons in one row and that’s the way I wanted it again with the new computer monitor as well.

The large icons look much to grainy and unprofessional. After unsuccessfully searching for a way to enable small icons again I remembered that you had to unlock the toolbar first to access that setting. Another great usability idea

DVD Data Recovery SoftwareYesterday

The first step of making sure that important files are safe is to create backups regularly. This can be done with most Windows backup software programs and other operating systems provide means to back up data safely as well. Many users thing that they have done all they could and that their data is safe from this point on. Well, this is not always the case. One major factor that plays a role is the backup location. Data can be backed up on external hard drives, network locations, the Internet and DVD or CD.

Assuming that the initial backup completed error free the most common cause of loosing data are (partial) unreadable backups. It’s actually pretty easy to test if you have CDs or DVDs lying around that you burned several years ago. It is not uncommon that several files on those disks might be unreadable. There can be quite a few causes for this like scratches, exposure to sunlight, great heat or humidity.

One way of making sure that a DVD backup is still readable is to check it periodically with DVD data recovery software that can check file integrity on the disk and provide additional options like computing and comparing file hashes of previous tests or of files on the hard drive.

CD Check is a free for personal use CD and DVD data recovery software that can also check and compare