Information Technology World

If you think you can get away with using an easy-to-remember password like '123456', 'qwerty', or simply 'password' on the internet, think again. Micro-blogging site Twitter recently banned users from using 370 words as passwords while signing up for a Twitter account since they are 'too obvious' and therefore vulnerable to hacking. The list also includes the names of popular TV shows, football teams like 'Chelsea' and 'Arsenal', brands, names of famous cars such as 'porsche' and 'ferrari', characters and common dictionary words. Also banned are a few popular science fiction terms like 'THX1138', title of the first film by George Lucas of Star Wars fame and 'NCC1701', the registry number of Star Trek's starship Enterprise. 'trustno1', Fox Mulder's password in The X-Files is also in the list. Research has shown that one in five people use their pets' names for their passwords, ...

Every year comes with new investors, new companies, new products, new rules and new hopes in the market. Also at the start of a year, an investor makes lot of promises to herself. She promises herself to follow all the discipline, do all the analysis and take all the important financial decisions from which she had been escaping due to fear or lack of interest. Such actions might have resulted in some major losses, which will force her to change the way of dealing with money. In the very beginning of 2010, let us have a look at some pointers for the new investment year. No one knows what 2010 has got in store for any of us. Who can guess whether it is a good year for cement sector or debt mutual funds or whether Sensex will again experience a below 10k level. The point is not how to predict the markets, which no one can actually do, but how to keep ourselves prepared for unforeseen losses. Tips! No-No - This is the first principle that any investor in the world should follow, irr...

Mon, Dec 21 12:40 PM New Delhi, Dec. 19 -- This has been one gadget-packed year: a zillion phones (and 500 million mobile users in India), the rise of the netbook, 3G data cards, power-packed cameras with incredible resolutions and HD video... So if you're planning on some Christmas shopping, here's my selection of nine candidates: bits of tech from among the many that 2009 had, that will serve you well into 2010 and beyond. Speed 3: the 3G Dongle The 2009 variant of the good old data card: lets you connect your laptop to the Net and email at blazing speeds. This USB stick is rated at 3 Mbps, and our labs squeezed 2 Mbps out of it. Expect to get about 1 Mbps as usage builds up. Way better than the 80 kbps-odd we got from older data cards. You can buy the Tata Photon+ for Rs 3,500, or the Reliance NetConnect, or others - BSNL and MTNL included, though I couldn't get the MTNL one working at 3G speeds; and MTS is "about to launch" one, but I simply could not ...