In Depth: Partition your hard drive: keep your data safe

We've always advocated keeping your docs, files and other data on a separate drive to Windows and your applications. That way if something goes wrong with Windows, your data is kept safe.

It's not always viable to purchase a second internal hard drive for your PC though, which is where partitioning comes in. Partitioning allows you to divide a large hard drive into two or more smaller drives, each one to all intents and purposes a separate physical drive.

In this tutorial we'll show you how to divide a single drive into two partitions, then move your data across to the new partition so Windows knows where to find it.

The actual partitioning process is simple, but we suggest caution following the tips in the annotation opposite if unmovable files are preventing you from shrinking drive C: to an acceptable size. You might find using Partition Wizard Home Edition useful as well.

Step-by-step: Partition your hard drive in two

1. Review available drive space

Click the 'File Explorer'/'Windows Explorer' icon in the Taskbar and select 'Computer' from the left-hand menu. Check the free space available for the C: drive - remember, this drive needs to be large enough to hold all your data. To get an idea of how much data you have, browse to C:\Users, right-click your username and choose 'Properties' - you'll now see the amount of space needed to proceed.

2. Move data to an external drive

If your user folder is larger than the available free space on the C: drive, you'll need to move some of its contents to an external hard drive. Open the relevant folder - typically Documents, Pictures, Music or Video - and move its contents into a folder of the same name on your external drive. Repeat until the size of your user folder is smaller than the drive's free space.

3. Open Disk Management

Windows 8 users should press [Windows]+[X] and select 'Disk Management' from the Quick Access menu. For Windows 7 and Vista users, you'll need to click 'Start', select 'Run' and type diskmgmt.msc into the dialog box, before clicking 'OK'. When the Disk Management window opens, right-click drive C: as shown in the screenshot above and choose the 'Shrink Volume…' option.

4. Shrink drive

After a short pause, Windows will display the maximum size that the C: drive can be shrunk by. If this seems a little too small, the annotation above will show you how to temporarily remove the files that are responsible. If the figure is acceptable, click 'Shrink' - if it's too large, enter a different figure in MB. The average user needs around 50GB (around 51,200MB) in total.

5. Create a new partition

Now wait while Windows resizes the drive. When it's complete, you'll see a new Unallocated section will appear next to the drive in the Disk Management window. This will become your new data partition. To set it up, right-click the empty space and choose 'New Simple Volume…' to start the process of setting it up. Now click next on the New Simple Volume Wizard.

6. Set up data partition

When asked to specify the volume size, leave the default figure alone and click 'Next'. If you want to assign drive letter D: to the new partition, simply select 'Do not assign a drive letter or drive path' for now and click 'Next'. Give the volume a suitable label (such as 'Data'), leave the other options as they appear and finally click 'Next', followed by 'Finish'.

7. Change drive letter

Locate the drive that's been allocated the D: drive letter, then right-click it and choose the 'Change Drive Letter and Paths…' option. Now click 'Change' to pick a new drive letter (such as 'Z') and click 'OK' followed by 'Yes'. Now right-click your new data partition and select 'Change Drive Letter and Paths…' when you're done. Finally, click 'Add', select drive D: and click 'OK'.

8. Move documents folder

Open a folder window and browse to C:\Users\Yourusername. Right-click the 'Documents' folder and choose 'Properties'. Switch to the Location tab and click 'Move'. Open your new drive and create a new folder with your username. Create another folder inside it called 'Documents'. With this folder selected, click 'Select Folder', then choose 'OK', followed by 'Yes'.

9. Move other folders

Once the files have been moved to your data partition, repeat the same process for all the other user folders you need: typically Desktop, Downloads, Pictures, Music and Videos, but you might also consider using Contacts, Favourites and Saved Games, too. Once done, transfer back any files you moved to your external drive into the relevant folders on your data partition.

10. Finishing touches

Congratulations, you've set up a data partition on your drive to keep your documents and other files separate from Windows. You can now take a drive image of your Windows partition using the incredibly useful Windows Backup tool (or by using third-party programs, such as Macrium Reflect Free) and restore this image in future without ever having to touch your files.

Twitter Revamps Android App With Photo Editing Tools

In December last month, Twitter updated its mobile apps with support to private image sharing via direct message. Now, the micro blogging site has introduced photo editing and sharing feature to its Android app. “Over the past few months, we’ve made it easy to share and edit photos on Twitter. Starting today, you can make the photos you post on Twitter even better”, posted Matt Belland on Twitter blog.

The latest tools enables users to rotate and crop photos to wide or square before sharing. Twitter will allow you to @mention people within your tweet by getting you to tag them when you upload an image. I tried the new feature and it is pretty easy and  works smoothly.

Furthermore, Twitter’s Android app will also show recommended tweets, trending topics and suggestions for new accounts to follow on users’ home timeline when there are no new tweets to load. This stories aren’t specific to each user, but rather based on the most popular links and headlines shared on Twitter.

The latest tools and features are available for only Android app and Twitter said that it will  land on iOS soon. Last year, Twitter added filters to photos and entered into a competition with Instagram.  Prior to the recent update, Twitter had updates its mobile apps with improved photo search and improved conversations. The recent move of updating photo editing feature only justifies that the micro blogging network wants more users to be active on its platform.

FakeOff app to detect bogus Facebook accounts

As instances of cyber impersonation on social networking sites rise, an Israel-based start-up has developed an application, FakeOff, that helps to identify fake accounts on Facebook.

The app on the world's largest social networking platform claims to protects users from scams devised by fake Facebook users, who are mistaken for genuine 'new friends'.

"Recent statistics show that at least 10 per cent of about 1.35 billion Facebook users are not authentic. Besides, there are millions of users who create fake identities and appear as regular users," FakeOff creator Eliran Shachar told PTI.

Fake profiles are divided into several groups including criminals, commercial and psychological, that can risk reputations (identity theft), children (paedophiles and sexual abuse), property (home break-ins) and personal safety, he added.

"FakeOff app uses sophisticated algorithm to investigate the behaviour of suspect 'friends' and rank them according to a 1-10 credibility score. It scans up to 365 days of timeline activity for every suspect Facebook friend and checks for abnormal activity," Shachar said.

The app checks timeline activity of the suspect and tries to locate abnormal activity that indicates a non-normal way of usage. It allows the user to scan the photos of the suspect to find out if it was stolen from someplace online, he added.

Also, FakeOff crosses information from all investigations and calculates results of a user based on other investigations on the same suspect, he said.

FakeOff has been live for two months now and has over 15,000 users so far.

"Twenty-four per cent of investigations conducted in the app return as fake. A fake profile can be very complex and some of the fakes that we help the users find is only for their eyes so we can't know the final result from the photo scan results, but the user easily can," he said.

According to Facebook, about 14.3 crore accounts on the social networking site may be false or duplicate, with a major chunk of them coming from developing markets like India and Turkey.

The firm said it estimates up to 7.9 per cent accounts being duplicate and up to 2.1 per cent and up to 1.2 per cent accounts being user-misclassified and un-desirable, respectively.

Facebook's monthly active users (MAUs) stood at 1.19 billion as of September 30, 2013.

Interview: Microsoft: Azure can beat Amazon and IBM cloud solutions

Amazon might be the name you think of when it comes to business cloud infrastructure, but with all the features Microsoft has been adding to Azure (with updates and improvements coming every two to three weeks), corporate vice president Scott Guthrie thinks Microsoft's cloud platform has the advantage. It's priced to be as cheap as Amazon but with more options worldwide.

"We have global coverage everywhere Amazon does and we have more regions too," Guthrie told us. "We have China, they don't have it yet; in Europe we have two [regions], they only have one, likewise in Japan we have two, they only have one. This gives you lots of options around redundancy. Right now, if Amazon went down in Europe or a natural disaster struck, every company that's in Europe would have to move their data outside of Europe. Our strategy of having multiple regions is helpful for the latency side and also for the disaster recovery side."

Neither Amazon nor Google offer businesses the same control over accounts Azure does, now that you can associate an MSDN account with your Active Directory account at work, he points out. "Being able to use your Active Directory credentials now to log in to Azure and associate it with your MSDN account; even very conservative organisations that previously said 'well, what happens when the employee leaves? I don't want them having a password.' Now you can [control that], now you can do multifactor auth. Now you can tie the two together and I can require that my employees only use ActiveDirectory in the cloud."

Azure also offers more secure ways to get your data into Azure, whether it's shipping a hard drive directly to Microsoft (in your own country) or getting a private network connection between your data centre and Azure using high-speed MPLS. Many wide-area networks already use MPLS and setting up a new connection is fast. "For an MPLS customer, connecting to Azure is super easy," says Guthrie; "it takes less than a day. Getting dedicated fibre, running a cable? That's not a day, that's more like three months. Azure doesn't support MPLS today, so we think we're differentiated there."

If you want to upload a lot of data, doing it over a network is necessarily the best way (it can be expensive or it can just slow down your other network traffic). If you ship a hard drive, Microsoft has an extra layer of protection Amazon doesn't, because you can encrypt the drive with BitLocker. "FedEx is usually pretty secure but if you've got critical data you want to make sure no-one can possibly tap it or intercept it, the BitLocker protection is a pretty unique thing that we offer to do that."

Big Blue comes to town

IBM's recent entry into cloud services doesn't impress him either. "We keep an eye on them; they seem to be spending a lot of time on the marketing side, but I haven't seen that much on the engineering side yet. They bought Softlayer, which wasn't really a cloud hoster; it was much more of a managed hoster." Just because the IBM name is familiar doesn't mean companies will choose them in the cloud. "For big enterprise vendors that don't have a solid cloud strategy, especially infrastructure vendors; well, it's interesting times."

Azure offers a lot more than just running your VMs in Microsoft's data centre and the backup services are proving particularly popular says Guthrie. "Take backup, take our Storsimple offering, take Hyper-V replicas, take database backup, take SaaS management with Active Directory [for single sign-on]; I think there are a lot of people who are basically extending the on premise environment to the cloud for IT scenarios, infrastructure scenarios. And next year I think you will see even more next year people using the cloud for disaster recovery and as a second backup site in case things go wrong."

The speed of getting a project started on Azure makes it appealing for developers. "Every time I ask people how long it takes their IT to set up a devtest environment, two weeks is usually considered good, a day is considered great and six months is considered poor. Being able to do it in minutes or seconds is just such a game changer for developers. Even these most conservative companies that don't want to run any other apps in the cloud are now comfortable with running devtest environments in the cloud."

Analytic interest

But customers are increasingly interested in analytics on Azure, using Hadoop and HDinsight. "Once companies realise they can take all they data have and do analytics on it and increase sales 10-20%. I have to imagine most companies, if they just look at their customer history, looked at their transactions and optimised their customer experience, it's not hard to see huge opportunities. We can see that these customers buying these products buy that as well or they're coming in from this site so let's move our marketing budget over here… It's easy to get wins."

For Guthrie, cloud isn't about sidelining or bypassing IT, it's about making them more productive. "You might spend weeks getting some of this stuff working the traditional way. People think it can't be that simple; but it is. You still have to learn it but stuff that traditional IT says today is too hard, so we'll do it next month or next quarter or next year? If we can make it so nothing is too hard, it makes IT so much more valuable as a discipline."

As well as adding new services to Azure, the team will also be adding more features to existing services. "We're not done on Azure by any stretch; there is lot of work to do and I intend to keep my team busy for a while yet. But in the next six months we're round out and complete a lot of these things. We've had websites for 15 months but there is stuff we shipped a few weeks ago like web sockets and auto scale where you can set day and night times and holiday rules [to power down your site]."

It adds up to a cloud platform Guthrie believes is what companies need. "It's going to be a pretty sweet end to end solution, everywhere in the world, the easiest cloud to use with consistency across on premise where you can easily integrate your existing assets at prices as cheap as Amazon… It starts to become you really have to have some other axe to grind not to look at Azure seriously and say this is my default."

7 Things PS4 Buyers Need to Know for 2014

7 Things PS4 Buyers Need to Know for 2014 is a post by Josh Smith from Gotta Be Mobile.

The PS4 is cheaper than the Xbox One and with a better controller it is appealing to a lot of gamers who are looking for a console that skips over live TV for a game focused experience.If you plan to buy a PS4 in 2014 there are some things you should know before you head to the store and load up on PS4 accessories and games.

Shoppers looking to buy a PS4 in 2014 should check out these details that make up the PS4 experience. While the PS4 remains unchanged from its launch in late 2013 there are several updated details that will help shoppers find a PS4 in stock and to avoid wasting money.

The Good Games Are Coming Soon

The number of PS4 games will soon grow as big titles like Watchdogs, Diablo 3, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeros, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn and others are on the way. Looking further out there are big names like Destiny and The Crew, which will arrive later this year as flagship gaming experiences on the PS4.

More PS4 games are coming including big name titles that may make it worth owning.

The current crop of PS4 games is a little slim, but there are fun games to be found and the gameplay is quite fun. Gamers that like first person shooters should check out Killzone: Shadow Fall and open world gamers will find Assassin’s Creed 4 Black Flag a fun adventure.

If you only see a few games on the store shelves, keep in mind the PS4 is a console that will see new games arrive over the course of the next five 5 to 10 years.

Still Hard to Find a PS4 in Stock

The most important thing to keep in mind for the early part of 2014 is that it is still hard to find a PS4 in stock at a local store or online. Many GameStop, Walmart and Best Buy locations cannot keep the PS4 in stock, even though it is relatively easy to find a Xbox One in stock.

Dell KACE can now deploy 250 operating systems in one go

Dell is aiming to make it simpler for businesses to upgrade from older versions of operating systems with a new version of its KACE Deployment Appliance.

With the end-of-life of Windows XP on the horizon, many companies are looking at upgrading their systems on a large scale. KACE 3.6 adds a host of new features to improve that upgrade and circumvent "major migration roadblocks".

The appliance is compatible with all operating systems for Windows tablets, laptops, desktops and servers as well as Apple laptops and desktops, offering wide-ranging coverage.

Multicasting is added in version 3.6, allowing the appliance to deploy new operating systems and applications on up to 250 multiple systems at the same time. The image is transferred just once, resulting in minimal bandwidth use.

Revamped engine, free upgrade

Integrated with the new multicasting system is a revamped task engine. The engine automates and controls the deployment tasks, including multiple reboots. The engine can automate scheduling and sequencing, allowing administrators to perform a "lights-off" operation in proper off hours.

David Kloba, general manager for Dell Software, said: "With the latest release of our Dell KACE K2000 Deployment Appliance, we offer a smarter approach to systems imaging that will help customers successfully move off Windows XP and be better prepared to handle large-scale deployments across multiple devices and operating systems."

Still going strong

Windows XP still holds a large share of the computer market and with April's support deadline drawing near, companies should begin to think about upgrading to Windows 7 or Windows 8. There should be no cause for panic, though, as Microsoft has extended its software support past the end-of-life (for the price of a subscription fee).

Dell's KACE K2000 is available for a price of $4,500 (£2,710, AU$5,121) through Dell and its channel partners. Owners of the K2000 can upgrade to the new version for free.

HDTV Buying Guide: What Buyers Need to Know in 2014

HDTV Buying Guide: What Buyers Need to Know in 2014 is a post by Josh Smith from Gotta Be Mobile.TVs on the way at prices consumers can consider and a prices dropping deeper on  good HDTV sets.

Wether you are planning a Super Bowl HDTV purchase or just looking to upgrade to a bigger HDTV for the new year we have the details you need to know before you buy.

While there is a lot of hype about Super Bowl HDTV purchases, a recent poll shows that the major sporting event doesn’t actually drive HDTV sales as much as it used to. In 2004 and 2006 interest spiked in Super Bowl HDTV purchases thanks to dropping prices and expanding HD channels and offerings, but since then many consumers choose to buy a HDTV in November and December.

Here’s what price to pay or a 55-inch HDTV in 2014.

Ramirez tells Gotta Be Mobile, “We don’t track prices for 65″ TVs that much. But we do have data for 55″ 3D sets.  The best deals on name brand 55″ 3D LCD HDTVs have averaged $700 for the past five months. It’s only a matter of time before they dip below $700, so if you’re shopping for a name-brand 55″ TV — look for deals in the $700 range. Lower than $700 and you know you’re getting a killer deal. ”

Without 3D, look for a 55-inch HDTV to run about $500 for a LCD 1080P set.

What Do I Need to Do Before Buying a HDTV?

“Don’t buy the first TV you see at the first price you see.” warns Ramirez.

Do i need a smart TV? WiFi? Plasma LED, LCD, and what’s a refresh rate?

Ramirez breaks this down by consumer type, to help you find the best TV at the best price for your needs. Below Ramirez explains who needs a high refresh rate, who should still buy a Plasma HDTV and what the average consumer should buy.

“If you’re a sports fan — look for LCDs that sport a 120Hz or 240Hz refresh rate. This ensures you’ll get the smoothest images possible during fast action scenes. If you like deep, inky blacks — plasma TVs will continue to be your best bet.  Yes, the technology is fading out (Panasonic said it would stop producing plasma TVs), but for image quality — they’re the best in the market today.  For the average consumer, you’ll probably want an LED-based LCD. That’s the technology being used in the majority of TVs today.”

What HDTV Features Can You Skip?

When it comes to buying a HDTV Ramirez tells Gotta Be Mobile, “you don’t need to have a TV that supports every feature available today.”

While you cannot add a better refresh rate or instantly switch to Plasma after buying there are some features that you can skip and add later. For instance, you don’t need a HDTV with built-in WiFi and smart features if you want to connect a Xbox One, PS4, Roku, Apple TV or ChromeCast to it as these will offer many of the same features.

You can also skip 3D when buying a new HDTV. “3D is definitely not worth the hype,” says Ramirez.

What About Generic Brands Like Seiki? How about Vizio?

If you are searching for a bargain HDTV, you will undoubtedly come across lesser known brands like Seiki and HiSense at prices that are much cheaper than the name brand competition. Ramirez shares the scoop on buying a Seiki or Insignia HDTV.

“You probably won’t catch a videophile buying a Seiki TV or an Insignia. However, as a bedroom TV or as a children’s TV — there’s nothing wrong with buying from off-brand manufacturers. As long as you’re ok with a no-frills TVs.  Meaning, no WiFi, no Netflix support, no touch-sensitive remote controls, etc. We still recommend doing a little research before buying any TV (especially since most TV purchases are not “impulse” buys).”

5 Questions to Ask During Your Job Interview

It’s easy to feel like you're in the hot seat during a job interview — you really want the position, you're battling all sorts of jitters and it certainly doesn't help that the stern executive sitting in front of you looks like he could use another cup of coffee

What often gets lost in the interview process, however, is a dialogue between job seekers and prospective employers, rather than a one-way Q&A. Instead of letting the interviewer ask all the questions, you should find the appropriate time to ask more about the position, the company and the industry.

Why Samsung quietly cheers when Apple sells an iPhone

In the marketplace,  Samsung  Electronics and Apple battle for customers. In the courts, they fight over patents. Yet every time Apple sells an iPhone, Samsung quietly cheers, too.

In addition to being one of Apple's main competitors, Samsung is one of its top suppliers. Samsung provides the application processor in the iPhone 5S - the brains of Apple's flagship handset, and one of its most expensive components.

Because Samsung is not only the biggest maker of smartphones, but also a leading provider of parts to Apple and other gadget makers, company executives say they are confident that the electronics giant can work its way through a difficult period. On Friday, Samsung confirmed that it had sustained a sharp slowdown in sales growth and earnings in the fourth quarter of 2013 and warned that business conditions would remain challenging in the first half of this year. Apple's sales have risen, and those gains have shored up Samsung by lifting the performance of its chipmaking business.

Samsung said that one-time factors were largely responsible for the fourth-quarter weakness. These included a special bonus totaling 800 billion won, or $740 million, that Samsung paid out to employees on the 20th anniversary of a management initiative to improve quality, as well as the effects of a surge in the strength of the South Korean currency, which Samsung pegged at 700 billion won.

"This kind of adjustment is normal for a high-growth industry," said CW Chung, an analyst at Nomura, though he added that Samsung's earnings could be "flattish" for the next two years.

Sales in the company's mobile division fell 9% in the fourth quarter compared with the third quarter, it said, acknowledging that sales of high-end smartphones had been weaker than expected. The premium segment, in which Samsung offers handsets like the Galaxy S4 and the Note 3, is the most lucrative part of the business, but analysts say it is increasingly saturated.

Samsung faces a renewed challenge from Apple, which introduced two new handsets - the iPhone 5S and a less expensive model, the 5C - in the second half of last year. Apple also recently reached agreements to distribute its phones via the largest mobile carriers in Japan and China.

While analysts said iPhone sales grew strongly after the latest models were introduced, with Apple regaining market share, Samsung's chipmaking business shared the spoils. That unit posted a 7% quarter-on-quarter increase in sales, helped by "increased AP shipments for a competitor's new product," said Jee-Ho Baek, Samsung's vice president of memory marketing, in a conference call with analysts. He was referring to application processors, and while he did not mention Apple by name, the allusion was clear.

Samsung's mobile division provides about two-thirds of the company's operating profit, but analysts expect that portion to decline in the coming years as the smartphone business matures. The chipmaking unit is expected to pick up some of the slack. That trend was already apparent in the fourth quarter, when the semiconductor division provided 24% of operating profit, up from 16% a year earlier.

Overall, Samsung posted net income of 7.3 trillion won, or $6.7 billion, up from 7.04 trillion won a year earlier but down from 8.24 trillion in the third quarter of 2013. Fourth-quarter sales of 59.28 trillion won were up from 56.06 trillion won a year earlier but flat compared with the third quarter of 2013. Operating profit, at 8.31 trillion won, was in line with a forecast issued two weeks ago.

The company said it expected weakness to persist in the first half of 2014, though it insisted that this was because of the "seasonality" of the technology industry, in which purchases are often deferred until later in the year.

While Samsung makes a wide range of consumer products other than phones, including televisions and home appliances, many of these have sluggish sales and low profit margins. Sales and earnings fell sharply in the display panel business.

Tablet computers are one area of promise, with sales and market share growing. Samsung executives said in the conference call that they were optimistic that new devices with larger screens would expand the tablet business further. The company also sees so-called wearable technology as a promising trend, though an early example, the Galaxy Gear smart watch, has gotten off to a slow start.

For now, that has left Samsung's chipmaking arm to pick up most of the slack from the new softness in smartphones. Memory chips, which are recovering from a long price slump, are outperforming more complicated semiconductor devices like application processors. Samsung said memory chip sales had been bolstered in the fourth quarter by the introduction of new video game consoles like Sony's PS4 and Microsoft's Xbox One.