how to boost your kids confidence in this covid 19 lockdown period

kuragala මුස්ලිම් ආක්‍රමණයට නතු වූ බෞද්ධ පුදබිම

Camera Phone Photography--All-New Tips

With camera phones becoming as good as point-and-shoot cameras, it’s a must to know the basics of taking album-worthy photographs. The first step would be to read the following tutorial and then, you can trial and error your way to picture-perfect photography.

Metering modes
If you are using the Galaxy Note for example, you could do the metering of the light in and around your subject, just like professional cameras. Essentially, there are three metering modes. Use Centre-weighted if you are shooting people, so the camera exposure is calculated more accurately. In most, this is also set as a default because it works for most scenes. However, I would suggest Matrix metering for landscapes and just about anything under the sun. Similarly, there is Spot metering, which is best if you are shooting jewelry or any small product that needs selective exposure. Spot metering also helps in creative photography and where your subject is back lit.

Shooting modes
Any phone that has a front camera is perfect for self portrait. But there is also an option to disable the in-camera flash (in the Note’s case, the LED light) and also opt for different shooting modes like single shot, smile shot (press the shutter once to focus and press again to capture the smile), beauty, panorama, share shot (Wi-Fi Direct required to share your picture with a similar device), action shot (create panorama of a moving shot) and cartoon (turn your picture into a cartoon). As the names suggest, each setting has that feature embedded in them, like the panorama one for example.

Scene modes
In the Note, there are 13 modes to pick from. But if you are unsure or have no time to set your camera phone, you can go with the default option of ‘none’. But then, what’s a camera if you can’t make the most of it? For example, the ‘firework’ option lets you capture fireworks in the sky that the ‘none’ setting will never be able to pick up. Similarly, if your subject is back lit, you could opt for the ‘back lit’ option and still ensure that the camera captures your subject without a glare or over-exposure. Another useful option is the ‘text’ setting, which you can use to capture name boards, documents and the like.

Exposure values and other features
You can set the exposure compensation value from anywhere between -2 to +2 to either over-expose or under-expose a subject or scene. In the Note, you can even activate the ‘blink detection’ in your camera settings, in addition to ‘anti-shake’ and ‘gps tag’ features. You can even set the ISO from auto to 800, though I would recommend the ‘auto’ setting for more simplicity. However, if you are facing low-light situation, an ISO setting of 400 would work well, without any loss in clarity or noise. Similarly, you can set the white balance to ‘auto’ and there are even options like Daylight, Cloudy, Incandescent and Fluorescent. You can also set the image resolution from the lowly 640×480 (0.3 MP) to as high as 3264×2448 (8MP) in the Galaxy Note, for example. What is also helpful is the focus mode that works beautifully when you are shooting close-up pictures of flowers or a group of people. In the Note, you can go to Settings/Focus Mode/Macro to shoot flower buds up close or opt for Face Detection if you are shooting groups.

And finally…
All these features of the camera phone are only good for those who have a love for photography. For all the others, just the default setting would do. But do remember that though your camera phone can replace your point-and-shoot camera to some extent, nothing can take away from the supreme features offered by a professional camera. However, if you want to take baby steps into becoming a photographer, perhaps experimenting with a camera phone could be a good starting point. And for those who are pros, but don’t have a camera at hand, their smartphone could rescue them to capture some Kodak moments.

Good luck!

Police Can Access Your Email Without A Warrant If It's 180 Days Old

When retired four-star general and former CIA Director David Petraeus resigned from his post this month after admitting to an extramarital affair, one of the more startling revelations was that the dalliance was discovered when the FBI sifted through his private Gmail account.

The spy chief had been out-spied.

More alarming is that the average American could easily be subjected to the same snooping that Petraeus endured. According to current law, police can access email through a provider, like Yahoo or Gmail, without a warrant if the message is more than 180 days old.

The rule is a relic of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, written before legislators could dream of the explosion of technology and ubiquity of email, text messaging, online chatting and other communications that leave behind an electronic trail.

The Senate Judiciary Committee met on Nov. 29 to consider an update to the Act which would require police to get a warrant to read email or other electronic communiques.

The proposed change comes as technological advances continue to give law enforcement more efficient and invasive ways to track people, while privacy laws struggle to keep up. Citizens might be surprised to learn that their email accounts, their phones and even their houses are subject to warrant-free electronic surveillance.

Leap Frog Technology

While the Electronic Communications Privacy Act may be outdated by about 25 years, that doesn’t mean that people need give up their reasonable expectation of privacy within new technologies, argues Bruce A. Barket, a criminal law attorney with New York firm Barket Marion.

“The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution was enacted in 1791,” Barket says. “It was enacted at a point of time to deal with government intrusion and searches that they could possibly comprehend. Now we have government searches that nobody up until the last 10 years could even envision. Could you ever envision that the government could track every movement by simply calling up a cell provider?”

At times, when lawmakers have been slow to act, courts have stepped in to curb investigative excess, such as in this spring’s Supreme Court ruling that police need a warrant to place a GPS tracker on someone’s car. The court did not deign to make a decision about tracking cell phones through GPS or other technology, however, an option that law enforcement is still free to take advantage of, sans probable cause.

Barket, who was one of the attorneys to originally challenge police use of GPS devices nearly a decade ago, points out that as even newer technologies emerge, we will be caught in a never-ending loop of efforts to protect privacy from intrusions that aren’t yet governed by law.

“It’s kind of like a leap frog. Technology will not stop happening,” the attorney says. “Courts are going to have to interpret old laws and new technologies to make reasonable decisions as to what law enforcement should be allowed to do and not allowed to do. Ultimately legislators will have to catch up.”

Creep Factor

While the technologies are new, the debate is old, dating at least as far back as 1928, when the Supreme Court ruled in Olmstead v. United States that eavesdropping on private telephone conversations without a warrant did not constitute a Fourth Amendment violation. The ruling stood until 1967, when in Katz v. United States a different set of justices overturned the previous decision and ruled that callers do have a reasonable expectation of privacy over the telephone.

Cell phones could be the next benchmark, not only because police can see everywhere a person has been using the phone’s GPS or cell tower location information, but because if a person is arrested a vast amount of personal information stored on a smartphone could be at an officer’s fingertips.

“Someone puts data into their phone, birthdays, anniversaries, contact info, text messages, boyfriends, girlfriends, emails with all these people– you have the expectation that that information is not going to be shared with the government simply on the whim of their asking,” says Barket. “Ultimately, courts, I hope, are not going to let that happen.”

When judging what constitutes a reasonable expectation of privacy, he notes, there is an informal test as to whether police might have gone too far. “There is a creep factor,” Barket says. “How creepy does it make you feel?”

Visit Lawyers.com to learn more about privacy law and to find an attorney in your area who can answer your questions.

Police Can Access Your Email Without A Warrant If It's 180 Days Old                                                        Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/petraeus-affair-and-email-privacy-laws-2012-11#ixzz2DmjxGmjG

Connecting Your Laptop To A T.V. Screen

With the prices on huge HD enabled, flat screen TVs always tumbling further down, you may want to connect your laptop to your TV when at home to have a bigger viewing area. Using your TV as an external monitor is a handy way to show something on your laptop to your whole family, to view computer games in a much larger format, or even to see video chat sessions on a bigger screen.

Connecting a laptop to your TV requires using the correct type of video cable, as not all TVs or laptop models support all cable connections.  Attach the cable – whether it be S-Video, HDMI, DVI, or even VGA – from the port on the side of your laptop to the corresponding port on the back or side of the TV. If you aren’t sure what ports your television has, check the manual or swivel the TV around to visually check the ports. Most new television models available support connecting S-Video cables (at the least) to offer connectivity with mobile devices like laptops.  Keep in mind that S-Video cables only allow the transfer of images and not sound, so any audio or video file you play on your laptop will play through the computer’s internal speaker and not through the television’s sound system.

Many laptop models include a built-in shortcut for switching over to another monitor detected by the operating system. After connecting the cable, tap the shortcut key combination, which is generally the “FN” and “F8” keys pressed simultaneously. If this combination doesn’t work, check your laptop’s user manual or head over to the support website for your computer manufacturer to find out the key combination your computer model uses.

The Windows 7 operating system also has a built-in shortcut for switching between external monitors by tapping the “Windows” key (the key with the Windows picture positioned to the left of the “Alt” key) and the “P” key together.  Tapping either the “FN” and “F8” or “Windows and “P” shortcut combinations more than once lets you cycle through the monitor options, which are:

Laptop screen only
Duplicate image on both screens
Extend image across both monitors
External monitor only

Extending the image across both monitors means your desktop will be half on your laptop’s screen and half on the TV, which is useful if you have many icons that need to be positioned on the desktop, or if you need to be able to view several different windows at once. In the event that your laptop doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut, or you have changed the shortcut settings, you can instead manually change the external monitor settings by opening the “Start” menu and navigating to the “Control Panel.”

Inside the Control Panel window, click the green “Hardware and Sound” heading listed below the “Network and Internet” Heading.

Locate the green “Display” heading listed above the “Windows Mobility Center” heading. Click the blue link below the “Display” heading labeled “Connect to an External Display.”

Click the “Detect” button in the top-right corner of the window to detect your connected television as an external monitor.

Open the “Display” drop-down menu and select the option for your connected television. Open the “Multiple Displays” heading and select which of the four previously mentioned external display options you want to use, such as extending the display across both monitors or only using the external television.

Open the “Resolution” drop-down menu and select the new resolution you want to use on your external display if your laptop’s standard resolution doesn’t look good on the TV. Click “OK” to save your changes to the monitor settings. When you are ready to switch back to your laptop screen, either use the previously mentioned keyboard shortcuts or return to the “Connect to an External Display” window and select your laptop’s screen in the “Display” drop-down menu.

The End Of The Smartphone Era Is Coming

You've heard that Google is working on computerized glasses. They're called Google Glass, and developers can already buy them.

It turns out Microsoft is working on something similar. It filed some patents on the project and Unwired View dug them up.

There's a big difference between what Microsoft is working on and Google Glass, though.

The most recent word out of Google is that Google Glass isn't going to use "augmented reality" – where data and illustrations overlay the actual world around you.

Google Glass is actually just a tiny screen you have to look up and to the left to see.

Microsoft's glasses seem to utilize augmented reality. In a patent illustration we've embedded below, you can see that the glasses put data on top of a live action concert and a ballgame.

Both gadget concepts are very interesting. 

Lots of people disagree with me, including other BI writers, but I think something like Google Glass or whatever Microsoft is working on could end up replacing the smartphone as the dominant way people access the Internet and connect to each other.

First off: something has to. Disruption is inevitable.

Secondly: The trend is obvious.

Computers have been getting smaller and closer to our faces since their very beginning.

First they were in big rooms, then they sat on desktops, then they sat on our laps, and now they're in our palms. Next they'll be on our faces.

(Eventually they'll be in our brains.)

By the way, you can bet that if Microsoft and Google are working on computerized glasses, so is Apple and Jony Ive.

And that's pretty exciting.

Here's the patent illustration from Microsoft:

And here's what Google Glass looks like:

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Adding A Watermark To Your Photos

You take great photos, why not share them? The problem is when those photos get used illegally or without your permission. We’ve given you a few different options when it comes to protecting your online photos in this previous article, but today I’m going to go a little more in-depth with my preferred method, the watermark.

Adding an image on top of your image is a sure fire way to keep someone from using it without your permission, but who wants to cover up their entire picture with a graphic? On the other hand, how much good does it do to use a watermark that  can easily be cropped out? Well, I’m going to walk you through an easy way to create a functional watermark that doesn’t interfere with the integrity of your image.

Let’s start by choosing a photo you would like to try this on. Open the photo in Photoshop.

Next, we’re going to create a new text layer on top of our photo. To do this, select your text tool and draw a box on top of the photo with it.

 

This will create a new text layer and give us a text box to work with.

While inside the text box, hold the alt key and type 0169 (if you’re on a Mac, hold the option key and press the letter G). This will give you the copyright symbol (©) … but it’s probably tiny in proportion to your photo. Highlight the symbol and enlarge the font size until it is the size you want. It should look something like this:

With that layer selected, click on the add layer style button    ,  and select Bevel and Emboss.

This will open a menu with the Bevel and Emboss options.
We’re going to use the following settings:

Finally, take your fill all the way down to 0% and your opacity down to 40.

And there we have it, a subtle, professional looking watermark.

Keep in mind you can replace the © with a different shape, such as your logo.

Is there any way to get Google Maps functionality back on my iPad/iD

Is there any way to get Google Maps functionality back on my iPad/iD

 There IS a way to get Google Maps back on your iOS 6-enabled iDevice, and it’s not too involved, either.

The first thing you’ll want to do is load up Safari and go to maps.google.com. When you get there, a message should pop up along the top that looks like this:

So, like the message says, tap the sharing arrow up at the top of the screen and choose Add to Home Screen.

This will put a Google Maps link on your home screen that you can use instead of Apple Maps. It uses your iDevice’s location services and everything!

Check it out!

Skype have serious security issue|

Skype have serious security issue|

A serious security issue has been discovered in Skype which allows hackers to easily exploit on user account just by knowing user email addresses.

In this Skype security hole anyone can change your password and take over your account.This issue was firstly reported on russian forums a months ago.

Here is what skype said on this security issue.

We have had reports of a new security vulnerability issue. As a precautionary step we have temporarily disabled password reset as we continue to investigate the issue further. We apologize for the inconvenience but user experience and safety is our first priority

Here is how this exploit works:

The reason this works is simple, but it's still worrying. When you use an existing email address to sign up with Skype again, the service emails you a reminder of your username, which is okay, since no one else should have access to your email. Unfortunately, because this method enables you to get a password reset token sent to the Skype app itself, this allows a third party to redeem it and claim ownership of your original username and thus account.

If you find your RAM usage exceeding 60% regularly, then MemoryCleaner is an absolute must have.

Memory Cleaner


Feature List 

1. Trims processes' working set.
2. Clears system cache.
3. Monitors RAM usage and reports minimum, maximum and average (true average, not (min+max)/2).
4. Reports Pagefile and virtual memory usage.

මට අද හම්බඋනා පොඩි සොෆ්ට්වෙයාර් කෑල්ලක් ,,,මේක මට හම්බ උනේ පහුගිය දවස් ටිකේම මට වධ දුන්නු ප්‍රස්නෙකට උත්තරයක් හොය හොයා ඉන්නකොට ,,,මම හිතන්නේ මට වගේම මේක ඔයාලටත් ගොඩක් උවමනා වෙයි කියලා ,,ඔයාල ගොඩක්   අය දන්නවනේ මේ ram එක මදි උනාම වැඩක් කරගන්න කන කට්ට ,,,හිරවෙනකොට මේ මගුල උස්සල පොලවේ ගහන්න හිතෙනවනෙ ,,, ඉතින්   ඕකට පොඩි සහනයක් ඔන්න හම්බුනා ,,,,මටනම් පොඩ්ඩක් වැඩ කරනවා  ;  ඔයාලත් දාගෙන බලන්න




Tech-savvy folk are divided over how useful memory cleaning tools can be because Windows (Vista upwards at least) manage memory reasonably well. Most memory cleaning tools are not very useful because many of them use ill-advised techniques that are only relevant to older versions of Windows (pre-Vista).

MemoryCleaner is considerably better because it uses functions built into Windows to judiciously free memory - with no performance impact whatsoever. You can now access Memory Cleaner functions from the tray icon without having to open up the main window. The cleaning prodecures are both silent and the only alert you will see is the amount of RAM recovered briefly displayed in the window.

If you find your RAM usage exceeding 60% regularly, then MemoryCleaner is an absolute must have.


Feature List 

1. Trims processes' working set.
2. Clears system cache.
3. Monitors RAM usage and reports minimum, maximum and average (true average, not (min+max)/2).
4. Reports Pagefile and virtual memory usage.

 සමහරවිට ඔයාලටත් ගැලපෙයි ,,,,වෙන ක්ලීන් කරන වැඩසටහන් වලදී අපේ කොම්පියුටරේ ගොඩක් එව්වා ක්ලීන් කරනවා තමයි එත් මේකෙන් අපේ ram එක විතරයි සුද්ද කරන්නේ ,,මට දැනුන විදිහටනම් 20% විතර අමතර ඉඩක් හදාගන්න පුළුවන් මේක පාවිච්චි කරලා ,,උන්න හැටියට මලා මදැයි ,,නේද ?,,,,
             බයවෙන්න එපා බොහොම පොඩි එකක්    4 kb  ක් විතර තියෙන්නේ මේකේ නම memory cleaner ඉතින් කැමති අය දාගෙන බලන්නකෝ   ඔන්න පහල දාල තියනවා ලින්ක් එක නිෂ්පාදකයාගේ site එකටම ගිහින් විස්තර බලාගෙනම ගන්නකො
  http://www.koshyjohn.com/software/memclean/