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gHacks technology news

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

Opera 9.62 Security UpdateNovember 23

A new version of the excellent web browser Opera has been released today. The browser which many Opera users consider superior to the other major browsers is stuck at about 2% market share which is slowly on the rise according to the Browser Statistics published by W3Schools.

The new version of Opera is a recommended security upgrade which fixes two security issues. The first fixes an issue where History Search could be used to execute arbitrary code while the second ensures that the links panel no longer allows cross-site scripting. The only other addition is the incorporation of the Opera Presto 2.1.1 user agent engine.

Opera users should upgrade the browser as soon as possible to secure the browser from those reported vulnerabilities.

Opera 9.62 Security Update

Tags: opera, opera 9.62, opera browser, opera market share, opera presto,

Blu-Ray Region Code RemoverNovember 23

Although Blu-Ray has won the battle of this generations HD formats against HD-DVD it is still far away from winning the battle against the DVD format. The majority of Blu-Ray players had made their way into the homes in the form of the Sony Playstation 3. PC users can purchase Blu-Ray players and the more expensive Blu-Ray writers for their computers for some time now as well.

There have not been many releases on Blu-Ray disks though except for movies. Blu-Ray disks can have a region protection which means that it can be that a movie won’t play on a Blu-Ray player if the disk and the player have been purchased in different regions.

The world is divided into three regions: Region A spans across most of Asia, region B includes Europe, Africa and Australia while region C includes North- and South-America and Japan.

Not all Blu-Ray movies are region encoded though. The decision is made by the motion picture studio releasing the movie.

The Blu-Ray Region Code Remover removes the region code of Blu-Ray disk rips on a computer’s hard drive so that these rips can be played regardless of the user’s region. It furthermore supports

Typealizer: What Type is That BlogNovember 23

Online services that tell you things you already know seem to be becoming increasingly popular. Some analyze your browsing history to tell you if you are male or female while others analyze websites and tell you what kind of person you are.

The author’s at Ghacks are Duty Fullfillers according to the analysis of Typealizer. Duty Fullfillers are the responsible and hardworking type that are careful about getting facts right and reluctant to take risks. Rarst on the other hand is a guardian, one of the organizing and efficient type who are attuned to setting goals and managing available resources to get the job done.

Most technology blogs seem to fall into those two categories, think Lifehacker (Duty Fullfillers) or Download Squad (Guardians). Typealizer works best with blogs but it can actually be used on many websites that are not blogs as well. Some websites cannot be processed at the moment including CNN but most English or Swedisch websites and blogs should return a result. (Perez Hilton turned out to be detected as a Thai blog..)

Display Time In GamesNovember 23

Good games can suck a player into the game world. Players can lose the feeling for the time and the Internet is full of stories of gamers who stopped playing in the middle of the night because they lost track of the time. Not many games provide access to the time while playing. Some players might have enough self discipline to look at a watch or cell phone for the time but many don’t.

Those players would probably prefer a way to display the time directly in games. Applications that can do that are limited to a handful. One of the better solutions is to use the free software Xfire which is some sort of Instant Messenger for gamers. It’s like Steam in many aspects as it provides access to a chat and the installed games even when playing a game.

One of the features of Xfire is that it displays the time in the screen overlay. The feature can be activated by pressing the chat hotkey while playing the game. This opens up the time and other interfaces. Don’t worry, everything can be closed so that only the time remains on the screen. Once the overlay has been activated each element of it can be moved around the screen.

Move the time to a location where it does not interfere with the gameplay. A corner at the bottom is usually a great spot.

Click in the tiny pin to pin the time to that location. Now close the main overlay again. Everything that has not been pinned will be closed again leaving only t

Install Vista Themes Without Patching The System FirstNovember 23

Microsoft is protecting the Windows Vista operating system from unsigned third party themes. The protection prevents the installation from Vista themes if they have not been signed by Microsoft. The usual way of installing Vista themes is therefor to patch the files responsible for the protection so that third party themes can be installed on the operating system. The Vista Theme customization article covers those basics.

There is however a second possibility. Third party software that can load themes into Windows Vista. These programs usually patch the files themselves. One of those software programs that can install Vista themes automatically is Style Selector.

Style Selector is a free 200 Kilobyte portable application that runs on 32-bit editions of Windows Vista. New Vista themes have to be moved into the Styles folder. The Vista theme has to make use of a .styles file to be recognized by the software program.

Vista themes that have been moved into the folder are automatically recognized by the application. Selecting the Vista theme in the list of available themes and clicking on the Apply button will load tha