How To Become An Air Hostess

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Air Hostess is a special domain for young girls who look forward for an exciting career in the aviation industry. This career is specially rewarding as not only you get good pay packages but at the same time you also get to see different parts of the world, meet different people, get to see more and at the same time you learn more. The basic job of an Air Hostess is to make the air travel of the passenger comfortable and take care of the passengers throughout the journey.


The job of the Air Hostess may seem very easy but it’s not the case as it may seem to be. You really need to be patient and have a calm demeanor. You will definitely encounter different kinds of people and the Air Hostess should be smart enough to tackle all of them with a smile on their face.  Communication skills and a pleasant persona are most saught after traits in an Air Hostess.

As far as job opportunities are concerned, it’s immense. With the legalization of the private flying companies new gates have opened for Air Hostess. Moreover every company looks to expand its flying fleet so more opportunities will be created. An Air Hostess can be promoted to the post of Senior Flight Attendant and then Head Attendant. The average career span as an Air Hostess would last for about eight to ten years, after that she could move on to the ground duties including the job of a Ground Hostess, Check Hostess, training of airhostess or work in the management level.

Eligibility:

•    She should be 12th clear pass
•    graduate degree with a diploma/degree in Hotel Management or Tourism Management
•    should be below twenty-five years of age
•    must possess a passport
•    minimum height is 157.5 centimeters
•    should be unmarried
•    normal eyesight of 6/6 uncorrected vision in each eye

Selection Procedure:

•    there is an initial screening test
•    then they have to undergo a written examination
•    those who clear have to appear for group discussion and personal interview
•    selected candidates will be recruited as trainees and will be under the training period for 2-3 months

Salary:

The salary you get as a fresher depends upon the airline in which you are recruited but it should range between Rs.16, 000 to Rs.35, 000. However the package as a senior airhostess can touch six figures per month where you will earn easily around 1, 00,000 per month.

 
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428 Responses to “How To Become An Air Hostess”

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  1. 428
    deepa:

    Hi, mam or sir i wanted to become air hostess.i am b.c.a passed out.thanku

  2. 427
    lakshmi urs:

    i am now at present at 11th science student after 12th i would like to be an airhostess so what can be the preparations started now itself?

  3. 426
    Manisha Panchal:

    i am 12th pass girl. now i am in B.C.A.2nd year. but i want become an air hostess . can i………???

  4. 425
    aditi:

    sir, i m very interested to be an air hostress.i m in +2.can u plz tell me what should i do after +2 nd what will be the last date for air hosteress entrance exam 2014??? my english is not so good..plzz give me suggestions…………

  5. 424
    PRIYANKA:

    SIR,I WANT TO BE AN AIR HOSTESS ,I AM GOING TO COMPLETE 12th PLEASE TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD DO AFTER THIS TO FULFIL MY DREAM

  6. 423
    Neema:

    I have done my PG in commerce so can i apply for air hostess?

  7. 422
    Rasiya:

    Am intrested this course but am not fluently talk english

  8. 421
    shansree:

    Hello sir/madam i want to become an airhotess so may i know about airhostess entrance exam when it held?
    When will be the form out?

  9. 420
    Sanket mishra:

    Hello sir/mam ..i had completed my b tech in 2012 from cs branch so i wan to become a air hostess so what can i do to become this plz tell me wat i do..my mail is [email protected]

  10. 419
    プーマ Espera:

    simply don’t get all the commands you’d want for, say, a TiVo.LogitechThe $350 Harmony Ultimate is pretty nice, but also costs a pretty penny.The high-end Harmony Ultimate package works differently: The setup routine is completely Web-based since you can connect the touchscreen remote to a computer with an included USB cable. Again, it’s the same setup routine used for other high-end Harmony remotes, and you can download previously created settings and activities.The rechargeable Ultimate remote also comes with its own charging cable (the Smart Control uses batteries). While $350 is admittedly ridiculously expensive for a remote, I did find the Ultimate a joy to use, combining the user-friendly interface of the mobile apps with the greater reliability of RF communication.Bottom lineWhether with or without your smartphone as the remote, the latest Harmony Hub line represents a great improvement over its predecessor, and a worthy alternative to traditional IR-based universal remotes—especially in locations where Wi-Fi network interference isn’t a big problem.Review: LyX is an advanced but easy-to-use document processor based on LaTeX typesetting When one thinks of document editors, it’s usually Microsoft Word and Google Docs that come to mind. But in the world of word processors there are marquee names, and then there are some worthies not yet in the limelight. Advanced cross-platform document processor LyX has its merits. LyX is free and Open Source. LyX’s workflow is something of an adjustment from Microsoft Word, but learning it can pay off. The results are similar to professional typesetting.Creating our first document on LyX is as simple as any other: Go to File – New. You can copy-paste or type your first text without bothering about any formatting. To start with formatting, we will say LyX uses Environments. Environments are lot like Microsoft Word and its use of Styles to format documents with consistency. But Environments give far greater control across a variety of document types.Document processors are usually WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). LyX is WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean), though the frontend does not differ much from any other document editor. The way LyX controls the layout of the document lies in the background, where it uses powerful typesetting markup language LaTeX.The default Environment is Standard. LyX has different Environments for typesetting sections, lists, sub-lists, verses, quotations, bibliography etc. Expanding the dropdown, we can choose to apply the appropriate ones and within a few clicks, our basic document now starts looking more professional. Different Text Styles can be used on the text. It can be previewed with a PDF reader.The idea is to separate the content from its presentation. Precise control over layout is a must for academic and scientific authoring. This is where LyX comes into its own. LaTeX is complicated. LyX is the friendly GUI. The program handles the final presentation, leaving the writer with only the business of writing the content. The end result is a more attractive and consistent document.Different documents like a book, a thesis, a letter etc. need to be typeset differently. LyX uses Document classes which tell it how to typeset the document so that we don’t have to bother about the distinctions. Each choice of a Document class also changes the Environments which go with it. Some are built-in but many Document classes and layout options are available online which allow us to extend LyX for all types of document processing needs.LyX is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, with unofficial ports for OS/2 and Haiku. For a fresh installation on Windows, opt for the 200MB bundle, which is fully functional and includes the complete LaTeX distribution (MiKTeX) and a bibliography manager. A 35MB update installation is available for older versions of LyX with LaTeX already installed on the system.LyX shows why the program is geared for the scientific community with its versatile Math toolbar. The Math toolbar helps us to create complex mathematical formulas easily. LyX has a detailed Math manual that explains all the features.Lyx uses MiKTeX, an up-to-date implementation of TeX/LaTeX. It is composed of packages (programs, styles, fonts etc.) that help to format and render documents. Many of the packages are optional. During the course of your text processing, the program might prompt you to update the packages if it finds that you need a custom package not available with the default installation. LyX You can search for relevant packages using the Package Manager and install them.Remember, LyX is WYSIWYM. In its raw form, the document might look like a mish-mash of brackets and typesetting elements. When you have finished with your text, render it with the default PDF reader. You can save it and render it later, or export it in many different formats (HTML, Open Document, Plain Text). On first launch, the GUI does not seem any different from a standard document processor (though it doesn’t resemble Microsoft Word’s Ribbon interface). If getting on the learning curve feels slightly overwhelming, you can avail yourself of very detailed instructions in LyX.org’s Introduction, Tutorial, User Guide, and additional manuals in the Help menu.If you have a long and cluttered document waiting to be prepared, try your hand on LyX. It costs no money, and for complex scientific documents, it could end up saving you time.Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor’s site, where you can download the latest version of the software.Review: MacBook Pro with Retina Display redefines the concept of a ‘pro’ laptop Apple isn’t afraid to stir things up, making people rethink how they use technology. In recent years, most of that kind of innovation has focused on the iPhone, iPad, and iOS. But the , released at , now directs attention back to the Mac.The Retina MacBook Pro is not only a groundbreaking release, combining stunning performance and portability in a 15-inch Mac laptop; this model will also force you to change the way you interact with a laptop. From overhauling how you view and work with content to how you deal with external devices and connections, Apple isn’t afraid to push its customers in new directions. The Retina MacBook Pro is certainly a more-than-gentle nudge.Looking good: The Retina displayThe marquee feature of this laptop is right in the name―the Retina display. The Retina display made its debut in the , followed by the . It’s finally made its way to a Mac. You can look at the Retina display as another step in the iOS-ification of the Mac, or you can see it as I do―another way to remind you that all of these products are part of one big happy Apple family.The Retina display’s numbers are mind-boggling: 2880 by 1800 pixels―that’s 220 pixels per inch―for a total of 5.18 million pixels on a 15.4-inch backlit screen. When the Retina MacBook Pro is set at its (Best) Retina setting, it’s spectacular―the detail in photos is great, and text is the crispest and cleanest it’s ever been. For the first few hours with the Retina MacBook Pro, I even found enjoyment in reading the text of system alerts. The Retina MacBook Pro helped rekindle my appreciation for the little details of Mac OS X that, over time, I’ve taken for granted. There were no dead pixels or light leakage on the two Retina MacBook Pros I looked at, and compared to my 17-inch MacBook Pro, colors were exceedingly vibrant.With so many pixels, it’s easy to notice the amount of detail you can see in high-resolution photos. But it emphasizes the low quality of many website images. Fire up Safari and you can read an article displayed in finely rendered text, with images that now look jaggy. For anyone tuned to such nuances, it can be annoying, but don’t blame the laptop. It’s up to Web designers to start to optimize graphics for Retina displays. With the popularity of the iPhone and iPad, the addition of a Retina laptop, and the eventual adoption of high-resolution displays in non-Apple devices, it’s only a matter of time before the Web catches up.Videos on the Retina MacBook Pro look excellent. To display a 1080p video on MacBook Pro, the video is enlarged to fill the screen, since these MacBook Pros already have more pixels on the screen than on a HDTV. I didn’t notice any ghosting, and the laptop’s video card seemed to have no problem handling the video.The Retina MacBook Pro actually has two video cards―one integrated, one discrete. The integrated video card (which shares memory with the main memory, and is actually part of the CPU), is Intel’s , which is used to help preserve battery life. The discrete video card (a separate component with its own memory) is Nvidia’s GeForce GT 650M, with 1GB of video memory. The system automatically switches processors based on the activity you’re performing, so you’re not sacrificing performance while, say, playing a game. You can turn off automatic graphics switching, which then sets the Retina MacBook Pro to always use the discrete video card.With 2880-by-1800 pixels on hand, you might assume that the list of available resolutions in the Displays system preference would be unbearably long―there are 19 resolution settings for my 17-inch MacBook Pro. But that is not the case. In its ongoing effort to ease choices, Apple revamped the Displays system preference for the Retina MacBook Pro. Displays offers only five choices on a scale, which makes it much easier to find a comfortable resolution setting.To the left of the scale are settings for Larger Text, to the right are settings for More Space, and in the middle is Best (Retina). If you really need to know the resolution numbers for each setting, they appear when you mouse over each setting. For example, the leftmost Larger Text setting “Looks like 1024 x 640” pixel resolution, while the rightmost More Space setting “Looks like 1920 x 1200.”When a second display is connected and set up to expand the desktop, the resolution listing appears, specifically for the external display. When I connected the Retina MacBook Pro to my 42-inch HDTV, it instantly recognized the display, and when I turned off mirroring, I was able to choose one of four resolutions for the HDTV, and set the Retina MacBook Pro to one of the five settings mentioned above.I didn’t have a chance to install Windows on a Boot Camp partition, but Macworld Lab installs Parallels as part of the benchmark suite, and I ran Windows 7 full screen through the virtual machine. I was able to set Windows to 2880-by-1800, and I was able to use applications without a hitch. Our sister publication, PCWorld, is planning a deep look at running Windows on a Retina MacBook Pro, so look for that upcoming report.The Retina display also supports (IPS), which helps with color reproduction and viewing angles. Apple states a 178-degree viewing angle, and I don’t dispute that.A longtime concern about Apple’s screens is the reflective glare. With the Retina MacBook Pro, Apple redesigned how the display is mounted. There’s no longer a glass cover, and that, thankfully, reduces the glare. Apple says glare has been reduced by 75 percent; While I can’t scientifically test that claim, I can say that the reduction is noticeable. I don’t have to work as hard to ignore the glare as I’ve had to on previous MacBook Pros.Soon after Apple announced the Retina MacBook Pro, the company . With its support for 1920 by 1200 resolution―the native resolution of the 17-inch MacBook Pro―the Retina MacBook Pro serves as the replacement for the 17-inch model. I’m a 17-inch MacBook Pro user, and I use it because I want as much screen space as possible. Can you get the same amount of space with the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro? Yes, though the trade-off is that everything on the 15-inch screen is smaller than on a 17-inch screen. It doesn’t bother me one bit―yet. As someone who’s reached his 40s, I’m experiencing the change in vision that you expect when you get older, so it’s possible that folks with aging eyes like mine will need to make adjustments.What’s inside stays insideApple offers two models of the Retina MacBook Pro. The $2199 model has a 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 6MB shared L3 cache, 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory, and 256GB of flash storage. (Most people call it an SSD or solid state drive, but Apple calls it flash storage.) The $2799 model has a 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 6MB shared L3 cache, 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory, and 512GB of flash storage.The Retina MacBook Pro processors are part of Intel’s Ivy Bridge processor technology, which are smaller and more power efficient than the previous generation of Sandy Bridge processors. Ivy Bridge processors are created using Intel’s process, while Sandy Bridge processors are processors. Ivy Bridge also supports several features that promote power efficiency. Essentially, it promises improved performance from a chip that requires less power.The processors support Intel’s , which creates two virtual cores for each physical core present in the processor. With the quad-core Core i7 processor, Hyper-Threading creates eight virtual cores. Also, the processors have , where the processing cores automatically boost its speed past the specified rate if it senses that it is running under the power and heat limits. The 2.3GHz processor in the $2199 model can boost its speed to 3.3GHz, while the 2.6GHz processor in the $2799 model goes up to 3.7GHz.Before , rumors of a 15-inch MacBook Air ran through the mill. While the Retina MacBook Pro is part of Apple’s pro laptop line―and Apple representatives stressed during the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote that the Retina MacBook Pro is a pro machine―it has definitely taken some cues from its smaller, lighter sibling. One obvious cue is with the body design; it’s thinner and lighter than its 15-inch counterparts in the “regular” MacBook Pro line. (More on the design later.) But not so obvious are the RAM and flash storage implementations―which may turn some customers off.In the Retina MacBook Pro, the RAM is part of the motherboard; there are no slots and RAM sticks, and you have to decide at the time of purchase if you want to upgrade from the standard 8GB to 16GB. You can’t upgrade the RAM after purchase. The situation is similar for the flash storage; it’s not permanently attached, like the MacBook Air, but it’s not considered a user-upgradeable part. Companies such as offer flash storage upgrade kits for the MacBook Air, and chances are you’ll see similar kits for the Retina MacBook Pro, but you’ll possibly void your warranty if you use them, and Apple won’t support such aftermarket hardware.If your idea of a “pro” machine allows you to upgrade or customize some of its parts (like the Mac Pro, Apple’s most customizable computer), then the Retina MacBook Pro will be a disappointment. However, that message has been on the wall, starting with the , and reinforced with the 2010 ―you can even look to the iPhone and iPad. Apple did not change the design of the regular 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro, so you still have the ability to upgrade RAM and storage later on in the life of those machines.Upgrading to 16GB of memory adds $200 to the price of either Retina model. Unfortunately, the $2199 model does not have an option to upgrade the 256GB of flash storage. The $2799 model has a 768GB flash storage upgrade for an additional $500.Faster connections: USB 3.0, ThunderboltOn one side of the Retina MacBook Pro, you’ll find a MagSafe 2 connector for power, two Thunderbolt ports, a USB 3.0 port, and a headphone jack. On the other side, there’s another USB 3.0 port, an HDMI port, and a SDXC card slot.USB 3.0 has long been on PCs, and it’s finally―finally!―made its way on to the Mac. With the widespread availability of USB 3.0 storage devices, Mac users will now be able to tap into the speed benefits of USB 3.0. The USB ports are compatible with USB 2.0, so you can still use USB 2.0 devices, though you won’t see an additional speed boost. is the high-speed connector here. Thunderbolt’s specification states data throughput of up to 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) per channel, though the actual speed depends on the connected Thunderbolt device.Thunderbolt is also used to connect displays such as Apple’s (?) or a Mini DisplayPort display like Apple’s (?). The Retina MacBook Pro can drive two external displays; you can connect a pair of Thunderbolt Displays, or a Thunderbolt Display and a Cinema Display, or even a display connected through the Thunderbolt port and a display connected to HDMI. With two displays connected, the laptop’s display is still available to use.Missing featuresWhat’s missing? Ethernet―the Retina MacBook Pro comes with 802.11n, and Apple sells a for $29. (You could perhaps use a USB to ethernet adapter, though I haven’t tried one.) There’s no FireWire 800, which I think is a bigger issue than the lack of ethernet, since FireWire devices are still common with Mac users. Apple will probably sell a lot of its new Thunderbolt to FireWire 800 adapters ―it’s too bad it’s not an included accessory. There’s no Kensington lock slot either, so you’ll need to find another way to secure the Retina MacBook Pro to a desk.Also missing is a SuperDrive, to no surprise. In my own personal use, I use the SuperDrive only to make backup copies of the DVD movies my kids get as presents, maybe five or six discs per year. I can’t remember the last time I burned data to an optical disc; too many times I’ve had a backup DVD that went bad, and I have USB flash drives I can use for times I can’t transfer a file over the network or the Internet. If you need a SuperDrive, you’ll have to get an external drive, such as Apple’s $79 .A not-so-obvious missing feature is an ExpressCard/34 slot, which was only available on the 17-inch MacBook Pro. The Retina MacBook Pro has no ExpressCard slot, so you’ll have to find other ways to get the functionality you’re used to having with an ExpressCard. For example, 3G connectivity: You can use a USB 3G modem, or you can use tethering on your iPhone.The Retina MacBook Pro uses a MagSafe 2 connector, the same kind that is used on the MacBook Air. The regular MacBook Pros continue to use the older MagSafe connector, and MagSafe 2 and MagSafe are not the same size. You can’t plug in a MagSafe 2 adapter into a MagSafe plug, and vice versa. If you want to use a MagSafe adapter with the Retina MacBook Pro, you’ll need a $10 . There is no MagSafe 2 to MagSafe converter.Slimmer bodyAt first glance, the Retina MacBook Pro looks a lot like the regular 15-inch MacBook Pro and the aluminum body design is essentially the same. The major difference is the thickness. With the lid closed, the Retina MacBook Pro measures 0.71 inches, while the regular 15-inch MacBook Pro is nearly an inch tall. The thin profile of the Retina MacBook Pro aids portability, but it also helps alleviate the discomfort you might have (as I do) with the edge of the laptop cutting into your wrist as you type. The angle isn’t as steep as it is with the regular 15-inch MacBook Pro, but it’s not like the tapered edge on the MacBook Air. It seems that Apple decided not to create a tapered edge in order to maximize the amount of battery inside.The Retina MacBook Pro weighs 4.46 pounds, which is nearly a pound lighter than the regular 15-inch MacBook Pro, and more than 2 pounds lighter than the 17-inch MacBook Pro. Lighter is better―that’s a given―but what’s impressive about the Retina MacBook Pro’s weight is that its 4.46 pounds feels evenly distributed. Of course, it’s a bit heavier toward the screen, but it’s also not too light in the area around the trackpad, so if you carry the laptop while it’s open (admit it, you’ve done that more times that you’d like anyone to know), the laptop won’t suddenly tip over.A minor cosmetic note: One thing you’ll notice with the open Retina MacBook Pro is that the MacBook Pro logo is no longer at the bottom of the screen. It’s on the bottom of the laptop. Apple got rid of the cover glass for the display, and the logo was part of the cover glass. Apple decided to not put the logo on the bezel of the display.Two other changes: The power button replaces the optical drive eject button on the keyboard, and there’s no longer a battery life indicator on the hardware.Benchmarks: How does it compare?To gauge the performance of the two new Retina MacBook Pro models, Macworld Lab tested the $2199 and $2799 models using , our benchmark suite of real-world applications and tasks.Macworld Lab testing by James Galbraith, Mauricio Grijalva, William Wang, and Kean BartelmanImpressively, the 2.6GHz Core i7 Retina MacBook Pro isn’t just the fastest laptop we’ve tested, it’s the fastest Mac we’ve tested, posting a remarkable 330 Speedmark 7 score. The isn’t far behind, with a score of 319. The previous fastest laptop was a , and the fastest desktop Mac we’ve tested was a .Compared to the fastest new 15-inch regular MacBook Pro with a 2.6GHz Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 5400-rpm 750GB hard drive, the 2.6GHz Core i7 Retina MacBook Pro is 38 percent faster, and the 2.3GHz Core i7 Retina MacBook Pro is 33 percent faster.If you look at the scores for last year’s MacBook Pros, the new 2.6GHz Core i7 Retina MacBook Pro is a whopping 51 percent faster. The comparison with the new 2.3GHz Core i7 Retina MacBook Pro is just as impressive; it’s 46 percent faster.How We Tested: We duplicated a 2GB file, created a Zip archive in the Finder from the two 2GB files, and then unzipped it.How We Tested: In Pages ’09 we converted and opened a 500-page Microsoft Word document. In iMovie ’11, we imported a two-minute clip from a camera archive, and performed a Share Movie to iTunes for Mobile Devices function. How We Tested: In iTunes, we converted 135 minutes of AAC audio files to MP3 using the High Quality setting. In Handbrake 0.9.5, we encoded a single chapter (to H.264 using the application’s Normal settings) from a DVD that was previously ripped to the hard drive. In Cinebench, we recorded how long it took to render a scene with multiprocessors. How We Tested: We installed Parallels 6 and ran WorldBench 6’s Multitask test. In Photoshop CS5, we ran an action script on a 100MB image file. How We Tested: In Aperture 3 we performed an Import and Process on 207 photos. In iPhoto ’11, we imported 500 photos.How We Tested: We ran Mathematica 8’s Evaluate Notebook Test.It’s the flash storage that gives the Retina MacBook Pros a serious boost. Compared to the new regular MacBook Pros, the Retina laptops see serious gains in disk-based activities, such as in our Duplicate 2GB Folder test, Zip 4GB Folder test, and Unzip 4GB File test. In other tests where the storage device comes into play (Import iMovie Archive, Aperture Import, iPhoto Import), the Retina laptops held an advantage.In other tests that aren’t so disk dependent and more CPU focused, the Retina laptops and the new regular MacBook Pros were within range of each other, such as in our HandBrake Encode test, Pages Import test, MathematicaMark, and the Cinebench CPU test.The one test where the new regular MacBook Pros clearly pulled away from the Retina laptops is in our Portal 2 frame rate test. The regular 2.6GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro was 9 percent faster than its Retina counterpart with the same processor. The regular 2.3GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro was 4 percent faster than the 2.6GHz Core i7 Retina MacBook Pro, but it was 17 percent faster that 2.3GHz Core i7 Retina MacBook Pro. Even though the Retina laptops and the regular MacBook Pros have the same graphics hardware (the regular 2.3 GHz MacBook Pro’s GeForce GT 650M has 512MB of memory, versus 1GB in the other three laptops), the Retina displays have so many more pixels to push that it can affect the frame rate in games.How We Tested: In Cinebench, we ran that application’s OpenGL frames-per-second test. Using Steam and Steam for Mac, we created a self-running demo for Portal and recorded the frames-per-second rating.Macworld is in the process of testing the four standard configurations of the new regular MacBook Pros. We’ll have a detailed review coming soon.We have a list of Speedmark scores that compares the new Retina MacBook Pros to , which includes some Mac models from 2009 to late 2011.Heat and noiseI don’t have lab-produced test results, but I’ll give my subjective observations. The Retina MacBook Pro, while running the Diablo III installer, warmed up, but not enough to make me uncomfortable while it rested in my lap. The heat was from the center of the bottom of the laptop, and it didn’t seem to radiate beyond that. The fans did not kick in.After Diablo III finished its installation, I ran the game. I was able to select 2880-by-1800 in the game’s settings, and during gameplay, the fans are definitely running and noticeable. The laptop heated up immediately, in the forward part of the bottom, underneath the keyboard where the GPU and CPU are located, and it heated up enough for me to move the laptop to a desk.I watched several YouTube videos and iTunes movie trailers, all streaming 1080p or 720p over the Internet. The laptop got a bit warmer than when I installed Diablo III, but not hot enough for me to need to move the laptop off my lap. I wasn’t able to trigger the fans while doing this, and the videos ran smoothly.I also used Handbrake to convert a movie file for my iPhone―the Retina MacBook Pro doesn’t have an optical drive and I didn’t try ripping a DVD or CD using an external drive. The file conversion took less than 5 minutes, during which time the fans did not run, and the laptop did not noticeably heat up.Battery lifeThe Retina display is power-hungry; you need a lot of juice to move all those pixels. The Retina MacBook Pro’s built-in battery is rated at 95 watt-hours. By comparison, the regular 15-inch MacBook Pro is rated at 77.5 watt-hours. The Retina MacBook Pro has a much bigger battery.However, Apple rates the battery life of all its 15-inch MacBook Pros at 7 hours of what the company calls “wireless web” use. When Macworld Lab tests battery life, we use a more rigorous test. We loop a movie file in full screen mode in QuickTime Pro until the battery is drained. This drains the battery faster than general use that involves Web access.Both Retina laptops lasted about five hours in our test. Even with their larger batteries, they didn’t last as long as the regular 15-inch MacBook Pros, which lasted several minutes longer. The previous generation of 15-inch MacBook Pros actually outlasted the new models by a significant margin.The new definition of “pro”Apple’s idea of “pro”―at least for laptops―doesn’t involve customizable hardware, which means a few hardcore users are at a crossroads. You can still buy the regular MacBook Pro, open it up, and have your way with it, but I’m guessing it won’t be too long before that design too follows the 17-inch MacBook Pro into discontinued status.So, what is Apple’s idea of a “pro” laptop? For now, it’s the Retina MacBook Pro, which is philosophically very close to the MacBook Air. Obviously, it’s light, it’s smaller than before, but the missing features force you to adjust, as with the MacBook Air. The “pro” aspect, in this case, refers to the performance; the general CPU speed matches the regular MacBook Pro (when you factor in the flash storage, the Retina MacBook Pro blazes past the regular laptops), so no performance compromises are made, and the performance is several notches past the MacBook Air.Macworld’s buying adviceWith the Retina MacBook Pro, Apple once again proves it is a company that refuses to sit still and get comfortable. It redefined the ultraportable laptop with the MacBook Air, and has now altered the concept of the “pro” laptop. Going lighter and smaller was expected, given how Apple does things, but the change in feature set will have current MacBook Pro owners reexamining their needs.One thing to consider: Customers actually have more laptop choices now than than they’ve had since the demise of the MacBook. There are three different types to choose from: the MacBook Air, the regular MacBook Pro, and the Retina MacBook Pro. It’s a good variety that ranges in price from $999 to $2799, not including BTO options.The Retina MacBook Pro, however, is the future of Apple’s laptop line―and it’s a bright, shining symbol of excellence. The Retina display is something to be marveled at, and the lightweight, smaller design addresses the demand for our devices to be even more portable. You’ll have to make a few adjustments, but fortunately, you don’t have to sacrifice performance. The Retina MacBook Pro is quite a remarkable laptop.Editor’s note: Updated at 6/15/12 at 8 a.m. PT to correct a price reference to the 2.6GHz Core i7 model. Updated on 6/18/12 at 7:30 p.m. PT to add a link to Speedmark 7 scores.Review: Magix Page & Layout Designer includes advanced tools for beginner users Printed media may seem to be heading the way of the dinosaur, but until the proverbial meteor hits a stack of business cards, box of letterhead, or freshly-printed brochures on their way to a conference, we’ll continue adding paper and ink (and the odd PDF) to our marketing cache.MAGIX Page & Layout Designer ($150)? anticipates the needs of a growing business by providing a single source for designing anything from a single logo to business cards to a multi-page brochure. However, if you are a ($89) fan, you will recognize the UI instantly, and may be left feeling ripped off. It’s so hard to find a difference between the two apps, it seems that MAGIX has repackaged Xara with added templates and an inflated pricetag (although Page & Layout Designer is currently on sale for $90).About a dozen template themes are included in the MAGIX Page & Layout Designer download (you can’t access or view them all in the trial). Choose a theme that suits your business, then open business card, brochure, and letterhead templates that all match the theme and are fully customizable with your own logo, text, images, etc. There are about 100 templates in total. All are royalty-free, and many verge on stylish, but organization isn’t great. It can be hard to find the matching brochure to your business card design.MAGIX Page & Layout Designer’s slide-out bitmap gallery could mean you never need to hunt and gather on the server for your company’s logo again.Customizing the templates is pretty easy with MAGIX Page & Layout Designer, even if you don’t have any design training or experience. For example, a snap function helps you align objects, text is set to automatically flow around your images, and you can chose to work without or without layers.If you do have prior experience, setting up a page from scratch also is simple and intuitive. Plus, you can easily use MAGIX Page & Layout Designer to create logos and other vector drawings without too much difficulty; and use the photo tools to adjust and manipulate your images. Refer to the Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 2013 review for more detail on how drawing and image editing tools work, since these are identical.Currently, ($59) is included in the Page & Layout Designer download for free, and also includes some additional basic photo manipulation tools as well as the ability to organize your images. On the surface, this looks like a great deal. However, you may not need Photo Manager at all, as MAGIX Page & Layout Designer includes a slide-out bitmap gallery. With it, you can save and access all of your logos, logotypes, images etc. for any of your projects. However, I wish it were easier to organize things, and would love to be able to add text boxes (so you never again have to cut and paste your mission statement and other often-used blocks of text).It seems like MAGIX is trying to reach a new audience with Page & Layout Designer, with no mention of its powerful vector drawing tools and super-easy photo editing in their marketing of the product. But the non-sale pricetag is steep unless you were actually considering also purchasing the bundled Photo Manager MX Deluxe. If you already own Xara Photo & Graphic Designer (or , the $299 heavy-lifter in the family) you are going to be an unhappy T-Rex who’ll want to eat MAGIX for lunch.Note: The Download button on the Product Information page will download the software to your system.Review: Mailstrom puts you in control of your email Many companies claim to have the solution for email overload, but few deliver. That’s why I was wary of Mailstrom, a (currently) free service that promises to deliver the elusive “inbox zero”—a state of being so far out of my reach, I’m not even sure what it means. But after testing Mailstrom, I was pleasantly surprised at just how close I came to achieving that sought-after state.Mailstrom works with any IMAP email account. All you have to do is you enter your email address and it goes to work, analyzing your account. I sat back and waited while it “loaded” my account—and it didn’t take too long, considering that the account holds more than 22,000 messages. Once the loading process is complete, you head over to your Web-based dashboard to see Mailstrom’s analysis of your account.Mailstrom lets you browse the contents of your inbox by sender, subject, and more.Mailstrom displays a very detailed analysis of your email, showing you messages by sender, subject, time, and size, as well as those from certain mailing lists and social networks. Under each category, you can browse the most common traits…and it can be eye-opening to see who sends you the most messages and what subject lines are commonly used. Mailstrom uses a three-column view that’s similar to Outlook: The first column shows the categories, while the second column shows more detail on the selected category, and the third column lets you see lists of messages or the content of a specific one.But that’s all it does, and at first, I wasn’t sure what to think. Many of the email clean-up services I’ve tried, such as and , do more work for you, sorting your bulk mail into folders that you can scan when you want to peruse their contents. But that approach didn’t work well for me, an admitted control freak. I found myself too concerned that I was missing out on important messages (which I sometimes was, as none of their sorting systems was perfect).Mailstrom makes it easy to delete hundreds of emails with the click of a mouse.That’s why I like Mailstrom so much: It leaves you in control. It shows you the problems with your inbox, and lets you solve them yourself. For example, when I realized that I was storing more than 1,000 messages from the very editor who assigned me this review, I realized I need to create a folder just for her—a task I was able to easily accomplish from within Mailstrom. When I saw that I had hundreds of messages from a bookstore that’s no longer in business, I was able to delete them all in one fell swoop.The one feature Mailstrom is lacking is an unsubscribe option. It would be nice to see the hundreds of marketing messages I get, and then be able to unsubscribe from them instantly. Unroll.me does include an unsubscribe feature, but its filtering approach makes the service more able to make sure you no longer receive the messages you don’t want. Mailstrom instead leaves you in control, and the benefits of that are worth the inconvenience of having to handle the unsubscribing yourself.Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor’s site, where you can use the latest version of this Web-based software.Review: Maingear’s Shift Super Stock Z87 is an exercise in PC gaming decadence Booting up Maingear’s Shift Super Stock Z87 was a bit of a letdown. Given its $8000 price tag, I expected this high-performance hot rod to greet me with the throaty rumble of a precision-tuned sports car. But it didn’t make a sound because each of its ultra-premium components is water-cooled and whisper quiet.At the top of the component list is Intel’s Core i7-4770K CPU―the pinnacle of the chip company’s ―and it’s overclocked to an insane 4.7GHz. You’ll also find three (yes, three) video cards based on Nvidia’s best GPU, the GeForce GTX Titan, each with 6GB of GDDR5 memory. There’s also?16GB of DDR3/2400 system memory, and not one, not two, but four of the best 256GB SSD we’ve tested―Samsung’s 840 Pro―configured as RAID 0 for blistering speed.ROBERT CARDINThe Maingear Shift Super Stock Z87 is a mean, green gaming machine. It’s a stupefying level of computing power, one that sets the bar for what an elite gaming PC should be. And this machine’s very existence demonstrates the enduring strength and appeal of the PC gaming market. Indeed, high-end gaming PCs like the Shift Z87 despite a in overall PC sales, and it’s not crazy to suggest that as more people abandon budget PCs and laptops in favor of tablets, premium hardware like the Shift will keep the PC gaming market afloat.The Maingear Shift Super Stock Z87 turned in an exceptional Desktop WorldBench 8.1 score. The Shift Z87’s Desktop WorldBench 8.1 score of 435 means it’s more than four times faster than our reference system, the modest . In fact, it’s the fastest desktop PC we’ve ever encountered. While that overall score is only modestly higher than the 421 that MicroFlex’s significantly cheaper earned, the Shift Z87 blew the competition out of the water when we benchmarked it playing the latest games at very high resolution.The MicroExpress 47B, for example, couldn’t deliver a playable frame rate with BioShock when we set the game’s resolution to 2560 by 1600 pixels and its visual quality to Ultra. That’s because the 47B is equipped with just one GeForce GTX 680 video card. The Shift Z87’s three Titan cards enabled it to play the game at that resolution at a mind-blowing 135 frames per second.ROBERT CARDINLiquid cooling and a unique vertically oriented case enabled Maingear to significantly overclock the system. As impressive as that is, the madness doesn’t stop there: The PCWorld lab team hooked the Shift Z87 up to three HD monitors and played Crysis 3 at a resolution of 5760 by 1440 pixels, all while achieving a consistent frame rate of 28 fps. That’s impressive performance, but more importantly it proves that all this power can afford you a real competitive advantage when playing games that challenge your situational awareness. Excelling during a Crysis 3 or Call of Duty deathmatch is easier when you can see everything in a 270-degree radius without moving your head.High-resolution gaming is certainly no obstacle, as the Maingear Shift’s BioShock performance indicates. But you don’t need to be a gamer to appreciate the Shift Z87’s exceptional performance. This machine also placed first in nearly every one of the productivity-oriented benchmarks that make up the WorldBench 8.1 suite, including PCMark 7 Productivity and each of the media editing and encoding tests we run.The Shift Z87’s signature chassis orients the motherboard 90 degrees to the right so that the ports and fans that are normally on the back of the PC are located on top. This leaves heat-generating components, such as the video cards, hanging from their brackets. This vertical orientation reduces the stress that the very heavy Titan cards place?on the PCIe slots, but Maingear also wisely mounted a bracket on each card for even more support. And because hot air rises, vertical channels between the cards keep the video cards cooler than they would be if they were mounted in a more conventional stacked configuration.ROBERT CARDINOn most computers, this shot would be of the rear panel. On the Maingear Shift, it’s a top-down view. This design is complemented by a proprietary, open-loop, liquid-cooling system that chills not just the CPU but also the motherboard’s voltage regulators to allow for higher overclocking. This also enables the system to run extremely quietly―I rarely heard the fans spin up to to full speed, even while gaming. You can gaze at all this hardware―helpfully illuminated by an internal white-LED light bar―through a clear side panel on the chassis. And that leads to one of my few complaints: The latch on that panel doesn’t easily disengage. I had to gently wrestle with it whenever I wanted to poke around inside.This machine can also deliver top-drawer performance with media editing and encoding chores. The Gigabyte G1.Sniper 5 motherboard at the heart of this beast delivers pretty much every connection option your heart could desire: a PS/2 jack, two USB 2.0 ports, six USB 3.0 ports, and a pair of gigabit ethernet jacks. And each video card has HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI outputs. And there’s a full complement of audio input and output connectors for microphones, headsets, and speakers. A slick recessed panel near the front of the Shift’s topside pops up to reveal a a memory card reader, another pair of audio in/out jacks, two more USB 3.0 ports, and a mini-DVI port.Most of us aren’t in a position to drop eight grand on a computer, no matter how powerful it might be. But the Maingear Shift Z87 sits at the apex of personal computing, and it’s always fun to lay hands on a super-powerful, lovingly crafted PC such as this―even if you’d have to be a high-rolling, Lamborghini-driving, trust-fund baby to afford one.Review: MapiCase’s Orion case for the iPhone 5 offers more style than protection The first thing I noticed about Mapi’s $90 is its stylish look, with a soft leather exterior and leathery smell. Upon closer inspection, however, I found that the case emphasizes style over protection, and the high-quality feel is limited to its looks. I reviewed a red Orion, but you have your choice between white, black, brown, or tan as well.Mapi’s Orion covers your iPhone enough to protect against scratches and nicks, but won’t stave off damage if your iPhone slips out of your hands and hits a hard surface. The case is too bulky to easily fit in a smaller pants pocket, so it’s best suited for people who keep their iPhone in a bag or purse.To install the case, you slide your iPhone in from the bottom and wrap a small flap around the bottom of the phone. At first, I seriously questioned that this small, wrap-around tab could stop my iPhone from falling out, but no matter how much I shook the case, my iPhone wouldn’t budge. There’s no way to use the iPhone with a dock-cradle accessory while in the case, but it’s easy to slide out the phone to dock.The Orion has a front flap that covers the bottom of the iPhone and its screen when not in use, and is held in place by two magnets at the top of the case. Unfortunately, the magnets feel weak and don’t do a great job of holding on to the flap when you slide your phone into a pocket. There is a small cutout to plug in headphones with the flap covering the phone, but the flap either gets in the way or just unplugs your headphones if you try to use your iPhone at the same time.Just like Apple’s Smart Cover for the iPad, the Mapi case’s front cover folds back to create a stand to hold up your iPhone in portrait orientation. There’s also a back panel that rotates to prop your iPhone up in landscape orientation. The stand is easy to set up and feels secure enough to hold up my iPhone to watch videos or conduct a FaceTime chat.This rotating back panel doubles as both a stand and a handle. When you rotate it 90 degrees, it juts out to create a nice place to grip your iPhone if you’re recording video or taking photos. However, the back panel makes the case bulky and is hard to rotate around, as it tends to stick.?The Orion has cutouts for the Sleep/Wake button, earpiece, front and back cameras, and ring/silent switch, and press through overlays for the volume buttons. A small leather flap protects the Lightning port, which can be easily moved for charging. I had no trouble using any of the buttons or switches, and the case didn’t obstruct the back camera or flash.Bottom lineThe Mapi Orion case is big on style, but low on protection. It’s bulky and doesn’t feel great to hold, but makes up for it with a nice leather exterior. The Orion might win you some style points, but it’s not the case for you if you’re rough with your iPhone.Review: MarkdownPad makes composing Markdown even easier than usual HTML is the lingua franca of the Web. If you publish anything online, that’s the format your text will end up in. But while easy for browsers to render, HTML isn’t always easy (or fun) to compose. Some content management systems, like , solve this problem by offering a WYSIWYG editor that lets you edit visually. For those who prefer the simplicity and ubiquity of plain text, Markdown is the way to go—and MarkdownPad Pro is a simple editor that lets you compose Markdown and view your results instantly. MarkdownPad’s instant preview mode makes it easy to see what your final HTML is going to look like.By default, MarkdownPad Pro shows a split interface, with your text taking up the left side of the window and an instantly-rendered output taking up the right—much like online Markdown editor Dillinger.io. If you find the live preview pane distracting (as I do), you can hit F5 to toggle it. If you do like it, but don’t like the vertical layout, a quick tap on F4 switches the editor to a horizontal layout with the preview pane under the editing pane.Markdown is the format of choice for many writers, and MarkdownPad 2 contains several writer-friendly features: A live word count on the status bar, squiggly lines denoting typos, and frequent automatic saving are just a few. One feature that’s notably missing is the ability to copy formatted text as rich text, for pasting into Microsoft Word or other rich-text aware editors–something free editor WriteMonkey offers. On the plus side, MarkdownPad 2 lets you directly export a PDF document from your Markdown source.If you find the instant preview distracting, you can easily toggle it off and enjoy just the Markdown syntax highlighting.Markdown is a lightweight format, so your text shouldn’t be drowning in tags and angle brackets. Still, it does have its own conventions for links, titles, and text emphasis–and MarkdownPad offers syntax highlighting that makes it easy to see if you got the syntax right. It also offers toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcuts for many of the syntax constructs, but unfortunately doesn’t let you customize the shortcut keys. Ctrl+K, which I would expect to insert a link, instead inserts the token for a code block (Ctrl+L inserts a link).If you find Markdown too restrictive for your needs and require more power, you may want to try . This is an enhanced version of the Markdown syntax, including refinements like Markdown inside HTML blocks, and definition lists. MarkdownPad 2 supports Markdown Extra, as well as GitHub-flavored Markdown, for composing text destined for the open-source powerhouse.MarkdownPad ships with several rendering presents, but you can edit them or add new ones if you know CSS.MarkdownPad 2 is solid, but not spectacular. I am not convinced the commercial version justifies the $15 price tag, given Markdown’s inherent simplicity and the availability of free, powerful alternatives such as and . That said, it does get the job done, and the instant preview goes a long way towards ensuring your document ends up the way you want it to, without having to make last-minute tweaks to get things to render correctly. If you’re disappointed with the free alternatives, MarkdownPad 2 might be worth a try.Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor’s site, where you can download the latest version of the software.Review: Mash your motor with Euro Truck Simulator 2 I never thought a truck-driving simulator could be fun, but Euro Truck Simulator 2 proved me wrong. There is something soothing in watching the world go by from the high and mighty cockpit of a Volvo FH16 Globetrotter XL. If you are used to more traditional racing games, getting used to the way trucks handle in the game may take some time. They really do feel like trucks: Slow to accelerate, jarringly fast to brake thanks to air brakes, ungainly to maneuver, and immensely powerful.Euro Truck Simulator 2 offers a vast network of roads to drive on, with many missions to pick from.In this decidedly niche title, you find yourself in the driver’s seat of a full-trailer truck, hauling freight across Europe. Vehicle interiors are painstakingly rendered, and countryside views are breathtaking. The climate and time of day change, so you could find yourself enjoying a balmy spring day in one ride, and trying to navigate under torrential rain in the middle of the night in the next.With its superb graphics and realistic truck cockpits, Euro Truck Simulator 2 makes long-haul trucking quite attractive.You start the game as a freelance driver for hire, taking on trucking jobs across the continent. From one job to the next, you gain experience, unlock abilities, and set aside a nice nest egg you can eventually use to buy a truck of your own and start a trucking company.Euro Truck Simulator 2 has you carry diverse types of cargo, including heavy industrial tanks.Euro truck simulator lets you customize the controls and decide just how much of the driving you want the game to do, and how much you want to handle on your own. Manually switching gears on a truck hauling 20 tons of ore while navigating through a massive open pit mine is no mean feat…which is why it’s nice to have the game take care of that detail for you, at least as you’re getting started.Just like in the real world, Euro Truck Simulator 2 uses a GPS to help you get where you’re trying to go.Euro Truck Simulator 2’s attention to detail, convincing physics, and striking visuals transcend its niche status. This is a game so well-made, it can make you a fan of the category just by virtue of its sheer quality alone. The demo’s enough fun that you’ll find yourself speeding to buy the full game for $40.Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor’s site, where you can download the latest version of the software.Review: Master Gmail’s Keyboard Shortcuts with KeyRocket Engineers love keyboard shortcuts. So, like most Google products, Gmail offers you the ability to do pretty much anything with a keypress, from composing a new message (c for compose) to going back to the main list of emails (u for up). These keyboard shortcuts are one of Gmail’s best features: they let you compose, archive, forward, and reply to messages, move between labels, search, and more, all without reaching for your mouse.Alas, they’re also hard to learn. After enabling keyboard shortcuts in the Settings screen, you can hit “?” to get a semi-transparent overlay listing all shortcuts. For some people, looking at a long list isn’t the best way to learn–and KeyRocket thinks it can do better. Every time you use the mouse to do something your keyboard can do, KeyRocket would let you know.Veodin’s KeyRocket for Gmail sits in the background as you use Gmail, and quietly watches your every move. As soon as you tick the checkbox next to a message (to select it), it pops up a discreet notification letting you know you could have just hit “x” on your keyboard to do the same thing. When you hit the Reply button, KeyRocket informs you that “r” would have worked just as well.Because the messages are contextual, they are much more useful than a help sheet: You learn in bite-sized chunks, and only about those functions you actually use.KeyRocket makes key combinations easy to understand.KeyRocket isn’t perfect: Ideally, it should be able to tell when you already know a shortcut, and just prefer using the mouse now and then for the same function. KeyRocket shouldn’t tell me about the “#” shortcut the one time I use the mouse click the button.Still, despite this minor flaw, KeyRocket is an excellent learning aid for Gmail.Note: The Download button takes you to the Chrome Web store, where you can install the latest version directly into your Chrome browser.Review: Metro: Last Light is the most fun you’ll have in post-apocalyptic Russia Following in the footsteps of 2010’s Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light improves upon the gameplay of its predecessor without destroying what made the series great in the first place: the setting. Last Light takes you back to the post-apocalyptic Russian wasteland, employing an excellent soundtrack and bleak, desolate imagery to deliver a first-person shooter with surprising pathos and one of the most genuine game narratives in recent memory.Boot up Last Light and you’ll be dropped into the boots of Artyom–a man haunted by memories of his mother, or lack thereof–as he attempts to leave the Russian Metro to capture “a dark one”, monstrous remnants of the world before it was devastated by all-out nuclear war. Of course, nothing goes smoothly for Artyom, and along the way you’ll be captured by other survivors and work together with another captive, Pavel, to orchestrate an escape. Artyom’s quest ranges across the Russian wasteland, ultimately leading you through areas devastated by nuclear destruction and nests of enemies mutated by the apocalypse before culminating in one of the coolest and most intense firefight finales I’ve ever experienced.In Last Light you’ll leave the underground Metro to explore the desolate surface, and you’ll need to carefully shield yourself from the fallout if you want to survive long up here.But frenetic, fast-paced combat is tiresome without a meaningful reason to fight, and Metro: Last Light tells a meaningful story through emotionally-charged flashbacks to the moment the nuclear missiles struck, and how that moment affected the Russian people. It’s a series of powerful scenes scattered throughout the 9-12 hour campaign that don’t force themselves on you, allowing different players to experience as much–or as little–of the narrative as they like. That’s one of Metro’s greatest strengths: it doesn’t force anything on the player. There’s plenty of optional areas to explore at your leisure, allowing you to intuitively control how long you spend in Metro: Last Light’s bleak alternate reality.Moment to moment, the actions you’re taking in Metro: Last Light are very similar to those you performed in Metro 2033: exploring, scrounging, and fighting for your life with a hodgepodge of unique and innovative post-apocalyptic weapons. Even your weapons tell a story, like the handmade submachine gun that has a magazine that slides left-to-right, through the weapon, as shots are fired. It’s a little thing, but idiosyncratic touches like this do an excellent job of showcasing the unique, alien nature of Metro’s alternate reality Russia.Of course, those crazy cobbled-together weapons can be customized to fit your tactical preferences using Military-Grade ammunition, high-quality bullets manufactured before the apocalypse and now used in Metro as a form of currency. Paying a gunsmith to modify your armament with a silencer, lasersight, stock or foregrip is a simple way to significantly change the characteristics of each weapon, allowing you to tailor the game to your liking.The soldiers of Metro rely on an assortment of pre-apocalyptic firearms and improvised weaponry to defend their territory.Your limited inventory also forces you to make some meaningful tactical decisions: mod a semi-automatic pistol to be fully automatic and pair it with extended clips, for example, and you can use your new pistol to replace the submachine gun in your inventory. That in turn allows you to drop (or sell) the SMG, using the newly-opened space in your three-slot inventory for a long-range tool like the rifle. It’s a seemingly small decision that could mean the difference between living and dying when you’re exploring the wasteland on your own.Metro’s score is one of the best in the business and continues to establish not only the singular tone for any particular moment within the game, but a consistent and omnipresent theme throughout the entire narrative experience. Pair this with the spot-on sound effects–terrifying gunfire, wet gurgling screams, the frantic cries of communication between both enemies and the occasional comrade–and you’ll a sense of aural immersion to rival that of any great blockbuster war flick. The sound design remains exceptional throughout the game, though there’s a bit of weirdness with characters occasionally acting out of sync with their audio.Play Metro: Last Light on a powerful gaming PC with a good set of speakers if you can–you’ll be amazed at how engrossing the bleak landscape and stirring soundtrack can be.Unfortunately, for as strong as Metro: Last Light is, it suffers from a myriad of bugs and issues that can often disrupt the atmosphere it works so hard to evoke. Crashes to the desktop and random minimization happen all too frequently, destroying any sense of pacing that you might have.Occasional hard locks and freezes join the list of serious technical problems, but by far the most frustrating bug I came across was the seemingly random times that the player would become immobile and unresponsive, regardless of whether I was using the keyboard or the gamepad. It usually happens when both the protagonist and an enemy–especially the mutated creatures–make a melee attack at the same time, causing Artyom to become unresponsive, almost as if stunned.Bugs aside, Metro: Last Light still isn’t for everyone. It suffers from a lack of direction that often left me backtracking and searching the same areas multiple times before figuring out what to do or where to go. Some may find this lack of guidance charming, but it feels like even the most simple of navigational suggestions are absent and the experience suffers for it.But the main challenge of Metro: Last Light isn’t just poor directions–the game is hard. The two difficulty settings, Normal and Ranger (a special, harder difficulty setting that was made available as DLC to players who preordered the game) are a perfect balance of what you want in a game like Metro. I can’t speak to Ranger mode, but Normal is just hard enough that it forces you to slow down and think tactically in situations where, in other first-person shooters, you’d normally just run through guns blazing. That kind of recklessness will get you killed immediately in Last Light.Despite its technical flaws and poor guidance, Metro: Last Light is a uniquely challenging and heartfelt experience, a bleak first-person shooter that does more with its narrative that some films. It works well as an isolated experience too, making it a great entry point into the Metro series.Review: Microsoft Flight looks beautiful, might as well stay grounded Microsoft Flight is the current incarnation of a long and illustrious franchise of games, dating back to 1977. Unlike SimCity, you can start playing Microsoft Flight for free: Simply download the game and embark on a series of missions planned to both teach you the basics of flight, and hook you into buying later missions and additional aircraft. Microsoft Flight is the last of its kind: Microsoft permanently stopped work on the game in July 2012, just a few short months after releasing it. The futuristic Icon A5 Deluxe is not yet in production, but you can fly it in Microsoft Flight.Microsoft Flight’s graphics are gorgeous, and the scenery feels realistic. Hawaii serves as the backdrop for the first introductory missions, in which you get to fly two aircraft bundled with the free download: A thoroughly modern Icon Deluxe light aircraft and a WWII-era Boeing PT-17 Stearman biplane. These missions run you through the rudiments of taking off, controlling the craft in the air, and landing.Microsoft Flight lets you play several missions in Hawaii for free.You can fly Microsoft Flight with nothing but a game controller. There are realistic touches like preflight checklists, but in the early stages, the game runs through them on its own, checking items off as you look on.The Icon A5 cockpit feels almost like a car’s??and the GPS works.While the introductory missions are interesting and fun to play (especially the landing tutorial) and the graphics were strikingly beautiful, gameplay is marred by having to navigate using landmarks, rather than traditional waypoints. In particular, one of the challenges starts out midflight, and you’re supposed to land the plane. The trouble is, it’s not clear where the airstrip is. No heading is provided, and there’s no clear way to figure out which way to go. The careful narration that leads you through many of the other missions is utterly lacking on this one. Manually switching on the aircraft’s GPS map does reveal an airstrip, but after navigating all the way to it and executing a landing, I discovered it wasn’t the right airfield and failed the challenge after all.Another point of frustration is the low number of available missions. Microsoft Flight starts you off with less than ten missions and once you want to make progress, you have to pay up for the DLC.Microsoft Flight lets you switch between several cameras to get a better look at the action.In other words, the game suffers from the same issues plaguing many other “pay to play” titles, and even its fancy graphics were not able to redeem it. It is easy to understand why Microsoft ceased developing the game.Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor’s site, where you can download the latest version of the software.Review: MightyText wields control over desktop texting Free texting service MightyText actually manages to live up to its name.The hardest part of using MightyText is the initial setup. Like many desktop texting services, it works with Android devices only, and requires that you install a mobile app on your phone. Once the mobile app is installed and you’re ready to use MightyText on your computer or tablet, you have to do a bit of tinkering with your browser’s settings if you’d like to receive notifications of new messages. But MightyText guides you through the process— which involves changing some security settings in Internet Explorer or installing a third-party add-on in Firefox—and it’s a one-time thing.Mighty Text’s Power view displays phone-sized fields on your PC, which display recent messages in conversation form.MightyText’s Web app is slick, and it lets you choose between a “classic view” and a “power view.” The classic view uses a layout similar to Microsoft Outlook, where you see information about the sender in the first column and then message details in the next column. The power view, meanwhile, displays phone-sized fields on your computer screen that display recent text messages in conversation form. The power view lets you see more messages at once (it fit eight on my screen), while the classic view gives you more space for viewing message details. Switching between them is easy.To send a message, you click the new message button, and a small window for composing it pops up in the lower right corner of the screen, reminiscent of how Google’s Gmail works. And, much like Gmail, MightyText also puts a message composition window at the bottom of the conversations you view, making it easy to send a reply message.MightyText lets you mark favorite messages, browse through contacts, and easily adjust the settings (which include whether pressing enter should or should not send your messages and whether you want to get pop ups to notify you of new messages and calls). It also displays your phone’s battery life and notifies you of incoming and missed calls via pop-ups.Mightytext’s classic view uses a column-style layout, similar to Microsoft Outlook.MightyText is slick, seamless, and—best of all—free. It’s my desktop app of choice for my Android phone.Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor’s site, where you can download the latest version of the software.Review: MindMup is a free, effortless way to create mind maps in moments Mind maps are fundamentally very simple. You can create one on the back of a napkin in mere seconds, so it follows that there should be an equally effortless way to do it online. And there is: MindMup, a free and lightweight service lets you throw together simple mindmaps without having to download anything, open an account, or do anything else. It’s Web-based, too, so it works across Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.MindMup makes good use of the mind map format to explain how the product works.When you go to MindMup.com, you first see a default map explaining how the service works. It goes over keyboard and mouse use, and includes notes on how open and frictionless the service is. And

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    Practical security advice ‘Do Not Track’ Tool Promises Page Loads Up to Four Times Faster “” technologies have become an increasingly standard part of the Internet today, offering users a variety of ways to protect their privacy as they surf the Web.Yet while there are numerous anti-tracking tools out there to help users avoid being tracked–both and as extra add-ons–many of them are browser-specific, confusing, or just plain , according to a Carnegie Mellon University from last fall.A free new tool released on Thursday was built specifically to address many of the concerns raised in that study and to go well beyond what standard private browsing modes can do. It’s called Do Not Track Plus, and it works seamlessly with Internet Explorer, Firefox, , and Safari; not only that, but it can increase page load speeds by up to four times, its maker says.580 Tracking TechnologiesA beta version of Abine’s Do Not Track Plus (DNT+) was , initially just for Firefox, and it saw more than a million downloads, the company says.Today’s official release marks its arrival on all the major browsers, however, and blocks tracking across hundreds of websites–including Facebook and Google, whose new privacy policies have caused something of an in recent weeks.Users can decide at the individual website level whether they want to block or allow tracking. When they do want their activities to remain private, DNT+ blocks a growing list of 580 different tracking technologies and more than 200 tracking companies.Users Can Still ShareWith an easy-to-use interface, the tool aims to prevent advertisers from watching users’ site visits, shopping interests, hobbies, clicks, and geographic location. It also keeps a running “block counter” in the corner of the browser window so users can easily see how many tracking attempts have been blocked, and from what companies.Unlike most anti-tracking tools, the software lets users continue to use social-sharing buttons even as they block social tracking, Abine notes.At least as compelling, in my view, is that Do Not Track Plus can make Web pages load as much as four times faster, according to the company.100 Attempts per DayThe average Web user is tracked by more than 100 technologies every day, Abine says, and even those who have opted out of targeted advertising continue to be tracked, at least one has shown.There are other anti-tracking tools out there as well, of course. But with its latest tweaks and enhancements–not to mention the speed boost it touts–Do Not Track Plus could be worth checking out. It’s now available as a free on the Abine site.’Start’ button devs say Windows 8.1 doesn’t put them out of business When Microsoft added support for the revamped Start page into Windows 8.1, that eliminated the need for dedicated third-party Start menus, right? Wrong, say developers like Stardock, Classic Shell, and others.Perhaps not surprisingly, the third-party devs say there’s still a need for their products, even though Windows 8.1 will be more friendly to those used to the traditional, or legacy, Start menu found in Windows 7. Many have released updates for the Windows 8.1 preview, but none that spoke to PCWorld said that they’ve thrown in the towel.If nothing else, fans of Iobit’s , , and Stardock’s can rest assured that their favorite plugins aren’t going away. (, an “apparating system” that was designed to facilitate the interaction of mobile-style apps with the Windows OS, also offers a “classic” Start menu.)Stardock”Classic” Start menus provide an alternative to the Windows 8.1 Start button.These products fill a need: to ease the transition to Windows 8 and its unfamiliar Start page. In many ways, Windows 8 is just Windows 7 with a tablet interface layered on top of it, but??sorry!??no Start button. Users upset by the jarringly different Start page had no refuge from it other than third-party alternatives.(Microsoft released a last month at its Build 2013 conference. PCWorld has a guide to , a peek at its , and a tour of its .)”The?start?button shortcut to the?start?screen that Microsoft is providing with?Windows?8.1?does not replace the?start?menu in the eyes of our growing customer base,”?Robert McElroy, the marketing and sales manager at Stardock Corp., said in an email. “Customers looking for the functionality of the classic?start?menu to help them navigate?Windows?8 in a way that has been familiar to them for years will still find Start8 from Stardock enables that capability seamlessly.”Third-party apps now overlap with Windows 8.1Microsoft, for its part, has said that Windows 8.1 represents a “heck of a lot of movement, a heck of a lot of innovation, and a heck of a lot of responsiveness, all coming to market in a very very rapid timeframe,” in the words of Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer during the company’s Build 2013 conference in June.Some of the functionality that the third-party applications added for Windows 8 users, however, now overlaps with some of what Microsoft has added for the upcoming Windows 8.1. Start8, Classic Shell, and StartMenu8 all boot directly to the desktop, meaning that piece of the puzzle, at least, is duplicated by Microsoft. But all three also offer the traditional Start menu, with Classic Shell offering either a “classic” menu, or one in the style of either Windows XP or Windows 7. (Classic Shell’s version 3.6.8, released in June and compatible with Windows 8.1, was asked to remove its version of the Windows flag, which it calls the “Metro button”, at the behest of Microsoft.) For its part, Start8 also offers an option to shut down from the desktop, which is now in Windows 8.1 as well.StardockStardock’s Start8 offers shutdown options from the desktop.Nevertheless, the developer of Classic Shell said that his product was as viable as ever. “Nobody killed anything,” he said, via an exchange though his Facebook page. “The only feature they added that Classic Shell (and others like it) has, is the immediate boot to Desktop.”The question now is whether or not Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 update, and the functionality it added, provides yet more opportunities for developers like Classic Shell to add features. They’ll have some time; Microsoft has said that it will hand over at the end of August, with a consumer update at some point thereafter. PCWorld asked the developers what their plans are, but the Start developers aren’t talking.”Too early to tell. It is still a preview, not even a beta,” the Classic Shell developer said. “Even without it I have my hands full at the moment.”Posted Desktop: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3; Intel Core i5 750 2.66GHz (undervolted); 8GB DDR3 RAM 1600MHz (4×2GB); 640GB WD Caviar Black and older 750GB WD; Backup: WD Elements 2TB USB; EVGA Geforce GTX 550ti; Windows 7 Home Premium x64; HP 2511x, Samsung SyncMaster 914V.Laptop: Lenovo Thinkpad x120e - AMD Fusion E350 1.6GHz (Zacate, undervolted); 4GB DDR3 RAM 1333MHz (2×2GB); HD: Hitachi 320GB; Windows 7 Home Premium x64Samsung Galaxy Nexus with OTA Android 4.3 (unlocked GSM! :) No carriers screwing with the updates FTW!)Turbo machine from the future: 16384 Intel Core i7 CPUs (26th gen; 32768 scores each and hyperthreaded; 1600 YHz stock; 3600YHz overclock), 4294967296YB RAM (32YBx12) DDR10 1000YHz cas 1, 20×100000YB SSDs, 16 nvidia geforce 9980GTX 268435456YB cards overclocked, gold case, 8 25600000000000×16000000000000 LED backlit 60″ monitors, Windows 21 Ultimate 1024-bit, 3.5″ 1.44MB floppy drive. I can’t run CPU-Z validation on it because that’s a 64-bit app.Solutions, Tips and Answers for PC Problems from Lincoln Spector -ROM, -R, +R, +RW? Understanding the optical drive alphabet soup Nick248 asked the about optical drives. I figured it was time to go over the various types of CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs, and the drives that read and write to them.[Email your tech questions to or post them on the .]I can’t blame anyone for being confused. We’ve got three types of optical discs (CDs, DVDs, and BDs), with five different capacities between them. There are discs you can only read from, discs you can also write to, and discs you can write to, erase, and write to again. And the acronyms aren’t always helpful.Let’s start with the acronym that appears before the hyphen, which tells you the standardized disc format:CD-: Compact Disc. These hold about 700MB of data. A CD drive can only read or write CDs.DVD-: Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc. They usually hold about 4.7GB. DVD drives can also handle CDs.BD-: Blu-ray Disc. This has to be the worst tech acronym since FLOPS. I mean, shouldn’t there be an R in there somewhere? Fortunately, they’re often called Blu-ray drives and discs. They usually hold 25GB. The drives are CD and DVD compatible.The acronym after the hyphen tells you what you can do with that type of disc or that type of drive.-ROM: Read-Only Memory. You cannot write to a -ROM disc, which left the factory with data already on it. A -ROM drive can read discs but not write to them, and has no use at all for a blank disc.-R: Recordable. You can write to one of these discs once (provided you have an -R drive). But when you’re done, it’s effectively a -ROM disc.-RW: Rewritable. Another stupid acronym, that always suggested “read and write” to me. You can write to these discs, erase them, and write to them again.-RE: Recordable Erasable. The Blu-ray variation of -RW, with a far more sensible acronym.Here are a few other terms you may want to know:Burn: Write to a disc. It’s called burning because it’s done with a laser, not a pen.DVD+R; +RW; ??R, ??RW: There are two standards for recordable and rewritable DVDs: DVD-R and DVD+R, each with its?equivalent RW variation, and?each requiring its own type of drive and blank disc. The ?? sign, which you’ll only find on drives, tells you that the drive can burn both - and +. Virtually all drives these days are ??, making the difference between +R and -R irrelevant.DL: Dual Layer. This doubles or nearly doubles the capacity of DVDs and BDs. A DVD DL can hold about 9GB; a Blu-ray, about 50GB. To burn discs with these capacities, you need DL discs, plus a DL drive. Any DVD or Blu-ray drive can read DL discs.Read the original .By providing a unified Application Delivery Networking platform, F5 BIG-IP offers the ability for organizations to adopt a single platform for all its application delivery needs. Adopting an organizational standard for application delivery can reduce management and administrative costs and improve the ability of the organization to migrate smoothly from traditional to emerging application architectures, and address the unforeseen issues that always arise in the wake of the introduction of new initiatives.10 essential ingredients of a killer Windows 8 business PC 6. ConnectionsWindows 8 tablets have common port and slot types, such as for a MicroSD memory card.Do you use devices that connect via FireWire? Do you need an SD memory card slot to transfer images from your camera to your PC? Does your monitor connect through a standard VGA cable or via HDMI? Do you have USB 3.0 peripherals? The available ports vary from one device to the next, so you need to consider all of the devices you might want to connect to the PC, and then choose hardware with the ports that meet your needs.Windows 8 tablet models, such as Microsoft’s Surface RT, generally have more standard ports and connectivity options than Android tablets do, and certainly more than the iPad does. The Surface RT boasts a standard USB port, a Micro HDMI port, and a MicroSD slot. Pay attention, though, to details such as USB 2.0 versus USB 3.0. While USB 2.0 has a maximum data transfer rate of 480 mbps, USB 3.0 is more than 10 times faster, with maximum data throughput of 5 gbps.7. NetworkingBefore buying any hardware, consider how you wish to connect to your network or the Internet. For wired connections, you might need a gigabit ethernet adapter; for wireless networks, you may want 802.11n or even 802.11ac capabilities.Lenovo’s ThinkPad 2 offers 3G or 4G wireless service. Part of the unique appeal of Windows 8 lies in Ultrabooks and tablets that are designed to be used from virtually anywhere. Mobile professionals may need to be able to access information while they’re out and about, in which case 3G or?4G broadband access will come in handy. Tablets and Ultrabooks that offer 3G or 4G connectivity as an option, such as the , do exist, but they are much less common than Wi-Fi-only devices. Of course, mobile hotspots and USB dongles are available to connect Windows 8 devices, so it??s not imperative that a wireless radio be built in.8. DurabilityWhen you??re carrying around a mobile PC for mission-critical business tasks, you need it to survive a bump or two. You don??t necessarily need a tank (like something from the Panasonic Toughbook line), but you should consider the conditions you’ll use your PC in, and avoid choosing hardware that??s prone to cracking or breaking.Some analysts wonder how durable the Surface tablet’s kickstand will be. Microsoft went out of its way to engineer the Surface RT tablet for durability, and company representatives like to drop them on the ground to prove that point every chance they get. That said, we don’t think the Surface RT’s kickstand, however durable it may seem, will survive much abuse. Like all moving parts, it’s susceptible to a certain degree of failure.Aside from the physical device itself, another factor to consider is the durability of the storage in your Windows 8 machine. Traditional hard drives can be irrevocably damaged from a sudden fall, while the flash memory in tablets, or the solid-state drive storage commonly found in Ultrabooks, is much more resilient.9. SecurityDell’s Latitude 10 features a removable user authentification card. Security is a big issue for business PCs??especially portable ones. Your hardware should be equipped with UEFI to take advantage of Windows 8 Secure Boot, as well as a TPM (Trusted Platform Module) chip for effective use of the BitLocker drive encryption in Windows 8.You also might want a fingerprint scanner or some other biometric feature built in to the PC for stronger, two-factor authentication. This arrangement can prevent unauthorized access and protect sensitive data on the PC.Dell’s new?Latitude 10?Windows 8 tablet goes one step further by incorporating a slot for a removable security card. The tablet will display your (potentially sensitive) business data only after reading your personal user card.10. FlexibilityOne thing that??s new to the world of Windows 8 is the concept of the hybrid. Since Windows 8 is engineered for touch, a slew of? models are on the horizon. Many of them, however, combine the benefits of a tablet and an ultraportable, giving users the flexibility to use Windows 8 more effectively in assorted scenarios.I asked Onuora Amobi, editor of?, for his opinion on these unique Windows 8 hardware options. ??I think that hybrid PCs and hybrid Ultrabooks will do very well,?? Amobi says. ??Being able to sit down with a PC keyboard in your office, and then being able to detach the screen (as a tablet) and take that to a meeting, will be very tough for Apple to respond to.??Loyd CaseWhen it comes to sheer technological audacity, nothing beats a desktop. From face-meltingly fast hardware to ridonkulous workstations to massive CPU coolers that could blend into an art installation, the following examples of glorious excess are possible only with a PC.The inspiration: The 24K-gold-plated PC shown at left. Yes, the $21,150 Voodoo OmenPC’s precious case stood out when it was unveiled in 2008, but beyond the bling, that water-cooled beast absolutely screamed performance. Remember the wise words of : “Anything worth doing [is] worth overdoing.”Let’s (over)do this.10 Great Tools to Get in Shape The New Year is finally here–and with it comes the realization that you probably had one too many pieces of pie at that last holiday party. Whether you want to work off just a few holiday pounds or you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to , you can find tons of online and on your mobile phone that will provide motivation and assistance. Here are ten great tools that will help you track what you eat, where you run, and how quickly you’ve .Fitocracy (Web; free) is a new website that promises to turn weight loss into a social game with your pals. Once you sign up, you’ll be able to enter your workouts to earn points, gain levels, and dominate the charts. If some of your friends or coworkers have joined the site, you’ll be able to compete with them. Fitocracy has a number of tools to keep you motivated, such as the ability to challenge friends to fitness quests that you complete to earn extra points, plus daily goals offered by the developers.Nike+ ($2 iOS app, free Web service) keeps track of how long and how far you run each day. While you can use the $19 Nike+ sensor in your shoes, if you have an iPhone or another GPS-enabled iDevice, the Nike+ app delivers reasonably accurate results. At the you can track all your runs and even challenge other users.RunKeeper (iOS, Android, Web; free) is a great alternative to the Nike+ app that shares most of the same functionality and is available on Android. Both apps track your running time and your location using your phone, and then report that data to a central website where you can review your progress. The design of RunKeeper’s Web interface may not be quite as impressive as that of Nike’s site, but it does have one major advantage over Nike+: It’s free.FitDay (Web, PC, iOS; free, or $50 a year for a premium account) If you need one place to monitor all of your dietary information, is the service for you. FitDay helps you record the calories, protein, fat, and carbohydrates in everything you eat, and it even offers long-term analysis of how your diet is progressing and what you need to change. FitDay’s free mobile app (iOS only) makes entering meals on the go easy.DailyBurn (Web, iOS, Android; $9.99 a month, free for DailyBurn Tracker) is a great site with two major components. The first is a free site, , that lets you track your diet, exercise, and weight in one location, and connects you with other people in the DailyBurn community to stay motivated. The service has a ton of fringe benefits, too: In addition to food- and workout-tracking mobile apps, the company has apps such as Food Scanner, which records an item’s nutritional information when you take a picture of the product’s bar code. Daily Burn also offers a premium plan that adds features like workout videos and a nutrition plan. The new DailyBurn plan isn’t free however and starts at $9.99 a month.MyNetDiary (Android, iOS, Web; free, plus $4 and $10 pro versions) If you want something a little easier on your pocketbook that still lets you stay on top of your food intake, try . The free food-diary service has a Web app for assessing everything you’ve eaten, along with mobile apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7 that let you log your diet on the go. If you love the service so much that you can’t stand not giving them any money, the $4 pro version will remove ads from the iOS app.Nike Boom (iOS, Android; free) doesn’t monitor your workout, but it does help you push a bit harder when you exercise. It syncs your workout with high-energy music from your MP3 collection to keep you energized and inspire you to run that extra lap.CrossFit Travel (Android; $2) A workout routine is tough to stick to under the best of circumstances, but nothing can ruin your fitness plans quite like travel: You’re tired and less motivated, you probably can’t cook for yourself, and if you even have somewhere to work out, it’s strange and unfamiliar. Enter . This Android app gives you fast, simple workouts you can do anywhere, so you can stay in shape on the road.Lose It (Android, iOS, Web; free) is an all-purpose fitness tracker that helps you monitor your weight, your workouts, and your diet from one location online. Since Lose It is built to accommodate any workout or diet, it can take a little time to set up as you enter your own workout routines and diet preferences. But with free Android and iOS apps and community tools to help you stay motivated, Lose It is the most complete free health and fitness service on our list.VirtuaGym (Android, Web; free) All these tools to help you track your workouts aren’t very helpful unless you have a great workout to do. That’s where comes in. This app helps you build a comprehensive workout, and it provides illustrations of the various exercises to make sure that you don’t waste your time.10 killer new features in Word 2013 A word processor is indispensable for anyone who creates documents, be it for work, school, or writing angry letters to your representatives in Congress. Now that Microsoft has finally released Office 2013 to the general public, we’re naming what we think are the 10 best new features in Word 2013. (We reviewed the whole enchilada last December, when it became available to Microsoft TechNet subscribers. You can read our opinion .)Word 2013 boasts new and improved features across the board, spanning document creation to reading, editing, and collaboration. What’s even better is that Microsoft has made these advanced features easier for everyone to use.The new Design tab includes document formatting options to format the entire document.1. The new Design tabDocument formats can be further extended by choosing Themes, Colors, and Fonts to use with them. If you come up with something you’d like to use all the time, the new Set as Default option allows you to make the current combination of formatting settings the default for all new documents.Word 2007 and Word 2010 added interesting features for styling a document, but the tools were scattered throughout the user interface, and they were difficult to use. The new Word 2013 Design tab consolidates all these tools onto one tab, so they’re easy to find. Microsoft has also added a visual element to its Document Formatting tool that allows you to preview a document style before applying it to the entire document. You’ll also find a range of new document format designs to choose from.The new Alignment Guides in Word 2013 show you when an object is lined up with another object or page element.2. Alignment with Alignment GuidesIf you have text wrapping set to an option such as Square, the Alignment Guides also show when the object is aligned with the top of a paragraph or to a heading.This new feature makes lining up images and other objects a cinch in Word 2013. When you move an object such as an Image, Chart, or SmartArt illustration around in a document, Alignment Guides automatically appear to show you when the object is lined up with other elements on the page. The guides also show you when the object is lined up to key page locations, such as the edge of the page and the left and right margins.Read mode provides a superior experience for anyone who uses Word primarily to read documents others have created.3. Comfortable reading in Read modeIf you use Word more to read documents than to create them, you’ll like Word 2013’s new Read mode. It automatically resizes a document to the full window. Click the on-screen arrows to flip through the pages, or swipe the screen from either edge of the display if you’re using a touch-screen monitor. Switch to page view for vertical scrolling. Right-click on any unfamiliar words to display a definition without existing read mode. You can also click on any image, table, or chart to enlarge it for easier reading.The new comments tool encapsulates related comments into a single bubble, which makes them much easier to follow.4. Smarter collaborationIf you collaborate with others on Word documents, you know how quickly conversations can become difficult to follow, because Word’s comments tool treats every utterance as a new comment.In Word 2013, you can reply to a comment within that comment by clicking the Comment Reply button. This captures the entire discussion of a given point inside a single comment box, which will appear as a small bubble in the document’s margin.You can also lock the change-tracking feature, so it can’t be bypassed unless the collaborator provides the correct password.And with the new Simple Markup option, you can hide complex markups and view the final version of the document. Switch between this and All Markup view from the Review tab or by double clicking the line in the left margin beside a tracked change.Word can now open PDF files so you can edit and complete them in Word including working with table data in the file.5. Open and edit PDFs inside Word?Word 2013 can not only open a PDF document, it also enables you to edit it—without need of a third-party application. You can also edit the data inside tables and move images around the document. When you’re finished, you can save the document as either a PDF or a Word file. This is a must-have feature for anyone who works with PDFs frequently.Select a picture, chart, or SmartArt object, and the new Layout Options icon lets you configure placement and text wrapping options for it.6. Discoverable layout optionsYou can also select Move with text or Fix position on page to control the location of the object. Click See more to open the old Layout dialog, which offers other options for positioning the object on the page.New layout options in Word 2013 make features such as wrapping text around an illustration much easier to use. When you click an image, a chart, or a SmartArt object in a Word document, a Layout Options icon appears outside its top right corner. Click it to select text wrapping options such as Tight, Square and Through.As with the other applications in the Office 2013 suite, a formatting task pane opens when you right-click an object and choose, for example, Format Picture or Format Shape. This stays open as you work and shows formatting options relevant to the currently selected object.If you use tables in your documents, the new Border Painter tool and Border Styles feature simplify and speed up formatting.7. New table border toolsSelect a Line Style, Line Weight, and Pen Color; or choose a preset from the Border Styles list and paint the borders onto the table. You can also sample an existing border, using the Border Sampler tool in the Border Styles panel, and then use the Border Painter to paint that style elsewhere in the table.Formatting a Word table by adding different width and style borders has always been a pain point. Word 2013’s handy Border Painter tool makes this task supremely easy. To access it, choose Table Tools, Design, Border Painter.There are new icons for inserting rows and columns in tables and options on the Mini Toolbar for deleting them, too.8. More new table featuresWord has always had weak table tools, and Word 2013 finally addresses the problem. You can now add a new row to a table by hovering your mouse just outside the left edge of the table at the point at which the row is to be inserted. A small icon will appear; click on it and you’re done. There’s a similar icon for easily adding a new column. New Delete buttons on the Mini Toolbar make it easy to delete columns and rows; if the table itself is selected, the option lets you delete the entire table.New Expand/Collapse options let you collapse and expand a document to make it easier to work on.9. Collapse and expand a documentLong documents can become unruly to manage, especially if you’re working in just a small portion of it. Word 2013 lets you collapse and expand a document, so you see only the portion you need. To do this, you must format the document’s headings using the built-in styles Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on.Switch to Print Layout view and you can collapse the document by hovering your mouse to the left of a formatted heading. Click the small disclosure triangle to hide the paragraphs between this heading and the next, leaving just the heading text visible.Right-click a heading formatted with one of the heading styles to access the Expand/Collapse option, which gives you menu control for this feature.Now you can present a document online to others in real time.10. Present a document onlineOnce everyone is connected to the service—which is run via the Microsoft Word Web App—they’ll be able to follow along as you present the document. The interface supports comments being made during the presentation, and participants can create a printable and downloadable PDF of the document if desired.Office 2013’s new Office Presentation Service allows you to present Word documents online. You must be signed into your Microsoft Account to use this feature. When you’re ready to share your document, choose File, Share, Present Online, and click the Present Online button to upload your document to the cloud. You will get a link that you can email or share with others so they can join the presentation.There’s a lot to like about the new Microsoft Word 2013. The new features collectively will make your day-to-day work much easier to perform whatever that happens to be.10 Must-Have Downloads for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter Your favorite social network–whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or something else–is probably pretty capable on its own. After all, you likely spend plenty of time there already. But with the right app or add-on, your go-to social networks can become even better. Here are several apps, both desktop- and cloud-based, that will allow you to get more out of Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. They’ll help you save time, share more content, and connect with new people in new ways.Almost every business leader says that people are their most important asset, but few do anything about it. If you are going to take this principle seriously, then human capital planning is crucial. The Human Capital Plan is an important tool that organizations use to drive focused actions that can ensure goal achievement and business success. It allows companies to assess, plan for, and respond proactively to their human capital challenges and needs. The 10 principles outlined in this white paper will help you establish a framework of policies, practices, and actions that guide your efforts to focus on your most important asset?your people.10 reasons to choose Ubuntu 12.10 over Windows 8 Microsoft’s ?dominated countless headlines in the weeks leading up to its launch late last month, but October saw the debut of another major operating system as well.Canonical’s arrived a week ahead of its competitor, in fact, accompanied by a challenge: “Avoid the pain of Windows 8.” That slogan appeared on the Ubuntu home page for the first few hours after the OS’s official launch, and attracted considerable attention.Apparently Canonical decided to tone down its message later in the day—the slogan now reads “”—but it seems fair to say that the underlying challenge remains.Ubuntu comes with a variety of software packages, including Firefox, Thunderbird, and the full-featured productivity suite LibreOffice.Window of opportunityUbuntu is a widely popular open-source? with eight years of maturity under its belt, and more than 20 million users. Of the roughly 5 percent of desktop OSs accounted for by Linux, at least one survey suggests that about half are Ubuntu. (Windows, meanwhile, accounts for about 84 percent.)The timing of this latest Ubuntu release couldn’t be better for Windows users faced with the paradigm-busting Windows 8 and the big decision of whether to take the plunge.Initial uptake of Windows 8 has been , according to reports, and a full 80 percent of businesses will never adopt it, Gartner . As a result, Microsoft’s big gamble may be desktop Linux’s big opportunity.So, now that Canonical has thrown down the gauntlet, let’s take a closer look at Ubuntu 12.10 to see how it compares with Windows 8 from a business user’s perspective.Perhaps the biggest surprise for many users of Windows 8’s mobile-style Modern UI is that it has no Start button.1. Unity vs. Modern UIBoth Microsoft and Canonical have received considerable flak for the default user interfaces in their respective OSs. In Microsoft’s case, of course, it’s the Modern UI, formerly known as Metro; in Canonical’s case, it’s Unity. Both are designed with touchscreens in mind, and borrow heavily .By removing the Start button and overhauling the way users interact with the operating system, Windows 8’s Modern interface poses a considerable challenge for users, who face a ., on the other hand, became a default part of Ubuntu back in April 2011 with It has definitely undergone growing pains, but more than a year has passed, and Canonical has revised the interface accordingly. Although it still has numerous critics, most people concede that it has and improved. Some observers, in fact, have even ?that it may feel more familiar to many longtime Windows users than does Windows 8.One advantage of Ubuntu Linux is that it supports multiple workspaces.2. CustomizabilityLinux has long been known for its virtually limitless , but given the current controversy surrounding desktop interfaces, that feature has become more salient than ever.This is a point on which Windows 8 and Ubuntu differ considerably. Yes, Windows 8 does allow users to customize some aspects of their environment, such as by specifying the size of Live Tile icons, moving commonly used tiles to the left side of the screen, or grouping tiles by program type.Most of the changes you can make in Windows 8, however, are largely cosmetic, and they don’t include a built-in way to set the OS to boot to the traditional Windows desktop. A growing assortment of such as Pokki can restore that capability, but otherwise you’re stuck with Modern UI.?Windows 8 offers what you might call a “tightly coupled” interface—in other words, one that you can’t change substantially.Microsoft’s Windows Store was sparsely populated at launch, but company executives have said that the number of apps will increase quickly.Ubuntu’s Unity, in contrast, is more of a loosely coupled UI. First and foremost, you can easily replace it with any one of several free alternatives, including , , LXDE, Shell, , and .Also available for Unity are third-party customization tools, including the increasingly popular , while a raft of are available for myriad Linux interfaces with a variety of themes to change the desktop’s appearance.The rule of thumb with Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular is, if you don’t like it, swap in something else. Also worth mentioning is the fact that Ubuntu supports multiple workspaces, essentially letting you run up to four different desktops; Windows 8 Pro does not.3. AppsWhereas Windows 8 Pro with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 10 browser, Ubuntu comes with a wide assortment of open-source software packages such as Firefox, Thunderbird, , and more, offering both individual and business users a pretty full suite of functionality.Similar to Microsoft’s SkyDrive, Ubuntu One allows users to back up and access their files from Ubuntu, Windows, the Web, or a mobile device.Beyond those bundled programs, both Ubuntu and Windows 8 offer app stores to help users find the additional software they need.Dating back to 2009, the Ubuntu Software Center now houses more than 40,000 apps, ranging from games to productivity tools to educational resources. In addition, by using , you can run Windows programs on top of Linux.The Windows Store just launched with Windows 8, and at the time of its debut it included . Microsoft execs have said that they hope to provide 100,000 apps in the Windows Store within 90 days of the Windows launch.Operating system binaries and drivers, however, will not come from the Windows Store. Rather, it will have both Windows RT (ARM) apps and Windows desktop (“legacy”) apps. Entries for legacy desktop apps in the Windows Store will take users to separate sites where they can purchase or download the apps. Ubuntu’s repository, on the other hand, centrally stores all operating system and app binaries and drivers.As a result, aside from numbers, a key difference between the two app stores involves security.?Ubuntu provides a keyring-protected repository system wherein each application and driver has a unique keyring identity to verify its authenticity and integrity as having come only from the Ubuntu repo system.?The keyring method of protection has been highly effective at ensuring that no rogue applications find their way into the repo—or onto users’ PCs.Historically, Microsoft Windows has lacked such a keyring-protected repository. Although Microsoft does support its OS with monthly Windows Updates, no comparable third-party vendor support for updates exists.?Because of this situation, users have had to venture online to obtain their own third-party-supported updates manually at separate websites.?The Windows Store was developed to mitigate that risk and is specifically designed to curate apps, screen apps, and provide the capability to purchase apps. Time will tell how well it succeeds.Much like the Windows Store, the Ubuntu Software Center gives users instant desktop access to thousands of applications, many of them free.10 reasons why Windows 8 makes sense for business Even in the best of times, businesses don’t like upgrading their PC operating systems. The process is?expensive and?time-consuming, and usually demands retraining a technically challenged workforce.?And now Windows 8 threatens to make workplace system swaps even less attractive than before.Between the removal of the familiar Start button and the addition of a decidedly non-intuitive tiled interface, Windows 8 has struck fear in the hearts of IT managers worldwide. As a result,?.Nevertheless, if you’re in the market for new PCs or even an operating system upgrade, there are a number of reasons why your business may benefit from accepting Windows 8. Of course, adopting any new OS imposes a learning curve on users, but once your workforce gets comfortable with Windows 8, its benefits can outweigh its drawbacks.1. Touchscreen interface An obvious difference between Windows 8 and its predecessors is its completely revamped interface. The Modern UI (formerly known as “Metro”) is designed first and foremost with touch input in mind.Windows 8’s touchscreen interface lets you use the OS in some unique ways.With a tablet or , Windows 8 supports cool options such as handwritten note-taking in OneNote and commenting on a Word document by hand using digital ink. Furthermore, once you get used to Windows 8’s touch and swipe conventions, the touch-based controls enable you to navigate the OS very effectively. With a tap-and-drag gesture, you can use two apps simultaneously, for example, so you can check email and edit an Excel spreadsheet at the same time. (Here’s a .)From a business perspective, though, the greatest appeal of the touchscreen interface is the new possibilities it opens for Windows 8 PCs. Functions for which many businesses may currently be considering iPad or Android tablets to accomplish could be performed from a Windows 8 tablet or from a PC equipped with a touchscreen monitor. Windows 8 can be used at interactive kiosks, or to enable a salesperson in the field to collect a customer’s signature directly on the display.2. NetworkingOne of the most common headaches for Windows users—particularly mobile users trying to work from customer sites or remote locations—is finding and connecting to a network. Microsoft has made improvements in Windows 8 that make accomplishing this task easier and more intuitive.?Windows 8 simplifies the task of connecting to networks.First, whether you tap the network icon from the Settings charm on the Modern UI charms bar or click it in the System Tray in desktop mode, it pulls up a panel that fills the right quarter of the screen top to bottom. At the top is something familiar, but new to Windows—Airplane Mode. Enabling this option shuts down all wireless communications, which comes in handy when you’re using a tablet or laptop on the road.When you join a new network, you’ll find that Microsoft has simplified the dialog boxes to guide you through choosing connections to a public or a private network, and enabling sharing of data or resources between your computer and the other devices on the network.Because Windows 8 is designed for mobility, the operating system also includes better tools for connecting to, and managing, cellular networks. And Windows 8 can track and meter data usage for 3G/4G cellular networks so you don’t exceed monthly caps.3. Flexible hardware optionsSince their inception, PCs and laptops have maintained a fairly consistent approach to form and function. Sure, they’ve gotten smaller over the years, but a desktop remained a desktop, and a laptop a laptop, more or less—until now.The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga is one unique hardware approach to Windows 8.Windows 8 breaks the PC and laptop molds, encouraging unique approaches that take advantage of the touchscreen elements of Windows 8, or that bridge the gap between traditional hardware and mobile devices. For example, the has an innovative display that swivels so that the laptop can function as a tablet. The delivers similar hybrid functionality in the form of a display that the user can bend all the way to the back of the unit to employ as a tablet.Then there are devices like . The Surface Pro is a pure tablet; but when joined with a , it transforms into something resembling an Ultrabook. The diversity of the hardware allows businesses and individuals to choose the platform that works best for their needs instead of committing to one form at the expense of the other. It can also provide the benefits of?a notebook and a tablet without requiring a business to invest in two pieces of hardware.4. Faster boot timeThough the usual waiting period is only a matter of seconds, it can feel like an eternity as a computer wakes up from a complete shutdown and finally reaches the Windows login screen—especially if you’re at a meeting, where every second counts.In tests run on the same PC, with fresh installations of each operating system, Windows 8 that Windows 7 took. Windows 8 averaged 17 seconds, compared to 38 seconds for Windows 7.Real-world mileage can vary significantly depending on the hardware you use. My Samsung Series 7 Slate PC with Windows 8 Pro boots in just over 11 seconds. A faster boot time means that users can get down to business faster when they show up in the morning, or when they boot up an Ultrabook or tablet to share information with a customer.5. Dual-monitor support It’s not exactly mainstream in most fields of business, but can greatly improve productivity, and Windows 8 comes with a number of enhancements to simplify managing and using such setups. Using multiple displays is like magnifying the productivity benefits of the Windows 7 Aero Snap feature. Instead of splitting the workspace in half on one display, you can extend your Windows desktop across more than one monitor.When it comes to handling multiple displays, Windows 8 significantly improves on Windows 7’s capabilities. You can configure the taskbar for each display to make it easier and more efficient to get to the applications you want on each display. Windows 8 also treats the corners and sides of each monitor as active hot zones for accessing things like the charms bar and the app switcher.6. Better securityWindows 8 introduces some security tricks? to help protect data and let IT managers sleep at night. First, Microsoft takes advantage of the Secure Boot feature of . Secure Boot allows only software signed by authorized certificates to boot up, which prevents BIOS- or kernel-level malware from sneaking in.With Windows 8, Microsoft has also incorporated the antimalware capabilities of Microsoft Security Essentials into Windows Defender, so Windows 8 provides more-comprehensive protection against malware right out of the box.Microsoft has expanded the scope of its SmartScreen technology, too. Previous versions were limited to protecting Internet Explorer from malicious sites and rogue downloads. With Windows 8, SmartScreen applies to all network traffic, meaning that it provides the same security whether you’re using Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome—or if you’re just downloading files across the network.7. Storage SpacesHard drives keep getting larger and cheaper, but newer hardware such as Ultrabooks and tablets tend to rely on smaller-capacity solid-state drives for storage. Windows 8’s Storage Spaces feature lets you expand your storage without replacing your drive, and without having to add new drive letters and then try to manage which applications or data get stored on which drive. of storage that can span internal and external drives, and combine storage using different interfaces so that the operating system views and treats everything as being on one large drive. Storage Spaces also uses data mirroring across the drives so that, even if one of the drives in the pool crashes, the data will remain available.8. SkyDrive integration As great as Storage Spaces can be, it works only if the various drives in the pool are connected to . When you’re on the go, using the cloud to expand your storage options makes more sense. Microsoft has woven access to its cloud storage service, SkyDrive, throughout Windows 8.The SkyDrive app on the Windows 8 Start screen provides quick access to data stored in the cloud. You can easily add?files to SkyDrive from the Share charm in the Windows 8 charms bar, and data stored in SkyDrive is available from virtually anywhere, over just about any Web-connected device.Businesses that subscribe to Office 365 Small Business Premium get a more robust approach to cloud storage. The SkyDrive Pro app provides essentially the same benefits and functionality as SkyDrive, but it ties back to SharePoint and delivers more collaborative tools and better IT management for data than the personal SkyDrive account does.9. New Task ManagerThe Task Manager has always been a powerful but underused tool in Windows. In Windows 8, though, it receives a complete makeover that makes it both easier to use, and more valuable than ever.The new Task Manager is more polished, presenting information in a more coherent and visually appealing way. Microsoft has enhanced familiar tabs such as Processes and Performance to include more detail—for instance, enabling you to drill down and see the resources in use for each separate tab or window for apps that have multiple instances. A new tab called Startup lets you view and manage applications that load automatically when Windows boots up.10. Windows to Go You’ll in order to , but for many businesses, that version of Windows is worth its higher price. Windows to Go lets you store an entire Windows 8 environment on a bootable USB thumb drive or other removable media.Windows to Go lets you put an entire Windows 8 desktop environment on a bootable thumb drive.Using Windows to Go has some tremendous benefits. IT admins or tech support personnel can carry their Windows 8 PC with them in their pocket. The feature also supports BYOD (bring your own device) scenarios: Users can boot to a managed Windows 8 environment via Windows to Go so that their work environment doesn’t interfere with their personal profile; and the business can protect itself from rogue, unpatched systems.Bottom lineWindows 8 dramatically overhauls the aesthetics and interface—as well as the features and functionality—of the traditional Windows operating system. It’s unlikely that all ten of these will apply to your business, but even if only a few do, they could yield a difference in efficiency or productivity for an edge over the competition.10 things about Bitcoin every consumer should know Bitcoin’s trajectory over the past few years is nothing short of impressive. A peer-to-peer alternative currency whose creator remains anonymous five years later, Bitcoin sounds like something out of a science fiction novel.However, Bitcoin has paid off for many of its early adopters, and is moving too quickly to be ignored.[BITCOIN:]While many in the Bitcoin community discredit much of the subjective , no interested party should dive into a Bitcoin engagement without knowing the facts.10. Digital Bitcoin wallets are stored unencrypted by default.Many in the current Bitcoin community are well-versed in technology, and would opt in to encrypt their wallets as soon as they register. However, Bitcoin in the past six months has turned the corner into the mainstream, and will only continue to attract more attention from those who may not be as tech-savvy as its early adopters, and may be less likely to even consider encrypting their wallets.Consider Florida, where high rates of retirees and senior citizens who are unfamiliar with safe online behavior have made the state the at a rate of 361 cases per 100,000 residents. That’s almost twice the No. 2 state, neighboring Georgia, which has 194 reported cases per 100,000 residents.As more people begin to invest in Bitcoin, default encryption will become more important. Whether that becomes a reality remains to be seen.9. Bitcoin thefts have occurred, sometimes in large quantities.In June 2011, one user in the Bitcoin forum claimed that 25,000 Bitcoins, the equivalent of $375,000, was stolen from his wallet.Although that was difficult to confirm, it wasn’t an isolated incident. Just a few days after that reported theft, Mt. Gox, the exchange where users can buy and sell Bitcoins for U.S. dollars, leaked 60,000 user names, password hashes and email addresses. Mt. Gox later reversed the trades and fixed the problem, but the leak led to the theft of Bitcoins from about 600 users who used the same user names and passwords for their MyBitcoin accounts. One user reported losing more than 2,000 Bitcoins.In March 2012, a security breach at a web hosting company would lead to the theft of 50,000 Bitcoins, the largest in the currency’s history.8. Old wallets, and their contents, can be retrieved pretty easily.Another potential issue for those who are less educated on technology is what “changing the password” means for an eWallet. From the Bitcoin Wiki on “weaknesses”:”An old copy of a wallet with its old password is often easily retrievable via an existing backup facility (particularly Apple Time-Machine): draining that old wallet, with its old password, drains the current wallet with the current password — this is contrary to most non-technical users’ expectation of what ‘change the password on your wallet’ should mean following password compromise.”Essentially, users who want to create a new wallet must know that they need to send their existing sums to new accounts with new passwords. It’s not as easy as many would assume.7. DoS is possible on Bitcoin, just like any other site.Just like banking websites, which have been the target of denial-of-service attacks in the past, Bitcoin services are susceptible to DoS attacks.”Bitcoin has some denial-of-service prevention built-in, but is likely still vulnerable to more sophisticated denial-of-service attacks,” the explains, along with more detail on the DoS protection built into the system.6. “There are no guarantees that any eWallet service won’t one day take all your bitcoins and disappear.”That quote is taken directly from the Bitcoin’s Wiki on anonymity, alongside a warning to “use at your own risk.” Very little information about this possibility is available online, but considering that one of Bitcoin’s most highly touted attributes is its independence from a governing body, the legal side of Bitcoin is a bit murky.5. Speaking of legal issues, it is a bit murky.The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an early adopter of Bitcoin for its donations page, stopped accepting the currency in June 2011, citing the “complex legal issues involved with a currency system” as its top reason.The EFF did, however, reverse that decision just a couple of weeks ago, after spending two years researching Bitcoin and how it relates to the complex regulation of currency on a global scale.Some may consider that decision a good sign for Bitcoin. But it also means that it took the EFF, a conglomerate of experts in technology and law, two years to decide whether it was comfortable accepting it. That decision was also perhaps made easier when the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network informed the EFF that it, specifically, “is likely not subject to regulation.”In other words, the EFF didn’t decide to accept Bitcoin until it was told explicitly that it will not be regulated for it.Then there’s this excerpt, from the Bitcoin Wiki on “weaknesses”:”It is illegal in some countries to possess/distribute certain kinds of data. Since arbitrary data can be included in Bitcoin transactions, and clients must normally have a copy of all unspent transactions, this could cause legal problems.”All of this suggests that if you’re concerned about the legal issues of Bitcoin, be prepared to do a lot of reading.4. Bitcoin is not really all that anonymous.Sure, Bitcoin transactions are conducted anonymously, without any names or a bank tracking your move. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be tracked.The Bitcoin Wiki for Anonymity isn’t very reassuring, starting off admitting that “while the Bitcoin technology can support strong anonymity, the current implementation is usually not very anonymous.”The logs and displays every Bitcoin transaction in real time, and makes that data available to anyone. Last year, Adi Shamir and Ron Dorit used the available data on Bitcoin transactions to try to get a lead on the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, the person or persons behind Bitcoin who has remained anonymous since publishing the whitepaper explaining the system in 2008.Shamir and Dorit were able to trace all Bitcoin activity back to a handful of massive transactions made in November 2010, in which large amounts of Bitcoins were stashed away in several accounts that have yet to make another outgoing transaction.Zach Harvey, co-founder of Bitcoin ATM developer Lamassu, says a theory is that these accounts belong to Bitcoin’s creator, and haven’t been used because another transaction could spoil Satoshi Nakamoto’s anonymity.”Finally, we noted that the subgraph which contains these large transactions along with their neighborhood has many strange looking structures which could be an attempt to conceal the existence and relationship between these transactions, but such an attempt can be foiled by following the money trail in a sufficiently persistent way,” Shamir and Dorit concluded in their .3. Hoarding could pop Bitcoin’s bubble.Hoarding, or saving, in the Bitcoin community is a highly debatable issue. Harvey, when asked about hoarding and the fact that many Bitcoin users have stashed the currency away, says it’s good for a community looking to establish savings rather than rely on credit.However, others disagree. Vanity Fair contributing editor and long-time Wall Street-focused journalist Kurt Eichenwald touched on the hoarding issue in an on the issues with Bitcion. Citing Shamir and Ron’s research, which found that 78 percent?of all Bitcoin were not being used in circulation, Eichenwald warned that if a large amount of these hoarding Bitcoin users started to unload and exchange their stash for U.S. dollars, the value could plummet and may have difficulty rising again.Especially considering that Bitcoin is only valuable as long as people are willing to accept it, this could cause a potential issue for those looking to maintain value in their investment.”In essence, the market is a fantasy,” Eichenwald wrote. “Once the hoarders stop buying, what buyers will step up to the plate to take their place? My bet? No one. There will be, at some point, a time when some hoarder decides to unload. Prices will drop. Other hoarders will get scared and start to sell. Prices will drop further. Before long, there will be a mass rush to the exits. And at that point, the illiquidity of the Bitcoin market will be apparent.”2. If Bitcoin fails, it has no safety net.Another much-discussed attribute of Bitcoin is that it doesn’t rely on a governing body, like the U.S. dollar. That prevents it from being subjected to inflation and transfer fees for international purchases.However, as Eichenwald discussed, the support of a governing body comes in handy when someone needs to bear the brunt of a drop in value.”Bitcoin fans admit that the currency has value only because the users in the Bitcoin market think it does but say that that is no different than in the markets for dollars, yen, and other national currencies. And that is absurd,” Eichenwald wrote. “There is no country, no national bank, nothing standing behind the Bitcoin valuations other than other Bitcoin investors. If the dollar falls, the Fed will jump in. And if the Bitcoin falls? Well, personal bankruptcies will probably go up. “He’s not the only one who has warned of this. Economist Paul Krugman tackled Bitcoin in relation to the larger global economy in April, warning that many Bitcoin supporters may be driven by misconceptions about the value of a new currency in the context of an already-massive economy.”Paper currencies have value because they’re backed by the power of the state, which defines them as legal tender and accepts them as payment for taxes,” Krugman . “Bitcoins, however, derive their value, if any, purely from self-fulfilling prophecy, the belief that other people will accept them as payment.”1. Leaders in the Bitcoin community call it risky.In 2011, after the data leak at wreaked havoc on Bitcoin’s value, Gavin Andresen, a lead developer on the Bitcoin Project, issued a stern warning to those caught up in the hype of the currency.”I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Bitcoin is an experiment. Treat it like you would a promising Internet start-up company: maybe it will change the world, but realize that investing your money or time in new ideas is always risky,” Andresen wrote in his The Bitcoin community is nothing but forthcoming in regards to the risk involved with investing in Bitcoin. The main takeaway from this warning, and all the other troubling facts about it, is that Bitcoin is not an infallible system, similarly to other currencies.Colin Neagle covers emerging technologies and the startup scene for Network World. Follow him on Twitter and keep up with the Microsoft, Cisco and Open Source community blogs. Colin’s email address is . in Network World’s Software section.10 Things We Love About Apple (Editor’s note: For background on this article and its unusual history, .)Artwork: Chip TaylorIn a world where generic MP3 players are sold alongside Chia Pets in every Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and Quickie Mart, Apple’s iPods are anything but commodities. Most computers look like they were designed by manufacturers of low-end office furniture, but Macs are so beautiful that they’d probably be fixtures in movies and on TV even if product placement didn’t exist. And Apple is so basically innovative an organization that–to swipe a phrase from our own Full Disclosure columnist Stephen Manes–it essentially serves as the R&D arm of the entire technology industry. In fact, we often find ourselves asking a question that’s been around almost since Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started selling computers back in the 1970s: If Apple can do it, why can’t anyone else? We’re not going to attempt to answer that question here. But we will enumerate some of the things that make the products from Cupertino, California’s most famous company uniquely lovable. That’s not to say that the things we said in are moot, but we’re more than happy to give credit where it’s due. Got anything you love (or hate) about Apple yourself? Use the Comment link at the end of this article to add what you love about Apple–or to tell us that we’re being too kind. 1. Sublime DesignsApple’s designs rarely feel cheap or half-baked. There are the obvious feats such as the slim, beautiful and the Microsoft’s just doesn’t compare to the Apple’s iPods, and the just might finally get us interested in the badly named digital media adapter market. And even if the upcoming iPhone doesn’t become to mobile communications what the Mac was to computers, it’s unquestionably off the chart in terms of pure style.But equally impressive are the subtle innovations in Apple products that make them both more elegant and more useful: the tiny iMac remote, which clings to the side of the computer’s screen. The MagSafe magnetic power adapter, which attaches to laptops lightly enough that it disconnects cleanly if you trip over it. Software and drivers, whether developed by Apple or third parties, maintain a consistent look and feel. Outside and in, it all just matches–which is more than you can say about most stuff in Windowsville. 2. The Mac OS RulesTrue, we’re a little miffed that we have to wait until October to get our hands on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard); . But if Leopard is anything like Tiger (), it’ll make Windows users jealous. Its Time Machine instant backup might be what finally gets people to back up their files. Its Spaces window management could work better than the already excellent Expose technology and the form-over-function Windows Flip 3D. Apple’s Spotlight Desktop Search will search network volumes, and the nifty Dashboard widget engine will get new features. Apple being Apple, it’s also entirely possible that it has some more surprises up its sleeve that it won’t tell us until the moment before it springs Leopard on the world. In the meantime, OS X 10.4 “Tiger,” more than two years old now, is nearing the end of its life. Yet in most ways that matter, it’s still a more pleasing, pleasingly consistent environment to work in than its newer (and arguably glitzier) competitor from Redmond. Aging Apple, in other words, is entirely capable of beating brand-new Microsoft. 3. Real ReliabilityWhat good is a cool computer or music player if it doesn’t keep going and going? Apple makes some of the most reliable products on the market–from its to its iPod digital audio players. In our most recent survey of reliability and service, the company scored higher than all other notebook manufacturers except for Lenovo, in part thanks to a better-than-average score for “satisfaction with reliability” and for overall reliability. Its digital audio players topped our list, earning the only better-than-average score for “satisfaction with reliability” (though its mark for overall reliability was only average). Of course, Apple’s track record isn’t perfect, as owners of will tell you. But the fact that you can get a reliable product that looks nice too makes its overall record pretty impressive. 4. Jobs Stands Up to the Media MogulsAmidst the record industry’s panic over illegal music downloads, the 99-cent single-song download, an easy-to-use software music store for buying them, and a catalog that included indie and unsigned artists when most competitors stuck to the catalogs of the big labels. The iTunes Store later raised the profile of television show and movie downloads, and Jobs even of music digital rights management (DRM). Soon after, EMI said it would introduce DRM-free (albeit higher-priced) versions of its songs. (It remains to be seen if this ends up being a good move for the financially struggling big-four music company.) We’re still not happy about most songs in the iTunes library requiring you to use an iPod for portable-device playback, but we admire Apple’s deal-making finesse. It shook up the entire industry, which, left to itself, would have you buying six crappy filler tracks for every three you actually wanted. Who knows where music might be if Steve Jobs had decided to spend his time making cartoons at Pixar rather than reinventing the consumer electronics industry?Posted and .The Mac does make a noise upon startup, although I do not know if this is customizable. This is a good question for the smart folks at Macworld.By iGuitar, do you mean GarageBand? I’ve only played with it a little bit, but it does seem fun for making your own music and remixes. As a regular Mac user though, I don’t use it often.Usually, once a file is downloaded, you will need to drag the program icon to your Applications folder. It will install itself from there and be listed in your Applications folder from then on.Your utilities are also in the Applications folder, in the sub-folder marked Utilities. I hope that helps you enjoy your Mac a little more!Posted MiltonBoy1, on 27 June 2009 - 08:24 PM, said:Right….in that case you’re exchanging one problem for another….New Mac user: “Why can’t I do everything I could before?”Me: “You now have a Mac, you have limited hardware and limited software options….either buy a copy of Windows for Boot Camp or dea

  12. 417
    sruthi:

    Iam 154 cm height am i eligible to be an air hostess

  13. 416
    susmita singh:

    sir i m studnt of btech 2 yr …frm cs ..ihav cmpleted my 12 by 72% through up board may i elligble fr being airhostess

  14. 415
    vamsi:

    if iam male cni became air hostess

  15. 414
    anim claudia:

    am a senior high school graduate,and my dream is to become an air hostess.which college can i apply for in order to get training?

  16. 413
    tsetan:

    Any chance for a gal whose height is 150cm..plz do eply

  17. 412
    Bontle:

    Can i apply with my matric results only?

  18. 411
    anu yadav:

    after b.tech can i applicable to be an air hostess???????????

  19. 410
    anonymous:

    how many flight atendence are there?

  20. 409
    Roohi kumari:

    When will be the entrance exam of air hostes in every year? Nd what is its syllabus?plz reply my id [email protected]

  21. 408
    Diljith:

    When will be the last day for airhostes entrance exam in 2013

  22. 407
    Nitika:

    what is the syllabe for its entranc exam? nd after 12 is it necessary to get any diploma or degree? after 12 what we hv to do to bcm air hostess?

  23. 406
    nitika:

    Is there any govt. training institutes of air hostess so that we can ensure that after completing our training we definitly get a job?

  24. 405
    noureen:

    hallo sir/mam,
    i want to know if my english is not very good than

  25. 404
    noureen:

    i want to know if my english is not very good than

  26. 403
    Darshana srivastava:

    Sir, i wnt to become a air hostess i hv completed 12th with 57% this yr frm cbsc board i taken commerce with maths in 12th plz give me suggestn

  27. 402
    Leyla:

    Can a person with brown stretch marks be able to be an airhostess

  28. 401
    sowjanya:

    Hi sir/mam,
    Im sowjanya n wanna become airhostess. Im having my 12th with 83.4% and now im doing my b.tech final year. Now i want to become airhostess. Am i eligilible for airhostess?

  29. 400
    Agyemang Yeboah Charles:

    I want at known the requirement 0r the person who can applier

  30. 399
    aziz shahir:

    sir’ my name is aziz now iam studiying 11 th class i want become a air hostes what is the minimum qualification of air hostes ? and how much persentege will i get in 12th class? which is the good institute in india? pls help me

  31. 398
    Navya:

    Iam Navya &i completed 12th with 63% I like to join air hostess course give me a suggestion plz

  32. 397
    soureya:

    hi
    am only in grade 10 and not done with studies yet so i wanted to know wat i need to study in order to become air hostess do i need to finish grade 12 first or i can just join training now.thank you

  33. 396
    SUMAN GHOSH:

    I JUST COMPLETED 12th and i don’t have any Degree or diploma in hotel management.can’t i become air hostess without degree or diploma?

  34. 395
    swati:

    plz contact me m interested

  35. 394
    Mawii Singson:

    i hv completed 12 class with 40%.can i be an airhostess with this percentage.my height is 5′3

  36. 393
    shelly:

    respected mam/sir….my height is 5…..i am persuing bachelor of engineering from computer and science branch….in 4th semester.but i do not have such interest in that…i wanna join air hostess academy…how can i appply for thiz..???????????

  37. 392
    Kejisse Aweke:

    First of all thankyou for giving me the chance to ask. Am a 2nd year marketing student in Ethiopia and am really really intrested to join the air hostess job and would like to practice my marketing knowledge by introducing the airlines am working in to diffrent customers.My question is it a must to graduate to enter this Job? Thankyou!

  38. 391
    shannon:

    I would like to become a air hostess but I’m not done with school I’m only in grade 10 wanted to know do I need a matric to become a air hostess or can I go for training now already

  39. 390
    B.KALPANA:

    hii,
    plz tell me the date of entrance exam

  40. 389
    B.KALPANA:

    hiii,
    now iam doing b.tech in cse this 2013 pass out i like to join as air hostess join soo plz help me sir/madam,soo plz tell me the date of entrance exam this year

  41. 388
    Makganyane:

    Are the air hostess having the leaves?

  42. 387
    JYOTI GUPTA:

    Now I am in 12 th class with commerce. I want’s to become an air hostess.I don’t know anything about this. Please guide me and suggest me a best path to get it………………………….

  43. 386
    saranya:

    hi,
    gud eve,i have complete HSC,then DCSE.I look normal fair and lean.may i join this course.I like this course very much…..pls give some details about airhostess.I am requesting to u pls help me…i want to become an airhostess.pls pls pls send informatoin this mail id [email protected].
    Thank You ……………..

  44. 385
    saumya jain:

    i am completed 12th class nd awaiting for result…i want to become a air hostess but i have no information regarding this service …i am belongs to middle family nd also live in small town but i am capable to become air hostess along with its requirement

  45. 384
    deeksha:

    hi
    i wan’t to be an air hostess i had completed my 12th board exams and just waiting for the result, i just want to ask that..

    Is it true that we need to give any donation? If needed then what’s the cost? Please do inform or email me Sir/Maam in [email protected] to clarify how to get the proper application for being an Air Hostess. It’s my aim to become an Air Hostess. Looking forward to it. Hope you’ll reply soon.

    Thank You.

  46. 383
    hemanginee patel:

    hi ,im complete my 12th board and my age is 18th…. and i aligibility for air hostess,so please tell me how to aplly for airhostess

    hemanginee

  47. 382
    devajani mohanty:

    hi ,im complete my 12th board and my age is 18th…. and i aligibility for air hostess,so please tell me how to aplly for airhostess

  48. 381
    nisha:

    hi

    i completed my 10th in 2010 and i am inter discontinue but now iam doing my degree in distance education and i am 19 years old do i have any chance to apply

  49. 380
    nidhi mishra:

    i m in12 r8 now,,,,i wnt to b a air hostess,,,,m from a middle family,,,,,my wt is 50kg,so plzz give me some details regarding this course….i m also vry much fair in color,,loking gud,,,,,i knw 2 languages-hindi,eng,,and practice fr one launge more,,,if it is posible so plzz give me some details,,,,i m hrtly rquest to u,,plzzz sir/mam……plzzz…i wnt to become a air hostess….

  50. 379
    tanvi malhotra:

    i am in 12th r8 now n will give exams in march….. i want to b a air hostess…. m from a middle class family…. if this course is suitable for m send m some more details regarding this course training…

  51. 378
    alexandra:

    i want to be an air hostess in fly emirates and am studying languages at the moment,im 18yrs and want to apply in july after my course, do i need any more requirements to get through with my dream? pls i want the details of everythg i wud be required of to my email address.2013

  52. 377
    Pranjal:

    respected sir/mam,
    I am 17 years old.I am completing my 12th std from science faculty and I’m wishing to be an air hostess .My height is 155cms, my weight is 52kgs and fair in color.I know 3 languages - ENGLISH,HINDI,MARATHI. I had gone through open heart surgery at the age of 2yrs,5months,but I lead my life as a normal girl.another thing is,I use spectacle.So my query is,am I elligible for being an air hostess? If yes,then please guide me by telling what can I do to be an air hostess after completing 12th .Give details about application form,fees structure,etc.And if not,then any alternatives of air hostess and its details.[please answer as fast as possible]
    Thanking you for your attention.
    your faithful,
    PRANJAL

  53. 376
    Grace kachare:

    I am 22 years old and am now taking a diploma in Information Technology,am in my last semester this year which ends in july 2013.Can i become an airhostess?please help me

  54. 375
    divya:

    im 5 feets can i apply for air hostes … im doing my btech in ece this 2013 pass out i like to join as air hostes plz help me

  55. 374
    SHASHWAT GARG:

    SIR I WANT TO BECOME A AIR HOSTESS HOW TO TAKE ADMISSION SIR I AM COMPLETING MY GRADUATION

  56. 373
    shreem bajpai:

    i am doing graduation 18 years old wanted to be an airhostess i am attractive n graceful my ht is 5.7 and wt proportion to ht and fair plz guide me how to apply for it plz

  57. 372
    assay poulose:

    Dear Sir/Mam,
    I am 19 years old. i am doing my B.E.Aeronautical 2nd year at present. i want to become an air hostess after completing my degree. i know swimming and 3 languages ( hindi, english, italian) in additional to malayalam and tamil. i have got good communication skills. i am good at sports , music and dance. can you help me to become an air hostess in Emirates airlines. i wanna know the dates for air hostess entrance tests, application forms and the job vaccancies .
    Thank you.
    Yoursfaithfully
    Assay

  58. 371
    Suchismita subhadarshini:

    I want to be an air hostes , so cn u plzz help me??? n plz mail me an air hostes form… i need ur help…

  59. 370
    Archi Bhakta:

    Im 150 can only..Cani be an air hostess..? Please help me sir or mam

  60. 369
    bruktawit tilahun:

    i have a tattoo, but i want to be an air hostes, so can i be one?

  61. 368
    Anumithasen:

    Cn u mail me an airhosts form for 2013?

  62. 367
    savita baghel:

    kya is job ke liye beautiful hona jaruri he.plz meri e-mailid par ans dijiye.

  63. 366
    Afshanshaikh:

    my question is when airhostess test held?

  64. 365
    sweta:

    which stream is suitable for this job after tenth?

  65. 364
    hellena:

    i want if you could mail me an air hostess form for 2012?

  66. 363
    Harsha vardhani:

    i have some site problem.am i eligible if i undergo laser treatment and then appear for airhostess post am i eligible?

  67. 362
    josephine:

    hi my friend wants to become an airhoster she is 20 years of age without any qualification what courses should she take in the university in order to become one

  68. 361
    Naina sachdev:

    Naina-m studyng in 12th bt i cnt wait till my 12th complete so i want 2 join nw cn i ??

  69. 360
    Naina sachdev:

    Want 2 join d course btwn the 12th…

  70. 359
    mallika:

    hi iam mallika.now iam studying b.pharm 3rd year.but my dream was to become an airhostess.i have good communication skills.im good in english laungauge.but iam a middle class girl ,can i apply for airhostess if it possible please send some more information regarding airhostess training course…..

  71. 358
    Nancy:

    Can you become a air hostess without the qualifications?
    How do we get bursaries for a career as a AIR HOSTESS

  72. 357
    Shalini:

    Hello i am shalini studying in class 12th
    and i will clear my boards xams in 2013 can i apply for air hostess if yes then please help me to know the procedure

  73. 356
    k.sailaja:

    SAILAJA: Dear sir, i am 19 yrs old.i am intrested to become an airhostess.i want more information.i dnt know wt to do.pls i am requesting u help me.i am5ft4 inches. i have no guidance about airhostess.pls show me the right way of my career. How to apply for airhostess?wt is the process?

  74. 355
    Pooja manwani:

    I want to become airhostess but i dnt knw wot to do….

  75. 354
    Anagha Rani Divakaran:

    I’m Anagha. Now i am in 11. After 12 can i directly join the training college. I have a little dark complexion. Does this a great problem. I am already 157cm. What is the fee . Course duration. Which are the colleges in kerala ernakulam.please tell me their details.

  76. 353
    sonia:

    …helo…i have completed my 12…i m 17 yrs old..i wana work as a air hostess (cabin crew).which courses should be reqd. and should i pursue for it after 12 or graduation?….please tell me about it

  77. 352
    meskerem:

    is there opportunities to be hostess in etiopian air lines at these time?

  78. 351
    Koketso tshegameno:

    Im a grade 12 learner at Grenville high in Rustenburg,I could like to become an airhostess in two years time,for now i would like to futher my education.Where in South Africa can I go for training and For me to get diploma and degree.At what age do workers go for pension in this field?

  79. 350
    Harshita sharma:

    I have have a very pooreyesight of -4.5 in one eye nd-6 in the other.can i become an airhostess by correcting my vision through contat lenses?

  80. 349
    amareswari:

    Dear sir/madam I would like to become an air hostess,my dream is to become air hostess.i am 22yrs old,i completed my 12th standard,my height 5″3 so please give me fast responce

  81. 348
    ABI:

    HI I HAVE COMPLETED MY 12TH IN COMMERCE NOW CAN I JOIN IN AIR HOSTES . PLZ SEND MAIL THANKS

  82. 347
    savah:

    i would like to apply for air hostess riyadh saudi arabia.

  83. 346
    Puja:

    Hi,
    i m very confused about airhostes,i dont know about anything.plz tell me how can i apply in airhostes job.i m 17yrs old,12th passed student.my height is 5′5.my dream is become an airhostes.so plz i request u help me.

  84. 345
    haney:

    my name is haney i want be hostess .my height is 1.77 i am student in 11th grade .i am 18 years old .response me by this phone number 0911210483

  85. 344
    yordanos:

    Dear Sir/Madam
    I am a young Ethiopian women 26 years old.I really want to join Emmirates airliness,especially as a hostess.Unfortunately i dont seem to meet some of the aforementioned requirenments as I am married and have my first degree not in the aforementioned fieds but rather i low.
    However,I am 1.72 cm and my eye sight is perfect.
    Any possiblity i can still fit for the position,
    Please let me know
    kind regards!

  86. 343
    sneha:

    Dear sir/madam I would like to become an air hostess,my dream is to become air hostes, i will be little dark Please let me know how I can become an air hostess.Thank you

  87. 342
    sindhu prasad:

    me sindhu frm grade 9 i love air hostessjob my dream ambition im beautiful slim patient but i have a bit of eye sight will u take me in this prestigious profession?!!!!!!!

  88. 341
    sunaina choudhury:

    i have just given my 12th exam (cbse).wants to become an air hostess .so i wanna kwow the requirements regarding the same. pls inform me as early as possible

  89. 340
    syeda afreen:

    iam completed my engineering then how much salary get in air hostess and i want total brief about air hostess

  90. 339
    eugenia myburgh:

    Dear sir/madam I would like to become an air hostess, I meet the requirements needed. Please let me know how I can become an air hostess. Thank you

    You can contact me on 0768492397

  91. 338
    khan muhammad:

    Dear sir/madam
    i want to be a good become Air hostess. My height is 5.6feet. I want to become an Air hostess. Am 21 years old. Please call me. Am waiting for your reply.
    thank you
    +923313582927
    [email protected]
    please give me chance i m the first time apply

  92. 337
    Guadie Tarekegn:

    I am 2^ed year student in AAU & how I can become the mebur of the airhost Dear/madam Iam 23 years old & 1.78 m long please give me a fast responce
    phone number 0921608103

  93. 336
    julie job:

    Dear sir/madam
    How much fees required for become an Air hostess. My height is 158. I want to become an Air hostess. Am 19 years old. Please call me. Am waiting for your reply.
    thank you

  94. 335
    vinod:

    can a male become an airhostess?

  95. 334
    julie job:

    How to join in airhostess

  96. 333
    Narmi:

    i have eye sight problem yet im using contact lens… can i become a air hostess ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

  97. 332
    Asqual Getachew:

    I am ethiopian I want be hostess what can I do? and what I need to be ethiopian hostess? please help

  98. 331
    akansha:

    hiii.i m in class 8th and in my career i want to become a air hostess……which kind of syllabus i prepare for the entrance exam in this

  99. 330
    punnagai arasi:

    how to join in airhostess

  100. 329
    Soli:

    I want to be ahostess.im 1.65cm.n i have first degree on pharmacy.but i have some small scars in my body but none on my face.can i be ahostess?i heard scars are not allowed.

  101. 328
    Muhammad Ibrahim:

    My name is Muhammad Ibrahim .
    National Pakistam
    Post graduation in punjab university
    HNC Hotelmengement in Scotland uk
    mobile. 00447574260347
    00923005037907

  102. 327
    alekya:

    hi i am 23 yrs old.but i am married.i have completed my 12 class and BSc discountinue.can i become air hostess.i am very much intersted

  103. 326
    niza:

    can i become an air hostess after completing my diploma in airport management and customer facilities?

  104. 325
    poonam:

    my hight is 5 ft so i can applaying form

  105. 324
    Shubham gupta:

    What should i haue to do for becoming airhostes.iam studying in 11th class pcm

  106. 323
    paritosh:

    an airhostess have to wear a miniskirt?

  107. 322
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  109. 320
    afroz:

    my aim i want to become an air hostess but eng is very low

  110. 319
    Divya:

    my height is 5.3 ft can i apply for cabin crew?

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  122. 307
    chetna kanda:

    i am 19 years old i dont have any management degree . can i applicable to become an air hostess give me full imformation about this and how to become senior air hostess?

  123. 306
    irene geraldo:

    how easy or how can i get to be an air hostess if i am only 17 years old and from Accra Ghana?.please help me.i am very passionate about this and yearn to be an air hostess.i need assistance.

  124. 305
    Nikhil:

    Can a men would join this if he is interest ,or what is the fees of this cource

  125. 304
    djodjo:

    what do you mean by 12th

  126. 303
    Emenet melese:

    HI i need 2 b hostess. I’m 19 years old & G-12 student. I’m sure i pass z entrance exam. so how can i 2 b a hostess?

  127. 302
    Varonic spagenberg:

    Hi iam 21 and did pass grd12 and wud realy like to becum a airhost..i did nt study after matric but i had tourism as a subject.what is my chances of geting a job in the airhost bussness.

  128. 301
    rubina:

    what is the fees to air hostess traning can i get scholarship for it .and what is the procedure for it

  129. 300
    SONIA:

    WHAT ARE THE DATES FOR THE ENTRANCE EXAMS OF AIR HOSTESS..

  130. 299
    Parag shing:

    How to apply for reservation ticket cutter in indian airlines?

  131. 298
    Ruby:

    Is Eye sight should be 6/6.? Actually i have very little problem in my eyes.. Infact i don’t need lences..

  132. 297
    ruqsaar khan:

    hai . . I like to join frankfinn as trainee so can i get any scholorship for fees . .thank u

  133. 296
    jernisha:

    hi,i’m jernisha doing my first year B.A in english. iwant to apply for airhostess.can i apply for that

  134. 295
    reena:

    my age is 27..could you please tell me is it possibile to i am becoming airhostess…please tell me what is the age limitation for becoming airhostess

  135. 294
    Sakshi Sinha:

    helo,myself a student of final year graduation BBA.I want to be an airhostress ..how should i apply for it,please tell me the procedure for it

  136. 293
    jyoti:

    hi. I m a student of 12 arts. I want to apply in international airhostess job. Please tell me about this job when will be entrance exam.

  137. 292
    Zulfee:

    Hi, i am zulfee, female 18
    actully i appeared in 12th in 2009 but unfortunately couldn’t pass, only one subject was re-reapear now i clear the 12th in 2011 with only 47%.. But i have 5′6 height, i am fair and slim with good looks. Can i become an air hostess, please suggest me any good academy

  138. 291
    juhi chaurasia:

    i want to became an airhostess and i have 10th pass right now. my height is 5.6 cm .

  139. 290
    Semegn Amare:

    I want to be air hosstes I am 22 years old also i have degree. So how can i apply? thank you

  140. 289
    Punita Gulati:

    Hi, im in 12th and im interested in becoming an airhostess. Can i know where i get its form and when are the enterance exams?

  141. 288
    mousumi basu:

    hello,
    i am in 12th and i want to apply for air hostess.can u plzz tel me how n from where can i get registration form and what is the deadline for the form submission

  142. 287
    sanam ahmad:

    hi,h r u.mai air hostes k lye apply krna chahte hu ,plz send me a method to apply air hosts,

  143. 286
    meghna sharma:

    i m in 12th frm commerce side and i want to become an air hostress. plz tel me frm where i get form of this professin and graduation or diploma is compulsory????

  144. 285
    monica:

    hi i am 29 yr old marrid lady.i have a dream to join airhostess course and also work in this field. my question is am i still can do this course?? plz do get back to me. if yes the plz guide me for some good institutes in kolkatta. thank you.

  145. 284
    shehnaz shafi:

    i wanna contact with miss Ghazala Malik. please send me ur contact or email id . please its very urgent.

  146. 283
    varsha:

    i m varsha i want to be a hostess of international airline. i want know the process of how to apply ? and what eals can i do for that? i lardy done my treaning in frank-fin.

  147. 282
    kinza:

    i m from Pakistan and i want to be a hostess of the emirate airlines and i want to know about the application forms and how i will get them,i want to know every thing about the proses to apply.

  148. 281
    astu:

    i want to know what is expected from me to be hostess and what kind of screen test and written test is given.

  149. 280
    yassmin abdulkader:

    i want to be a hostess of the emirate airlines and i want to know about the application forms and how i will get them,i want to know every thing about the proses to apply.

  150. 279
    rukhsar:

    i want to become an air hostess my age is 18 ,my weight is 36,and height is 5.4 iam from warangal my aim is to “SERVE TO PEOPLE AS SERVE TO GOD”.

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