Alfa AWUS036NHA
If you’re searching for a reliable and affordable USB network adapter to use with your BackTrack 5 virtual machine, you’ve just found it. The Alfa AWUS036NHA is, hands down, the best Linux-compatible network adapter in its class. The Hak5 website asserts that it’s “the obvious choice for WiFi Hackers.” Why? Because, unlike most of its predecessors, the AWUS036NHA supports all six wireless modes.
When measured on a scale of affordability and reliability, one can easily conclude that the Alfa is a cost-effective solution to their networking needs. In fact, I picked one of these bad boys up for under $29 on the Rokland Technologies website- cheaper than the more favorable Amazon. I also grabbed an Alfa 7dBi directional panel antenna, which I wrote about here.
Let’s take a closer look at the Alfa AWUS036NHA.
Product Overview:
  • Atheros AR9271 chipset
  • 5dBi interchangeable dipole antenna (RP-SMA connection)
  • 150Mbps data rate
  • 802.11 b/g/n standards
  • 2.4GHz frequency range
  • 64/128-bit WEP, WPA, WPA2, TKIP, and AES data encryption support
  • Windows and Linux Compatibility
Like I pointed out earlier, the Alfa supports six wireless modes. For those of you who don’t know why this is important, allow me to explain a couple of the modes. Let’s start with monitor mode, not to be confused with promiscuous mode. Monitor mode is a mode that allows you to monitor a wireless network’s traffic without associating with the network’s access point. This mode is commonly used to perform packet analysis and network traffic evaluations but is better known for its ability to facilitate packet sniffing.
Next up is master mode. Master mode is a mode that allows you to impersonate an access point and provide network services (i.e. internet access) to clients. In simpler terms, master mode transforms your network adapter into a wireless router. When a potential client searches for available access points, he or she will be confronted with the option to connect to your access point. This is where things get interesting. If a client elects to connect to your access point, he or she immediately becomes susceptible to all kinds of attacks including the infamous man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack. Believe or not, luring a victim is as easy as naming your access point “Starbucks WiFi.” Something to think about the next time you connect to your favorite coffee shop’s WiFi hotspot.
Now that you have a better understanding of the Alfa AWUS036NHA, I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not it’s the right adapter for you. If you still are not convinced, don’t take my word for it. Check out Amazon.com and read the reviews left by the dozens of satisfied customers. Better yet, compare it to other USB network adapters.

WHAT IS THE SAMSUNG GALAXY YOUNG 2?

The Samsung Galaxy Young 2 is one of Samsung’s cheapest phones, designed to appeal to those who have no interest in 5-inch, Full HD screens and super-powerful cameras. In return, you only have to pay around £70 for the privilege of owning a Young 2. Sadly, it’s not much of a privilege.
The Samsung Galaxy Young 2 is laggy, has a poor-quality screen and demonstrates no regard for the way budget phones have developed in the last two years. It's barely an upgrade over the previous Galaxy Young. Given the excellent Motorola Moto E is available for around the same price, or cheaper from some retailers, the Young 2 isn't a great choice unless you find it significantly reduced.

SAMSUNG GALAXY YOUNG 2 – DESIGN AND FEATURES

The Samsung Galaxy Young 2 is one of the tiddliest phones we’ve reviewed in the last 12 months. With just a 3.5-inch screen, it’s smaller than even most of its budget rivals.
Of course, this is part of the idea: the Young 2 is intended for kids.
The Samsung Galaxy Young 2 is small enough for kiddie hands, but to adults who have been using phones for years it’ll seem quite chunky as well as small. It’s 11.8mm thick, stopping it from seeming like a real shrunk-down Galaxy S5, which is a mere 8.1mm thick.
This chunk factor is very common among cheaper, smaller phones, and the rival Moto E is even thicker at 12.3mm.
Build quality is a bit worse than Samsung’s more expensive phones, too. The Samsung Galaxy Young 2 shares the standard ‘Galaxy’ style, with a leather texture plastic back that you can pull off. We reviewed the white version of the phone, and while Samsung’s white versions usually feel worse than their black ones, our review sample seemed particularly plasticky and cheap.
Why would colour make a difference? The darker and colour-saturated plastics Samsung uses tend to have a softer-touch finish than its white plastics. Such a feel detracts from that naffness a little.
High-end it's not, but from a distance it still has a sense of being a ‘Galaxy S5 for kids’ thanks to the consistent elements in the design. The band of chrome plastic around the sides, the soft key layout and physical menu button of the Samsung Galaxy Young 2 are all just like Samsung’s more expensive phones.
Look any closer, any deeper, and the Samsung Galaxy Young 2’s deep compromises become obvious. The list of features it doesn’t have is just as important as the ones it does. There’s no 4G, no NFC, no IR transmitter and very limited internal memory of just 4GB.
Only two of these really matter: the 4G and the lack of memory. This is common in sub-£100 phones, and 4GB of storage in particular makes the Young 2 much more restricting for those who want to install lots of apps. There is, however, a microSD slot under a plastic cover, so you can fill up a cheap memory card with music if you want to use the Samsung Galaxy Young 2 as a music player.

Samsung Galaxy Young 2 – Screen
You could say the small 3.5-inch screen of the Galaxy Young 2 is one of its key features – it’s small enough to be downright unusual at this point, with most ultra-budget phones now closer to the 4-inch mark. However, it's very poor.
Screen quality is awful, using panel technology that just doesn’t cut it any more. The Samsung Galaxy Young 2 has a TFT LCD 480 x 320-pixel display with a colour palette of 262k colours. Every element of this seems dated.
A standard TFT LCD offers very poor viewing angles, with the character of the display clearly changing just by rocking the phone left and right a bit. The effect is so pronounced that the display’s appearance is different to each of your eyes, making it just look, well, a bit weird.
Resolution is also extremely low, bringing pixel density of just 156ppi. Had Samsung packed an 800 x 480-pixel screen into the Galaxy Young 2 it could have looked pretty sharp thanks to the small screen size, but the company’s dedication to scraping the barrel’s bottom with its budget phones is clearly strong.
The screen looks blocky and old-school, several leagues below what you get with the Motorola Moto E, and worse too than the already quite bad Sony Xperia E1.
Colour is weak, too. As well as having a technically poor colour palette, with 262k colours where most phones offer 16 million, the Samsung Galaxy Young 2’s colour tuning is quite bad, resulting in fairly crude-looking shades.
Unfortunately that’s not the end of the complaints, either. The Samsung Galaxy Young 2 screen has unusually bad motion handling, making interface text in particular look odd as you scroll through the phone’s menus.
It’s a bad display, and anyone used to typing out messages or emails on a larger display will also find it cramped.
The Samsung Galaxy Young 2 doesn’t fare too well outside, either. The highly reflective screen and so-so maximum brightness are bad enough, but not having an Auto brightness setting means you manually need to bump up the brightness to compensate when you go outdoors. Given this phone is likely to be used by plenty of people who might not even realise they can do this, it’s a real downer.



Fancy getting yourself a virtual reality headset but not sure which one? It's a bit early to actually buy one right now: most headsets, like the Oculus Rift, are developer's kits that cost a pretty penny. Others, like the Samsung Gear VR, don't have enough content and are pricey, too.
But there's one headset out there that is easily the most accessible, and also an arguably fun DIY project: Google Cardboard.
Because all you're paying for is cardboard, a couple of lenses and maybe tape or velcro, the device barely makes a dent in your wallet. Google isn't selling kits anymore, but you can pick one up online for $20 (around £15, AU$25) or less from a variety of vendors. You can even download instructions to make your headset entirely from scratch.
Cardboard isn't for die-hard fans of VR. If you want to simply show people what the fuss is all about with virtual reality, Google provides a viable solution in the form of a cheap and portable product.

Design

I've seen the DIY VR headset around, but they were already pre-built. I got my hands on one wondering how a piece of cardboard could deliver a "fun" experience, so I decided to try it out by building one myself.

Google Cardboard

I didn't use the Cardboard that comes in little pieces, so it wasn't be as labor intensive, but it did require about five minutes of folding and following directions. Yes, you read that correctly. Making a virtual reality viewer only took five minutes. In my book, that's pretty awesome.

Google Cardboard

The cardboard is pre-creased and labeled with numbers. Each piece has a corresponding number, telling you exactly where a certain tab needs to be fitted.

Google Cardboard

Most Cardboards come with two lenses already intact as well as double stick tape, velcro and a rubber band.
The rubber band is supposed to secure the phone in place, but I rarely used it - the velcro seemed to do a decent job. More intense games might require the extra hold, though.

Google Cardboard

There's also a strong magnet with a washer on the side that allows you to control the phone. It's limited to pressing the screen by using the phone's magnetometer (which is normally used for the compass) but gets the job done; it must be mentioned that the magnet only works for certain phones.

Google Cardboard

If your phone has NFC enabled, the Cardboard app should also launch automatically once the DIY headset is inserted.
There is no way to have a hands-free experience with the kits, but I've seen people create their own versions of Cardboard where velcro pieces have been attached making the little headset stay on without needing to hold it.

Display and compatibility

The display of Google Cardboard depends on whichever phone you own.
Typically, smaller Android handsets work best with the little viewer. Fully compatible devices include the Google Nexus 4Nexus 5Moto X, Samsung Galaxy S4Galaxy S5 and Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Google Cardboard

Phones that don't function with the magnet but can still run the apps are partially compatible phones. The HTC One and Moto G fall under this category.
There are also larger Cardboards that fit the Nexus 6, Samsung Note 2, Note 3,Note 4Oneplus One and iPhone 6 Plus.
The Android handsets also require Jelly Bean 4.1 to give the best experience.
Despite being a Google-funded venture, the Cardboard is actually also compatible with iPhones. It simply depends on the availability of apps on the platform.
f you're looking for an entry-level Android handset, your choices are generally limited, and even the 'budget market' can seem pricey. Huawei has been getting notable praise for its affordable but high-performing Y300, and now seem intent on bringing the price down even further by offering a fully operational Android smartphone for less then £70.
But how well does the Ascend Y330 stack up, and does the drop in price mean a drop in quality? Agent Naish finds out.
Huawei Y330 - 7
The Ascend Y330 is Huawei's latest step into the budget Android smartphone market.

HUAWEI ASCEND Y330 - SUMMARY

RRP: £59-£69

Pros

  • Low price
  • Better quality feel than the older Y300
  • Enough power for basic tasks.










Five years ago, Carl Johnson escaped from the pressures of life in Los Santos, San Andreas, a city tearing itself apart with gang trouble, drugs and corruption. Where filmstars and millionaires do their best to avoid the dealers and gangbangers. Now, it’s the early 90’s. Carl’s got to go home. His mother has been murdered, his family has fallen apart and his childhood friends are all heading towards disaster. On his return to the neighborhood, a couple of corrupt cops frame him for homicide. CJ is forced on a journey that takes him across the entire state of San Andreas, to save his family and to take control of the streets. Rockstar Games brings its biggest release to mobile yet with a vast open-world covering the state of San Andreas and its three major cities – Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas – with enhanced visual fidelity and over 70 hours of gameplay. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas features: • Remastered, high-resolution graphics built specifically




The Windows 10 release is fast approaching, and it's time to start thinking about the upgrade. Have a Windows 7 machine and thinking about upgrading to Windows 10? Even though this could be a relatively easy task for many users, it may not be as easy for everyone else. There are few things you want to keep in mind. As such today, we're going to go through the basics to try to minimize any friction that may appear upgrading to Windows 10 from Windows 7.
Now that Microsoft has ended the support for Windows XP, Windows 7 has jumped in the list as the most popular operating system in use today. However, the software maker hopes that Windows 10 will make a huge difference, not only because the next version packs a bunch of new features, such as a new Start menu, Cortana, universal apps, the new Microsoft Edge web browser, and much more, but because it'll be a free upgrade. The company is expecting a faster adoption of Windows 10.
So, yes, as you probably already know, Windows 10 will be free for the first year after it's released on July 29. It will be free for those users running a genuine copy of Windows 7 and Windows 8. However, before you jump into the upgrade, there are some things you need to know.

On July 29, Microsoft will begin rolling out its new operating system starting with machines that are part of the Windows Insider Program. The company will continue rolling out Windows 10 gradually to everyone else who reserved the copy using the "Get Windows 10" app and those who bought a new PC. Later on, everyone else will get the upgrade as well.
So, this means that as we have previously reported, Windows 10 won't be available for everyone at once on July 29. Making a reservation before it releases will ensure your PC will get the new operating system as soon as possible.
If you were able to make a reservation, it means that your computer or tablet is compatible with Windows 10, but it doesn't mean you won't encounter any issues at the time of the upgrade. You also have to make sure your apps, all your hardware, peripherals, and drivers are compatible as well.
Luckily, the Get Windows 10 app also includes a PC checkup tool that will list any problems with your computer, and various other information you need to know before the upgrade. To check your PC compatibility, open the Get Windows 10 app, click the hamburger button, and from the menu click Check your PC.
Once Windows 10 is available for your computer, you will get notified. Even though the installation should be straightforward, you should make a backup of all your personal files to an external storage and make a full backup of your system using the built-in System Image Backup tool. (You can use my previous guide to perform this task, but note that even though the guide was written for on Windows 10 and 8.1, the same instructions will work on Windows 7.)
Next, you want to disable or uninstall your antivirus and other security software, and you want to disconnect any peripherals other than your keyboard, mouse, and monitor. You may also want to uninstall any applications that you don't use or apps that have been listed by the "Get Windows 10" as problematic. Sometimes antivirus, peripherals, and certain software could be the cause of an unsuccessful installation.
You also want to make sure you have at least 10GB or more of free storage space available to perform the upgrade. Windows 10 requires at least 16GB of space to install the 32-bit or 20GB to install the 64-bit version.
Once Windows 10 is available to you (time that will vary from PC to PC), a notification on your desktop will appear. Just accept the Important Legal Stuff, and then the Windows setup wizard Your upgrade is ready to install will pop up. You can schedule a time to upgrade, or you can click Start the upgrade now to begin the process.








1.       Which version of Windows Operating System are you using?
2.       Which version of Microsoft Visual C++ is installed on the computer?
3.       Have you made any changes on the computer prior to the issue?

Follow the suggestions listed below for a possible fix:

Method 1: In order to fix the issue you may install the latest Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package and check if it helps.

You may install the latest Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package according to the Windows 7 versions you are using.



Method 2: You may run System File Checker [SFC] scan on the computer which will replace the missing or corrupt files & check if the issue persists.

a.       Type ‘cmd’ in start search box. Right click on cmd in the Program list and then select the option Run as administrator.
Note: If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.
b.      Type the following command, and then press ENTER:
sfc /scannow

For more information refer to this article:

How to use the System File Checker tool to troubleshoot missing or corrupted system files on Windows Vista or on Windows 7