Download: Wine 1.4 RC6 Compile Windows Applications

Wine 1.4 RC6 version is the sixth release candidate for the Wine 1.4 branch and represents an important milestone in the development of Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator). The complete changelog can be found here.

Wine is a free and open source software application that aims to allow computer programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like systems.

Wine 1.4 RC6 Available for Download

Highlights of Wine 1.4 RC6:

• Translation updates;

• Use proper CPU speed detection on FreeBSD;

• Implement resetting the device window in wined3d_device_reset();

• Fix some render test failures;

• Add tests for color keyed texturing with an alpha channel;

Download Wine 1.4 RC6

source

Read the rest of this entry >>

Lady Gaga is the first person with 20million followers on Twitter

Nearly four years after joining the social networking site Lady Gaga is the first Twitter user to reach 20 million followers. Lady Gaga is now gaining approximately 42,000 new followers every day.

The singer, who signed up to Twitter on 26 March 2008, had 20,152,935 followers till now for her @ladygaga account. A 20 millionth "Little Monster," as she calls her fans, signed up to follow her Twitter feed over the weekend.

Lady Gaga Becomes First Person With 20 Million Twitter Followers

Teen pop idol Justin Bieber was next with 18.11 million followers, and rounding out the top five were three other singers: Katy Perry with 15.75 million followers, Shakira with 14.56 million and Rihanna with 14.49 million.

US President Barack Obama is in eighth place with 12.84 million followers of his @barackobama account.

Lady Gaga has eight million fans on Facebook and more than 800,000 "circles" on Google+. Thanks in part to her viral marketing and social network sucess, the pop sensation's latest album has sold more than eight million copies worldwide.


She occasionally offers her followers special concert tickets and unveils promotion pictures on her account, but mostly she tweets about anything from fashion and music to cookies.
source

Read the rest of this entry >>

Major update on Cisco CCNA Security and CCNP Security certifications

Cisco Systems is updating the courses and certifications for its CCNA Security and CCNP Security designations. The updates follow on the vendor’s regular 18 to 24 months renewal cycle for its certifications, and the new versions of the courses will include more material related to IPv6 and access control lists.

CCNA Security Certification

Cisco security certifications provide IT professionals with the skills to help ensure critical data remains safe and networks meet compliance requirements.

Business trends such as bring your own device ("BYOD"), mobility, cloud and virtualization are creating opportunities for new threats and challenges to corporate networks. Security breaches and the compromise of sensitive information are major concerns for organizations worldwide.

Many of the Cisco products that are covered under CCNA/CCNP Security have become simpler to use and manage so that individual job roles can do more, said Andy Gremett, senior manager of product marketing at Cisco. The new versions of the courses and exams were designed based on the idea that security professional roles are being asked to do more.

CCNP Security Certification

Additionally, Cisco is updating its VPN Security Specialist and Firewall Security Specialist designations. Both specialist exams are being updated.

All of the new exams are available now through Pearson Vue examination centres.
Learn more at: CCNA Security • CCNP Security

Key Facts: Cisco updates CCNA/CCNP Security certifications

1. New topics that are included in the updated training include Cisco ASA adaptive security appliance version 8.3 and 8.4 software, Cisco AnyConnect 3.0 and traditional IPsec clients, EtherChannel and the latest firewall features.


2. CCNA Security lays the foundation for job roles such as Network Security Specialist, Security Administrator and Network Security Support Engineer. The certification courses and exams have been updated to include 640-554 Implementing Cisco IOS Network Security (IINS).


3. CCNP Security is aligned specifically to the job role of the Network Security Engineer. Network Security Engineers are responsible for security in routers, switches, networking devices and appliances, as well as choosing, deploying, supporting and troubleshooting firewalls, VPNs and IDS/IPS solutions for their networking environments. CCNP Security courses and exams have been updated to include 642-648 Deploying Cisco ASA VPN Solutions (VPN v2.0) as well as 642-618 Deploying Cisco ASA Firewall Solutions (FIREWALL v2.0).

source

Read the rest of this entry >>

Google+ social network has added a new feature: Hides Spam Comments

The Google+ social network has added a new feature that helps remove spam comments from your posts so you don’t have to read them or deal with them. Since Google+ launched any spam comments left on the public posts simply been grayed out leaving you to delete them or hide them. A new update makes dealing with that spam much easier.


"We're always working to make Google+ a great place for quality conversations. In fact, we aggressively detect and remove comment spam before it even appears in the stream," Google's Nandini Kappiah wrote.

"As a post owner, you could have seen these grayed out comments inline and restored them as appropriate. But today we're making some visual changes that clean up your view of your content," she added.

Google+ Show comments removed as spam

Any spam detection mechanism suffers from two big problems, spam sometimes makes it through and content that isn't spam is sometimes labeled as such. Both can be a problem, but it's sometimes better to err on the side of caution.

This is why Google+ doesn't delete spam comments outright, rather it gives authors a chance to review the comments and see if they really are spam.

Until now, spam comments were removed from the regular comment stream, but authors still saw them grayed out. For a particularly popular post, always a target for spammers, even this could be distracting and made authors unable to follow the conversation.

Which is why Google is now grouping all spam comments and removing them altogether, but allowing authors to see them if they want to by clicking on the link titled "Show comments removed as spam."

The move may mean that more legitimate comments will be removed by Google+'s anti-spam system without authors finding them, but it will also make for a better experience for most people.

source

Read the rest of this entry >>

Google doodles frogs on leap day Celebrates Gioachino Rossini's 220th birthday

Today, is 29th February 2012, a leap year and birthday of Gioachino Rossini and Google is celebrating Gioachino Rossini 220th birthday (Leap Year) by making a great Google Doodle.


Feb. 29 comes every four years to correct the mathematical discrepancy between how humans mark time and the Earth’s actual rate of travel.

Leap year Google Doodle

Since the leap years and leap days are usually associated with frogs, the leaping ambhibians, the Google doodle on February 29 has a number of frogs, all four of them.

The doodle is inspired by Gioachino Antonio Rossini's famous 1816 comic opera The Barber of Seville (Il barbiere di Siviglia), one of the most performed operas. Of the four frogs in the scene, one is at the piano and the soprano is the only one leaping. The barber frog is Figaro and the frog getting a shave is Count Almaviva (Characters created by French playright Pierre Beaumarchais and The Barber of Seville is one of the three Figaro plays penned by him).

The Gioachino Rossini leap year Google doodle is the third leap year doodle in Google's history. The previous two were put up on 2004 and 2008. There was no leap day doodle in the year 2000.

By our calculations this is the 1314th Google doodle since the first ever on for the Burning Man Festival back on August 30, 1998.

Gioachino Antonio Rossini: leap year - Google Doodle video

Read the rest of this entry >>

Best Countries for Doing Business in 2012

The Ease of Doing Business Index is an index created by the World Bank. Higher rankings indicate better, usually simpler, regulations for businesses and stronger protections of property rights. Empirical research funded by the World Bank to justify their work show that the effect of improving these regulations on economic growth is strong.

The index is based on the study of laws and regulations, with the input and verification by more than 8,000 government officials, lawyers, business consultants, accountants and other professionals in 183 economies who routinely advise on or administer legal and regulatory requirements.

Best Countries for Doing Business

The Ease of Doing Business index is meant to measure regulations directly affecting businesses and does not directly measure more general conditions such as a nation's proximity to large markets, quality of infrastructure, inflation, or crime. A nation's ranking on the index is based on the average of 10 subindices:

1. Starting a Business - Procedures, time, cost and minimum capital to open a new business


2. Dealing with construction permits - Procedures, time and cost to build a warehouse


3. Employing workers - Difficulty of hiring index, rigidity of hours of index, difficulty of redundancy index, rigidity of employment index, redundancy costs


4. Registering property - Procedures, time and cost to register commercial real estate


5. Getting credit - Strength of legal rights index, depth of credit information index


6. Protecting investors - Indices on the extent of disclosure, extent of director liability and ease of shareholder suits


7. Paying taxes - Number of taxes paid, hours per year spent preparing tax returns and total tax payable as share of gross


8. Trading across borders - Number of documents, cost and time necessary to export and import


9. Enforcing contracts - Procedures, time and cost to enforce a debt contract


10. Closing a business - Index of recovery rate which is a function of time, cost and other factors such as lending rate and the likelihood of the company continuing to operate

The most recent rankings come from the "Doing Business 2012" report. Singapore topped the ranking on Ease of Doing Business for the sixth year. Detail information is here

Here is interesting infographic created by Infographis.jp about best Countries for Doing Business in 2012.

Read the rest of this entry >>

Humans Vs Computers (Infographic)

Will Technology take over the world?
That is not even a question anymore, technology has taken over the world :) . We always knew that technology would change the way we live as individuals but did anyone ever think that we would become so dependent on technology, that we could not do anything without a computer?

Below is intresting infographic shows war between computers and humans.

Humans Vs Computers

Read the rest of this entry >>

Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 Product Specifications and Review

The Galaxy Note 10.1, announced Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, is the second entry in the company's pen- and touch-capable Galaxy Note line.

Now that it's here in a full-size tablet with a 10.1-inch screen, the Note seems set to shine in a size and design that makes more sense than the 5-inch phone that Samsung inaugurated the line with two months ago. We had a sneak peak and got to see the tablet in-action--and had just enough time with it to form some initial impressions.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Hands-on Review video

Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 Product Specifications

Network	HSPA＋ 21Mbps 850/900/1900/2100 EDGE/GPRS   850/900/1800/1900
Processor	1.4 GHz Dual-Core Processor
Display	10.1” WXGA(1280x800) PLS TFT
OS	Android 4.0(Ice Cream Sandwich)
Camera	Main(Rear): 3 Megapixel Auto Focus Camera with LED Flash Sub(Front): 2 Megapixel Camera
Video	Codec: MPEG4, H.263, H.264, VC-1, DivX, WMV7, WMV8, WMV9, VP8 Format: 3GP(MP4), WMV(ASF), AVI, FLV, MKV, WebM Playback/ Recording: 1080p Full HD@30fps, 720p HD@30fps
Audio	Codec: MP3, OGG, WMA, AAC, ACC＋, eAAC＋, AMR(NB,WB), MIDI, WAV, AC-3, Flac Music Player with SoundAlive 3.5mm Ear Jack
Value-added Features & Services	Samsung TouchWiz / Samsung L!ve Panel
	S Pen Experience (S Note, S Planner)
	Samsung Apps
	Samsung Hub - Readers Hub/ Music Hub/ Game Hub/ Video Hub
	Samsung S Suggest (App recommendation service)
	Samsung ChatON mobile communication service
	Samsung AllShare Play＊
	Samsung Kies/ Samsung Kies air
	GoogleTM Mobile Services - Android Market™, Gmail™, YouTube™, Google Maps™,  Syncing with Google Calendar™, Google Search, Google ＋
	Adobe Apps - Photoshop Touch, Adobe Ideas
	Polaris document editor
	A-GPS(3G version) S-GPS(WiFi version) Glonass
Enterprise Solutions	Exchange ActiveSync On-Device Encryption Cisco VPN(Virtual Private Network) Juniper Junos Pulse VPN
Connectivity	Bluetooth technology v 3.0 (Apt-X Codec support) USB 2.0 Host Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4 & 5 GHz), Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi Channel Bonding
Sensor	Accelerometer, Digital compass, Light, Gyroscope
Memory	16/32/64GB User memory ＋ 1GB (RAM) microSD (up to 32GB)
Dimension	256.7 x 175.3 x 8.9 mm, 583g
Battery	Standard battery, Li-ion 7,000mAh

＊ Availability and launching time of the services may differ by region.
＊ All functionality, features, specifications and other product information provided in this document including, but not limited to, the benefits, design, pricing, components, performance, availability, and capabilities of the product are subject to change without notice or obligation.

Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 Pictures

Read the rest of this entry >>

Who Really Uses LinkedIn? Infographic

Business Insider has created interesting infographich about LinkedIn with the help of statistics provided by Zoomsphere.

Who really uses LinkedIn? infographich shows: The United States boasts the most users with over 61 million to its name, followed in a distant second by India, with 14 million. The United Kingdom (8.9 million), Brazil (7.6 Million), Canada (5.5 million), and France (3.5 million) round out the other top slots. Within the US, the New England states claim the most followers. California and Texas complete the top of the list.

Consisting of working professionals, users of the site tend to be between 35-54 in age. Large companies, with over 10,000 employees, grab 58% of the pie when broken down by company size. By industry, higher education takes the biggest chunk with 18.7%, but these figures seem to be more evenly distributed, with Insurance (13.9%) and Financial Services (11.8%) round off the top three.

The majority of the top followed companies are IT-related. IBM (589,828 people), Hewlett-Packard (442,815), Microsoft (424,204) make up the top three.

LinkedIn Infographic

Source

Read the rest of this entry >>

Leaked Facebook document reveals nudity and violence guidelines: Scribd

A set of guidelines on which types of images are acceptable for publication on Facebook has reportedly been leaked.
According to the Gawker.com website the document was leaked by a disgruntled employee at a third party company used by Facebook to moderate users' content.

Facebook's photo guidelines are 'revealed'

A former employee who used to filter out offensive content on Facebook has leaked the website's secret rulebook, which gives astonishingly detailed instructions that include blocking mild nudity but allowing images of death and disfigurement, as well as racially charged comments.

An aggrieved Moroccan worker who was paid a mere $1 an hour by oDesk - a third-party content-moderation firm used by Facebook - revealed it tells staff to delete all forms of sexual activity, even simulated activity where there was nothing explicit on show.

Images likely to be removed include those showing "female nipple bulges", "naked butt cracks" or women breastfeeding without clothes on.

However, same sex kissing, "groping" and "foreplay" is allowed.

The leak follows protests from women unhappy that images of breastfeeding were removed.

The site was also accused of homophobia after a picture of two men kissing was taken down.

Despite the recent controversy users were unaware of exact guidelines used by Facebook to decide which pictures should be taken down.

Images must first be flagged by users before they are brought to moderators' attention.

The document goes into specific detail about dozens of examples of images which should be removed.

Urine, faeces, vomit, semen, pus and ear wax are all banned.

Although cartoon faeces, urine, and spit are allowed.

Snot, both real and cartoon, would also escape the censors, as would deep flesh wounds and excessive blood.

Images of bone, muscles and tendons would be likely to go.

The document also calls for immediate escalation for images of the Turkish flag being burned, attacks (visual or written) on the first President of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and, amazingly, maps depicting Kurdistan. It’s not clear if these restrictions are specific to Turkish users, or if they affect everyone.

In a statement Facebook said: "In an effort to quickly and efficiently process the millions of reports we receive every day, we have found it helpful to contract third parties to provide precursory classification of a small proportion of reported content.

"We have, and will continue, to escalate the most serious reports internally, and all decisions made by contractors are subject to extensive audits".

Leaked Facebook document reveals website's secretive and bizarre 'graphic content' policy: Scribd

oDeskStandards

Read the rest of this entry >>

Google+ brands grow faster than brands on Twitter!

Google+ probably has long before it can beat Facebook in growth, but it already beat Twitter in one important area: Growth of brands. Twitter with its recent releases of new Twitter brand pages has tried to get closer to brands, but is failing to engage them further. Google+ on the other hand has engaged them very well, bringing in much faster growth than Twitter. In January, it was close, but in February, its clear that Google+ brands are growing several times faster.

  Google+ Brand Pages  Vs Twitter Brand Pages

You can see in our Twitter brand statistics section, that the speed of how Twitter profiles are growing per month / week / day, is quite slow:
And here in these Google+ brand statistics, which you can find here, that the Google+ brands grow faster:
Bottom line, our Google+ statistics show that Google+ is growing faster than brands on Twitter. This is a major milestone, and other sections are close – Google+ might start growing faster in a very critical category for Twitter – Media. Good luck keeping it up, Google+, and good luck for Twitter to continue the recent innovations!
@ by Jan Rezab

Read the rest of this entry >>

Secure data with cloud based encryption technology

Porticor introduced its Virtual Private Data (Porticor VPD) system, a solution combining data encryption with patented key management to protect critical data in public, private and hybrid cloud environments.

Until today, the requirements for securing company and customer private data stored in the cloud were not fully met, due to the issue of keys stored in the cloud not being addressed. Now, enterprises can leverage Porticor’s homomorphic split-key encryption technology to ensure the privacy of data stored in the cloud, and benefit from the industry’s only cloud data protection system that delivers data security across virtual disks, databases, distributed storage and file systems.

Porticor VPD cloud based encryption

The Porticor VPD system is made up of the Porticor Virtual Appliance and the Porticor Virtual Key Management Service, delivering the industry’s highest level of data privacy in a public environment for data protection and compliance to regulations such as SOX, HIPAA, PCI DDS and GLBA, while also solving the issues raised by EU Data Protection and the U.S. Patriot Act.

Using a unique, patent-pending technology, Porticor enables IaaS and PaaS cloud users to create a secured environment within minutes while completely eliminating the need to trust a security vendor or cloud provider with their encryption keys, therefore solving the biggest challenge for data encryption in the cloud - storing the keys.

Unlike traditional data security solutions which require costly software licenses and operational overhead, Porticor is a virtual appliance that requires no encryption or key management experience to encrypt customers’ entire data layer with the proven AES 256-bit encryption algorithm within minutes.

Unlike today’s cloud encryption solutions which put customers’ encryption keys in the hands of the security vendor or cloud providers, Porticor’s patented Virtual Key Management service, with breakthrough split-key encryption technology, and built for homomorphic key encryption, will uniquely keep the encryption key in the customer’s control, delivering a trusted cloud-based key management system.

With Porticor's VDP each data object, such as a disk or file, is encrypted with a unique key which is split in two: a master key and a specific key. The master key is common to all data objects of one application, and remains the sole possession of the application owner and is unknown to Porticor; while the second specific key is different for each data object and is stored by the Porticor Virtual Key Management Service.

As the application accesses the data store, Porticor uses both parts of the key to dynamically encrypt and decrypt the data. When the master key is in the cloud, it will be homomorphically encrypted – even when in use – and can never be seen in the cloud.

Read the rest of this entry >>

Google Chrome Updates to Address 7 High Risk Vulnerabilities

The latest stable version of the popular Google Chrome web browser has been updated to the 17.0.963.56 version to address a total of 13 security holes, 7 of which were considered to be high risk.

These high-risk vulnerabilities include an integer overflow in PDF codecs, a possible user-after-free in database handling, a heap overflow in path rendering, a heap buffer overflow in MKV handling, a use-after-free issue in subframe loading, an integer overflow in libpng, and a bad cast in column handling.

The individuals who contributed to these findings were awarded a total of $5,337 (3,735 EUR).

 Popular Web Browser Google Chrome

The identification of the 5 medium severity vulnerabilities was rewarded by Google with $1,500 (1050 EUR). These weaknesses include a read-after-free with counter nodes, a native client validator error, the inappropriate use of HTTP for translation scripts, a use-after-free issue with drag and drop, and an out of bounds reads in h.264 parsing.

The low-risk security hole identified by chrometot refers to a browser crash with empty x509 certificates.

Other contributors include Jüri Aedla, Sławomir Błażek, pa_kt, Arthur Gerkis, Aki Helin of OUSPG, and miaubiz. Scarybeasts from the Google Chrome Security Team, and Mateusz Jurczyk of the Google Security Team also contributed.

Chrome 17.0.963.56 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome Frame also includes a new version of Flash, released to address a number of vulnerabilities, including a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw that is currently being exploited.

Google Chrome 17.0.963.56 for Windows, Mac and Linus is available for download here.

Read the rest of this entry >>

How scientists created the teensiest way to say I love you

Scientists from the University of Birmingham's Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory have created the teensiest heart in the world — one that can't be seen by the naked eye. The nano-size valentine is made out of gold and palladium atoms on a thin film of carbon that are so tiny you need a microscope to see them.

The nano-size heart is made up of palladium and gold atoms, and can only be seen through an electron microscop.

In fact, not even optical microscopes (the types you see kids commonly use in schools) work. To photograph the hearts you see above, the researchers had to use an electron microscope that can magnify objects up to two million times their size. In comparison, optical microscopes can only magnify particles from 1,000 to 2,000 times. The small glowing bumps making up the heart are actually heated palladium and gold particles.

This is the second time scientists from the university created a nano-size heart, the first one being back in 2010. According to lead researcher Dr. Ziyou Li, the techniques used to create the tiniest valentine in the world could one day be used for other scientific applications, as well as for the creation of optical devices.
[Image credit: University of Birmingham, Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory]
(Source)
This article was written by Mariella Moon and originally appeared on Tecca

Read the rest of this entry >>

Exclusive Interview with Mark Zuckerberg & Sheryl Sandberg

As per the regulatory filings made by the US-based Facebook for its IPO (initial public offer), Sandberg is the highest paid executive at the world’s largest social network and took home a whopping USD 30.87 million in 2011.

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg

Facebook founder, Chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was way behind with a relatively modest pay package of USD 1.49 million in the same year. The base salary of Zuckerbeg, also the most-known face of Facebook, is set to decline further and would remain just a token amount of USD one per year, effecting January 1, 2013.

Sandberg‘s compensation included a base salary of USD 295,833, bonus of USD 86,133 and stock awards of USD 30.49 million, Facebook said in its IPO documents.

The company plans to raise USD five billion through the IPO, which could value Facebook at up to USD 100 billion. Some reports have said that the IPO size could even rise even further to USD 10 billion.

Exclusive Interview with Mark Zuckerberg & Sheryl Sandberg

Read the rest of this entry >>

Great iPad 2 cases that make it look great

Looking for an iPad 2 case that offers the perfect balance of protection and contemporary styling? Here great iPad 2 cases that make your precious iPad look great besides protecting it.

Great iPad2 Case Images

Blue Lounge: The Bonobo Series of bags (iPad and iPad 2; $45 to $150) are designed specifically to help you carry your electronics around. The various models, each built using recycled post-consumer PET plastics, can carry everything from phones to tablets to laptops in a variety of convenient configurations.

Bracketron: If you're looking for an inexpensive way to protect, use, and care for your iPad, Bracketon's SuiteGear Kit (iPad 2; $20) includes a polyurethane cover for your iPad 2, a capacitive stylus, a microfiber cleaning cloth, and a digital screen cleaning gel at a price that's difficult to beat. Even better, the case is transparent, letting the iPad's natural beauty shine through, and it works with Apple's Smart Cover.

Booq: The Folio (iPad 2; $40) is, as the company's website advertises, simple and understated, favoring elegance over flash. Its folio-style design makes it ideal for use as a viewing stand, and a couple of strategically-placed rubber strips help keep the case and tablet stable. The Folio is available in white, blue, red, or black.

Evio: The Harmony (iPad 2; $40) is a folio made with faux-leather in a stylish two-color design; it can be used to prop up your tablet as a viewing or typing stand. The case features all the appropriate openings for cameras, buttons, and ports, and it takes advantage of the iPad 2's magnetic sleep/wake feature.

F3 Designs: The F3 Folio (iPad and iPad 2; $80 to $180) is made entirely out of wood, with an exterior veneer of teak, mahogany, ebony, or zebrawood, and designed to carry your iPad in a safe and natural protective environment. A $15 option provides a strategically-placed slot at the top of the case for compatibility with credit card readers.

Frappe Design: The Smart Sleeve (iPad 2; $65 to $119) is made entirely out of soft leather materials that allow it to work as a typing or viewing stand with minimal bulk. It's compatible with Apple's Smart Cover and magnetic sleep/wake feature, and Frappe offers three lines: the Executive Series, available in smooth or textured black, smooth orange, or textured red; the Limited Editions, available in brown full-grain leather, brown suede, or bonded natural leather; and the Exotic Series, available in blue or pink ostrich leather.

GermanMade: The company's iPad cases (iPad and iPad 2; €70 to €80) are designed to look like books, but can store one of Apple's tablets, either solo or together with an iPhone. (The latter model, called the g.2, even includes a bit of extra space for stationery and cables.) Made of wood with a high-quality paper backing (leather is a €40 option), the cases are available in some twelve interior colors and either a white or black exterior.

Papernomad: Can you make a case out of paper? The folks at Papernomad have gone and done just that, with their case (iPad and iPad 2; €43) built from eco-friendly, paper-composite material wrapped around soft sheep wool for maximum protection. As a bonus, the outside of the case is designed to work just like regular paper, and the company even encourages its customers to doodle on it and create their own customized look.

Pelican: The HardBack (iPad and iPad 2; $85) is built out of high-impact plastic and designed for extreme environments. It's crushproof and waterproof, with a special automatic purge valve to equalize the internal air pressure and keep air and dust out. The internal foam liner keeps everything safe and provides plenty of protection. There's even room to store Apple's Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard.

Zagg: The ZaggFolio (iPad 2; $99), which we covered in our iPad-keyboard buying guide, combines a battery-powered Bluetooth keyboard and a folio case for the iPad 2. The ZaggFolio now comes in a variety of colors: blue, red, black, lime, pink, orange, and purple for the polyurethane version, and orange, tan, black, and brown for the leather version.

Read the rest of this entry >>