LightDM, just like GDM, is a log-in manager. It offers almost all the functionalities of GDM, but with a much simpler codebase. While GDM is about 50,000 lines of codes, LightDM has only about 5,000 lines of codes. The smaller codebase means that it is much simpler to maintain LightDM. Another advantage that LightDM enjoys over GDM is that it is much faster. LightDM does not require the GNOME session to run unlike GDM. This also makes LightDM deployable in Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu etc. And for those who like theming, it is much easier to make new themes for LightDM because of its WebKit frontend.

Flash plug-in normally can be found in the “/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/” folder on your system’s hard drive.

You can get there by switching to the Finder, select “Go to Folder…” from the “Go” menu, and enter “/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/” after prompted and click “Go” to switch to the appropriate location on your system.

Create a folder named “Disabled Plug-Ins.” Move three files:

• Flash Player.plugin
• flashplayer.xpt
• NP-PPC-Dir-Shockwave

into your new “Disabled Plug-Ins” folder. Or if you really want to kill Flash, toss these files into the Trash. (Note: if you don’t find these three files in “/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/” they may be hiding in “~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/”.)

Relaunch Safari or Firefox, Flash will no longer be enabled.

via Macworld

There are five courses at this moment: Introduction to SQL Azure, Introduction to Windows Azure, Planning, Building and Managing a Private Cloud,  Windows Azure Security Overview and Microsoft Virtualization for VMware Professionals – The Platform. Each course is further divided in modules, each module coming with study material (a PDF or online documents, videos), and offers the option for self-assessment. The evaluation consists on a number of questions answered in 10 minutes. If the student does not pass the evaluation, he can try again, but he will be met with different questions. Downloading the studying material and taking the assessment is rewarded with points.

By making more points a student advances his membership from Bronze to Platinum. In addition, the site mentions that “these memberships allow the user to participate in promotions and special discounts that are only applicable to MVA students”. The current promotion is a free TechNet Subscription for those taking a virtualization exam. Also, the website does not specify if other courses will be added in the future, but that’s highly probable.

The extension installs as a button next to the OmniBar and lets you toggle between Chrome and IE mode. To search or open pages in IE from the OmniBar, type IE and enter keywords or the URL. If you enter keywords, search results will be done in Bing (the default search engine in IE). If you have a webpage open, click on the toggle button and it will be reload the page in IE mode.

The extension also lets you sign in to different Google accounts in each browser; you can be signed in to Google in Chrome mode but signed out in IE mode. The slight flaw with the extension is that toggling between browser modes renders the backspace button pretty much useless. Other than that, it’s an easy way of using two browsers from one Chrome window.

Install Chrome IE For Chrome

Colin Devroe had a clever way to use Image Capture (Delete photos from within Smart Albums in iPhoto) to make it happen.  To implement it, connect your iPhone to your Mac and launch Image Capture. That app will see your iPhone as just another camera.

In Colin’s original hint, you’d then download all the photos and tell Image Capture to delete them all when it’s finished. Turns out Image Capture now offers an easier, faster way to do that: You can selectively delete photos without ever importing them from your phone.

In Image Capture, Command-click all the photos you want to delete. If you really want to delete everything, just hit Command-A or choose Edit -> Select All. Then, at the bottom of the Image Capture window, click the delete icon—it’s the red No symbol. Image Capture will ask you to confirm that you want to delete all those photos. And if you tell the app that indeed you are ready to bid all those pictures adieu, it will delete them immediately.

Frankly, transferring and synchronizing files between iPad and Mac isn’t easy. Although there are several ways to do it, but none are perfect, and each has its deficiencies. Until Apple improve the user experiences of transferring files, here are some choices you may need to for transferring files between your various devices.

iTunes

iTunes is Apple’s officially endorsed application for file-transfers between iPad and Mac is via iTunes file-sharing.

First, it only works with limited apps, like all of Apple’s iPad creation tools, such as Pages, Keynote, Numbers, GarageBand, and iMovie and some third-party apps. But different apps use iTunes in different ways: Apple’s apps, for example, require you to select Save to iTunes when saving a document; other apps make their files available to iTunes automatically.

Worse, is the constant manual effort required to keep files in sync. You probably know the routine, and it’s hardly elegant and clunky process:

• Connect your iPad directly to your Mac and open iTunes.
• Select your iPad in the iTunes source list and click on the Apps tab.
• Scroll down past the list of installed apps and look for the File Sharing section.
• Tap the app you want to copy a file from, so its files appear in the Documents pane.
• Drag one or more of those files to the Desktop (while holding down Option key) to copy them there, or use the Save To button to open a traditional save dialog.
• If you update a file on your Mac and want to send it back to the iPad, you must then drag that changed file back into iTunes, onto the correct app’s document list again.

Cloud Storage

Dropbox is a great synchronization services for keeping files in sync between computers. It provides a easy way to access any files and folders with the services. Even better, Dropbox offers the option of opening your synced files in their compatible iPad apps, like you can send a word-processing document to Pages.

The drawback in the process is there’s no way to send the modified files form within Pages to Dropbox again, because of the iOS technology limitation. However, Pages support WebDAV, which allows you can use DropDAV (free for 2GB) to access your Dropbox folder, and interact via a traditional WebDAV connection. But remember, you must manually publish your document back to the DropDAV-created WebDAV server, otherwise it just a local copy of your document.

Cloud-Compatible Apps

There are some iPad apps that have built-in support for cloud storage. On the Dropbox website, there is a list of 141 Dropbox-compatible iPad apps.Text editors like Elements, iA Writer, and Textastic, which upload your changes immediately into DropBox.

And also full-fledged word processors such as DocumentsToGo, QuickOffice, and Office2; file readers like ReaddleDocs and GoodReader; audio note apps like DropVox, Audio Memos, Mobile Recorder, and Smart Recorder, and many more.

Although Apple’s iPad apps don’t integrate with DropBox, but they do work with MobileMe iDisk. But uploading to iDisk is almost like file sharing with iTunes, not really a smooth process.

E-mail

Of course, E-mail cannot compete with true realtime synchronizing than iTunes File Sharing. But it still have certain advantages. First, you don’t have to connect your iPad to your Mac. The time stamp of email let you know the version of your files. You can see exactly when you sent files.

If you plan to your E-mail for transferring files, it is worth setting up filters(so called in GMail) to handle these special mails.

FTP

Good FTP is another option for transferring files back and forth to your iPad. There are plenty of iPad FTP clients, including FTP On The Go Pro, FTP Deluxe HD, and FTP Write. These apps let you connect to a remote FTP server, and then edit the files stored there.

If you have access to remote FTP server, you can connect your iPad and Mac to it. Or you can configure your Mac into a FTP server, to do so:

• Open Sharing system preference and make sure that File Sharing is turned on.
• Cclick the Options button and put a checkmark by Share Files and Folders Using FTP.
• System Preferences will then tell you the FTP address for your Mac.

Note: unless your home has a static IP address and your router is configured properly, it may be difficult (it not impossible, you can use dynamic dns) to connect to your Mac as an FTP server when your iPad isn’t on the same wireless network.

iPad-as-thumbdrive

There are also Numerous apps, including iFlashDrive, and Briefcase,let you use your iPad as a pseudo-thumbdrive with loca Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth, so that you can transfer files to and from the iPad. A few of them even support remote access to SFTP servers.

The End

The sad truth is that iPad file management is a chore. You can get a taste of what true. But until Apple provides a better solution, using Dropbox text editors and e-mail to shuttle files is my choice.

Google Storage for Developers is a new service for developers to store and access data in Google’s cloud. It offers developers direct access to Google’s scalable storage and networking infrastructure as well as powerful authentication and data sharing mechanisms. Developers can store objects of any size and manage access to their data on an indvidual or group basis using Google Storage.

In addition, Google Storage for Developers offers a web-based interface for managing your storage, an open source command line tool and library, and advanced features like resumable uploads and international storage functionality.

Compare the pricing between Google Storage and Amazon S3, it seems GS’s pricing is pretty close to S3 low-end users, but high-end users will still find S3 have more competitive price.

Monthly Chromebook Subscriptions for Business and Schools

Chromebooks can instantly run your browser-based apps, whether in the cloud or behind your firewall, and apps virtualized through technologies like Citrix®. And an entire fleet of Chromebooks can be managed from one web-based console – making life better for users and IT admins alike.

Angry Birds now available in the Chrome Web Store

Angry Birds is now available on the Chome Web Store for Free!

Music Beta By Google
It’s finally here. Google’s Music service. You can upload your personal music collection to listen anywhere,
keep everything in sync, and forget the hassle of cables and files.

Update to Honeycomb
The newest update to Honeycomb will be released first to the Motorola Xoom, following with other devices in the next couple of weeks.

All the announcements can be found here and Google I/O is set to last until tomorrow with their YouTube channel streaming live whenever there is a major event. The Android 3.1 platform adds a variety of refinements to make the user interface more intuitive and more efficient to use.

Regarding the Developer’s Guide, it describes how to use RESTful calling style and client libraries for various programming languages (currently Java, Python, and PHP) to access and edit Google Tasks data.

The technical reference of the collections, resources, methods, and authentication requirements for the Google Tasks API v1 is here.

The Google Places API is a service that returns information about Places — defined within this API as establishments, geographic locations, or prominent points of interest, gives developers access to Google’s database of restaurants, bars, hotels and various other points of interest.

• Place Searches return a list of nearby Places based on a user’s location.
• Place Details requests return more detailed information about a specific Place.
• Place Check-ins allow you to report that a user has checked in to a Place. Check-ins are used to gauge a Place’s popularity; frequent check-ins will boost a Place’s ranking in your application’s Place Search results.
• Place Reports allow you to add new Places to the Place service, and to delete Places that your application has added.