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Thinner, Lighter 5th Generation iPad to Arrive in March 2013?

Japanese blog Macotakara is reporting that a redesigned fifth-generation iPad could arrive in March 2013.
However Chinese news ZOL (CBS Interactive) reported next iPad mini in AppleInsider's article, according to my inside source, iPad(5th) may be released in March, 2013.

Source told that, design of this new iPad will be like iPad mini in detail, and be thinner and lightweight.
Apple just released the fourth-generation iPad about two months ago, which could make this fifth-generation iPad, if the report is true, the second in five months. The design is said to have taken inspiration from the iPad mini and will be thinner and more lightweight.

Previously, DigiTimes also reported that a new iPad could appear in the "Middle of 2013". Except for the fourth-generation iPad and iPad mini, new iPads are have traditionally released in the first couple months of the year.




Write More Good: 7 Free Online Tools To Ensure You Use Proper English

Improper use of English is one of my pet peeves. I'm not a full-blown "grammar nazi" (a colloquialism for someone very strict with grammar) but it does irk me. An exception can be made for those who don't use English natively, but blatant disregard for the rules of language can be seen all over the Internet – and it can be quite annoying.

Language is meant to convey ideas through a common medium that obeys a set of rules. Ignoring those rules – e.g., by shortening "you" to "u" – may be fine in a private context between two people, but utterly inappropriate in a public context, such as when commenting. At best, it makes one seem juvenile and/or lazy. At worst, it makes one look stupid and/or ignorant.

Not convinced? See Jejemon for an example of how extreme it can become. Fortunately, there are a lot of online tools dedicated to preserving the integrity of the English language. Here are a few to help you out.

Dictionary / Thesaurus

An obvious beginning to a list like this, but there is no better place to start when it comes to learning the English language. A dictionary will help you with basic vocabulary, definitions, and spelling. A thesaurus will help you to expand a basic knowledge of English into more sophisticated realms. Both are essential.

With that said, my preferred dictionary-and-thesaurus combo comes from Reference.com. I've been using it for years and it has never let me down. The site has a lot of great features like "Word of the Day", explanations of the history behind words, and games and tools to build your vocabulary.

Online Slang Dictionary

If you truly want to understand the nitty-gritty of the English language, then you can't subsist on only "proper words", if you will. Whether at the office or on an Internet forum, you're going to come across a lot of weird sayings, idioms, and slang that will confuse you – even if English is your first language.

That's when you can turn to the Online Slang Dictionary. Started in 1996, it's perhaps the largest repository of slang definitions on the Internet. It's constantly being updated, so you'll never fall too far behind in keeping up with the ever-evolving language. This site is especially useful for those who are learning English as a second language OR for those who may not be as hip and young as they once were.

And best of all? Online Slang Dictionary is heaps better in terms of quality than the cesspool that is UrbanDictionary.

Grammar Girl

Even though I'm fluent in English, the language itself has a lot of tricky words and grammar rules that still trip me up from time to time. For example, what's the difference between "while" and "whilst"? What about "alright" and "all right"? For questions like that, I always use Grammar Girl.

This is one of my favorite websites, to be honest. Grammar Girl is hosted by Mignon Fogarty and she does an excellent job explaining the nuances that go into the trickier portions of English grammar. So if you have a strong grasp of English but want to push yourself beyond the mistakes that most people make, then Grammar Girl is for you.

Pronunciation Book on YouTube

So, using English properly on the Internet is good and all, but what about in real life? You know, when you log off the Web and talk to people face-to-face? How's your English then? In particular, I'm talking about your pronunciation. It's no good if you know what a word means if people can't understand you when you say it!

There's a YouTube channel called Pronunciation Book that has hundreds of videos on how to pronounce certain words. These videos are divided into categories, like alphabet, days of the week, everyday phrases, prepositions, and more. Surprisingly, this channel is quite addicting.

If you ever get bored and need a break, you can always hop over to the parody channel, Pronunciation Manual. It's always good for a laugh or two.

HowJSay

Along the lines of pronunciation, we have HowJSay which is more of a dictionary of pronunciations. If you want to know how to pronounce a particular word, this is the site you want. With over 160,000 entries, you're more likely than not to find the words you need.

The cool part of HowJSay is that it has app versions for both iPhone and Android. If pronunciation on-the-go is what you're looking for, then this will probably come in handy.

Readability Score

There's another aspect of the English language – or language in general – that many of us seem to forget, myself included. Readability, or a qualitative gauge at how easy it is to read a particular piece of writing. Have you ever read a Wall of Text comprised of nothing more than run-on sentences and bulky phrases? That's what I'm talking about.

Using Readability Score, you can take any chunk of your writing, paste it in, and have the website analyze your words according to a number of readability tests. The primary formula – the Fleisch-Kincaid Reading Ease test – will describe, on a scale of 0 to 100, how easy it is to read your writing.

Depending on your grasp of the English language, you should be able to tailor your words according to your audience. Readability Score is a useful tool in learning more on how to use English effectively.

Conclusion

These are just a few tools that deal with varying aspects of English: vocabulary, spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and readability. I've only given you a taste of what's out there. If you search around, you'll be able to find more websites and programs that deal with these different aspects.

What do you think? Any suggestions for similar websites that you think should be on here? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.

Image Credit: English Text Via Shutterstock





Process Explorer – The Most Powerful Task Manager Replacement [Windows]

process explorerLet's be honest, the Windows Task Manager isn't that great for understanding and managing the processes running on your computer. Even on Windows 8, where it's much-improved, the task manager can't come close to the power of Process Explorer. It's part of the Sysinternals set of tools that Microsoft purchased – and for good reason. They're among the most powerful system utilities for Windows.

In addition to its power, Process Explorer is also flexible. It's available from Microsoft as a single .exe file. That makes it a portable app you can throw on a USB drive and run on any computer.

Understanding The Processes Running On Your Computer

Perhaps the greatest thing about Process Explorer – from a power-user perspective – is the way it helps visualize the processes running on your computer and their relation to each other.

The task manager included with Windows is a bit of a mess, displaying all running processes in a flat list. It works if you're hunting for a specific process by name, but it doesn't give you an overview that really helps you understand what's going on.

It's particularly messy if you use multi-process applications like Google Chrome – what if Google Chrome was misbehaving and you needed to kill all its processes? The Windows Task Manager doesn't make it easy.

process explorer

Process Explorer helps make much more sense of this. The most obvious improvement is the hierarchical tree of processes – we can see the main chrome.exe process that launched all other Chrome processes and understand what Google Chrome is doing. If we wanted to force-quit Google Chrome entirely, we could right-click the top chrome.exe process and select Kill Process Tree. If we wanted to hide all these chrome.exe processes so they didn't clutter the list, we could click the minus icon to collapse that part of the tree.

process explorer download

Other improvements also help make this list easier to understand. Each process has an associated icon, a description, and a company name. These descriptions and names may be blank – it's up to each program to provide this information.

Color-coding helps, too. Processes colored blue are your own processes, while processes colored pink are system services. Your desktop processes will appear under explorer.exe near the bottom of the list, while services will appear under services.exe near the top. This helps sort the process list so you aren't sifting through system services while viewing the processes running on your desktop.

To view which colors correspond to which types of processes and customize the colors, click the Options menu and select Configure Colors.

process explorer download

More Features

Process Explorer is packed with features, including all the ones you'd expect from the Windows Task Manager. You can right-click a process to kill it, change its priority level, or set its CPU affinity and force it to run on only a specific CPU. We won't focus on all these features – we'll focus on cool things you can do with Process Explorer that you can't do with the Windows Task Manager.

  • Search Online: This feature is present in Windows 8's new task manager, but it showed up in Process Explorer first. You can right-click any running process in the list and select Search Online to quickly search for it online. This can help you understand exactly what the process is and where it came from.
  • Detailed Process Properties: To view information about a process, right-click it and select Properties. If a process is automatically starting with your computer, Process Explorer will tell you where it's configured to do so. If a process is hiding in the background, you can click Bring to Front to view its window (assuming it has a visible window).

process explorer download

  • Detailed Resource Usage Information: Process Explorer exposes many more ways of visualizing resource usage. In addition to system-wide resource usage graphs, you'll find per-process CPU, memory, and disk usage graphs in a process's properties window. You can also see a graph of GPU (graphics card) usage – either per-process or system-wide. To view system-wide resource usage data, click the View menu and select System Information.

process explorer for windows

  • Unlock Locked Files: Have you ever seen a message saying a specific file or folder is in-use by a process and can't be deleted or moved? This is often to prevent files that are legitimately in-use from being modified, but sometimes programs continue locking a file even when they don't need it. To see which program is using a file, you can click Find and select Find a Handle or DLL. Search for the name of the file or folder and Process Explorer will tell you which process is "locking" the file. To remove the lock so you can delete or move the file, right-click the handle itself and select Close Handle.

process explorer

  • Find a Window's Process: Not sure what process a specific window belongs to? Click and drag the target-shaped icon on the Process Explorer toolbar over another window on your desktop. Process Explorer will show you which process the window belongs to.
  • Replace the Windows Task Manager: Love Process Explorer and wish the Windows Task Manager was this awesome? Just click the Options menu and select Replace Task Manager. Whenever you open the task manager – either by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Escape, right-clicking the task bar and selecting Start Task Manager, or pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete and clicking Start Task Manager – Process Explorer will appear instead.

process-explorer-replace-task-manager

Process Explorer is listed on both our Best Windows Software and Best Portable Apps pages because it's an amazing tool. If you're looking for another third-party task manager replacement, you may also want to check out Process Hacker or System Explorer.

What do you think of Process Explorer? Do you prefer another task manager replacement? Leave a comment and share your favorite tool!




Process Explorer – The Most Powerful Task Manager Replacement [Windows]

process explorerLet's be honest, the Windows Task Manager isn't that great for understanding and managing the processes running on your computer. Even on Windows 8, where it's much-improved, the task manager can't come close to the power of Process Explorer. It's part of the Sysinternals set of tools that Microsoft purchased – and for good reason. They're among the most powerful system utilities for Windows.

In addition to its power, Process Explorer is also flexible. It's available from Microsoft as a single .exe file. That makes it a portable app you can throw on a USB drive and run on any computer.

Understanding The Processes Running On Your Computer

Perhaps the greatest thing about Process Explorer – from a power-user perspective – is the way it helps visualize the processes running on your computer and their relation to each other.

The task manager included with Windows is a bit of a mess, displaying all running processes in a flat list. It works if you're hunting for a specific process by name, but it doesn't give you an overview that really helps you understand what's going on.

It's particularly messy if you use multi-process applications like Google Chrome – what if Google Chrome was misbehaving and you needed to kill all its processes? The Windows Task Manager doesn't make it easy.

process explorer

Process Explorer helps make much more sense of this. The most obvious improvement is the hierarchical tree of processes – we can see the main chrome.exe process that launched all other Chrome processes and understand what Google Chrome is doing. If we wanted to force-quit Google Chrome entirely, we could right-click the top chrome.exe process and select Kill Process Tree. If we wanted to hide all these chrome.exe processes so they didn't clutter the list, we could click the minus icon to collapse that part of the tree.

process explorer download

Other improvements also help make this list easier to understand. Each process has an associated icon, a description, and a company name. These descriptions and names may be blank – it's up to each program to provide this information.

Color-coding helps, too. Processes colored blue are your own processes, while processes colored pink are system services. Your desktop processes will appear under explorer.exe near the bottom of the list, while services will appear under services.exe near the top. This helps sort the process list so you aren't sifting through system services while viewing the processes running on your desktop.

To view which colors correspond to which types of processes and customize the colors, click the Options menu and select Configure Colors.

process explorer download

More Features

Process Explorer is packed with features, including all the ones you'd expect from the Windows Task Manager. You can right-click a process to kill it, change its priority level, or set its CPU affinity and force it to run on only a specific CPU. We won't focus on all these features – we'll focus on cool things you can do with Process Explorer that you can't do with the Windows Task Manager.

  • Search Online: This feature is present in Windows 8's new task manager, but it showed up in Process Explorer first. You can right-click any running process in the list and select Search Online to quickly search for it online. This can help you understand exactly what the process is and where it came from.
  • Detailed Process Properties: To view information about a process, right-click it and select Properties. If a process is automatically starting with your computer, Process Explorer will tell you where it's configured to do so. If a process is hiding in the background, you can click Bring to Front to view its window (assuming it has a visible window).

process explorer download

  • Detailed Resource Usage Information: Process Explorer exposes many more ways of visualizing resource usage. In addition to system-wide resource usage graphs, you'll find per-process CPU, memory, and disk usage graphs in a process's properties window. You can also see a graph of GPU (graphics card) usage – either per-process or system-wide. To view system-wide resource usage data, click the View menu and select System Information.

process explorer for windows

  • Unlock Locked Files: Have you ever seen a message saying a specific file or folder is in-use by a process and can't be deleted or moved? This is often to prevent files that are legitimately in-use from being modified, but sometimes programs continue locking a file even when they don't need it. To see which program is using a file, you can click Find and select Find a Handle or DLL. Search for the name of the file or folder and Process Explorer will tell you which process is "locking" the file. To remove the lock so you can delete or move the file, right-click the handle itself and select Close Handle.

process explorer

  • Find a Window's Process: Not sure what process a specific window belongs to? Click and drag the target-shaped icon on the Process Explorer toolbar over another window on your desktop. Process Explorer will show you which process the window belongs to.
  • Replace the Windows Task Manager: Love Process Explorer and wish the Windows Task Manager was this awesome? Just click the Options menu and select Replace Task Manager. Whenever you open the task manager – either by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Escape, right-clicking the task bar and selecting Start Task Manager, or pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete and clicking Start Task Manager – Process Explorer will appear instead.

process-explorer-replace-task-manager

Process Explorer is listed on both our Best Windows Software and Best Portable Apps pages because it's an amazing tool. If you're looking for another third-party task manager replacement, you may also want to check out Process Hacker or System Explorer.

What do you think of Process Explorer? Do you prefer another task manager replacement? Leave a comment and share your favorite tool!




Process Explorer – The Most Powerful Task Manager Replacement [Windows]

process explorerLet's be honest, the Windows Task Manager isn't that great for understanding and managing the processes running on your computer. Even on Windows 8, where it's much-improved, the task manager can't come close to the power of Process Explorer. It's part of the Sysinternals set of tools that Microsoft purchased – and for good reason. They're among the most powerful system utilities for Windows.

In addition to its power, Process Explorer is also flexible. It's available from Microsoft as a single .exe file. That makes it a portable app you can throw on a USB drive and run on any computer.

Understanding The Processes Running On Your Computer

Perhaps the greatest thing about Process Explorer – from a power-user perspective – is the way it helps visualize the processes running on your computer and their relation to each other.

The task manager included with Windows is a bit of a mess, displaying all running processes in a flat list. It works if you're hunting for a specific process by name, but it doesn't give you an overview that really helps you understand what's going on.

It's particularly messy if you use multi-process applications like Google Chrome – what if Google Chrome was misbehaving and you needed to kill all its processes? The Windows Task Manager doesn't make it easy.

process explorer

Process Explorer helps make much more sense of this. The most obvious improvement is the hierarchical tree of processes – we can see the main chrome.exe process that launched all other Chrome processes and understand what Google Chrome is doing. If we wanted to force-quit Google Chrome entirely, we could right-click the top chrome.exe process and select Kill Process Tree. If we wanted to hide all these chrome.exe processes so they didn't clutter the list, we could click the minus icon to collapse that part of the tree.

process explorer download

Other improvements also help make this list easier to understand. Each process has an associated icon, a description, and a company name. These descriptions and names may be blank – it's up to each program to provide this information.

Color-coding helps, too. Processes colored blue are your own processes, while processes colored pink are system services. Your desktop processes will appear under explorer.exe near the bottom of the list, while services will appear under services.exe near the top. This helps sort the process list so you aren't sifting through system services while viewing the processes running on your desktop.

To view which colors correspond to which types of processes and customize the colors, click the Options menu and select Configure Colors.

process explorer download

More Features

Process Explorer is packed with features, including all the ones you'd expect from the Windows Task Manager. You can right-click a process to kill it, change its priority level, or set its CPU affinity and force it to run on only a specific CPU. We won't focus on all these features – we'll focus on cool things you can do with Process Explorer that you can't do with the Windows Task Manager.

  • Search Online: This feature is present in Windows 8's new task manager, but it showed up in Process Explorer first. You can right-click any running process in the list and select Search Online to quickly search for it online. This can help you understand exactly what the process is and where it came from.
  • Detailed Process Properties: To view information about a process, right-click it and select Properties. If a process is automatically starting with your computer, Process Explorer will tell you where it's configured to do so. If a process is hiding in the background, you can click Bring to Front to view its window (assuming it has a visible window).

process explorer download

  • Detailed Resource Usage Information: Process Explorer exposes many more ways of visualizing resource usage. In addition to system-wide resource usage graphs, you'll find per-process CPU, memory, and disk usage graphs in a process's properties window. You can also see a graph of GPU (graphics card) usage – either per-process or system-wide. To view system-wide resource usage data, click the View menu and select System Information.

process explorer for windows

  • Unlock Locked Files: Have you ever seen a message saying a specific file or folder is in-use by a process and can't be deleted or moved? This is often to prevent files that are legitimately in-use from being modified, but sometimes programs continue locking a file even when they don't need it. To see which program is using a file, you can click Find and select Find a Handle or DLL. Search for the name of the file or folder and Process Explorer will tell you which process is "locking" the file. To remove the lock so you can delete or move the file, right-click the handle itself and select Close Handle.

process explorer

  • Find a Window's Process: Not sure what process a specific window belongs to? Click and drag the target-shaped icon on the Process Explorer toolbar over another window on your desktop. Process Explorer will show you which process the window belongs to.
  • Replace the Windows Task Manager: Love Process Explorer and wish the Windows Task Manager was this awesome? Just click the Options menu and select Replace Task Manager. Whenever you open the task manager – either by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Escape, right-clicking the task bar and selecting Start Task Manager, or pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete and clicking Start Task Manager – Process Explorer will appear instead.

process-explorer-replace-task-manager

Process Explorer is listed on both our Best Windows Software and Best Portable Apps pages because it's an amazing tool. If you're looking for another third-party task manager replacement, you may also want to check out Process Hacker or System Explorer.

What do you think of Process Explorer? Do you prefer another task manager replacement? Leave a comment and share your favorite tool!