After Jerry Lawler’s Heart Attack, WWE Updates Fans on Social Media

World Wrestling Entertainment kept fans updated on the medical condition of Raw commentator and wrestler Jerry Lawler — who suffered a heart attack during a televised broadcast — by pushing messages onto Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

WWE’s social media blitz provided a bit of relief for viewers and support for Lawler, as did online messages from fellow WWE personalities — once again demonstrating that sports and entertainment brands can disseminate much-requested information via social networks without waiting for media outlets to do it for them.

Prayers for Lawler are even being gathered on Tout, a video-sharing site WWE has partnered with in the past.

“Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler is a beloved member of the WWE family and a fan favorite, as evidenced by the outpouring of support,” WWE tells Mashable.

“This is a reflection of the world we live in today and the power of the social media to connect people.”

“It is no surprise that fans are using social media to send their messages of support,” WWE adds. “This is a reflection of the world we live in today and the power of the social media to connect people.”

Lawler, a 62-year-old WWE Hall of Fame inductee, collapsed at an announcer desk during a Raw match at Montreal’s Bell Centre, leaving the live audience wondering why he fell and TV viewers bewildered at the silence.

WWE’s social squad immediately swung into action and continued posting updates well into Tuesday:

BREAKING: @michaelcole on #RAW: @jerrylawler collapsed at announce desk, is receiving CPR, medical attention at Centre Bell.

— WWE (@WWE) September 11, 2012

Update from @wwe: “As of this morning, Jerry “The King” Lawler is in a cardiac care unit and all his vital signs are stable…”

— WWE (@WWE) September 11, 2012

UPDATE: “…WWE will provide additional information as it becomes available. We continue to wish Jerry all the best for a full recovery.”

— WWE (@WWE) September 11, 2012

The links directed Twitter users to full statements about Lawler’s condition.

On WWE’s Facebook page, news and updates about Lawler attracted thousands of Likes, comments and shares:

Meanwhile on WWE’s Google+ page, similar posts garnered less engagement:

“WWE will continue to post updates on Jerry’s condition on WWE.com and all our social media platforms as information becomes available,” WWE says. “We continue to wish Jerry all the best for a full recovery.”

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Panasonic updates Toughbooks with Ivy Bridge

Panasonic has announced an update to its line of Toughbooks to include Intel’s new Ivy Bridge processors. The Toughbook CF-31 will be available in two configurations, Standard and Performance. The Performance model will come with a Core i5 3360M processor clocked at 2.8Ghz as well as AMD’s Radeon HD 7750M discrete GPU. The notebook can switch between the discrete graphics and Intel’s integrated HD 4000 GPU to balance power versus performance.

The Standard model comes with a Core i5 3320M clocked at 2.6Ghz but relies solely on Intel’s integrated GPU. The CF-31 also comes with low-voltage DDR3 RAM for power efficiency, and hard drives have seen a bump to 500GB as standard with 128/256GB SSD options. Battery life is rated for up to 14.5 hours, and you can purchase a secondary battery pack that will give you another 6.5 hours. Three USB 2.0 ports and a single USB 3.0 port can be found on the laptop, plus HDMI output and a serial port. A configuration slot gives you the option to include an additional LAN, FireWire, or modem ports.

The Toughbook CF-53, meanwhile, comes with a Core i5 3320M processor clocked at 2.6Ghz, Intel’s HD 4000 GPU, and the same 500GB hard drive, although this model has an option for a 512GB SSD. Panasonic say the battery life on the CF-53 l is good for up to 11 hours, and there’s an additional 9 cell battery that can be purchased. Better yet, there’s a Touchscreen model available that boasts 1,000 nits of brightness for outdoor productivity.

Panasonic say that the CF-31 models should be available in July, with the Standard model starting at €3,699 (~$4,600) excluding VAT. The CF-53 will also ship next month for a more reasonable €1,544 ($1,919) excluding VAT.

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DreamHost Users Can Now Make Their Site Load Much Faster For Free [Updates]

DreamHost has just teamed up with CloudFlare, a content delivery network so that DreamHost users can now activate a single checkbox in their admin panel to make their websites load significantly faster.

ClouldFlare’s free offering includes a content delivery network with 14 locations around the world, improved security for your website, front-end content optimization, and Web analytics. Even if you already use Google Analytics (like the vast majority of webmasters), CloudFlare’s analytics can add additional information since they track even clients that have JavaScript turned off, or clients that did not wait for the page to finish loading. Also, CloudlFlare can integrate with your existing Google Analytics account.

To get to your Cloudflare checkbox, you need to access your DreamHost admin panel, click Manage Domains, and click the Edit link for the domain you’d like to use with CloudFlare.

Within the admin panel for the specific domain, the checkbox looks like this:

Once you click this checkbox and create your new, free, CloudFlare account, simply save your account information and you’re done. DNS will take a few hours to re-propagate, and then you should start seeing your website load faster. Note that if you have DreamHost configured to strip the www prefix for your site (i.e, turn www.makeuseof.com into makeuseof.com), you will need to disable this option and add the www for now. DreamHost say they are working on this limitation.

Source: CloudFlare

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How To Install Automatic Updates Automatically In Ubuntu

Just a few days ago, a user of the blog asked me how it was possible to enable the automatic installation of updates for Ubuntu, without user intervention . In the past there I signaled that it was possible to automatically update the latest security updates and now we shall see how to install all updates in a totally automated . To update your system with the latest software is a good practice, however, not everyone can keep up with this routine. In fact, on Windows, the automatic update is enabled by default.

This short tutorial will show you how to enable automatic software updates and packages in Ubuntu. In this way, you will not need to remember to update the system and all updates are automatically downloaded and installed when the PC is connected to the Internet . This is a great way to make sure that all security patches and software enhancements are automatically installed on your system.

Open the terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install unattended-upgrades

Now type:

sudo gedit / etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic

Edit the file contents to the text shown below:

APT:: Periodic:: Enable "1" 
APT:: Periodic:: Update-Package-Lists "1" 
APT:: Periodic:: Download-Upgradeable-Packages "1" 
APT:: Periodic:: AutocleanInterval "5 " 
APT:: Periodic:: Unattended-Upgrade "1" 
APT:: Periodic:: RandomSleep "1800";

Now, type in terminal:

sudo gedit / etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

and edit the contents of the file with the following code:

Unattended-Upgrade:: Allowed-Origins { 
"} $ {distro_id stable", 
"$ {} $ {distro_id distro_codename-security}" 
"$ {} $ {distro_id distro_codename}-updates", 
/ / "$ {} distro_id $ {} distro_codename-proposed ", 
/ / "$ {} $ {distro_id distro_codename}-backports";

};

Unattended-Upgrade:: Remove-unused-Dependencies "true";

Now install cron-apt:

sudo apt-get install cron-apt

His edit the configuration file:

sudo nano / etc / cron.d / cron-apt

And now edit the file according to your needs!

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Microsoft Flight Now Free To Play On Steam For Some Countries [Updates]

Microsoft Flight is the latest generation in the excellent Flight Simulator family by Microsoft, and it is already free to play. But now, it is also free on Steam, at least in some countries.

However, Steam has not stated which regions the game is currently available for, and it is definitely available for the US. If the game is not available for your region, you can always download it and play the free content from the MS Flight official website.

When some users try to access the game page from outside of the US, they see this:

If you are lucky enough to be able to play the version that’s just made its way to Steam, you will also get better prices on Microsoft’s Flight premium downloadable content than were previously available via Xbox.com.

The Steam edition is different to the original Microsoft Flight version in that it provides better pricing via the Hawaiian Starter Bundle, which is cheaper on Steam by $13 than it is on the Xbox.com Marketplace. The bundle includes two aircraft, the Maule M-7-260C and the North American P-51 Mustang, and the Hawaiian Adventure itself. Note that the Xbox Marketplace offers free preview versions both for the North American P-51 Mustang and for the Maule M-7-260C.

Source: Steam

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Apple updates iTunes prior to iOS and iCloud Launch

Apple today released iTunes 10.5, bringing support for iOS 5 and iCloud as well as new Wi-Fi syncing capabilities. iOS 5 and iCloud are set to launch tomorrow, and today’s launch of iTunes 10.5 sets the stage for those releases.What’s new in iTunes 10.5

- iTunes in the Cloud. iTunes now stores your music and TV purchases in iCloud and makes them available on your devices anywhere, any time, at no additional cost.
* Automatic Downloads. Purchase music from any device or computer and automatically download a copy to your Mac and iOS devices.
* Download Previous Purchases. Download your past music, TV, app, and book purchases again, at no additional cost. Previous purchases may be unavailable if they are no longer on the iTunes Store.

- Sync with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 5.

- Wi-Fi Syncing. Automatically sync your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iTunes any time they’re both on the same Wi-Fi network.

iTunes 10.5 brings compatibility with iOS 5 and iCloud, as well as the paid iTunes Match portion of iCloud.

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Apple updates iWork for iOS, adds iCloud Support

It seems as if Apple has been really busy updating their Apps for iOS 5 and iCloud support, so it comes as no surprise that APple has released an update for each of their productivity apps: Numbers, Pages and Keynote.

Here’s a complete list of what’s new.

Keynote

Automatically store your presentations in iCloud and keep them up to date across all your iOS devices.Download your presentations to a Mac or PC at icloud.com/iwork as Keynote ’09, PowerPoint, or PDF files.Drag and drop Keynote ’09 or PowerPoint presentations to icloud.com from your Mac or PC to have them automatically appear on your iOS devices.Use AirPlay to present wirelessly via Apple TV. Navigate slides, view presenter notes, and use the laser pointer while presenting from your iOS device.New builds and transitions including Anvil, Blinds, Color Panes, Comet, Confetti, Diffuse, and Sparkle.Advanced presentation controls including looped slideshows and autoplay.Support for slide-to-slide hyperlinks.Improved compatibility with Microsoft PowerPoint and Keynote ’09.Includes improved support for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language input.

Pages

Automatically store your documents in iCloud and keep them up to date across all your iOS devices.Download your documents to a Mac or PC at icloud.com/iwork as Pages ’09, Word, or PDF files.Drag and drop Pages ’09, Word, or plain text documents to icloud.com from your Mac or PC to have them automatically appear on your iOS devices.Use your voice to create and edit Pages documents with dictation in iOS 5 on your iPhone 4S.Create footnotes and endnotes in your documents.View improved word counts with character, paragraph, and page counts.Improved compatibility with Microsoft Word and Pages ’09.Includes improved support for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language input

Numbers

Automatically store your spreadsheets in iCloud and keep them up to date across all your iOS devices.Download your spreadsheets to a Mac or PC at icloud.com/iwork as Numbers ’09, Excel, or PDF files.Drag and drop Numbers ’09, Excel, or CSV files to icloud.com from your Mac or PC to have them automatically appear on your iOS devices.Use sliders, steppers, and pop-ups to easily enter data and explore results.Use Merge Cells to format your tables.Hide and show rows and columns.Improved compatibility with Microsoft Excel and Numbers ’09.Includes improved support for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language input.

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uTorrent for Mac Adds RSS Feeds, Scheduling, and More to the Popular BitTorrent Client [Updates]

Mac OS X: uTorrent has long been our favorite BitTorrent client on Windows, but its Mac version was severely lacking in features. Today, it's finally out of beta, and much closer to feature parity with its Windows cousin, adding support for RSS feeds, scheduling, and a new remote interface optimized for tablets.

uTorrent brings some real competition to the table on the Mac, with new advanced features that Mac-favorite Transmission still doesn't support. Now, you can subscribe to torrent RSS feeds inside uTorrent and have it automatically start downloading new torrents as soon as they're posted. You can also fine-tune your download schedules much more closely, telling uTorrent to start, stop, and limit speed throughout the week so it doesn't hog your bandwidth. And, lastly, their remote interface is now optimized for the iPad and other tablets, so you can manage your torrents from anywhere with a great mobile UI.

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Swype Finally Adds Automatic Updates and Saved User Dictionaries to the Gesture-Based Android Keyboard [Updates]

We love the non-traditional Swype keyboard for Android, but it has a few major annoyances—namely with the installation process of the free beta. Today's update fixes most of those problems, letting you update Swype automatically without losing any of your settings.

Previously, every time Swype came out with an update, you had to uninstall Swype, re-download the Swype Installer, then install Swype using the installer. Now, once you install the newest version, you can get rid of that Swype Installer entirely. Swype will notify you when a new version comes out and will update itself, without any uninstallation. It'll also save your dictionary and settings, so you don't have to re-add your name, favorite swear words, or leet speak to the dictionary every time you get a new version. Hit the link to see what other minor changes have come to Swype, and to get the new version for your phone.

Swype Beta is a free download for Android phones running 2.0 and up.

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Samsung updates 7-inch Galaxy Tab with dual-core processor and Honeycomb

Samsung has updated its 7-inch Galaxy Tab with better specs like a dual-core processor and Honeycomb Android OS, the company said today. It’s calling the upgraded device the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. The Galaxy Tab, first released at the end of 2010, was the first Android tablet Samsung brought to market in the U.S.

The tablet market got big news earlier this week when Amazon announced its $199 Kindle Fire, a 7-inch Android tablet connected with Amazon’s extensive services and built for e-reading, web browsing, streaming shows and more. Samsung’s decision to update its 7-inch tablet was already in the works before the Kindle Fire announcement, but it will likely have a hard time competing with that price point.

The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus has some nice specs. It includes a 1.2-GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, a 3-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, a microSD card slot and 16GB or 32GB of on-board storage. The tablet runs a TouchWiz-enabled version of Android 3.2 (Honeycomb), which is optimized for tablets.

Samsung hasn’t mentioned pricing yet, but because the original 7-inch tablet with Wi-Fi only is priced at $349.99, expect a similar base price on the new model. Pricing will escalate with more storage and data networking abilities.

The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus will first launch in Austria and Indonesia at the end of October and will likely launch in the U.S. and other countries later this year. It will face steep competition this holiday season from the Apple iPad 2 on the high end and the Amazon Kindle Fire on the low end.

Are you interested in the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, or are you more attracted to something like the Kindle Fire?

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