Microsoft: Windows 8.1 will launch on October 18th By Tim Schiesser
Make offer to earn money
 On August 14, 2013, 8:58 AM Breaking News Microsoft has announced that Windows 8.1 will begin rolling out to users worldwide on October 18th at 12am New Zealand time (4am PT on October 17). The update will hit retail channels a day later, with new devices running Windows 8.1 and boxed copies of the software expected to be available. For everyone currently running Windows 8, Microsoft will be delivering Windows 8.1 as a free update through the Windows Store. As previously reported, the update brings a number of new features and improvements over Windows 8. The Start button will partially return, search and multi-tasking have been greatly enhanced, the Start screen has been improved including new customization options, and the OS has been optimized for smaller tablets. Microsoft is expected to deliver final Release to Manufacturing (RTM) code to OEMs by the end of August, as recent reports have indicated. Unlike previous years, the RTM code will not be made available to TechNet and MSDN subscribers before the general launch in October. Instead, Microsoft is expected to work on several zero-day patches during the time between RTM and release, fixing minor issues discovered by OEMs. In the lead up to the Windows 8.1 launch on October 18th, expect to see many new devices emerge from the shadows running the new OS. It's possible that we'll see Microsoft line-up the next-generation Surface launch with the release of Windows 8.1, marking the one year anniversary of both the original Surface RT and Windows 8. Other OEMs are also expected to show off smaller Windows-powered tablets, making use of Microsoft's small-screen optimizations.

Lam's Noodle House | Signature Specialty Noodle

3rd August 2013.

Desperately hungry and tired Yew Ann dragged me away from my peaceful outdoor sketching to Lam’s Noodle House at Marina Square.

Priced at 5.20 SGD, their Signature Specialty Noodle comes with fish ball, sliced meat, vegetables, minced meat, one prawn, an egg and fish skin. The noodle’s texture was decent, springy and doesn’t stick to the teeth and after mixing, it gets coated with an oily but delectable special sauce. The sliced meat was a tad dry and tough but the nicely done egg makes up for it.

Lam's Noodle House / Lam's Abalone Noodles

Located on the same floor as the food court in Marina Square and opposite Wee Nam Kee Chicken Rice.

Marina Square  

6 Raffles Boulevard 

Singapore 039594

Six Things You Should Know About Me + A Giveaway!

I'm so glad that my friend Rachel decided to tag me in this! She's been one of my favorite bloggers for a long time now and I love reading about her time as an expat in Europe and especially about her transition back to the states. Because let's face it, as much as I want to live forever overseas, we will most likely end up back 'home' in Oklahoma and I know it won't be the easiest transition to make! Besides my love of Rachel's blog, I'm a sucker for anything that lets people know a little bit more about the blogger on the other side of the screen. So let's get this party started!1. What's the best piece of advice anyone has given you?Just keep swimming...just keep swimming. Ok, not really even though that is really good advice. I remember growing up, my mom would repeat the scripture to me 'do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow has enough worries of it's own'. Can you tell I was a worry wart growing up? I tried to control everything I could and when I couldn't, I would stress and worry about it. But I have to realize that there is only so much that I can do, only so much that I actually have control over. With the other things, I need to do what I can, and let the rest go! 
2. If you could meet any blogger in person, who would you choose?It's no lie that me and Laurie were meant to be neighbors. I met her months ago when I was just starting to rebrand my blog (aka actually take this thing seriously) and we hit it off right away and try to talk often. I keep trying to talk her into coming and visiting! But there's something about a stupid ocean separating us or some nonsense like that. 
Other than that, I also have my dream team that I would love to have an international blogger meet up with. Hey Rachel, Belinda, Bonnie, Melyssa, Crystal, Nicole, Casey, Katie, and Jenna...are you down?
3. What's your biggest struggle in life?Being too much of a planner. I'm always looking to what's next, the next step, the next destination, the next job. It's not always a bad thing but it goes along with the worrying I talked about above. I'm a planner through and through and I want to know what the next five steps are in advance. And it goes without saying that sometimes there's just no possible way of knowing or things can change last minute (especially here in Korea) and it can stress.me.out.  
4. Favorite piece of jewelry {other than your engagement/wedding ring} and why?I have two pieces of jewelry that mean the world to me. The first one is a pearl necklace that my grandma gave me when I was born. You are supposed to add another pearl each year but I liked the simplicity of just a few tiny pearls on there. 

The second one is my great great aunt's engagement ring. This is a woman that I looked up to and admired. She was the oldest of 13 children and spent her life caring for others and raising her siblings. She was brave enough to walk away from a dangerous marriage even at a time when it was highly looked down upon to do so. She then married a wealthy man because he promised to give her an education (one of the most important things to her) and she continued to work until very late in life editing and reviewing books. My favorite story is when she told me about her second marriage, how they never ummm....consummated it, how there was always another man with them when they went out to dinner, and the list goes on and on. In her upper 90's she sat in her chair, tilted her head and told us, 'ya know what...I think he was gay.' Even though this ring isn't from the best marriage, it reminds me of her and what a strong and hardworking woman she was. 
5. What's something you love about yourself?I really love my bright blue eye color. My whole family has dark features...and then there's me with my pale complexion, blonde hair and blue eyes. I used to hate it because I stood out and didn't look like the rest of my family. But over the years I have started to love my eye color for the fact that it's unique. My siblings actually used to tell me that I was adopted when I was little and I remember believing them and going up to my mom and telling her it was ok if I was adopted, and that she could tell me the truth. Thankfully I have my grandma's nose and my sister's laugh to seal my fate as a part of my family. 
6. Tell us something we don't know about you.Deep water makes me a little nervous. Weird coming from someone who loves to sail and is scuba certified. But something about not knowing what's around you...or beneath you, makes me nervous every time. 
Pick six to answer for yourself:1. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?2. If you had an endless supply of one food, what would you get?3. If you could hop on a plane right now, where would you go and why?4. What is your biggest pet peeve?5. If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be? 6. What is your biggest fear?7. Would you rather be rich and stressed? Or poor and happy?8. If money and university major didn't matter, what job would you want?9. Why did you start blogging? Do you still do it for the same reasons?10. What makes you the happiest?
I'm tagging:KatieCrystalNicoleJamieKenzieJenna--------------------And as an added bonus today, I'm jumping on board with Crystal from The Happy Type and some very lovely ladies to bring you a truly Korean giveaway! I have to admit, Korea has some of the best beauty products I've ever tried, and they're super affordable too! And lucky you can win some of these amazing products to try for yourself!

It’s no secret that South Korea is any cosmetic and beauty product lover’s playground. For years South Korea has been one of the world’s leaders in beauty product production and most recently its innovative BB and CC creams have set the states a buzz. Birchbox calls South Korea “ground zero for beauty innovation”, so why not see what all the fuss is about? 

Lucky for you, you don’t have to get on a plane to Korea to take part in the Korean cosmetic boom! I have spent the better part of two years living, learning, and loving the country of Korea and in honor of my return home to America, my friends and I are giving little old you the opportunity to get your hot little hands on a whole slue of Korean cosmetics and beauty products.

 

Here are the lovely sponsors for this crazy awesome beauty product giveaway!

Kayli Wanders | The Gap Year Guru | Living In Another Language | The Style Dunce | Lost In Travels |Daisy Bisley | Inspiration Sparks |The Happy Type

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rules:

1. The validity of the winner’s entries will be verified by me and if any entries are false a new winner will be selected.
2. Winner will be contacted no later than the 23rd. Winner will have 48 hours to respond, if winner does not respond with 48 hours a new winner will be notified by email.
3. Sit back and relax because I’ll package your pretty little package up and get it in the mail. Contest is only open to U.S. residents.

Bourjois Laser Toppings Nail Polish Review & Swatches

�Top Coat� nail polishes have been super popular recently with lots of brands bringing out different formulations (such as confetti, glitter & opal top coats) to switch up your usual plain nail style.  The most recent is by Bourjois with their new Laser Toppings, to add a bit of sparkle and glitter to everyday nails.

Very sorry for this picture heavy post � I just think they are too beautiful not to photograph!


 
Without an undercoat

So Laque Glossy in BC Beige & Laser Toppings in Sun Scale


So Laque Glossy in Adora Bleu & Laser Toppings in Blue Neon
 

Violet Couture &  Laser Toppings in Aqua Purple

The Laser Toppings include tiny little shiny, metallic strips in a clear base which remind me a little of the Nails Inc Feather collection.  These can be used alone & built up to create a full-on opaque glitter nail, but as you can see above these toppings really stand out and come alive when paired with a base coat of the same shade.  The Beige & Sun Scale combination is my current favourite for an everyday nail art look.  I recommend these if you�re looking to jazz up basic blocks of colour on the nails with something a little more interesting than just plain glitter.

These are available now for �5.99 each in your local Boots & Superdrug stores.

Will you be purchasing these babies?  What�s your favourite current nail top-coat?

xxx

Daily Blog #51: Understanding the artifacts USNJrnl

Hello Reader,
        I'm going to change tracks this week and focus on a deeper understanding of the USNJrnl and its associated artifacts to prove usage from our challenge two weeks ago. To prepare for this series I want to take a bit to explain what each of the artifacts we rely on for proof of usage were created for. When we are complete I hope you will look at your cases in a different way.

Today we are going to talk about the USNJrnl. The USN Jrnl or Update Sequence Number Journal aka the Change Journal was first introduced in Windows 2000 but didn't get enabled by default until Windows Vista (that I know of, please leave a comment if you have evidence of other default states/os's). I have seen it enabled for EFS encrypted drives on XP but I can't say if that's a default setting.The concept of the change journal was simple, many programs need to know when files are changed so they can be backed up, compressed, scanned, replicated, etc...

Prior to the change journal a developer would have to register hooks or shims into the operating system for all reads and writes to be able to be notified that a file is being created/modified/deleted and to process it. The Change Journal gave the developer a central api to monitor that covered all subscribing functions and prevented  a lot of unnecessary overhead. You can read more about the basics of the Change Journal here on wikipedia. The original announcement of it was made in September 1999 and can be found here its interesting that it took as long as it did for it to be enabled by default. You can see that it was being marketed to developers as a way to centrally monitor file system changes and improve performance.


The current change journal development documents are here and if you relying on change journal evidence in your cases you should be familiar with the use case scenario because things are not as black and white as they appear. What do I mean by that? In our testing we've found that a file left open overnight and accessed at different times will create multiple USN open/close/delete events. You cannot rely on the file open and file close times of a file to determine total time of access, it may only be showing you the times of activity against a file that was open the entire time. In addition we've found file close/file delete being used to close a file handle but not to delete the file itself.

I'm going to into more detail of how individual Change Journal operations work and get logged as we move forward so I don't want to get ahead of myself. So in summary remember that the Change Journal keeps track of file system changes for the benefit of those subscribing services. If you are unsure of a pattern of records your seeing the best thing you can do is build a virtual machine and try to recreate those actions to validate your assumptions. The Change Journal is not as simple as we all though it to be! Tomorrow I'm going to continue talking about Usage artifacts and then go into depth on the Change Journal and the rest of them. 

The Organic Pharmacy Collagen Boost Mask: Review

At this point I am sure that you are abundantly aware that The Organic Pharmacy is one of my greatest skincare discoveries in many many years. This is such an amazing line that the more products that I try, the more I realize that one can have amazingly effective skincare without all of the chemicals. Their Collagen Boost Mask is one of my recent discoveries, and I have to say that it is a

Deal Alert: Burberry Lip Cover Soft Satin Lipstick Set: Nude Beige, Tea Rose & Dusty Rose, Oh My! Available at Nordstrom! Swatches!

Purchased by me. Affiliate link.
This gorgeous Burberry Lip Cover Soft Satin Lipstick Set just resurfaced on the Nordstrom website, and I popped one right into my cart until I realized that I already had this set!!! For my full review, click here.


Burberry Lip Cover Soft Satin Lipstick hydrates lips while providing full coverage and beautiful color. Light texture provides intense moisture

By Request: Tom Ford Beauty Lip Color Swatches in Indian Rose, Pink Dusk, Blush Nude, Nude Vanilla & Vanilla Suede!

When a lovely reader asked me to swatch Indian Rose, Pink Dusk, Blush Nude, Nude Vanilla & Vanilla Suede the next time I was near a Tom Ford counter I said of course! None of her local stores carry the line, and at $49.00 per lipstick she didn't want to just take a chance. Since we have very similar coloring, it is my hope that these swatches will be useful. My apologies for the two fuzzy

Spices Cafe | Harvest of the Sea

7th August 2013.
A buffet is one of the best ways to entertain a crowd with varying tastes. Our initial plan to go Traders Hotel for its 1-for-1 deal failed and we ended up at Spices Café at the Concorde Hotel (formerly the Le Meridien Hotel).

For dinner, they have a Harvest of the Sea Buffet. One of the star features of this buffet is the complimentary “200 gms” lobster for each diner which can be prepared in 3 ways: Thai BBQ, XO Sauce or Cheese. Pictured here is the Cheese Lobster which my younger brother thought it was too cheesy. Among the 3 however, cheese seemed to get more approvals.

And the other feature of the buffet is the free-flow crab which can be prepared in several ways. I only went for the Chili Crab and the Black Pepper Crab. Clearly, the buffet is a quantity rather than quality one.

While the crabs were free-flow, there was inconsistency in the freshness of the crabs. It is a pity because, both the Black Pepper Crab and Chili Crab gravy were not bad actually. Be prepared to get your hands dirty while eating those crabs. They provide washing bowls but we prefer heading to the toilet.

The buffet selection isn’t huge but enough to make a family happy. Here are some photos to show what was on offer during our visit.

The seafood selection comprises of oysters, scallops, prawns and mussels. The salmon sashimi was decent but the tuna sashimi was icy.

For appetizers, I enjoyed their Mussel with Salsa, Spicy Jellyfish Salad and Cold Poached Salmon.

Hot main dishes include Cuttlefish cooked in Gongbao Style, Tempura, Steamed Fish, Sea Cucumber with Broccoli, Grilled Chicken and a pretty decent Grilled Lamb as well as Lobster Bisque.

Special mention goes to the Herbal Prawns with its soothing and flavoursome soup. There is also a Pasta station where you can get pastas cooked a la minute. My mum had seconds to my surprise (she doesn’t eat pastas).

The desserts were rather pedestrian. Their Honeydew Jelly was not bad. The crème brulee was tasteless though and the Mango Delight was too sour.

All in all, this is the place to come if you really love eating crabs and prefer somewhere spacious. The only drinks available were coffee, tea (just tea, no milk tea etc.) and water. One thing I observed about Spices Café is that they clear the used plates rather quickly. Something, I really appreciate when going for buffets.

Spices Cafe
Concorde Hotel
100 Orchard Road
3/F Concorde Hotel Singapore

Monday to Thursday:
Adult: $48++ *Child: $20++
Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Eve of Public Holiday & Public Holiday:
Adult: $52++ *Child: $20++

DBS and UOB Cardholders can enjoy 3+1 offers at Spices Café for dinner, lunch or high-tea.

Shopping AND a Great Cause!

Every once in a while in the blogging world, you find a rare gem. I have been fortunate enough to have found several of these and Kristyn from Milk + Crown is definitely one of them. She is such an inspiration to women everywhere. She often writes encouraging notes on her blog and even highlights different women in her Wonderfully Made series about what they love about themselves and what confidence means (you can check out my post in this series tomorrow!). 

Well she's won my heart over again! This time it's because she's trying to raise money for clean water through the sales of her jewelry line. How awesome is that?! And I know you won't have a problem finding something to buy because this girl's jewelry is gorgeous! I am currently swooning over this one and this one. Ok...and this one too. Below Kristyn talks more about her cause, what she is trying to do, and how you can help her!

--------------------

Hi Lost in Travels readers! I'm Kristyn and I blog over at Milk + Crown where I enjoy sharing my short stories and bits of my daily life and style. I also run a jewelry shop by the same name--which is why I'm here to talk to you today!

When I opened my jewelry shop this summer, I knew I didn't just want to create beautiful, simple jewelry for women. I love design but I wanted to make an impact on a cause that was dear to my heart at the same time. After hearing about The Mocha Club's Purpose Project, I decided to take a leap of faith.

The Purpose Project is all about reaching a goal for a good cause--in the span of a month. Here's how it works: for every piece of jewelry purchased from Milk + Crown in the month of August, $10 will be donated toward The Mocha Club's Clean Water Project, which builds wells in Sudan, Kenya, and Malawi so children can have access to clean water. It takes $300 to provide water for 10 orphans--which means I need to sell 30 necklaces in 30 days. 

With your help, everyone wins. Not only will you enjoy getting a lovely package in the mail, you will be helping orphans gain access to water--a necessity we so often take for granted in our daily lives. While you enjoy a beautiful gift, a child overseas will enjoy an even greater one.And every time you look at your necklace, you will be reminded of the impact it has made on someone's life. 

There are other ways you can help out too! Tweet, Instagram or Facebook about my project, using the hashtag, #30in30jewelry and the corresponding photo to spread the word. Tell family, friends, coworkers, even future brides! And please, pray for me. If I reach my goal, I will push myself to create and add 10 new pieces of jewelry to the collection by September 1st--something I have wanted to do but was afraid to. 

Thanks so much friends, for supporting my shop and the cause on my heart! I hope you take the time today to check out my jewelry :) You can find my project profile on The Mocha Club website here. And, take 15% off any purchase in August when you use the code 'MARVELOUSCARA' at checkout!

**This is not a sponsored post. I just love this girl, her jewelry, and her cause. 

Daily Blog #50: Sunday Funday 8/11/13 Winner!

Hello Reader,
        Wow, there are a lot of OSX and Timemachine loving DFIR people out there! I received a lot of submissions and they are all very good. I had to read over and compare the submissions but one was a clear standout. Congratulations to Sarah Edwards (@iamevltwin) who brought an answer so well written it had be in a PDF to include the figures she referenced!

Here was the Challenge:
This week on the forensic lunch we have been talking about OSX and timemachine forensics. So let's have a OSX/Timemachine Challenge!

You have been given a timemachine drive that had multiple systems backing up to it over the network. After imaging it you need to determine what has been done, answer the following questions:

1. What are the different types of backups you could find on a timemachine drive
2. How can you distinguish which hosts backup you are looking at
3. How would you extract a single backup for a specific date
4. What is the difference between a timemachine backup and a .mobilebackup

Here is Sarah's winning answer, 
Pdf link to read offline here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lnlz9r6eerxlmhy/SundayFunday_TimeMachine.pdf

So it would appear as the bar as been raised this week! Sarah let me know if which prize you prefer, you earned it.

Aftelier Perfumes Rose Face Elixir with Sandalwood and Frankincense: This is No Ordinary Rose! A Deliriously Happy Review

Press Sample



Aftelier Perfumes does not simply make luxurious handcrafted perfumes, Face Elixirs, Hair and Body Oils, candles, teas, and Chef's Essences and Sprays- instead Mandy Aftel creates the highest quality artisanal works of art that you can wear, smell, eat, and drink. She is a true artist, and everything that she makes are masterpieces of the highest order. Be forewarned, once you